Why John McCain Is Like Shaquille O'Neal

Because maybe it made sense 8 years ago, but now?

More Ancient Arizona Political History (from 1993!)

I think my editor liked my war stories from 15 years ago, because I got the top spot on the page, above Linda Turley-Hansen (“Don’t Lose Sight of Gun Rights!”). Or maybe it was just because they had a guest column from Don Bivens, and as he’s chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, he got the “rail” position along the left edge because the only thing lower in the Tribune op-ed universe to a former state Democratic Party chair is the current state Democratic Party chair.

The last paragraph, on re-reading, seems a bit harsh. I do appreciate what Bill Clinton accomplished as president, and it’s not like I would have figured out a way to fight the ’94 wave. But I’m convinced that 2008 isn’t the 1990’s, because most people understand the failure of the conservative movement. We don’t have to triangulate anymore, it’s more of a bipolar political world, and triangulating only makes the “Overton Window” shift to the right and away from the light. That’s a very cryptic explanation of a longer philosophical point, one which probably managed to kill the joke, sorry.

Campaign 2008
IF YOU WANT A FRIEND IN WASHINGTON, GET A DOG
East Valley Tribune, Feb. 3, 2008

I’ve heard from both a true-blue Democrat and a ruby-red Republican that some supporters of Gov. Janet Napolitano are furious with her endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama. They’re supposedly outraged because they feel Napolitano owes her political career to Bill Clinton, who appointed her U.S. Attorney for Arizona in 1993.

Arizona political culture is rather gossipy, and there's a good chance that the two people, despite their different party registrations, were passing on something they had heard from the same irate person. But as somebody who was in politics in 1993, I want to remind folks of what actually happened.

NOT A ‘FRIEND OF BILL’

As people now know, each new administration gets to appoint a new set of U.S. Attorneys, and by tradition (tradition being more important to the Senate than oxygen), the senior senator from the same political party as the incoming administration "recommends" candidates for this appointment. “Recommend" actually means "pick," because a single senator can block confirmation with one of those "holds" that substitutes for filibusters nowadays. Thus, when George W. Bush took office in 2001, the choice for U.S. Attorney, Paul Charlton, was originally proposed by Arizona's senior GOP senator, John McCain. (The decision to fire Charlton, originally for "performance-related issues,” later downgraded to "random chance," came without senatorial recommendation.)

The tradition held in 1993 when the Clinton administration took office. Clinton got to appoint new U.S. Attorneys, and in Arizona, the state's senior Democratic senator, Dennis DeConcini, offered his all-but-binding recommendation, Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano didn't know either Clinton well before DeConcini offered her name; she supported the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992, but she wasn't a "Friend of Bill." Instead -- besides being an intelligent, well-qualified attorney, and all that boring substantive stuff -- she was recommended by her law partner and mentor, the late John P. Frank, who was informal advisor to DeConcini (and just about every other Arizona Democrat) on legal issues. With "JPF" in her corner, Napolitano became the leader for the appointment.

But Napolitano had an additional qualification. DeConcini expected a primary challenge in 1994, and wanted to shore up his support among Democratic voters. DeConcini, a pro-life Democrat, had voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which angered many Democratic base voters. Napolitano and Frank had served as counsel to Anita Hill at the Thomas hearings. Incredibly, 36 hours before Hill’s testimony, Hill had no counsel until Napolitano and Frank volunteered and took a red-eye to DC.

Napolitano thus offered an additional political advantage to DeConcini, as recommending Hill’s attorney for a high-profile appointment might help mollify Democrats still upset with his Thomas confirmation vote. It also made Napolitano’s Senate confirmation tougher, as Republicans believe the only people entitled to due process and legal representation are either Republicans or developers facing bank fraud charges, or, like Fife Symington, both.

Republicans -- who insist that Democrats accept whomever a GOP administration designates, regardless of past partisan activities -- hold Democratic nominees to a “higher” standard, and initially blocked Napolitano’s appointment. The Republicans cited a misleading magazine article by David Brock, who since recanted his work for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, including his slur on Napolitano. Ultimately, fewer than 40 Republicans voted to block a vote on the appointment, thanks to bipartisan and personal support from DeConcini and Sen. Pete Dominici, R-N.M., for whom Napolitano once worked. The full Senate voted, and she was confirmed.

STILL IN THE GAME?

So while President Clinton formally nominated Napolitano, DeConcini actually sponsored her, and with Domenici, got the nomination through the Senate. Any credit and loyalty really isn’t owed to Bill or Hillary Clinton.

Other lessons? First, people worried about the “tone” of the current Democratic presidential race need to recall what did happen in 1994. If you’ve been in a primary with Dick Mahoney, what Obama and Hillary are doing seems like a warm bath. Second, I’m now out of politics and proud of my little law firm -- and I suppose I do owe gratitude toward Bill Clinton for my private-sector success. If it hadn’t been for the first 2 years of the Clinton administration, I might still be in politics.

In Budget Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

Arizona state budget stuff. My suggested headline was above, but apparently the editor isn’t an Alien fan. And it’s his split infinitive, not mine.

BUDGET RATIONING THEORIES ARE GREAT, UNTIL YOU TRY TO ACTUALLY USE THEM
East Valley Tribune, Jan. 27, 2008

The idea that government spending should increase only based on inflation and population growth means that you believe government shouldn’t do anything that it didn’t do 5, 10, or 15 years ago. That’s not just quantity; it’s quality, too.

