Adios, Mo' Fo.

Yesterday, Gov. Rick Perry (R) confirmed what a lot of us who are attuned to the Texas political scene had been expecting: he won't seek re-election next year.

 

Perry, 63, has been governor of the Lone Star State since December 21, 2000, when he succeeded to the governorship upon the resignation of then-President-Elect George W. Bush. He had been elected lieutenant governor in 1998. To those outside the state, he may be best known for either his ill-fated presidential bid in the last election cycle or his cameo in the 2005 comedy Man of the House.

 

His retirement is significant because it means that, among other things, next year's gubernatorial race will be the first one in Texas without a sitting governor since 1990 (which, coincidentally, was the last time Texans elected a Democratic governor).

 

Right now, the odds-on favorite to succeed Perry is Greg Abbott, who is currently serving his third term as state attorney general. Should he decide to run, his biggest obstacle(s) to victory would likely come in the primary. In a state where every statewide elected office is held by a Republican, Democrats are challenged by a paucity of viable candidates and a brand problem not unlike what the GOP is burdened with in some other states.

 

I've never been a fan of Rick Perry, even when he's right. He reminds me a lot of Bill Clinton: a good politician but not so good a leader. You can try and claim that Clinton was/is more erudite and well-spoken than the notoriously malapropism-prone Perry, but if I concede that point, then you must admit that the Gov has Slick Willie beat in the "honor & courage" category, having been an Eagle Scout and served in the U.S. Air Force.

 

A lot of pundits and political junkies now want to speculate on whether Perry will try and run for president again; I'm not the least bit interested. His official announcement that he wouldn't seek another term as governor piqued my interest because I'm looking forward to Texas finally getting a new chief executive. Expect us to pay special attention to this 2014 race, as it may well shape up to be one of the most exciting primaries in any gubernatorial or senatorial election this cycle.

Ripping Romney's Record

The attacks themselves were nothing new; we've all heard the hits on Mitt Romney's past--the millions he made at Bain & Co. and Bain Capital, the businesses they tried to save but couldn't, the people who were thrown out of work--that have become a familiar rallying cry for political hacks trying to gin up popular opposition to what was in reality a record of leadership and job creation. What was different about this round of attacks was the source(s). The latest round of smears on Romney's private-equity exploits came not from the White House or the Obama re-election campaign, nor from MSNBC or some leftist blog. (I guess it's kind of hard to tell the difference between these different entities though.) Rather, they came from Mitt's fellow Republicans--specifically, his rivals for the GOP nomination, their campaigns, their surrogates in the media and independent groups who run ads on their behalf.

Following a pathetic showing in the Iowa caucuses, Gingrich and Perry had started grumbling about Romney's past in advance of the New Hampshire primary, but things really got heated after Romney himself dropped a catalyst into an already volatile elixir of eleventh-hour barnstorming. On the eve of the critical New Hampshire primary, Romney made an unfortunate statement that, when taken out of context, sounds really, really bad (I'm not going to come up with a colorful way to say everything.):

"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."

Actually, it's the first seven words of that sentence that stirred up so many talking heads across the political spectrum. Mitt Romney, already under fire for not being able to save every job in every business Bain invested in while he was CEO (and, according to his detractors, thereby "firing" a bunch of workers) and anticipating a similar line of attack in the general election, said that he liked "being able to fire people."

On the surface, that remark wouldn't seem to be problematic for a presidential candidate, but because of Mitt Romney's background and the image of him as a ruthless corporate baron that his enemies are trying so hard to cultivate, his words gave pols, pundits and pettifoggers the world over something to fuss about.

"Mitt Romney likes to fire people," declared the Daily Beast, an online symposium for talentless hacks seeking a repository for their insightful prose that most of us common folk are too stupid/unsophisticated to appreciate.

Loony Larry O'Donnell told his audience that night, "I think Bain Capital is the greatest ... private equity firm in the World ever." (You can never really be sure where that guy is coming from.)

DNC Chairwoman and part-time gargoyle Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said ... well, who cares what she said? The point is, we expected the left to pounce on (and distort) Romney's words, but the most distrubing vitreol spewed from the mouths of those who seek to carry the mantle of a party that is supposed to be pro-capitalist, pro-free enterprise, meritocratic and, above all, honest. Newt Gingrich accused Romney of "looting a company, leaving behind behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and ... a factory that should be there." Rick Perry called the former Massachusetts governor a "vulture capitalist". (His campaign even turned Romney's words into a ring tone.) Even Jon Huntsman, Jr., got off his high horse and said, "Governor Romney enjoys firing people. I enjoy creating jobs."

