| 30.04.2008 |
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| A gasoline tax holiday, any way you cut it, is going to be headline-worthy: It's an eye-catching policy proposal, and the fact that most economists think it's a bad idea means it also has conflict going for it. After Republican nominee John McCain put it on the table, Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton this week followed behind. But there was an international angle to her new gasoline price package, too; she would, as president, file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against OPEC. It sounded fascinating. So, I wondered, what is the soundness of that concept? Several years ago, in 2004, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, along with Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, proposed complaining to the WTO about OPEC. It was greeted skeptically by analysts, who saw it, according to this article, as "election-year political theater." Furthermore, per the International Economic Law and Policy Blog, Algeria, Iran, Iraq and Libya are OPEC countries that "remain outside the OPEC system." And Russia, "which is known to collude with OPEC quite often," isn't a WTO member. Still, how would WTO greet such a complaint? Well, according to the Oil and Gas Journal: "It also is very unlikely that under current WTO rules the kind of legal challenge advocated by Lautenberg would be sustained. WTO offers exceptions for 'conservation of national resources,' for international commodities agreements, and for a nation's national security interests." So, all in all, while it's an inventive idea, it wouldn't be without its limitations. On the upside, Clinton is making her proposal years after Lautenberg and DeFazio proposed it. And as the OGJ said: "Longer term, however, some analysts say it is conceivable that WTO someday could be used as a platform for producing and consuming nations to reach a mutual understanding on an equitable international oil-pricing system. But many suspect that day to be long in coming." (We'll save her proposal to allow OPEC to be challenged under U.S. antitrust law for another day, perhaps.) |
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| 29.04.2008 |
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| With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama mired in a bruising battle that only helps John McCain, Democrats are looking for a way out. How about a neutral candidate that could unite both camps, has political experience and is beloved internationally? In other words, how about Al Gore? Sure, last year's Nobel Peace Prize recipient has repeatedly said that he has no plans to run for the presidency in 2008. Perhaps Mr. Gore will rethink his decision when he finds out efforts to draft him have crossed the Atlantic. Germans, who unfortunately can't vote yet in the presidential election, are urged via www.algore2008.de to push Al Gore to run this fall. The team behind the site – a lawyer, a historian, a business economist, a sociologist and a computer scientist –don't fail to lavish him with praise. They declare the runner-up for Time's Person of the Year award 2007 as the Man of the Century in their page header. With such an honor bestowed upon him, the century being only yet 7 years old, surely that will make Al Gore rethink his plans, won't it? |
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| 29.04.2008 |
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| Two foreign policy advisers to the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns, respectively, went after one another on CNN pretty furiously over the weekend. They clashed most over Clinton's threatening-seeming comments about Iran, a subject I've written about here. But I came no closer to understanding what Clinton thinks, and ended up confused about what Obama thinks, too. Read for yourself; see if you can figure it out. I'm not alone, it turns out, in this confusion. Today, one of the more popular liberal blogs, MyDD, took note of how close Clinton and Obama are in their actual policy toward Iran, in as far as it's discernible. The difference is one of rhetoric, more than anything, I gather. Obama doesn't want to use some of the harsh language Clinton has used, but both have left open using any option whatsoever should Iran attack Israel. At least the two foreign policy advisers delved into another mystery from earlier in the week, which is whether any candidate besides John McCain had anything to say about the Syria/North Korea news. Both unconditionally accept the intelligence on Syria, which is an interesting turnabout. U.S. intelligence has come under serious scrutiny because of the lack of WMDs in Iraq and the fear that the intelligence was politicized, but on the same CNN program, the only one questioning the Syria intelligence was a Republican congressman. (He didn't question the intelligence itself, but the motive in going public with it.) |
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| 27.04.2008 |
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| Hillary Clinton's repeated calls for more debates with Barack Obama after the Pennsylvania primary haven't been having much of an effect. No public outcry demanding another face-off by the two Democratic candidates. No media frenzy around the idea of another Hilllary vs Obama encounter. So Clinton yesterday upped the ante by challenging Obama to a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. It worked. The media took the bait and dutifully reported about the proposed duell. After all, who knew at the time that the Lincoln-Douglas debates would become an oratorical landmark? Who knows, if Clinton and Obama debated under the Lincoln-Douglas rules maybe it would transform the event from slugfest to rhetorical masterpiece. But it wouldn't. While Clinton challenged Obama to a Lincoln-Douglas debate, she didn't really mean it. First, there was not one Lincoln-Douglas debate, but a series of seven debates. Second, each debate lasted three hours and had a set format. The first candidate would start speaking for one hour, followed by the second candidate who had an hour and half after which the first candidate closed the event with a thirty minute rebuttal. Third, in today's media world no one but C-SPAN would broadcast an event lasting three hours where the shortest answer lasts a half hour. Today, we wouldn't consider the Lincoln-Douglas debates as debates. Instead, we would call them three very long speeches by two candidates with the possibility to react to what the opponent said. Even if Lincoln and Douglas were around today, they would find it hard to reach an audience if they stuck to the format. For the Democratic presidential candidates, it would be impossible. Hillary Clinton knows this. As all trailing candidates do, she simply wants another chance to square off against Obama. That's why she conveniently interprets a Lincoln-Douglas style debate as simply having a debate without a moderator, when it actually entails a lot more than that. But that wasn't Clinton's point. She wanted to increase the pressure on Obama to agree to another debate and she achieved it by throwing Lincoln and Douglas in the mix. |
