Matt Tully has a very good column on the Indiana Senate debate between Dan Coats and Brad Ellsworth. He points out that Ellsworth is behind in the polls and took pretty much the only path open to him – shining a spotlight on the fact that Coats is a Washington insider who cashed in before returning to Indiana to try to become its Senator again.
Ellsworth seems to be down, if not yet quite out, not so much because of who he is, but because of the mood of the electorate generally. The voters, as a group, are acting like a wounded beast. They don’t really know who is there to help or not. All they know is that they’re hurt, and they’re lashing out at whoever is closest. At the moment, that’s the Democrats. Sure, post-election, we’ll hear a lot about how this was a referendum about [insert analyst’s preferred political policy.] But, really, what I think we’re looking at is people clicking a Facebook-esque “don’t like” button at the polls.
Typically, Ellsworth would be the sort of candidate Hoosiers really like. He’s a conservative Democrat with a solid law enforcement history. Meanwhile, Coats really is the sort of candidate voters purport to dislike – a career Washington guy who voted for all sorts of things which were once mainstream for the GOP (e.g., Reagan supported “amnesty” for illegal aliens) but are now beyond the pale as Congressional Republicans drift ever to the right. When confronted with a tough election against Evan Bayh, he bailed out and traded his credentials for good money in the lobbying business.
But, with Ellsworth lacking the money to compete with Coats well-funded campaign, none of that is really penetrating. Hoosiers, like lots of other people, are grumpy but awfully vague about what they think will make things better. Ellsworth is pretty much taking the brunt of the discontent from which he benefited in 2006 and 2008. I think the electorate will continue to thrash about politically for awhile until their pain goes away. All Ellsworth can do, really, is fight against the wind and hopes it somehow shifts at some point.
That seems a good and thorough analysis of the voters’ mood and reaction to the current “mood.” The GOP may take control of the House. But as the econony contines the recovery, much will be forgotten in 2012. The Republican party may prove to be a perfect foil to Obama. And Obama will likely be re-elected.
Your point about Coats and the GOP slide to the right is also well taken. In 1993 the Republican party would have signed on to a healthcare bill that was more sweeping than the current bill.
The one big strike against Ellsworth you don’t mention: he is from the farthest part of the state from the population center (Evansville). Right or wrong, we like to vote for people that live close to us, and Ellsworth just doesn’t live close enough to the rest of the state. We can say the same thing about Coats not even living in the state, but as a former Senator, he has name appeal in Indy and Fort Wayne.
My prediction: Ellsworth wins the 8th CD hands down, and also wins the 9th CD and the standard Democrat CDs, but loses the rest of the CD’s by a pretty healthy margin.
One of the recurring themes on my blog lately is “where are the Democrats?”.
Here in the land of the D’s, you judge a candidate’s strength by how many yard signs they have. Of course, that is generally done in the primary (since everybody is a D), but in a tight statewide campaign you should see signs for those races.
There are NO Ellsworth campaign signs whatsoever. Not one that I’ve seen.
Congressman Visclosky, who is in a supposedly safe seat, but who is under investigation from the Feds for selling earmarks for campaign contributions, has a good number of signs out, so that’s what I’m judging against.
If Ellsworth had any chance whatsoever, he would be massively getting out the vote in Lake County to make up for the rest of the state. That was Obama’s strategery in ’08, and it worked brilliantly.
I think that the bottom line is that Ellsworth is a spectacularly bad candidate. I’m kind of surprised, actually, because Coats isn’t a very good candidate, either. Coats had big problems in the primary, reflected in his winning only 39% of the vote in a very crowded field.
I’m pretty certain there was another person at that debate. There is even photographic evidence that she was there. It would be nice for people to at least acknowledge there is a choice beyond the two parties that keep screwing things up.
I think Sink-Burris is too much of an Ayn Rand fan for my tastes, but I think I’ll still vote for her to try to get there from being a D or R majority. I think having no party with a majority would be a very, very good thing for this country right now.
Jason,
It would be interesting to see Congress try to operate with three or more parties and no majority. It probably could not function, as the two-party system is so embedded and ingrained in Congressional rules.
By that, you mean that it is functional today? Almost everyone in the country agreed that health care needed to be reformed (in some way), but I don’t know many Republicans, Democrats, or others who feel that what was passed actually addresses their concerns.
Think about it, when was the last time you saw Congress pass a law and thought “Hey, good job guys. That really benefits the country as a whole and doesn’t just cater to Democrats or Republicans.”
Sinks-Burris’ claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme is disturbing to me.
It’s a social insurance policy that pays modest benefits to retirees, the disabled, and survivors of deceased workers. There is wealth transfer, with richer workers subsidizing poorer ones. I understand that there is a certain “I got mine, fuck you” policy argument to be had about Social Security. But, for generations, it has provided a safety net, reducing the number and severity of elderly and others living in squalor. If she thinks that is the same thing as a “Ponzi scheme,” then I don’t think she’d be very capable at the business of governing the country.
Doug: I think everyone knows that a Ponzai scheme is a plan where money is pooled by multiple investors, and the first people to leave are paid returns from the money paid by people who enter the plan subsequently, yes? The problem occurs when too many people try to make withdrawals, and no money is left to give them. The people with money invested at the end are “caught with the bag” so to speak, and wind up having put money in, but having received no (or at least less) money out.