The above-listed quotes are just a sampling of the many, many shots Mitt Romney took this past week, and the stinging disappointment I felt at seeing so-called conservatives (or "classical liberals", if you'd prefer) attack one of their own for his successful career in the private-equity business was mitigated by the outpouring of support for Romney, not just from the voters of New Hampshire, but from conservative journalists who were rightly disgusted by the Obama-style tripe being peddled by so-called Republicans who for months had been denouncing similar rhetoric by Democrats. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote that the "anti-capitalistic pandering" by Romney's Republican rivals "will likely go down as a text-book example of political stupidity." Michelle Malkin (definitely not a Romney fan, for those of you who didn’t know) blogged that "incompetent non-Romneys have morphed into Michael Moore propagandists — throwing not just Bain Capital under the bus, but wealth creators of all kinds who take risks in the private marketplace." The Wall Street Journal excoriated Gingrich and Perry "for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism." To be fair, Gingrich and Huntsman later walked back their comments lambasting Romney for his work at Bain Capital.

All of this would warrant concern beyond this week if anyone other than Mitt Romney stood a fighting chance of winning the GOP nomination. This is not the case, however, so we must turn our attention to the irritating chatterboxes who we will have to put up with in the general election campaign and who will continue to attack Romney, fairly or unfairly, for anything they can connect him to, no matter how manufactured the tragedy or how tenuous the link.

To the extent that Mitt's business background is a liability, it poses a grave threat largely because most Americans don't know the details of it, and hence it is ripe for distortion. From my vantage point, it appears that most of the people using Bain to attack Romney don't even understand what the company does/did. This is evident in their nonsensical, absurd and often incoherent criticisms of the firm's investment ventures in the 1980s and '90s, while Romney was C.E.O. Most of them pile on Mitt for shuttering unprofitable businesses and laying off workers while drawing a hefty salary for himself. Sometimes, though, whatever reasonable shot his detractors might be able to take at him is clouded by their visceral dislike of the man and everything he stands for. As Matt Bai wrote on his New York Times blog, "the attacks lobbed at Mr. Romney have been disparate and not terribly persuasive."

Case in point: Forbes columnist Robert Lenzner accused Romney of "firing more people than he hired." Not only is this not supported by the facts, Lenzer didn't even try to back it up. Matt Bai's fellow New York Times blogger Paul Krugman made a similarly unsubstantiated (and oversimplified) claim when he wrote that Romney "was a buyer and seller of businesses, often to the detriment of their employees." (This was still less inane than his assertion in an earlier column that “Mr. Romney and those like him ... enrich themselves while helping to destroy the American middle class.”) The aforementioned Debbie Wasserman Schultz took the attacks on Mitt and his work at Bain to a new level of crazy when she claimed that Romney “bankrupted companies deliberately.” (She also echoed a new Democratic talking point that “Mitt Romney said ... that he likes firing people,” a lie so blatant that even Andrea Mitchell called her out on it.)

I’m not sure if Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz has some mental disorder that just compels her to lie, or if she just doesn’t understand what bankruptcy is or why companies enter Chapter 11, but no matter. This is, again, just a sampling of the left-wing lunacy on display in the media coverage of Romney's past. I've noticed that a lot of Romney's critics cite a recent Wall Street Journal piece in support of their attacks, which they laughably maintain are neither anti-capitalist nor anti-business. I read the entire Journal story, which was written by Mark Maremont, and I was a little surprised at some of the information that no one--not even Romney surrogates--had trumpeted in defense of the candidate and his former employer. Here's the gist of the article: The Journal examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mitt Romney led the firm from 1984 until 1999 "to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward." A figure repeated (and distorted) by the haters was that "22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses." Another "8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost," according to the Journal, which means that 70% of Bain's ventures during the time frame of the study were successful. If our president had a 70% approval rating, then he'd be viewed as unbeatable.

Another point that those propagating the Romney-got-rich-killing-jobs-and-destroying-lives meme have omitted is something that really should be widely known but doesn't always dawn on your simple, self-styled blue-collar, working-class voter who might be swayed by this rhetoric: companies can emerge from bankruptcy. Often times, bankruptcy is not the end of a business; it's a reorganization. Seeking the protection of a bankruptcy court isn't necessarily a sign of long-term business failure. As Maremont noted: Not only that, but a lot of the businesses that entered bankruptcy despite Bain's involvement went bankrupt after Romney had left the company. One such company, American Pad & Paper (a.k.a. AmPad), has been a favorite of the Left as an example of the ruthless, cutthroat capitalism that is apparently bad. After Bain's initial investment in 1992, two of AmPad's American plants were closed and hundreds of employees were laid off. Bain and its investors made a lot of money. The company went bankrupt.

