Ravings from a Man in an Old White House

I have discussed the electoral trials and tribulations of Gordon Brown and the Labour Party since May. In addition to financial problems and historic lows in opinion polling, Labour has lost local elections around the country, the race for Mayor of London, and a relatively safe seat in a by-election. The party also failed to reach 5% (thus losing its deposit) in another by-election. Today was another painful chapter for Labour. They lost a by-election (special election) for a very safe Labour seat, Glasgow East. This time, the main challenger was not a Conservative, but a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP). In the 2005 general election, Glasgow East was the 25th safest seat for Labour. Leading up to the election, polls were showing a significant lead for Labour (although one commentator noted that in other recent elections, Labour’s strength was overstated). Labour candidate Margaret Curran and operatives running her campaign were described as upbeat, while the SNP were described as dispirited in the closing days.

The SNP’s John Mason has won the seat by 365 votes. Labour called for a recount because they believed some votes for their candidate were tallied for the similarly named Scottish Socialist Party candidate Frances Curran, but they lost around 11 votes in the recount. This is the political earthquake SNP leader Alex Salmond predicted, and Gordon Brown is in serious trouble.

Speculation about leadership challenges from, among others, his deputy leader, Harriet Harman, have increased. Media reports said repeatedly that a loss in Glasgow East could lead to Brown’s downfall. According to live coverage by The Guardian, David Cairns, who coordinated the campaign for the Labour Party, said that if the then speculation that SNP had won was correct, he would not call it a “blip” or “hiccup” and noted that “this is serious”.

The vote could have farther-reaching consequences than knocking off Gordon Brown. If the vote change is repeated across Scotland in the next election, Labour could lose all but a few of its 39 seats in Scotland (all but one according to The Guardian. Were that to happen, or even something more modest, it could signal an end to the 300-year-old union between Scotland and England. While the Conservative leadership favours the union, many rank-and-file Conservatives have little or no problem with Scottish independence. For some, this is because Scotland does not elect Conservatives—they won one seat in each of the last two general elections. Others have more ideological reasons such relocating power away from Westminster. Moreover, if the SNP were to win the non-binding referendum they intend to hold in 2010 (the same year as the next general election), it is unclear that a Conservative government would be willing to expend much effort to keep the union intact over the objection of the Scots. Losing Scotland would be a huge blow to Labour, who received around 11.5% of its seats in the 2005 elections from Scotland. The one thing that could keep Scotland in the union is English desire for Scottish oil. We’ll see what happens.

Sorry, got distracted there. I’m watching (and have just paused) Pride & Prejudice, starring Her Wondrous Beauty, the vivacious and spectacular Keira Knightley, whose eyes and smile make…ahem, um, right. As the initial heart racing on seeing my princess began to subside, I was confronted with Rosamund Pike, who is one of the three prettiest actress to have appeared on Foyle’s War: the first episode, actually. She was rather good in that, but her character was a brat, so the role may not be the best test. We’ll see how she does with Jane Bennet. (Unpause.)

Tom Quinn from MI-5 as Darcy?—That’s awsome! I think Mr. Bingley was in a Foyle’s War, too. …Yep.

Oddly, the ballroom scenes are just how I pictured them when I read the book a million (or maybe 15) years ago.

Just finished. I loved it. Now I definitely have to go back and read the book. When I read the book, I was almost certainly the only male who enjoyed it (not being scared off by the decidedly feminine cast, as most high school sophomore boys would be), and one of the few students in the class who got that it was satire. Perhaps after reading a standard, I’ll read the Norton Critical version that Jessi mentioned the other night.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett is not one of my favorite people. In fact, I will be tempted to vote in the Republican primary in 2010 just to vote against his bid for governor (I won’t, but I’ll be tempted). This douchy statement about donations from defense attorneys with cases in DuPage caught my attention:

“There is great respect for my office and the work we do and that includes the defense bar,” Birkett said. “They’ve never asked for anything and never receiving anything for their contributions. If you think about it, the defense bar wants aggressive prosecutions. That is when people are in most need of defense counsel.”

I’m not comfortable with prosecutors accepting money from lawyers they face in court, but more outrageous is the idiotic comment about aggressively prosecuting for the benefit of the defense bar. It is politically idiotic to make that sort of joke (I am giving the benefit of the doubt here) when responding to questions about the propriety of taking such donations. More important, it is not appropriate for the States Attorney in the second largest county in the state to make a joke, especially in front of reporters, that casts his office and our system of justice in such a light.

In the same week that saw them reach an all time low in the polls at 25%, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party has suffered its fourth humiliating election defeat in a month, according to the Guardian. First were the twin defeats in local council elections and the London mayoral election. Then came the by-election to fill vacancy created by Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody’s death. Now comes the by-election to fill the vacancy created by Boris Johnson’s election as Mayor of London. In the 2005 election, Labour came in third behind the Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats. It was never expected that Labour would do well, but they still managed to disappoint. In the past week, there had been discussion suggesting that Labour would fail to get 5%, meaning they would lose their deposit. Candidates must pay a deposit when filing for election, which is repaid if they surpass 5%. The purpose is to discourage frivolous candidates. As I said, it was expected that they might lose the deposit. It was also mentioned in the run-up that Labour might come in fourth, behind the Greens. In fact, Labour took fifth with 3.07% of the vote, behind even the racist British National Party. Brown won’t be able to blame turnout for the abysmal failure; as with the other defeats, turnout was high for the type of election it was: 50%.

