Redstate

Posted at 5:50am on Jan. 3, 2006 Romney and Abortion: A Bay Stater's Perspective

By PB Almeida

Maybe I'm being picky, but some of the language my governor, Mitt Romney, used to employ before his, er, "conversion" to the pro-life cause seems to me to have been unnecessarily deferential to the NARAL - Planned Parenthood crowd. I'm not naive enough not to be aware of the phenomenon of political opportunism. And Romney does, after all, hail from a place with a decidedly leftist political culture. Moreover, I think pro-lifers in general ought to be hospitable to converts to the cause -- no matter what their rationale -- lest we give future would-be converts second thoughts about joining us in the defense of the unborn.

But in order for me to fork over some of this hospitality, as a pro-life voter I need a minimum of courting, combined with a modicum of intellectual honesty. To my ears Romney's conversion has just been a little too glib, too superficial, and too unfelt, given his previous solicitousness toward the Every Abortion Is Sacred Action League:

''I respect and will protect a woman's right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one," Romney wrote in answer to a NARAL questionnaire during the campaign. ''Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government's.

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Posted at 3:34pm on Dec. 30, 2005 Why I voted for Newt.

By PB Almeida

First, I'd like to thank DaveGOP and the editors for the opportunity to register my opinion about the race for the White House in 2008. Politics remains an endlessly fascinating game, and if you care about your country and its future, you can't help but take a keen interest in the possibilities for leadership.

Although some might find it surprising that the former speaker is drawing such considerable support, I think it's really pretty understandable. My hunch is that Newt is getting a lot of support in this forum because of the lack of presidential leadership on issues of domestic policy.

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Posted at 12:48am on Aug. 22, 2005 Flat Tax or Consumption Tax: Which Do You Prefer?

By PB Almeida

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I suspect the increasing discontent with our government's profligate ways is going to continue to grow for some time. I don't see many possibilities for the emergence of political forces that can actually compel our country's leaders to cut spending. Plenty of people talk a good game about cutting government waste, but they always seem be able to point to waste that exists only in somebody else's district, or in somebody else's pet program. I call it ABBMism (anybody but mine-ism, NIMBYism's first cousin).

Heck, even those lawmakers who claim to be the most rock-ribbed of fiscal conservatives are not above feeding at the trough when it is spending in their home districts that is at stake. Ultimately, it is We The People who must demand fiscal conservatism. If the day arrives when some Congressman votes against pork barrel spending that would flow to his own district, because opinion in his own district demands that he vote that way, we'll finally have reason for hope. Until that day comes, taxpayer subsidies for the study of drunken fish are safe from the chopping block.

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Posted at 11:37pm on Aug. 19, 2005 Professor Levitt on Campaign Contribution Limits

By PB Almeida

Like a lot of people around these parts, there are few things I loathe more than campaign finance so-called reform (CFSCR). And there are few things that frustrate me more than the support to be found for this dreadful idea in certain quarters of the Republican Party. Indeed, the failure of a certain senator from Arizona to recognize the wrongness of his thinking on the subject is the number one reason I cannot envision ever voting for him in a presidential primary, and pray I never have to vote for him in a general election.

It's not that I'm completely blind to the desirability of guarding against corruption -- and yes, even its mere appearance -- in elections. I might even be willing to concede to CFSCR's supporters the constitutionality of the government's exercising such power.

But it has always seemed to me that a robust disclosure requirement is the sole permissible (not to mention practical) method of carrying out this task. A little sunlight goes a long way. We don't allow children the franchise in this county, after all. Voters are adults. We ought to let them figure out for themselves the implications of Congressman X's fundraising sources.

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Posted at 10:55pm on Aug. 16, 2005 Why Not Just Call it an Amnesty...

By PB Almeida

...and be done with it?

First, credit where credit is due. This diary entry got going (it was originally intended as a comment, but I thought it rather long by comment's end) as a result of following the thought-provoking debate taking place over this piece by the (as usual) thought-provoking Mr. Paul Cella. As I read through the comment thread, these words by commenter itrytobenice got me thinking:

They way I understood it, workers here illegally would be fined, some would be deported, but many of them would be allowed to obtain a guest worker visa - which does NOT give any type of citizenship.  Therefore, it is not really amnesty, IMHO.

Sure it's an amnesty, itrytobenice. Let's just all admit it and repeat the hated "A" word: A...M...N...E...S...T...Y...

Now, I'm well aware it's politically infeasible (perhaps) to admit one supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. But I personally favor candor in our national discourse, and I frankly don't see anything wrong with an amnesty as long as it's done with proper safeguards (to guard against, say, people who have broken more than our immigration laws). The way I see it, the presence of ten million+ illegals in our country is basically attributable to four factors:

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Posted at 8:50pm on Sep. 7, 2004 Debating The Presence of Audiences

By PB Almeida

Drudge is reporting that the Bush campaign is balking at agreeing to a third debate, to be held in Missouri:

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates...Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in Missouri // audience of 'undecided voters' for second debate was to be picked by Gallup. Bush officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans, WASH POST planning to report in new editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing.

Now, I'm (admitedly) pretty clueless on the whole question of the political ramifications of the quantity of debates. The conventional wisdom seems to be the more the merrier for Kerry. But that assumes he turns out to be the better debater, and, of course, the conventional wisdom has been wrong before.

In general, though, I think we've perhaps tended to fetishize presidential debates, and overstate their importance (though I don't deny they certainly can make for dramatic television).