Many of the Bain companies emerged from reorganization healthier, just as, for instance, General Motors did a few years ago. But while bankruptcy filings aren't a perfect measure of performance, they provide a way to assess a disparate array of target businesses that in many cases weren't required to make public financial filings.

If that doesn't exactly make sense to you, then it's because I've omitted several relevant facts, just like the anti-Romney prattlers have. One of the plants was shut was shut down because of a union strike, not exactly something the Romney-bashers, most of whom carry a lot of water for big labor, would want the public to know. Also, everyone who lost their job was offerred a job at one of the other facilities. Perhaps most importantly, AmPad was acquired out of bankruptcy. It is now owned by Esselte, a Connecticut-based global office supplies manufacturer, and still employs thousands of people.

As for the companies that didn't make it out of bankruptcy, a quote from one of Romney's former co-workers sheds some light on why so many of Bain's business ventures went belly-up. There are two paragraphs in the Journal article that everyone--and I mean everyone--who has heard it referenced in any context ought to read: In other words, Mitt Romney was not a ruthless corporate shark who did whatever he could to make money, as so many pinkoes are trying to make him out to be, but he was the very thing they're trying to convince people he's not, "an excellent CEO."

Marc Wolpow, a former Bain Capital executive, said the frequency of trouble did indeed stem largely from the firm's strategy early on of investing in smaller, troubled firms it hoped to turn around.
"I don't think you can hold Mitt out as a great investor per se," Mr. Wolpow said, "but he was an excellent CEO of an investment firm, and the results speak for themselves."

Others who actually worked with Mitt Romney and got to know him have similar praiseworthy things to say about him. Before I get to my next example, I need to bring up what appears to be a good-faith but still misleading analysis of Romney's business record. Earlier this week, the Washington Post published their "fact check" of Romney's claim that Bain “invested in over 100 different businesses and net, net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs.” They called the 100,000 jobs figure "untenable" and gave Romney's comments three pinocchios, which indicates "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." While acknowledging that "Romney certainly has a good story to tell about knowing how to manage a business, spotting opportunities and understanding high finance," Glenn Kessler writes that, "if he is to continue to make claims about job creation, [then] the Romney campaign needs to provide a real accounting of how many jobs were gained or lost through Bain Capital investments while the firm managed these companies — and while Romney was chief executive. Any jobs counted after either of those data points simply do not pass the laugh test."

Among other examples, Kessler points to Staples, one of Bain's most successful ventures, which has added 89,000 jobs since Bain's initial investment. Says Kessler, "Bain may have provided management expertise or money when others would not, but a company such as Staples — one of the biggest contributors to Romney’s job figures — was largely the brainchild of entrepreneur Tom Stemberg." I'm sure Stemberg appreciated that backhanded shout-out, but I know he would dispute the implication that Romney doesn't deserve some credit for Staples's growth and success. How do I know that? Let's just say I can see the future.

I realize that, no matter how much research I do or how many sound, logical arguments I make, there are some people I just won't get through to because I have no credibility with him. So, if you're a Lefty who still thinks Mitt Romney made a fortune as the head of a heartless, avaricious corporate raider that lined its investors' pockets with the gains it reaped from slashing and burning companies, then you ought to read an opinion piece written for POLITICO by none other than Steven Rattner, the investment banker/financier and big-government booster who recently served as the Obama administration's "car czar". While making it clear that he's "all in favor of piling on Mitt Romney for any number of reasons," Rattner makes it clear that, "with modest exceptions (keep reading to learn more about these), Bain Capital was a thoroughly respectable — nay, eminent — investment manager that successfully discharged its responsibility of earning high returns for its investors by deploying capital in companies privately rather than by buying shares in the public market."

In addition to providing an accurate (and, impressively, concise) explanation of what the private-equity business is all about, Rattner's article chronicles the early history of Bain & Co. He provides specific examples of Bain's successes and failures, with objectively verifiable facts and figures detailing what investments the company made, the human cost of saving businesses that would otherwise have gone under, what "success" and "failure" meant in dollars and cents, and, perhaps most importantly, how Bain did right by its investors: So, to recap: Bain Capital, under the leadership of Mitt Romney, sought out struggling companies that needed saving (like AmPad), promising start-ups in need of seed money (think Staples) and older, more developed businesses ripe for leveraged buyouts (e.g., Domino’s Pizza). Some of the ventures were more successful than others, and a handful went into bankruptcy (though I've yet to learn of one that did while Romney was still at the helm). It's beyond dispute that, however incalculable the actual number of jobs created or saved by Bain during Romney's tenure, the net increase of jobs at the companies Bain invested in far exceeds the job losses at all those companies. Finally, and again most importantly, "Bain Capital more than fulfilled its responsibility to a gaggle of investors, who were mostly foundations, endowments, pension funds and the like."