Brown will avoid a fifth humiliation by not running anyone in the David Davis by-election, but there is still some embarrassment to be had from it. It has been said that a key factor in Labour’s decision not to participate is that it cannot afford to bankroll the campaign. This has a ring of truth to it because the party is in serious debt, with party leaders being on the hook personally for the debt. I haven’t heard anyone ask it (I presume that that would be different if I lived there (would that it were)), but how can you trust a party to administer your economy if they are not clever enough to use a business form that allows them to limit liability. One suggestion is to use the campaign fund to pay the debts, leaving them to raise money from scratch going into the last two years before an election that they are predicted to be crushed in.

By the way, anyone who believes in omens will be interested to note that the Labour candidate, Richard McKenzie, won 1,066 votes: 1066.

I wrote a Legal Jargon page a while back about thinking like a lawyer where I admitted that I do not know what it means to do that. “Thinking like a lawyer” is one of those things you are told that you will learn in law school, and many people say they did. To this day, I don’t know what the hell it means. I may have had some inspiration in the shower today.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh rail against today’s decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the child-rape death penalty case this morning. Mr. Limbaugh was rather upset with the four liberals and Anthony Kennedy, who held that the death penalty in child rape cases is disproportionate. Not only was my reaction not emotional, I didn’t have just one reaction. As someone who does not support the death penalty, I was happy that there would be fewer executions. As a lawyer, I had multiple reactions. First, with the death penalty being legal, I am not sure that I agree that it is disproportionate for aggravated rape of a child or an adult to be punishable by death. After all, felonies, all of them, used to be punished by death. There is a line of proportionality, but I’m not so sure that really bad murders is where the line falls at this point in history. Having said that, The court said in Coker v. Georgia that the death penalty was disproportionate for rape cases. It explicitly left open the question of child rape, but the logic of the decision (as I recall it seven years after reading it) would apply to child rape as well. That is why I expected this result. My third reaction, still not having read the decision, was to be shocked at how many opinions there were: two. In contentious cases, the justices often splinter. This one agrees with that one, but writes separately to make this point; she agrees with only part II and III of his opinion; and so on. In this case, Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, and four others signed on; Alito wrote a dissent that three others signed on to. There is a certain power in that for both sides. Aside from the fact that a single majority opinion will provide clear guidance to the lower courts (unless it was poorly written), I don’t really know what that means—I just know it means something.

So maybe that sort of back-of-the-envelope, compartmentalized over-analysis from multiple perspectives without even thinking to do it is what it means to think like a lawyer. Or maybe not. I doubt I’ll ever know.

When Shadow Home Secretary David Davis resigned from Parliament, he triggered a by-election (special election) in which he is running to argue against the loss of civil liberties under Labour. The Liberal Democrats agree with him, so are not running a candidate against him. Labour is not running a candidate so as to make Davis look foolish. The whole resignation took the UK political world by surprise, really pissed off many in his own party. He has been called everything from “brave” to “daft”. I’m not sure you could call him “loony”, though: that label belongs to another candidate in the by-election. In addition to three independents and George Georgiou of the Generalist Party (I love the alliteration), Davis faces The Mad Cow Girl of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Seriously. I love the English!

The following represents my thinking on this day as to whom each candidate should/will pick as his running mate:

McCain

Ken Blackwell (OH) - Blackwell is a former secretary of state and is black. He could help win the important battleground state of Ohio. Perhaps more importantly, being black could make him more effective in the traditional VP-candidate role of attack dog. He doesn’t have to be careful about avoiding things that might sound racist in a white mouth.

John Kasich (OH) - This former congressman has credibility with the talk show wing of the party, he was chairman of the Budget Committee, is still popular in his home state of Ohio, and would bring some charisma to the ticket.

Charlie Crist (FL) - He is the very popular and good-looking Governor of Florida, which is a battleground state. It may be petty, but McCain can’t afford to be the best looking person on the ticket.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) - She is another senator from a state Republicans will win in November, but she has her strengths. She is conservative (But not as conservative as Brad thinks), she is part of the party leadership (she is fourth among senate Republicans), and she is a woman. Although she is weak on abortion (she’s not for it; she’s just not as against it as she could be), she would help with conservatives and might make establishment Republicans more comfortable with him. She might also bring in votes from independent women.

Obama

Ted Strickland (OH) - He’s the governor of the battleground state of Ohio. Executive experience is a weakness of all three presidential candidate.

Bill Richardson (NM) - He’s the governor of the battleground state of New Mexico. Executive experience and being Hispanic are helpful, but his foreign policy experience could help neutralize McCain’s advantage on that issue.