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| 26.04.2008 |
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| As mentioned previously in this blog, the Obama swoon is over. Not just in the U.S. but also in Germany. The most recent proof of it can be found in today's edition of Die Welt. The paper published a blistering critique of Barack Obama. In a lengthy article entitled „Invisible Man: The Unscrupulous Barack Obama (or The Conscienceless Barack Obama, depending on how one translates gewissenlos) Fred Siegel, Professor at Cooper Union, Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and former advisor to Rudy Guiliani, argues two basic points: One, Obama is a great orator with nothing to back up his fancy rhetoric. Two, despite his camelot rhetoric, Obama is simply a product of the traditional Chicago-style politics of corruption. Perhaps, these arguments aren't new, but while they wouldn't have gotten any traction a year ago, they do now. I was going to elaborate on Siegel's points, but then found out that he had stated most of them at a discussion hosted by a neoconservative frontline magazine. Read them here for yourself. Just one more thought on Siegel's charge that Obama is a product of Chicago-style politics. What about Hillary Clinton then? Does Park Ridge not count? |
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| 26.04.2008 |
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| Friday, John McCain said: "I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly." It's true that a top Hamas leader has spoken highly of Obama, but McCain's statement is, pure and simple, a logic error. It's one that is made all the time in U.S. politics, by both parties. If you attempt to link the views of a supporter of a candidate to the candidate his or her self, you are doomed by the same logic when one of your supporters is unsavory. Now, logic doesn't seem to be the game candidates are playing when they do this. It's rhetoric – it's about winning votes. But do the same math when it's applied to McCain's supporters, and suddenly McCain finds himself in a stronge position. Does his endorsement from controversial pastor John Hagee – who has called Catholicism "the great whore," and repeatedly stated that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for homosexuality – mean McCain can be counted on to be "Catholicism's worst nightmare?" Of course not. McCain sought out Hagee's endorsement and now finds doing so uncomfortable, since he's sometimes asked about whether he endorses Hagee's views. And McCain himself on Thursday spent some time repudiating Hagee's statements. Taken to its logical extreme, McCain's argument would mean that if he has any supporters who are murderers or rapists, he can be counted on to go easy on them, much as he implies that Obama would go easy on Hamas. Obama has repeatedly criticized Hamas, and spoke out against former President Jimmy Carter meeting with the group. John McCain may or may not be Hamas' worst nightmare. But arguments like this aren't how that point gets proven. |
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| 25.04.2008 |
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| There's an interesting project taking place right now that tries to measure how presidential candidates fare on the Internet. It's called the US Election 2008 Web Monitor and is conducted by ECOresearch, a network of scientists from different fields. The Web Monitor analyzes the coverage candidates receive on an international basis. So how does it work? The system scans on a weekly basis the web sites of 150 media organizations from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as of 50 environmental organizations, the Fortune 1000 companies and 1000 relevant political blogs. According to ECOresearch the data is analyzed in three ways: - Attention presents the number of references to a particular candidate as a percentage relative to all candidate references in a given week. The percentages next to each value indicate weekly changes. - Sentiment tracks the co-occurrence (semantic association) of a candidate's name with positive and negative terms taken from a tagged dictionary. - Keywords identify topics associated with the presidential candidates by comparing the frequency of terms in sentences that contain the name of a candidate with a reference distribution taken from the sample's complete set of documents. I found some of the results rather interesting, especially the country comparisons. Just go the web site and check it out yourself. By the way, ECOresearch is nonpartisan and funded by the Austria's Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency. |
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| 25.04.2008 |
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| The biggest news of the day in the U.S. came on Capitol Hill, when the CIA briefed lawmakers about its evidence that North Korea had allegedly assisted Syria in the building of a nuclear reactor. But it barely caused a ripple in the 2008 presidential race, with the only real news on the trail coming via the revival of one of the more esoteric debates in the campaign: preconditions, or no preconditions? The argument began in July, and refused to die, after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama disagreed during a debate about whether, as president, they would meet with dictators without preconditions. Obama said he would. Clinton said she wouldn't. The other Democrats in the race at the time thought it was just plain silly. Chris Dodd called it "a false debate." Joe Biden spoke of "petty arguments." The whole thing's a little like a circular firing squad. John McCain on Thursday took the North Korea news as an opportunity to attack Obama for his position. He'd previously hit the Clintons for their North Korea record when Hillary Clinton questioned the Bush administration policy. Of course, the Bush administration ended up getting a similar deal to the Clinton administration's, albeit via a very circuitous path. That didn't stop Bush from criticizing Obama's non-preconditions stance, arguing, as Hillary Clinton did, that meeting with such dictators "sends the wrong message." Has Bush met with such dictators himself? Of course he has. And all of this is for an Obama position that is so subtle in its differences from Clinton's -- at least, the February version of his position -- that it's hard to tell the difference. |
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| 24.04.2008 |