Overall, Bain Capital’s record was extraordinary, among the best in the business. According to a Bain placement document, through the end of 1999 (effectively, when Romney left), the firm had achieved annual returns of 88 percent per year.
That is not only wildly more than the single-digit returns most investors achieve by buying stocks or bonds, it is far higher than those of typical private equity or venture capital firms.

Romney was the CEO of Bain Capital, not of the individual enterprises that Bain invested in, managed and tried to save. But if his critics won't give him credit for any of the jobs that were created in these companies after Romney left Bain, then they can't fairly blame him for anything that happened to these businesses or their employees after 1999, either. The key word there is, of course, "fairly." There's no doubt in my mind that Mitt Romney will win the nomination and the presidency this year if his opponents play fair, which is why they won't.

Romney vs. Paul Would Make Long, Protracted Primary Fight Worth It

AP File Photo

As the focus of the race for the 2012 GOP nomination turns t0 South Carolina, two apparent realities cannot be ignored: (1) Mitt Romney has the nomination all but locked up, and (2) Ron Paul must be taken seriously as a presidential contender. At least one of these will no doubt be hard to swallow for many Republican faithful, but acceptance of reality is a necessary characteristic of any true Republican in our country today. The facts are thus: Mitt Romney placed first in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, and he's leading all the national polls in the race for the GOP nomination. He also leads every poll I've seen out of South Carolina in recent days. Other than Romney, the only Republican to break 20% in both Iowa and New Hampshire so far this cycle is Ron Paul. None of this is up for debate. Now, what can we gleam from these facts?

What I've concluded is that Mitt Romney is going to be our nominee in the general election (barring his sudden death or some other unforseen act of God), and Ron Paul is not the loony-tune fringe candidate he was four years ago. If you're just going by vote totals so far, then Dr. Paul is the only candidate who should be regarded as a credible, serious challenger to Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. Yet, he is the only one of the five alternatives who is not. Why? Many reasons, not all of which warrant mention here. I personally would not want our party to nominate someone who voted against the Patriot Act and still opposes it to this day, who declined to state that he would have authorized the Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden, and who wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve. (The continued existence of the Fed is a debate worth having, but suffice it to say for now that I don't want to go back to the time when "panics" were a routine occurrence.) Nevertheless, there are substantive disagreements I have with at least one position taken by each of the candidates for president this year. I'm sure most Republicans feel the same way.

This brings me to my thesis du jour: if the race for the Republican nomination were to quickly come down to a two-man contest between two candidates who both had a realistic path to the nomination, then a Romney-Paul showdown would be the only protracted primary battle worth having. Think about it: An existensial debate, not just over the platform of the GOP in the 21st Century, but about the issues that will no doubt be litigated in the general election: the role of government in people's lives, the role of the U.S. on the world stage, how best to prosecute the War on Terror, how soon and how deeply to cut federal spending. Wouldn't that be more exciting (and more intellectually satisfying) than this hackneyed tripe about "vulture capitalism" or Super-PACs?

As ferociously as the Paul campaign has gone after his opponents, he rightfully came to Mitt Romney's defense after the others piled on him over his record as CEO of Bain Capital. This was just the latest example of Paul's maturity as a candidate and the Bohemian approach that has always characterized his campaign style. Romney, too, has refrained from the petty politics of drive-by attacks aimed at scoring cheap political points; he hasn't addressed Newt Gingrich's various personal transgressions, Rick Santorum's borderline-homophobic remarks or Rick Perry's obvious lack of ... well, let's just say "book smarts". He did take a cheap shot (in my opinion) at Jon Huntsman for the latter's service as Ambassador to China, but this was far from the ad hominem attacks that the others have engaged in.

A fervent, extended primary fight between Ron and Romney would be good for our party and our country. Sadly, it is not to be. Right-wing Genius out!

One Week To Go...

Are you sick of hearing about the impending Iowa caucuses?