Unless we believe that Social Security is going to last forever, won’t a generation eventually be “caught with the bag” and have to pay benefits into a system they do not receive a benefit from?
I can already see this post going into a ditch…
Just because you’re disturbed by the implications of the term “ponzi scheme” doesn’t mean that Social Security is not structured similarly to one.
Once again, you can’t consider yourself to be “reality based” if, when presented with information that is outside of your comfort zone, you respond by putting your hands over your earns and screaming, “LA, LA, LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU, LA, LA, LA!”
Let’s be reality based, shall we? Who wants to list the traits of a ponzi scheme and also list the traits of Social Security. How many similarities are there?
Ultimately, the number of retirees to working folks is a very important number for the system. As old folks become healthier and more able to work, the only real answer for keeping the system solvent is to demand that they work longer, or cut their benefits by about a third if they don’t.
There’s no fraud here. In a Ponzi scheme, there is.
My tax dollars are used to support current retirees, disabled workers, and their children. I have no title to the money I have paid in. I can only trust that policy makers when I retire will make good on the Social Security promise in the way that current policy makers (more or less) are. There is no fraud; only a funding mechanism that may need to be altered in one way or another.
Describing Social Security as a Ponzi Scheme is common enough to warrant a) a response from the Social Security Administration to the charge, and b) to appear on a wikipedia page for Ponzi Schemes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
And, it isn’t a transfer of wealth along class lines. It’s along generational lines. Workers today are paying for today’s beneficiaries, without guarantee of their own ability to collect same. The Social Security Administration acknowledges the unsustainability of the system. On the annual statements distributed to taxpayers in March of 2010, the document reads:
“Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time. The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2037, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 76% of scheduled benefits.”
If calling a shovel a shovel is equal to incapable of governing, then I’d love to hear what you’re after as capability? Big puffs of smoke up our asses?
Doug:
Technically, you are correct. The fraud doesn’t exist in Social Security. Of course, the need for fraud in a Ponzai scheme as a way to get people to invest. If you told people: “Hey, I’m doing a Ponzai scheme and you’ll get some money out….” very few people would invest.
The government doesn’t need that fraud to get people to purchase social security because legally, we don’t have any other choice.
I think you are grasping for straws here, not too dissimilarly from the judge you cited weeks ago who denied the girl’s appeal because he believed nipples to be an “erogenous zone” on women.
It’s been working for 70 years and, even with the figures Mike cites, if nothing is done, it will continue mostly working 25 years from now. A government program that remains relatively functional and popular for 95 years can’t, in good faith, be called a fraudulent scheme. The only reason to call it a “Ponzi scheme” is to taint it with a pejorative without going into too much detail about what you’d do differently.
If Sinks-Burris said what she’d do to fix Social Security, I’d be happy to hear it. End it? Raise taxes to make sure it’s fully funded? Some kind of privatization magic?
Jason, you are making a judgement on the public outcomes of government, perhaps a more normative judgement. I was addressing congress from an operational sense. I would just wonder how the legislative bodies could techincally operate with the exising rules and support mechanisms with a more parlimentary election outcome, where parties bargain with each other to form working majorities.
One man’s gridlock is another’s man’s desired outcome.
Doug, it seems to me that you’re arguing semantics.
Okay, SS is not “a fraudulent scheme”. But what ways is it similar to a Ponzi scheme?
SS has worked because it is so large and because the baby boom generation was so large. Ponzi scheme work when there are a lot of new folks bailing out the original investors.
With that said, as long as we keep benefits relatively low and make sure that people don’t retire too early (i.e. tweak the current system, not get rid of it entirely), we could probably ensure that it doesn’t end up like most Ponzi schemes do, badly.
I’d let the retirement age continue it’s increase (not stop it at 67, as now is law, but let it go to 70, or higher if needed). I’d also make benefits 100% taxable, thus letting our progressive income tax system “means test” benefits. And that’s about it.
I think indexing it to life expectancy in some fashion would make some sense.
Oh, and I agree that I’m arguing semantics, but I’d also argue that semantics is the reason for using the label Ponzi scheme in the first place – I don’t think the term was chosen in spite of the connotation of fraud but because of that connotation.
I understand that Ellsworth just got $880K to spend in the next month..
Doug,
While I’ll put myself in the camp that feels it is a Ponzi scheme, I have no problem with the wealth transfer. I don’t want social security to be a retirement plan for myself, I plan on taking care of my own retirement. However, they should not spend more than they take in on this deal. I won’t feel shorted if I don’t get back what I put in, but I will feel like I was in a Ponzi scheme if my neighbor who’s retirement plans didn’t work was not able to get their benefits because our parents had already squandered our collective social net.
That said, there are other issues I would disagree with her on. However, I don’t see there being enough people elected that are of her same opinion for her to make big changes. Her value to me is in being an outsider and holding a mirror to the status quo.
Now, if the Libertarian party gets 20% of the seats this year, then maybe I’ll be more hesitant to elect someone like her. I have a feeling, though, that the Republican and Democratic parties will look MUCH different than they do today if there was a good 3rd choice in 2012. I think all 3 parties would improve as a result, and that is a very good thing.
hoosierONE, where did you hear that?
What would be Ellsworth most effective way to spend that amount of money? I mean, he’s got two weeks left, right? Seems to me that there is very little that he can do.
Is he going to send out a few mailings? I don’t know that there’s time for that. And how much does a statewide mailing cost?