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| I liked Mike Huckabee from the start. Not because of his political positions or a conviction that he would be a good president. Actually, I'll admit that I had never really heard of him during his tenure as Arkansas Governor, even though Time magazine named him one of the five best governors. So my fondness of Huckabee is entirely apolitical and starts with his name. As a boy, I had read and loved Huckleberry Finn. How cool is it that decades later someone with a similar sounding name comes along and runs for president. To top it off, he was the last man standing against John McCain long after Republican heavyweights Rudy Guliani and Mitt Romney called it quits. What's more, Huckabee plays in a band called Capitol Offense that covers CCR, the Rolling Stones and the Eagles, and after being diagnosed with diabetes he lost more than 100 pounds and kept it off – unlike a former German foreign minister. Now that we are left with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fighting it out until the bitter end and John McCain trying to sound presidential, it often feels like the last smidgeon of fun, ease and amateurism has vanished from the campaign. Everyone is so dedicated and determined all the time. Today, it was announced that Mike Huckabee is writing a book about his failed run for presidency. The still unnamed oeuvre is supposed to hit the stores two weeks after the election. Immediately after reading the news, the thought crossed my mind whether Mike Huckabee got into the campaign just to right this book. And I have to admit, I like that thought. |
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| 23.04.2008 |
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| A couple days ago, I wrote about the powerful message of anti-globalization and why it's easy for some workers who have lost jobs because of it to be leery of more. Both candidates in the Democratic primary catered to those fears repeatedly in Pennsylvania, although both had appeared to support free trade before; ultimately, it appears voters believed Hillary Clinton had more of an animus against it than Barrack Obama. John McCain, meanwhile, took the harder way. On the day of the Pennsylvania primary vote for Democrats, McCain stood in front of a run-down factory in Ohio to talk about the need for free trade. He proposed more job training and alternative energy investment as a solution. Later, at another meeting in Youngstown, he told voters that while he believed free trade had cost some of them their jobs, they had no choice: "I've met too many people who've been displaced as a result of free trade to say, 'Aww, it's all been good for our economy, don't worry about it,' " McCain said. "But I think the adjustment is not to erect barriers and protectionism. I think the answer is to understand that free trade or not, we are in an information technology revolution. ... We've got to be part of that new economy rather than trying to cling to an old economy." The exchange came with a former local labor leader named Jack O'Connell, according to McClatchy: "McCain told O'Connell that he understood his 'answer is not good enough for you.' O'Connell, however, thanked McCain for 'your straight talk on NAFTA,' and indicated that although he was a longtime Democrat, he'd vote for the Arizona senator." So, it seems, that pitch worked on O'Connell. But that may have more to do with McCain's unique communication skills than it does with the broader appeal of the message. When McCain told Michigan primary voters that "some of the jobs that have left Michigan are not coming back," Mitt Romney jumped all over him and observers said it helped contribute to McCain's loss there. What's more, McClatchy's piece indicates that Clinton's and Obama's anti-free trade rhetoric will likely play out better in key general election states like Ohio and Pennsylvania than would McCain's. The question is whether there are enough O'Connells whom McCain can win over in states where Democrats have proven they can win votes by seeing who can be more opposed to free trade agreements. It's a tough sell. |
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| 23.04.2008 |
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| The analysis of Hillary Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania in Rome's daily La Repubblica is rather sober. Clinton needed to win badly. Not just to keep her hopes of moving into the White House alive; it was also a matter of not running out of money. According to the paper, her victory in Pennsylvania was the only chance of convincing donors to reopen their wallets and prevent a shameful defeat. The clash of the titans continues, writes Germany's Die Welt, adding that it already has produced one definite loser: the Democratic party. "One year ago a victory by John McCain was unthinkable. McCain can thank the clash of the Democratic titans that it isn't anymore." Many other European commentators agree. Martin Kilian, who blogs as Der Amerikanist for the Swiss Tagesanzeiger sums it up nicely: "The Democratic agony just won't end." "Hillary Clinton has her Rocky Balboa moment in Pennsylvania," headlines Britain's Daily Telegraph, but emphasizes that her opponent has an "insurmountable lead in the numbers of pledged delegates chosen during the primaries and caucuses...." Therefore she can only win by twisting the arms of the undecided super-delegates. "But winning by a super-delegate coup would be a victory that many Democrats would consider a low blow, and not worthy of Rocky at all." So what should the Democrats do then? Well, according to many European commentators the answer is clear: End the stalemate, choose a candidate and focus on the real opponent – the Republicans. |
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| 23.04.2008 |
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| In the final days of the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton has played up her toughness on national security, airing an ad that features a shot of Osama bin Laden and a narrator who asserts "You need to be ready for anything," then asks, "Who do you think has what it takes?" The ad has garnered serious attention. What has flown under the radar, by comparison, in Clinton's national security attack is her shift in rhetoric on Iran. Her remark in last week's debate that an Iranian attack on Israel would bring "massive retaliation" from the United States, which she repeated Monday in an interview, started it off. It was enough to make some wonder if she was talking about a nuclear attack. Despite protests from her campaign that she didn't mean she would nuke Iran, there was context to suggest, in yet another interview, that she meant precisely that. Tuesday morning, she said she would "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel. This, after directly avoiding the question of what she would do with Iran if it attacked Israel in prior comments, saying that she doesn't answer hypotheticals. If Clinton is trying to impress average Pennsylvania voters who are hawkish, this might work, but considering that some right-wing bloggers have said Clinton's rhetoric about a nuclear threat went too far, it might also constitute overkill. Given the alarm that her remarks have raised on the left, this has the potential to follow her around to other states, if it may have come too late in the Pennsylvania race. But my question is the same as this fellow's: What is her position, and how could the U.S.'s allies know from what she and her staff have said? |