Me neither. One week from today, voters in the Hawkeye State will kick off the 2012 election cycle with their mystifying mêlée of...whatever. Anyway, before parsing the polls out of Iowa, I'd like to discuss an interesting development in the race for the 2012 Republican nomination.

It seems that neither Texas Gov. Rick Perry nor former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (who until recently the undisputed frontrunner in the GOP primary campaign) have been able to collect and submit the 10,000 signatures necessary to appear on the ballot in Virginia. For Perry, this is not that big a deal; he wasn't going to be the nominee anyway (thank God), and it will be pretty pathetic if he hasn't dropped out of the race by the time Va. holds its primary. But for Gingrich, not being on the ballot in Old Dominion is a pretty big embarrassment, not least because it's his home state.

Yes, the former Speaker spent twenty years representing an Atlanta-area district in Georgia, but he currently resides in the state that has already delivered us more presidents than any other (eight, to be exact). I recently made the acquaintance of one Bryan Eppstein, a legend in Texas politics. Bryan's reputation as a political shark is such that politicians here have been known to retain him, even if they have no need for his services; they just don't want him working for an opponent's campaign. He told me that Al Gore did not lose the 2000 presidential election because he lost Florida; he lost the election because he failed to carry his home state of Tennessee.

I can remember watching the returns roll in on Election Night 2000, and while the race was still up in the air, I remarked that Bush had won Tennessee. (For the record, Bill Clinton carried Tennessee twice.) I wasn't as politically astute back then as I am now, but I found it strange that the election was so close when one candidate couldn't even carry his home state.

Gingrich's failure to make it onto the Virginia primary ballot is all the more galling when you consider that he's been leading the polls there. In a protracted race for the nomination, every delegate counts, and if Newt and Mitt are still duking it out come February, then effectively conceding a state with more delegates than New Hampshire and Iowa combined before any votes are cast will go down as one of the greatest campaign blunders of all time.

The Gingrich campaign didn't do their candidate any favors with their apparent sour-grapes attitude yesterday. Campaign director Michael Krull:

Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot. Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.

I agree; voters should have the right to vote for any top contender, which is why Virginia, like all states, has certain requirements that candidates must meet in order for their names to appear on the ballot. Newt Gingrich failed to satisfy all the necessary requirements, so I don't think excluding him from the Virginia primary ballots evinces a "failed" system.

Back to Iowa: Gingrich's decline in the polls has not been matched by an equal surge in one candidate's numbers; instead, it appears that his loss is Mitt Romney's, Ron Paul's, Rick Santorum's and Michele Bachmann's gain. Every poll out of the state in the last two weeks has shown either romney or Paul leading; this has pundits buzzing about the prospect of the 76-year-old Congressman and cantankerous old coot winning (or even finishing a close 2nd in) the Iowa cacuses. Such a result would be in affront to the political narrative that the Iowa GOP caucuses are dominated by social conservatives. (Hence, the impressive performances of Mike Huckabee in '08, George W. Bush in 2000 and Pat Robertson in '88.) One interesting quirk in the run-up to the caucuses this year is the failure of any one candidate to lock in the evangelical vote; Michele Bachmann was the early favorite to win this group, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, and now it appears evangelical Christians are torn between Bachmann, Santorum, Perry and Gingrich. The latter two have had their moments as King of the Hill, and I highly doubt that either of them are coming back. Ditto Bachmann, but swap "Queen for a Day" for "King of the Hill." Santorum, however, has never topped the polls in any state and may just be the next candidate to surge. He's arguably devoted more time and energy to Iowa than anyone else, and his fervent appeal to church-going folk in middle America while running his campaign on a shoestring budget conjures up memories of Huckabee four years ago. (For the record, it was in December of 2007 that the former Arkansas governor surpassed Mitt Romney in the polls in Iowa, where Romney had held a steady lead for months.) My predictions: Ron Paul will soar no higher; he has reached his peak in Iowa, though his current poll position (22.7% in the RCP average) is probably pretty close to what he'll actually pull next week in the caucuses. Santorum will outperform Bachmann among evangelicals and finish well ahead of her in the final tallies. Romney looks good to win; he'll definitely be first or second. Perry and Gingrich will underwhelm but stay in the race, and Baylor will crush UW in the Alamo Bowl.

Gingrich Gains in Polls, While Romney Gains Endorsements

I spent three days working on this post before discovering Care2 (a web site I had never heard of before) reporter Robin Marty had scooped me. Think that would cause me to scrap an entire blog post? Not hardly. See, Marty's piece focused on newspaper endorsements, but I've noticed that Romney has been racking up a significant number of endorsements from several high-profile figures in the GOP. No, not Dan Quayle, but that's a good one to have too.

