Politico has an article entitled “The nuking of Dan Coats.” First, a disclosure. I don’t care for Dan Coats’ policies. In a race between him and Evan Bayh, I’d vote for Bayh.
With that out of the way, I find the vigorous pushback against the prospects of his candidacy revealing, and what it reveals annoys me. Politico describes the push:
In the week since Dan Coats announced he was preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrats have launched a withering, no-holds-barred assault on the former Republican senator, throwing him off balance and raising questions about whether his prospective candidacy has suffered lasting damage.
. . .
The ferocious barrage — a coordinated effort unleashed by a small core of senior Democratic strategists in Washington, top Bayh political hands, and Indiana Democratic Party officials — has partisans on both sides of the aisle wondering not whether Coats has been bruised by the punches, but whether he will be able to pick himself off the canvas.
Now, when was the last time you heard Senate Democrats described as ferocious about anything? What this tells me is that they are capable of being vigorous and proactive, but choose not to when it comes to actually getting anything done in terms of policies. Challenge a centrist Democrat’s incumbency, and you’re going to get kneecapped. Derail a Democratic policy initiative and they are as helpless and passive as newborn kittens. Sure, there are procedural hurdles in the Senate that don’t apply to the campaign trail, but I guarantee the last year would have played out a lot differently if the Senate Democrats had taken the political crowbars to filibuster supporters the way the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going after Coats.
Again, it’s not that they can’t. So, it must be that they don’t care to. The Democrats need to get someone like Howard Dean back in position to put some political energy behind policy initiatives instead of just becoming animated when an incumbent is threatened. From my view, it seems the the Democratic base isn’t so much frustrated by policy positions that are too liberal or too conservative, but rather by a passiveness that seems indifferent to actually accomplishing anything. It’s back to the days when Daschle and the Democratic Leadership Council were running the Democratic Party and the party was routinely getting its clocked cleaned by aggressive, energetic Republicans. It wasn’t until Dean stepped up and showed some intestinal fortitude (not liberal, necessarily, just not waffling and passive) that the Democrats got some of their mojo back.
Huzzah !
Yes, more Howard Dean please!
Oh how I wish Harry Reid and Tim Kaine would read your analysis and take heed of it.
Well put!
Lew Rockwell recently made a similar point about global warming– that it was an unfortunate and quixotic distraction away from more pressing “liberal” issues like the war(s).
One might also note that Baron Hill’s lobbying efforts in 2005-06 didn’t seem to upset the Dems very much. I’m sure it’s simply the length of Coats’ lobbying that has them bothered so much on principle. Wink, wink.
Unfortunately, that’s what you generally get from politics. Ahhh…theory vs. practice!
I don’t know about characterizing global warming as a distraction. If you conclude that it’s more likely than not that human activities are influencing the warming trend and all of the negative consequences thereof, then energy spent on reducing that influence is probably more consequential than energy spent on the wars – which have a more limited and local, albeit more readily observable, impact. Obviously many don’t agree with the premise, but once you do, the importance is difficult to overstate.
It’s taking more and more faith to hold the “if” position…But if the if is correct, then you’re right; if not, then it’s a big and unfortunate distraction.
I’m guessing that Bayh and his allies see Coats as much more of a threat than say, Mike Pence. I’m not fan of Coats either, but the ferocity of the response to his “candidacy” suggests that Bayh is feeling some pressure. You’ve nailed it Doug: Evan Bayh can get fired about about his own political future and not much else.
Eric says, “It’s taking more and more faith to hold the “if” position…”
Scientific consensus still indicates it’s very real. Political consensus, unfortunately, seems to be what is waning at the moment.
To any objective observer, recent events have clearly reduced and damaged the credibility of the scientific consensus. It may not take much faith for GW proponents, but it certainly takes more faith for anyone than it did a few months ago.
I suspect that there has been some slight “damage” to the scientific consensus, mostly because of the overzealous behavior of a few scientists. But really, given the massive amounts of dollars flowing in from industries whose own cash flows and profits would be jeopardized, doesn’t it seem logical that they’re trying to blur the line between the scienfitic conclusion, whatever it is, with the exonomic/idological issue of what the response should be.
Let’s say the the scientific conclusion that the world is warming, and that human beings have at least some ability to stop/slow it is correct. If so, it would still be a valid debate concerning the nature and extent of the response. The ultimate conclulsion after the debat could well the that the cost of mounting a full effort is just too much for the benefits, and/or that we’d be better off trying to adapt to warmer weather. I might nor might not agree with those conclusions converning a response.
My thinking a response is unwise or too expensive has doesn’t permit me to simply deny that there’s a problem to be responded to. The first question is for the scientists, not the second.
Eric said, “To any objective observer…”
To any objective observer, even if you accept that a very small number of scientists committed a conspiracy to “fix” climate change numbers, there are still thousands of scientists who were not a part of this controversy whose integrity has not been tarnished and whose evidence points to the reality of climate change.