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| 22.04.2008 |
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| It sounded like a typical Bloomberg story: Lots of numbers, jargon like "in line with previous estimates", and descriptions about raising cash and filings with government oversight committees. But it wasn't. What looks like your average business story about an IPO or the issuing of new shares was a story about the latest figures from the presidential campaigns. According to Bloomberg, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama raised $41 million in March, while Hillary Clinton raised about $20 million and John McCain came in last with $15 milllion. That means that Barack Obama raked in about the same amount of money in March that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats spent during the entire federal election campaign in 2002, the last regularly scheduled election. According to a summary (in German) of election spending in 2002, the SPD invested approximately €26 million or $41.5 million, while the Christian Democrats spent €24.5 million or $39 million. The smaller parties were clearly outspent by SPD and CDU and came in between €3.5 and €5.8 million. No doubt, the U.S. election campaigns are far more professionally orchestrated than German ones. But when you look at the outcome, do voters really get more bang for the buck? |
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| 22.04.2008 |
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| In the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday where Democratic voters will vote for their nominee for president, and in Indiana shortly thereafter, trade policy will be a big factor. Apparently, the anti-free trade sentiment of these voters confounds a great many observers outside the United States, if the Montreal Gazette and The Times of London's samples are representative. I can share a personal experience about why there is such animosity in those states. I grew up in Indiana, in a town where a great percentage of the economy was dependent on manufacturing jobs, and where many of my family members had or still have such jobs. The migration of jobs from Zenith, a major local employer, to Mexico, left many workers -- particularly the older ones -- without many alternatives for making a living. It created tremendous hard feelings toward the company and yes, toward Mexico. While the job migration pre-dated the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA wasn't a very popular idea in Evansville because of fears that it would lead to additional jobs moving south of the border. Whether it has or not is a separate question. In Pennsylvania, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues today that the state has benefited from increased exports to Canada and Mexico, with 94% of the state's exports coming from manufactured goods. Global Trade Watch, on the other side of the debate, argues that Pennsylvania has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result of NAFTA and the creation of the World Trade Organization. I know that some of the Zenith employees in Evansville found better jobs, and I know some did not. Whether the facts bear out that free trade benefits the U.S. economy in the long run, though, it's easier for some to think of the sting of a lost job now or in the recent past -- and all the hard times that accompany it -- than it is to think of what potentially better job might come next. Sometimes, those personal experiences make a more powerful impression than any economist's well-reasoned case. |
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| 21.04.2008 |
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| The next president of the United States will have no experience in managing a large organization. Neither John McCain, Barack Obama, nor Hillary Clinton possess any first-hand knowledge of how to run a huge bureaucracy such as the executive branch of the U.S. government. As senators, they lead a relatively small staff that doesn't compare to the managerial challenges presented by larger institutions. None of them has headed a large company, served as a cabinet secretary, or as a state governor, a traditional training ground for future presidents. The last president who wasn't a governor before being elected was George Herbert Walker Bush. Still, as a former director of the CIA, one could certainly argue that he had experience in managing a huge bureaucracy. In Europe, as in the U.S., many politicians have experience running smaller governmental entities before taking over the top job. In Germany, Angela Merkel's predecessors, Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Kohl, both served as "Ministerpräsident" (governors) of a German state. Chancellor Merkel has not, but she gained executive experience during her stints as a cabinet minister in the Kohl administration. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy both learned the ropes of running an executive during long years in government positions. Is managing a large organization a prerequisite for running a country then? Well, it certainly doesn't hurt. |
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| 21.04.2008 |
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| The latest issue of the magazine Entertainment Weekly previews 100 summer movies, and the U.S. film selection this season lacks a staple of pretty much every year since the 2001 terror attacks: The comic book-based movie where the clear-cut hero triumphs over evil. There's a school of thought that the rebirth of fantasy in American film, particularly the super-hero genre but also flicks like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was a reflection of consumers' anxiety over terrorism. Spider-Man and Superman are good guys, through and through, and they are opposed by villains of pure malevolence. But last summer, the latest Spider-Man film, while profitable, was a slight disappointment at the box office; likewise for the latest Superman movie. This summer's lineup does have a number of comic book movies, but if anything, they reflect a hangover in the war on terror. Sometimes, literally. Will Smith stars as a super-powered alcoholic in "Hancock." "Iron Man" features a superhero who is, by day, an arms dealer and a cad. At the beginning of "Hellboy 2," Hellboy is -- that's right -- drinking too much. The recent film version of "The Incredible Hulk" was a flop, but he's been revived for this summer, and the Hulk has always been ambiguous in his heroism, struggling with rage and prone to tossing his power around with total disregard. And the latest "Batman" film stars a hero whose tactics in pursuit of justice have always been questionable. This lineup of films comes at a time when the political debate about the war on terror has shifted from "what else can we do to make us safer?" to worries about the methods the federal government has used to make us safer, from warrantless surveillance to waterboarding. The case for a political shift that is reflected in the summer's lineup is diminished by a few things. First, the most recent "Batman" movie was a huge smash in 2005; other morally ambiguous superhero movies, like "Ghost Rider" and "Punisher" disappointed at the box office over that time frame, so maybe there is no pattern to speak of. Second, a genre of horror films commonly referred to as "torture-porn" for its graphic torture sequences -- along the lines of "Saw" -- was thought by some to reflect anxiety about the government's harsh interrogation tactics. According to EW, such films are "wearing out their welcome" with viewers. And, the cover story is about the latest "Indiana Jones" film, which has a pretty simple moral universe. It is almost certainly going to be the biggest hit of the summer, so there's obviously still a market for such films. But it's clear that Hollywood, at least, is being drawn toward heroes who aren't perfect moral examples. Here's how the star of "Iron Man" compares the title character to other superheroes: "Whereas most of them are dealing with some extraordinary transformation, he's very self-indulgent, a womanizer, and politically unsound by most people's standards." Perhaps Hollywood, having released a string of movies that directly addressed the war on terror but flopped commercially, like "Rendition," is now interested in taking a more metaphorical route to the same topic. With no degree in pop psychology, it's impossible to say whether this is a trend or a stretch. But perhaps the 2008 presidential candidates can get some cues about the public's views of the war on terror from how this summer's fantasy films are received. |
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| 20.04.2008 |
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| Gordon Brown's visit to Washington went practically unnoticed last week. The timing was bad. When the pope is in town, a British prime minister just plays second fiddle. Still, one important issue was addressed during Brown's meeting with President George W. Bush. Both are united against Iran's nuclear program and want to increase the pressure on Tehran. "I make no apology for saying that we will extend sanctions where possible, on Iran," Brown said, adding that he was in talks with other European leaders about how to achieve that goal. The prospects for stepped up sanctions don't look bad. French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy reiterated his tough stance against Tehran's nuclear ambitions last month by saying that Europe's security was at stake because of Iran's missile plans. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly voiced her opposition to Iran's nuclear program and vowed to step up sanctions if necessary. In their debate in Pennsylvania, Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made it clear that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would be high on their priority list if they were elected. Republican candidate John McCain, considered to be a foreign policy hawk, has often stated his opposition against Iran's nuclear program in stark terms. What does all of that mean? It shows that their is a common view among the major European players and the presidential candidates from both parties about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Whether it will last beyond the campaign remains to be seen. |
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| 19.04.2008 |
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| As the last of the three presidential candidates, John McCain released his tax returns yesterday. According to documents published on his campaign website, his income last year was $405,409. McCain was under pressure to release his tax returns after both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton made their statements public. Immediately after the tax dump on Friday, an interesting debate ensued: Not about how much McCain earned, or how much taxes he paid. Instead, the debate focused on the fact that the Arizona senator had only released tax returns for the last two years and had not included his wife's income, while Obama and Clinton had published their tax returns, including their spouse's income, back to 2000. This would never happen in Germany. Candidates for the chancellorship releasing copies of their official tax returns? Angela Merkel, Kurt Beck or Frank-Walter Steinmeier publishing not only their incomes, but also their investments and donations down to the last cent? Unthinkable in Germany and probably most other European countries. Just last year, after nine months of deliberation, Germany's supreme court narrowly rejected a suit by nine members of parliament who didn't want to publish the additional income they make on top of their fixed salary. Their reason: It isn't the public's business to know what they earn in addition to their salary. Germany's former Interior Minister Otto Schily until now has refused to provide the required information. Next week the presidium of the Bundestag will decide whether he will be fined. |
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| 18.04.2008 |
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| What goes up must come down. That is an experience Barack Obama is making right now. Gone are the days when it seemed like the world media were entangled in a love affair with the candidate. In those days, it seemed like no story about Obama could be published that did not include a comparison of him to either JFK oder MLK. No story could go online without declaring that he represented the "politics of hope." Epitomizing the Obama swoon was conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. "It may not be personally convenient for him, but the times will never again so completely require the gifts that he possesses. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, you should hope Barack Obama runs for president," Brooks wrote in October 2006, calling the Illinois senator a "new kind of politician." Less than two years later, disappointment has set in. In his latest column titled "How Obama Fell to Earth", Brooks notes that "Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal." Brooks is not alone. The media are taking a second look at the candidate. Statements or actions by Obama that wouldn't have been newsworthy a year ago now make the headlines. Is that fair? Perhaps not, but who said it would be. |