Let's start with the site of the first-in-the-nation primary, New Hampshire. While Newt may have the backing of the state's leading newspaper, Romney has the state's newest political star in his corner. Last month he trotted out the endorsement of Kelly Ayotte, the freshman U.S. Senator and former state attorney general who gained national renown in conservative circles after successfully defending her state's restrictions on abortion before the U.S. Supreme Court five years ago. At 43, Ayotte has plenty of time to make a lasting name for herself in Congress, and her support may provide Romney with a liason to TEA Partiers who have so far been cool to him.

In another early primary state, Florida, Romney can now boast the support of three prominent Latino Republican lawmakers: Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (the first Cuban-American elected to Congress), Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Mario's brother, former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. All three hail from Havana and should prove invaluable to Romney as he courts Florida voters. The candidate also has the backing of former Florida Senator, RNC Chairman and H.U.D. Secretary Mel Martinez, who chairs his campaign’s National Advisory Council. Of course, the state's most popular pols–U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush–have yet to make their choices known this cycle.

Even if endorsements don't sway many votes, they're still immensely helpful for two other purposes: organization and fundraising. Few will dispute that both of these are areas in which Romney has the advantage over the latest frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

Speaking of which, there's no denying Newt's surge in the polls. Two months ago, he was at 9.2% in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, fourth behind Romney, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. Now he's at 31%, higher than any of his primary rivals at their peak (except Rick Perry, who spiked at 31.8% in the RCP average the second week of September). He also currently leads by double digits in Iowa, South Carolina, Florida and a host of other primary states. Will his leads hold up? I'm willing to take bets, but doing so would violate my parole. Good night, everybody!

Adrift in a Sea of Left-Wing Crazy Talk

Today, I made a stupid mistake. I visited RealClearPolitics.com. It was the first time I had done this in a while, and I'm deeply ashamed of myself. This is not to say I regret it; RealClearPolitics is a great site and an excellent fix for political junkies, newsmongers and dataphiles. (I made that last word up.) Yet, therein lies the biggest problem it poses. If you're like me, then you've visited RCP in the past hoping to find one or two opinion/analysis/editorial pieces on a salient issue and maybe spend 20 to 30 minutes total on the whole endeavor before returning to your work. Sometimes it works out that way, but sometimes you get pulled down a rabbit hole and wind up sifting through site after site, article after article, wasting hours of time that you'll never get back. By the time you're satisfied, all you can do is cut your losses and try to avoid making the same mistake in the future. Such was the case with me on many occasions; I had finally resisted the urge to visit RCP for so long that I thought I could check out the site without falling into the same trap that I had so many times in the past. When I tried to do that earlier today, however, it didn't quite work out that way. One click led to another, and I soon found myself adrift in a sea of left-wing crazy talk.

I decided to write this blog post to call attention to two particularly ridiculous pieces of nonsense by well-respected (in left-wing circles) commentators. The first was a blurb by UC Berkeley professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. It was entitled “How to create (lousy) jobs.” (Somehow, before I even read the piece, I knew it was about Rick Perry and Texas.) The sub-head read, “Rick Perry has spurred job growth in Texas by driving out unions and effectively lowering wages.” Now, I’m not sure whether Reich wrote that or the site editors at Salon put it in, but it’s just B.S. What’s more, Reich admits in the first paragraph of his article that “governors have as much influence over job growth in their states as roosters do over sunrises.” So, how exactly can Perry be “driving out unions and effectively lowering wages”? Reich doesn’t say. Instead, he rattles off a series of talking points, making specious assertions without offerring any hard-core data to back them up. Then he gets to the crux of his argument: when "governors try hard enough," he says, "they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety."

Reich adds:

Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas's workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

First off, if you're not counting benefits, then $11.20 an hour is pretty good money for someone just starting out, especially if you don't have more than a high-school education. Second, Reich neglects to mention that Texas is one of the youngest states in the U.S. (only Utah has a lower median age), which explains our relatively low median wage. In his eagerness to dump on the Lone Star State, Reich neglected to carefully edit his piece and let a positive fact or two slip. For example, he mentions that Texas "has the lowest percentage of workers without health insurance."

Reich then goes off on a tangent, bashing supply-side economics and conservatives in general. The only other part of his post that I want to call attention to is this paragraph:

Besides, how can lower incomes possibly be an answer to America's economic problem? Lower incomes mean less overall demand for goods and services -- which translates into even fewer jobs and even lower wages.