The controversy itself has largely been manufactured by those who benefit from things staying as they are and those who are prone to conspiracy theories.
What I have not quite understood is why there is a consistent insistance from anyone from the right politically to discredit global warming.Why do they ‘believe’ global warming theory has to be bogus?Ive always assumed it would be because industry would have the expense to clean up its pollution,but maybe thats not all of it.
Science is only as good as the latest information will allow it to be and scientists know that.I used to be a amateur, self-appointed weather watcher, and from what I understand about weather is that it varies specifically because of ocean temperature and jet stream.The ocean seems to be the catylist for the jet stream,but it’s not clear what the catylist is for ocean warming/cooling. But science is working on it.No one even knew what a jet stream was until ww2.
What global warming does is disrupt normal jet stream flow,so we can have snow in Pensacola with the right flow. It doesnt mean that the climate is colder over all.Statistics are averages over time and that tells us there is warming.For how long isn’t predictable. But we can make a theory..But to disprove a theory one must also use scientific method.It cant be wrong by proclamation.
On the other hand if it doesnt snow in Chicago all winter ,that doesnt mean there is global warming,but if that happens persistently the scientific comunity would take note.That’s why tabulated data is important.
Why is South Florida the only place in the USA you can swim comfortably all year round in ocean? ..Because the Gulf Stream is just off shore and even in Janury ocean temps stay in 70s. North of Palm Beach the Gulf Stream flows out to sea and heads for Scandinavia.No swimming in ocean in January except the southernmost 60 miles of Florida,and on the Atlantic side. .I had no idea of any of this when I bought a house in Broward County.At times in history the gulf stream flow has been disrupted and that turns Great Britain siberic,as it did in Little Ice Age.
There’s more to ‘proof’ than saying it snowed an awful lot in Washington so Gore is wrong.
But the ice caps do continue to melt at unprecedented speed,and that is something we cannot ignore.To say it’s only cyclical we’d have to go back thousands of years to define a cycle..If science finds that cycle they’ll let us know.
Lou makes an important point about local vs. global warming/cooling or other cited anecdotal evidences. Now if we can get *both* sides to quit going there!
Chad apparently agrees with me that, at the margin, it takes more faith to “believe”. It looks like we disagree on how much more faith it takes.
Chad also cites the self-interests of those who “benefit from things staying as they are”. But of course, that cuts both ways: many proponents of GW benefit from the political consensus and the status quo in govt funding and private enterprise. Again, it’s not helpful– for the debate or to enhance one’s credibility– to recognize the one financial argument without recognizing the other.
Eric says, “Again, it’s not helpful– for the debate or to enhance one’s credibility– to recognize the one financial argument without recognizing the other.”
I’m sure there will be financial gains for those who have the foresight to take advantage of the new technologies and reality that are coming. But, you ignore that there is also an element that is arguably less profit based. Saving the planet and those of us who reside on it. I’m sure there will be greedy people to take advantage of the situation regardless of the circumstances, but I believe that the intentions of those in the climate change camp are infinitely more laudable than those in the denier camp.
Eric also said, “Chad apparently agrees with me that, at the margin, it takes more faith to “believe”. It looks like we disagree on how much more faith it takes.”
Close as we’ll get, I imagine. :) I don’t happen to believe there was any conspiracy and that, at worst, much of what I believe the deniers claim as evidence is taken out of context, but I will give the deniers credit for being able to spin this to their advantage. The right is infinitely better than the left at public relations and we’ll continue to struggle until we learn that lesson.
Agreed, but again, your arguments can go either direction. Of course, “spin” works both ways. And I (and many others) do not have a financial interest in questioning the “consensus”. But in addition to the science, there are policy reasons to be concerned about the benefit/cost of proposed “solutions”. Even if one believes in GW, it is not at all clear that the alternative use of resources to combat GW are worth the cost of forgoing other things.
Yes, spin can go either way and public relations, imo, is one of the worst things to happen to politics and society. And I used to work in the public relations department of Pontiac/GMC at General Motors. ;) Do I think either side is innocent of it? No. I do think one side is better at it, though, as I intimated above.
A key example of this is the term global warming. In reality, the more appropriate term is climate change. The left glommed onto the term early on and it basically became the definition of the movement. Now, whenever there’s a cold day or a winter storm, the right slams the left with the term. Nevermind that those who originally propogated the term global warming have virtually always claimed that extreme weather, whether cold or warm, was going to be one of the results of climate change.
I think the argument about how to move around our resources to address climate change would be great, but we can’t even get to that point when opponents of climate change are still denying that it is occurring. The costs to “fix” climate change will only keep rising the longer we wait to address it.
Of course, I’m sure the debate over resources would be fraught with many of the same ideological debates we experience now. How do you measure the value of human lives, animal species, forests and the like against that of the economy? As frustrating as I imagine that debate will be, I would rather be there than still arguing about whether or not climate change is real.