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| 18.04.2008 |
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| If you're visiting this site, I'm going to guess that you're up on the basics of international affairs, the 2008 campaign or both. But maybe you don't know, off-hand, where Barack Obama stands on India. Or maybe you don't know, off-hand, where John McCain stands on Africa. Those topics will inevitably come up here when candidates make a new pronouncement or policy proposal, but if you're looking for a one-stop shop for where everyone stands at the moment, there's a resource I'd like to recommend. The Council on Foreign Relations, a non-profit, membership based organization devoted to promoting greater understanding of international affairs in the United States, has a Campaign 2008 section of its website. You can find it www.cfr.org/campaign2008. It's got a storehouse of documents and speeches, not to mention essays by CFR experts on campaign-related issues. It's got a blog, too, but it's pretty basic -- just some links, usually, with no analysis. For that, you'll have to come here. |
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| 17.04.2008 |
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| Pope Benedict's visit to the U.S. has sparked a media debate about the Catholic vote in the presidential election. Catholics account for approximately 20 percent of the American electorate and until recently were considered a safe bet for the Democratic candidate. Not anymore. Like many other groups, Catholics are no longer a monolithic voting block united around one candidate or cause. That makes wooing them so much harder. So far, Hillary Clinton has done the best job appealing to Catholic voters. "On the Democratic side, they're the biggest single reason Sen. Hillary Clinton is still afloat," writes CNN Vatican expert John L. Allen jr. Among Catholic voters, Clinton beat Barack Obama decisively in Texas and Ohio and hopes to pull it off again in all important Pennsylvania, where Catholics make up more than 30 percent of the population. What makes Hillary Clinton so attractive to Catholics? It helps that she is popular among Latinos, who are predominantly Catholics. But as Allen points out, Clinton also carries the "Catholic 'Reagan Democrats,' meaning socially conservative blue-collar voters." Obama's "Bittergate" remarks could alienate him even further from mainstream Catholic or Christian voters. On the Republican side, John McCain's biggest plus among Catholic voters is his pro-life stance. His biggest drawback for Catholics is his ardent support for the war in Iraq. It is too early to tell who will end up with the Catholic vote in November. However, a check of the Catholic Voting Guidelines 2007 reveals that "Catholics know that the protection of the unborn is the 'dominant issue' among all politics issues." Based on this premise, Catholics would have to vote for John McCain in November. |
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| 17.04.2008 |
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| Much has been made of how much of the first half of the Democratic debate that aired on ABC Wednesday evening focusing on the assorted campaign stumbles of the two candidates. Fair enough. A great deal of the American political media is pretty shallow, and gets reeled into the latest gaffe or minor controversy easily. It seems the only thing I've read about or seen on television for the past two weeks is about Barack Obama's now-infamous "bitter" remark. And even though domestic policy has dominated much of the Pennsylvania primary race so far, there were some interesting tidbits that squeezed their way into the debate. --Both candidates promised to respond strongly to an attack on Israel. No surprise there, although Obama's views on Israel have raised suspicion among some Democratic voters, so it perhaps helped him to be able to say it on a big stage. --Obama praised the "wise foreign policy" of George H.W. Bush. This was a new wrinkle. Obama's also taken fire before any time he praises Republicans, but so far, there's been no visible backlash for Obama saying this. That's interesting, considering that H.W. was criticized from some on the left for his invasion of Iraq, but maybe it just speaks to how much the left is upset with the second invasion of Iraq led by H.W.'s son. --Each declared that they would withdraw from Iraq even if military commanders recommended against it. That's in contrast with Bush's declarations that military commanders are driving his policy on the Iraq war. Much has also been made of how the Democratic primary is hurting the party's chances of winning the presidential race. But inasfar as it could help, one area would be the honing of each's foreign policy messages. McCain is viewed as having an advantage there, so the eventual victor's message had better be sharp by the time he or she gets to the general election. They just didn't get much of a chance for sharpening Wednesday night, because ABC was so unfocused on policy. |
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| 17.04.2008 |
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| In the May issue of The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch argues that John McCain is a "true" conservative because his lineage traces to the thinking of Edmund Burke, "the father of modern conservativism." And yet, Rauch notes that Burke "would caution against forcibly uprooting the authority structures of a long-tyrannized society like Iraq and expecting a mini-America to spring forth." That, of course, is at odds with McCain's stance. CQ blogger Richard Whalen writes of McCain that he is a "war-loving neocon" and invokes another father of conservatism: "Conservatives of every persuasion should stand up now and follow the late Bill Buckley’s example by declaring the Iraq misadventure Bush’s tragic folly." The same Buckley spent the waning years of his writing career being on the outs with conservatives for just that view. The fact of the matter is, if you live long enough in the United States, you'll see what's "conservative" and what's "liberal" flip-flop several times over. The 9/11 terror attacks transformed President Bush from an advocate of a "humble" foreign policy into the foreign policy activist he is now. McCain is a mainstream conservative, as of now, on the topic of foreign policy. He came to his more interventionist foreign policy views before other Republicans did. It's been a long evolution. But whether it's "true" conservatism or not depends on what year it is, and even what day it is. |
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| 16.04.2008 |