First of all, that's only true if everyone's incomes are lower, meaning total income, and with it, overall demand, is down. However, until recently, household gross income had been growing steadily in the United States. Second, Reich purports to be concerned about American jobs and wages, but while higher incomes translate into more consumption, they don't necessarily translate into more consumption of domestic goods. As a former Secretary of Labor, Reich should have known this.

The second little gem I wanted to critique here was Jonathan Capehart's latest column for the Washington Post. It was entitled, "Obama’s fight — for respect." After listing a series of what he perceives as House Speaker John Boehner's slights at President Obama, Capehart offers this analysis:

When George W. Bush was president, harsh things were said all the time by congressional Democrats and their leaders. Some even crossed the line. Yet, while there was disdain for the man in the Oval Office, respect for the office itself was never in doubt. I seriously worry that it’s in doubt now among some Republicans. Each petty slight by Boehner is one more chip away at respect for the presidency.

First off, to say that some Democrats "crossed the line" with their attacks on George W. Bush is, I think, a supreme understatement. Secondly, WHAT?!? So the intense, hyperbolic vitriol heaped on the last president (not to mention his family, his party and virtually every member of his administration) never evinced a lack of "respect for the office" of president, but earnest, understandable and (in my opinion) legitamite criticism of the current preisdent's policies and behavior does?

Capehart then showed us just how deep his hero worship of BHO runs. According to him, Obama "is bigger than most of us. So the petty slights that get a lot of us riled up probably don’t register to him. He’s a thinker and plotter with his eyes on the prize down the road, not the daily hysteria taking place on the road to get there."

Assuming Capehart is expressing his true feelings and not just trying to be inflammatory or provocative, I think he's kidding himself. Either that or he's incredibly oblivious to the manner in which this president has conducted himself. Ever since he took office, Obama's proven himself to be immature, vindictive and thin-skinned. I'll spare you all a long list of examples, partly because I think any reasonable, detached observer would draw the same conclusion. I contacted Mr. Capehart to see if he could explain his puzzling statements. If he responds, then I will be sure to update this post accordingly.

The Web is replete on any given day with similar examples of left-wing drivel that I could criticize, which is why I try generally to avoid venturing on to any "gateway" site that could lead to the sort of time-consuming endeavor that ate up much of my afternoon and evening today.

Are We Now the World's California?

I'm returning to Waco this week. Next Monday marks the beginning of the fall quarter at Baylor Law School, and needless to say, I won't be blogging nearly as much after then. Right now, I'm visiting my folks in Arlington, and later this week, I'll head back to my apartment.

On Sunday, I was watching 60 Minutes with my parents. Leslie Stahl was doing this segment on American corporations moving their headquarters overseas to avoid paying high U.S. taxes. While we were preparing supper, my Mom asked, rather disdainfully, "Why would anybody want to run a business in the United States?" My immediate answer was, "Good quality of life, I guess." That's when it hit me: the U.S. has become the California of the world.

It's no secret that California has one of the worst business climates in America. Its tax burden is also now on par with infamously high-taxing New York and New Jersey, and it has a lower bond rating than any other state. The Golden State has long believed that it can maintain this hostile atmosphere without discouraging people from living there because of what are known as "exploitable amentity asymmetries," which basically means that people will pay more to live in such a nice place. When you're in close proximity to some of the greatest natural splendor this country has to offer (not to mention the cultural meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles), shouldn't there be some sort of premium on the cost of living?

For decades, the overwhelming answer was "yes." Ever since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, California has been somewhat of an American "promised land," the last, best hope down-on-their-luck citizens have of finding the American dream. (You could go back even farther to the Comstock Lode and ensuing Gold Rush of the 19th Century.) Recently, though, it's become increasingly apparent that California's zenith may be behind her. I just mentioned its current financial woes, and population trends are reflecting it. For the first time since the 1920s, the Great Bear failed to gain a single congressional district following the U.S. Census, a result of slowing population growth.

Back to the analogy: I remember when Gov. Rick Perry appeared on The Daily Show last year. Eventually, the discussion came around to Texas's relatively pro-business climate and why businesses (and jobs) were migrating from the Midwest and Northeast to the Sun Belt. When Perry rattled off statistics indicating just how big the jobs boom has been in Texas over the past decade, Jon asked hmi, "Why do you think that is?" Perry mentioned our low taxes, "fair and predictable" regulatory climate, "a legal system that's fair and doesn't allow for over-suing," and "accountable" school system that produces skilled workers. This exchange followed:

STEWART: Couldn't you make the same argument, though, in terms of globalization, for companies going to India and China? If you are the pressure-valve release for companies in California, [then] who's t'say, would you criticize Texas companies --

[CROSSTALK]

PERRY: Seriously, you wanna live in India, or you wanna live in Texas?