Wesley Clark (?) - Former general. He may be able to be be an attack dog where others would be more limited because of his military service.

Jim Webb (VA) - Senator Webb is a war hero (helping to neutralize McCain) and is a popular figure in a red state. He has had to apologize for saying stupid things about women, I’ve heard, so this may be an iffy choice.

Ed Rendell (PA) - Governor of Pennsylvania. He is the governor of a large battleground state with working class appeal, which will help him with what Chris Matthews calls “regular Americans”. The fact that he is a straight talker who may help with the new politics message. Then again, he was mayor of Philadelphia, so he may have a lot of old politics stink on him.

There are a number of women who keep getting mentioned, Hillary Clinton (of course), Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar, and Kathleen Sebelius all get mentioned. Hillary has advantages and disadvantages so widely reported that it’s not worth mentioning. The others are all relatively new to their jobs, which probably doesn’t help Obama. I prefer Sen. Patty Murray (WA), who endorsed Hillary Clinton, has served in the Senate since 1993, and voted against the war. Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA) has the same advantages, but is very liberal; in fact, she could rightly be called a “San Francisco liberal”.

People have talked the strength and weaknesses of a so-called “Dream Ticket” to death, but there is one thing I have not heard said which could be called a strength or weakness, depending on one’s perspective. Every Republican ticket has had a Bush or a Dole on it since 1976. While it could theoretically remain true after this election if McCain picks Elizabeth Dole, it is not likely. Were Hillary Clinton to be Obama’s running mate, this factlet could be modified to “a Dole, Bush, or Clinton has run for president or vice-president in every election since 1976″.

As my friends can attest to, I often dance alone with no music. Actually, there is music; it’s in my head. Among the songs up there is the Schoolhouse Rock! song “No More Kings” about the American Revolution. For most patriots, overthrowing monarchy was just as important as throwing off British overlordship). Somehow though, we have come to elect our presidents as though we are acclaiming a new king. We expect that the person to be the embodiment of American values, to know everything about everything, and to be able to singlehandedly work the machinery of state. A presidential nominee has to name a VP, so we let that pass, but if he were to say whom he would appoint as his cabinet secretaries, he would be called presumptuous. I think that’s asinine.

When Britons (who still have a monarchy) go to the polls, they have a good idea what they are getting. The opposition parties have what is called a shadow cabinet headed by the leader of the party during the life a government. Right now, David Cameron is the Leader of the Opposition. He would be Prime Minister if the Conservatives became the governing party. He has a shadow Justice Minister, shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and shadow ministers for every government department. It is possible for him to appoint different people to each roll if he actually gets elected, but the shadow cabinet is for all intents and purposes the Conservative Party’s proposed Cabinet.

American presidential candidates have to know it all or try to convince people that what they don’t know won’t matter. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were able to do the latter in 1992 and 2000, respectively.

Allowing our candidates to pick a team before the election would have a number of benefits:

1. Vetting department heads. Right now, nominees for Secretary of Whatever do not get any real vetting until after the election or inauguration. This has lead to nominations being withdrawn when previously unknown facts coming out during the confirmation process. Janet Reno, for example was President Clinton’s third choice. Zoe Baird and Kimba Woods were both removed for consideration as Attorney General after each was revealed to have had an illegal immigrant nanny. If we knew who these people were going to be ahead of time, we would get a lot of vetting, and could potentially have the whole cabinet confirmed in the first week or so.

2. Voters could get a sense of who would be advising the president. This would be true both in terms of individual qualification and overall ideological bent. This would be most helpful at State, Defense, Treasury, and EPA. Of course this could be deceptive. Knowing Colin Powell was Bush’s choice for State would have been deceiving. We would have thought Bush would be more pragmatic than he was.

3. Voters and the president could get a better sense of how his team would work together. This would have helped with Bush. We probably would have seen an inner-circle advising the president and little communication with the likes of Powell. Leaks about the nominee’s relationships with his shadow cabinet could give us incite into his or her management abilities. It could also give us insight into the nominee’s commitment to campaign promises as the campaign goes on.

4. People like me would get to know what both Cabinets would look like. We will eventually get to know who will be in the winner’s cabinet (but would sooner be better than later), but we will never know who would have been in a Gore or Kerry cabinet. It doesn’t matter, but it would be cool to know.

Knowing who will help the next president govern a massive federal bureaucracy would make our choice in November, if not easier, certainly more informed.

The man who I believe is most responsible for making the labels “red state” and blue state” a part of the national consciousness died today. Tim Russert was NBC News Washington bureau chief for more than 20 years and host of Meet the Press for 17, and was responsible for revitalizing the Sunday talk show format. Russert was an energetic, gregarious and good man who upheld the very best standards in public discourse, in terms of both his demeanor and his pursuit of the truth. He was incredibly knowledgeable about politics, was an deeply insightful commentator, and tough, but fair, inquisitor. Those qualities, but especially the fairness, made him almost uniquely among major Washington figures a man of many friends and few enemies. Despite commitment to a job he seemed to truly love, he was devoted to his family and managed to make time for his son and take care of his father in a way most workaholics could not.