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| On its English language website, Al Jazeera, the Arabic news channel keeps its readers updated on the U.S. election campaign. Without taking part in the ongoing debate about Al Jazeera's alleged bias, I found the results of an ongoing online poll about the U.S. election very interesting. Users are asked to choose among seven candidates (3 Democrats, 4 Republicans) who they would like see as the next president of the United States. They are also asked to check where they live based on a list of world regions. Obviously, the results of online polls are not representative. But as Al Jazeera points out on its poll results page, they may be indicative as a representation of the views of Al Jazeera readers. Not surprisingly Barack Obama is the current overall winner. As of Wednesday night, Central European Time, Obama received 40.5 percent of 11,493 votes. Guess who comes in second and third? Mitt Romney with 19.2 percent and Ron Paul with 15 percent of the vote respectively. Never mind that Romney dropped out of the race some time ago, as has Mike Gravel on the Democratic side, and Ron Paul is not actively campaigning anymore. It is simply mind-boggling that Ron Paul apparently has a rather strong international following. Perhaps not surprisingly, due to their stated or perceived positions concerning the Middle East, Hillary Clinton and John McCain garner only 7.7 percent and 4.9 percent of the vote respectively. European and U.S. poll takers overwhelmingly (63.5 percent and 44.1 percent) want Barack Obama as president, followed by Ron Paul (15.4 percent and 18.1 percent). Voters located in the Middle East, however, have a very different perspective on the candidates. With a whopping 71.5 percent of the vote, they favor Mitt Romney, who in all other regions never makes it out of the single digits. Romney's exceptional standing with Middle Eastern poll takers may be explained by a yearning for a savy business professional as president of the U.S. Needless to say that Ron Paul again comes in second with 14.1 percent. None of the three viable candidates, McCain, Obama, Clinton is a hit with Middle Eastern poll takers. McCain and Clinton stay below the two percent mark, Obama gets barely 10 percent of vote. If these results are indeed indicative of the views of Al Jazeera readers, it does not bode well for American-Middle Eastern relations. Addendum: Multiple votes by a single user are technically possible in the Al Jazeera U.S. election poll. This may explain some of the results. |
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| 15.04.2008 |
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| On Tuesday, former 2008 presidential candidate Joe Biden, the Democrat in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came out swinging at John McCain's national security policies. On the surface of it, and as some news organizations reported it, he did so for reasons unmentioned. But beware speeches for no apparent reason from ambitious politicians in an election year. The wide-ranging speech addressed everything from Russia to similarities between McCain and President Bush on Iraq. In prepared remarks, Biden said: "When it comes to Iraq, there is no daylight between John McCain and George W. Bush. They are joined at the hip." McCain shrugged off the criticism, according to the AP, arguing that the current Iraq strategy is succeeding. Political observers have speculated before that Biden is auditioning for a position in either the Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama administrations. It looked that way to more than a few Tuesday; the television station MSNBC pondered his speech as a play for vice president or Secretary of State. Biden, for his part, has been expectedly non-communicative about his desires. The speech very well could serve to burnish Biden's resume for vice president, since he killed two birds with one stone: 1. Demonstrate his ability to go on the attack against the other party's nominee, a common function of a vice presidential candidate; and 2. Display his considerable foreign policy credentials, which could help balance the ticket for either Clinton or Obama. While they have argued extensively with one another about who is more to be trusted on national security, McCain has a very, very extensive resume in that area. Biden falls short in another vice presidential category, however, that being whether he could help deliver electoral votes from states that might not otherwise go for the candidate. Biden represents tiny Delaware, and nearby Northeastern states tend to favor Democrats. He also has other potential drawbacks, like a tendency toward verbal gaffes. At any rate, those who live outside America -- or those who live in the United States but aren't familiar with Biden -- might still want to brush up on his foreign policy views. His office provided links for reporters to video of his speech here -- for some reason. |
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| 15.04.2008 |
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| The preferences of the German public among U.S. presidential candidates are clear. If Germans had a vote in the election, Barack Obama would be the next president. Until today. With his proposal to institute a "gasoline tax holiday" John McCain is sure to win the hearts and minds of German motorists. Every summer, just before Germans hit the Autobahn to drive to their vacation destinations, there is an emotional public debate about price fixing by the major oil companies. The media and politicians demand investigations of the issue. Then everyone goes on vacation and relaxes. The following summer we start the debate again. McCain cleverly proposed his "gasoline tax holiday" on the day millions of Americans file their tax retuns and with gas prices reaching new heights. It comes with almost no political cost for him. The bill that is apparently being prepared by the Senator's staff will probably never make it into law. But that doesn't really matter. Whether the summer gas tax break is passed or not, McCain has positioned himself as someone who cares for ordinary people and is no elitist. Interestingly enough, German politicians have not yet taken up McCain's idea of an abolition of the gas tax during the summer. With taxes amounting to roughly 70 percent of the gas price of approximately eight dollars a gallon at the pump in Germany, motorists would surely appreciate the move. With a national election looming here in Germany next year, here are some German suggestions for the presidential candidates how to reach ordinary voters: The grand coalition just voted to increase state pensions for some 20 million people, more than originally planned, in 2008 and 2009. Others are calling for increased benefits for families with children and for the reinstitution of tax breaks for people commuting to work. More proposals from this side of the Atlantic are surely yet to come. Barack Obama is apparently in desperate need to connect with American workers. Perhaps he should take a page from the playbook of German politicians. |