STEWART: Are you -- For real?

[LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE]

It's an excellent point. The U.S. may not have the most favorable business climate, but we have a better quality of life than any other country. That has been our trump card against the growing number of business-friendly states on the global stage. Years ago, John Stossel did a 20/20 episode in which he visited India and Singapore and compared the ease/difficulty of opening a business in each country. In the latter, it took a few hours, much less than it would in the U.S. (and a lot less than in India). He was even able to set up a booth or something in a mall before the end of the day. Singapore also has no capital-gains tax, but on the other hand, you won't get caned for chewing gum in the United States (not by the government, anyway; I can't speak for all parents and boarding schools).

In this age of globalization, it's important for policymakers in D.C. to remain constantly aware that we are competing with countries all over the world, not just for investment, but for human capital as well. A tax code that, as Leslie Stahl put it, "all but forces companies to keep their money out of the country indefinitely" needs to be reformed. This Congress should act on pending free trade agreements that the past two Congresses have pushed aside. We'll lose out on a small amount of revenue that would have come from tariffs, but it will pale in comparison to the capital that will flow into this country when we expand the market for U.S. goods. It may be too late to save California, but the entire U.S. does not have to suffer the same fate.

Okay, Michele, You Have My Blessing, But for the Love of God, Will Somebody Please Stop Rick Perry?

Photo Courtesy San Antonio Express-News.

Back in May, I wrote about why I didn't think it was a good idea for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to run for president this time around. Then she announced her candidacy. As I made clear, I will vote for the Republican ticket in 2012 no matter who the nominees are. Now let me make something else clear: I don't like Rick Perry. I have never voted for him, and I hope I never will. To me, he is the Republican Clinton (Bill, not Hillary): a media-savvy politician who's had a pretty smooth run as chief executive, thanks in large part to his predecessor's sound governance. Like Slick Willie, Ol' Rick seems to have no problem taking credit for a good economy he had very little to do with. Yet, it's that economy - and the laissez-faire policies that facilitated it - that may make Perry an appealing candidate if he decides to throw his hat into the ring.

I have to admit that, on paper, Perry looks like an awfully appealing candidate. He has a wealth of experience. He succeeded to the governorship in 2000 having served nearly two years as lieutenant governor, eight years as Agriculture Commissioner and three terms in the Texas House of Representatives. He's also an Air Force veteran and former Eagle Scout. Originally elected to the state legislature as a Democrat, Perry joined the Republican Party in 1989 and could thus make a personal appeal to Democratic and independent voters about crossing over to the GOP, à la Ronald Reagan. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that the three-term governor “has decided to run for President, though the official word from Team Perry is still a definite maybe.”

So, why is that such a bad idea? For one, Perry's impressive résumé is undermined by his problematic, sometimes larger-than-life personality. Originally a "big-government conservative" in the mold of his predecessor, Perry co-opted the Tea Party movement to assist in his 2010 re-election bid. His main obstacle to winning a third term came not from the Democrats but from his own party: he faced Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and the self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate, Debra Medina, in the Republican primary. Painting Hutchison as a creature of Washington, D.C., and basically ignoring Medina, he managed to win the nomination with 51% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff. His hypocrisy in casting Hutchison as the big-government Republican in the race was just the latest in a long line of stunts and follies that soured me on him.

His first year in office, Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a privately-operated transportation network of tollways, rail lines and data lines that would criss-cross the state. Despite an elaborate plan and enthusiastic pitch, Perry failed to sell a majority of Texans on the project, which some decried as "Tolls Across Texas." Even more disturbing (to some) than the idea of privately owned and operated toll roads was the manifest potential for rampant eminent domain abuse. In 2006, all three of his opponents in the gubernatorial race ran against it. Yet, it took a decade before the Legislature finally killed what had become arguably the most salient boondoggle of Perry's governorship.

There's a lot more I could say about Rick Perry that could well turn some of his most ardent fans against him, but I'll hold back out of decency (and laziness). Also, divulging some of the more unseemly details about Perry's life and career would likely endanger my sources, whether or not I identified them. So, suffice it to say, I hope Perry doesn't run. If he did, then he could well mess things up and possibly even win the nomination. I seriously doubt he could beat Obama, but even if he could, I still wouldn't want him to run. Republicans have a good shot at taking back the White House next year, and we can do a lot better than Rick Perry.