But one thing that's been bothering me for some time is the whole notion of having debates in front of live, often quite large, audiences, in big auditoriums.

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Posted at 3:58pm on Aug. 7, 2004 The Economy, The War, and The Undecided Voter

By PB Almeida

I'm sure I'm not the only Bush voter somewhat disheartened by the disappointing jobs report announced yesterday. Although I continue to be modestly optimistic about the president's chances this November, I'd be the last person to counsel complacency in the face of a well-financed challenger, and against the backdrop of an economy that appears to be going through a lukewarm period.

One constantly repeated idea, especially in the liberal-leaning media and blogosphere, is the "fact" that, in elections, undecideds tend to break heavily in favor of challengers. So, the theory goes, this trend bodes well for John Kerry's hopes of taking the White House.

Now with this factoid in mind, I freely admit to suffering a panic attack yesterday when reading the headlines about the economy. Well, maybe not a panic attack exactly, but a state of disheartened anxiety. I mean, there's not really lots of time left; and a similar jobs report next month will translate into ample negative press for the president this autumn.

Still, it may perhaps be that the economy will strengthen between now and November. Indeed the underlying trend could be that the economy has been strengthening all along, and that the recent spate of bad news really is just evidence of the economy's going through a soft patch.

What's more, being a preternatural optimist, I can't help but think of the bright side of things when I read the political tea leaves. After all, the recent economic tepidness by rights should lessen the upward pressure on interest rates, and perhaps we'll even see some downward movement in the coming weeks. That in turn will help various sectors, including the all-important housing market.

Moreover, one must keep in mind that most of the media lean left, and thus negative stories about the economy are naturally going to be bull horned out of proportion. Record low interest rates, frothy house prices and (despite the exaggerated news stories) a relatively low and falling incidence of unemployment are statistics Mr. Bush can tout with legitimate optimism.

The fact is the economy has been growing now for nearly three years and unemployment is well below its recent peak (indeed it is at levels that would have been considered "full employment" not so long ago). I think that to a lot of voters, talk of "turning the corner" will not be greeted with the snide cynicism of the Left. I suspect a lot of people will agree with the Bush team, because, you know what, things really aren't that bad, and comparisons with the seventies are absurdly misplaced (how'd you like to be dealing with 13% inflation right now? And gasoline would have to rise to well over $3 per gallon to equal its inflation-adjusted price in the waning days of the Carter administration).

And then, of course, there's the war. No, not the one in Iraq. Nor the one in Afghanistan. For those are but campaigns within the larger context of the war between civilization and the murderous nihilism threatening that civilization. I don't think it's out of the question that on voting day many a voter could A) pick up his unemployment check; and then B) head to the polls to cast a vote for the man better able to keep his children safe, George W. Bush.

We simply cannot foretell the repercussions for this election of the struggle in which we're engaged.

And so, back to my original thought, about the role of undecided voters. Again, the conventional wisdom, at least on the Left, is that these folks will break decisively for Mr. Kerry. In my anxiety-ridden state, I decided to do some googling on this very subject. And I found that at least one blogger, liberal Chris Bowers, thinks the conventional wisdom may be, as it often is, wrong:

Since 1998, over 220 polls that were taken in Governor, Senate and House races that involved an incumbent, that were taken within two weeks of Election Day, and that were the final poll of a race taken by a given polling company, when compared to the final election results of the race in question, the majority of undecideds broke as follows:

Disposition of Undecided Voters %

Most to Challenger   126        57

Split Equally              8           4

Most to Incumbent     86        39

These numbers are strikingly different from those found in Panagakis's study, which was conducted primarily using polls from 1988 and 1986. While the majority of undecideds broke in favor of the challenger a majority of the time, 43% of the time they did not (compared with 80%). If my research is accurate, and I believe it is, then it would be necessary to revise the Incumbent Rule. While incumbents under 50% but leading are in trouble, their predicament is not as bad as is often assumed. In fact, 43% of the time, such incumbents will be able to hold their lead or increase upon it.

There's at least some cause for optimism in Mr. Bowers's analysis, don't you think?

Now, many of you (and some of Bowers's commenters, for that matter) objected to his use of non-presidential contests. While they may have a point, the fact is that using presidential contests requires one to use a rather small sample size. In addition, I suspect if one were to sample opinion solely within the group of undecided likely voters, and to plot their ideological positioning on a left to right axis, one would find that that many rightward (conservative) undecideds tend to cluster in the battleground states. This may help Mr. Bush, and may even allow him to come out slightly behind in the overall contest for the undecideds as long as the ones he does win live in places like Ohio and Florida (if I were Karl Rove, I wouldn't be losing sleep over the undecided vote in New York and Rhode Island).

A little strength from the Ralph Nader camp wouldn't hurt, either. Let's not forget, Nader's candidacy is one thing the president has going for him, and shouldn't be overlooked, nor apologized for: One danger that goes with nominating a flip flopper is disgruntlement from your base - we could expect the same thing had we nominated an unreliably conservative politician.

And finally, there is, again, the war. These most assuredly are unpredictable times. We're quite simply living through an election of an exceedingly momentous nature. If enough voters remember that, I still like my guy's chances this November.

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Posted at 8:31am on Jul. 24, 2004 Conservatism and Global Warming

By PB Almeida

Promoted from Diaries.

The eventual endpoint of this this story's comment thread got me thinking about the issue of energy and global warming, and so lead me to wonder what is the best and most valid point of view, and policy position, to take on these issues, if you tend, like I do, to lean conservative Republican in your politics.

Read on.

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