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| 15.04.2008 |
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| On Monday, John McCain was asked once again in an Associated Press question-and-answer about his views about interrogation tactics used on detainees. Think Progress, a popular liberal blog, said he appeared confused, noting that his answer veered to a wholly different topic: "...and we cannot, in my view, torture any American, that includes waterboarding..." That, the blog correctly points out, was not the question. It is the treatment of non-Americans that is at issue. McCain, who has authored numerous laws to restrict harsh interrogation techniques, nonetheless also voted against a veto override of a bill earlier this year that would explicitly ban the Central Intelligence Agency from using waterboarding and other harsh tactics. That McCain, a victim of torture himself and a leading opponent of it, would vote against such a bill was confusing to a great many reporters at the time, but it was consistent with his past position. That is not to say that his position is without ambiguity. Time magazine did an excellent exploration of this apparent contradiction in an April 10 piece. It's worth reading. But even it does not definitively answer what tactics McCain is comfortable with the CIA using and which ones he isn't. There's a chance, per one theory in the article, that his current stance is the result of a bit of political wrangling with the White House, and that, if president, he would ban all such harsh interrogation tactics. But until then, it's probably going to keep coming up; Democrats put the aforementioned interrogation bill veto override on the floor specifically to put pressure on McCain. His position's nuances will continue to be a tempting target for Democrats looking to appeal to their base (or else Think Progress wouldn't have blogged about it) and independents (per the strategy mentioned in the Time piece). |
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| 14.04.2008 |
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| For the European observer, one of the most fascinating and sometimes perplexing aspects of the election campaign is the role religion plays. By that I don't mean the influence of organized religious groups (i.e. Evangelicals) on party politics or candidates, but the very personal statements candidates make about their religious practices and experiences. Over the weekend it seemed like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama competed for an award for the most publicly outspoken candidate on personal faith. Both appeared at the appropriately named Faith in Public Life's Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to talk about their belief. The event was broadcast live by CNN and will also be shown by CCN (Church Communication Network) next Sunday at congregations nationwide. According to CNN, Clinton said, "I don't think that I could have made my life's journey without being anchored in God's grace and without having that, you know, sense of forgiveness and unconditional love." Obama claimed that nobody in a presidential campaign on the Democratic side in recent memory had done more to reach out to the church than he had. Now, obviously each candidate is free to talk about his or her religious beliefs, especially when ones faith is an important factor for a large segment of the electorate. But how valuable are those statements really for devout voters, when they are made at an event just set up for this occasion in the very state that could decide the Democratic primary? |
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| 14.04.2008 |
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| Conventional wisdom in American politics is rarely to be trusted, but both parties are acting like the current conventional wisdom about the presidential campaign -- that the economy has surpassed the war in Iraq and terrorism as the foremost issue on voters' minds -- is correct. There is polling to back it up, not that polling is always accurate, either. But it would be unwise to think international affairs, and the candidates' views on them, won't have a major impact on this race. Already, the Democratic primary race has shifted to and fro over international affairs issues. Hillary Clinton's advertisement questioning whether Barack Obama had the foreign policy credentials to be able to respond well to a national security emergency at 3 a.m. is widely believed to have helped her get back on even footing with Obama, among other things, in late February and early March. Once they wrap up their lengthy primary, Democrats plan to tie the war in Iraq around John McCain's ankle and keep shoving him toward the ocean. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said as much on the television show "Meet The Press": "On the great issues before the country -- Iraq, Iran... -- he is very close to George Bush, in fact even more extreme." And the economy and international affairs have, so far, been closely linked at times. For example: The dispute in the primary between Clinton and Obama over who is most reluctant about free trade, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement. |
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| 13.04.2008 |
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| What do journalists do when they want to know what the average Joe thinks about a certain topic? Right, they ask a taxi driver. So that is exactly what I did to find out how Germans feel about the presidential race. On a brief and pleasant ride in Bonn, I asked my driver, Heinz-Gert, what he thought about the U.S. election and who his favorite candidate was. Obviously when you ask a stranger about a political issue – or any issue for that matter – you never know what you get. So I was secretly hoping for a useable answer. I wasn't disappointed. Heinz-Gert is definitely rooting for Mrs. Clinton. "Hillary has that special something you need for this office." When I asked, whether he thought that her gender would influence voters, he said: "No. She has a lot of experience and is simply qualified for the job." That, according to Heinz-Gert, is just what Barack Obama is lacking. "He seems to young." What about John McCain then? I attribute it solely to his politeness, but when I brought up McCain, Heinz-Gert smoothly switched the topic of conversation to the weather. Everyone in the Cologne-Bonn region beware: At the end of the week a cold front is approaching. One minute later we arrived at my home. I paid and Heinz-Gert pointed out that he was a 30-year veteran taxi driver, a factoid I was welcome to use in my post. | ||||||||
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