The 1990 census put Arizona’s population at 3.67 million; the 2000 census showed 5.13 million residents; and the Census Bureau estimates the current population at 6.34 million. That’s a lot of growth -- about 73 percent. Sounds like a lot of room, until you actually think about it.

Twenty years ago, before the 1986 tax referendum resulted in any actual pavement, metro Phoenix still had only 31 miles of urban freeways. So today we could only have the population-growth number more, which would be about 54 miles -- about a quarter of what’s been built and is still under construction with the county-wide sales tax.

But with freeways, it wouldn’t quite work that way; costs for land acquisition and construction, much less maintenance, increased greater than the rate of overall inflation. (We’ll be giving back much of that real estate appreciation over the next few years, but it’s too late to save any money on right-of-way purchased during the boom.) So while some Tribune op-ed columnists think we should be able to tool around town just fine on 73 percent more freeway miles, we’d actually have less miles -- and more congestion.

Don’t like traffic jams today? Imagine what they’d be like if these number-crunchers had gotten their way.

Same thing with health care. Maybe some people want to live in a state where you’re entitled to the exact medical care we had when we started letting numbers rule our lives. Any sort of improvement in care, or new treatment for disease? Forget it, because we’d have limited ourselves solely to making up inflation and population growth.

The population-and-inflation number would be a double whammy, however, because it ignores changes within the overall population. As the nation (and Arizona) ages, that increases demand for health care. But the formula doesn’t care about that; not only do you get only the treatments that existed years ago, but you only get the same amount of care that you needed five, ten, or fifteen years ago. Unless some resources get freed up because a lot of people older than you have died, but unfortunately for us Boomers, the generation ahead of ours seems to be living longer. That might be considered a good thing -- unless you’re one of these “limit spending!” types.

Has the incidence of autism among children increased tremendously, far more than population growth generally? Are there new treatments available that offer hope? Might we want to fund research to determine the causes and perhaps a cure? Sorry, but the population-and-inflation formula means we ration research, education, and treatment. If the number of autistic kids increases more than overall population growth -- which is has, big time -- those “extra” kids are out of luck.

If you’re going to limit government to population-and-inflation, that also means you can’t create new crimes, or lengthen sentences for existing ones, without decriminalizing others or releasing other prisoners earlier. Actually, that might make some sense; few government programs cost as much for as little proven benefit as the death penalty.

But unfortunately, the population-and-inflation types never start there, it’s too much fun to try to take away education and health care from those less fortunate than they.

What’s most puzzling about the current budget wrangling is that basically all of the “cut wasteful spending” types had a hand in the current budget (or an alternative that spent 99.9 percent as much). If that number included tons of things we easily could live without, then why didn’t these guys take care of it last year?

Instead, we’re getting the usual “across the board” cuts or appeals to some bogus population-and-inflation formula that would make somebody else responsible for the results of their ideology. It’s all theoretical and abstract, the political equivalent of planning the crime, then wearing gloves -- so your fingerprints never appear on the victims.

What If We Had Privatized Social Security?

My proposed headline, Privatizing Medicare: Another “Great” Idea From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You The Iraq War, was way too long but I’ve always been a Jerry Della Femina fan.

PRIVATIZE MEDICARE? CONSIDER THE SOURCE
East Valley Tribune, Jan. 20, 2008

After reading Dr. Tom Patterson’s column from last Monday casting scorn on the American public for liking Medicare, I take it he doesn’t much like the program. That’s OK, not everybody has to like everything, so all pizzas don’t come with anchovies. But if Medicare’s future financing is such a mess, why did Republicans waste time trying to privatize Social Security instead?

Just imagine if Bush had gotten his way with Social Security as he did with Iraq. We’d have invested our private accounts in AAA-rated obligations that -- surprise! -- were actually stinking piles of bad mortgages. Not only would your house’s value be dropping by double-digit percentages, but so would your retirement plan. Bush and the Republicans are pitch-perfect market timers; they wanted us to buy at the exact top, just before the crash.

How frequently do these guys get to be so spectacularly wrong before we stop swallowing their claims? Think about it before you sign on with the latest right-wing plan to “improve” your life.

All of Dr. P’s problems with Medicare -- rapidly-increasing costs, daunting demographic trends, too few primary care physicians, no time to talk with patients, and “futile, end-of-life procedures” -- aren’t problems of Medicare, they’re problems of the U.S. health care system.

Doctors not taking new Medicare patients? It’s not a Medicare problem. Has Dr. P tried the private insurance market, where “your” doctor may or may not remain on your health insurer’s list of approved providers, or where, after lining up physicians for all your family members, your employer suddenly switches plans and you have to start all over?

No reimbursement for “cognitive” care, talking with patients and working through problems? Does Dr. P really think it’s better in the private sector?

Too many specialists, and too few primary care physicians? It’s not just Medicare, the entire system is providing those wrong-headed incentives. If we actually thought the imbalance between primary and specialist care was a serious problem, then we’d pay for more medical schools. Second, can’t pro-market guys fix the problem pretty easily by paying primary care doctors more and specialists less? (I’m curious if that sentence will make it past the editors; the concept of “paying a specialist less” is, to many, an obscenity unsuitable for a family publication.)

Rapidly-increasing costs? Well, you’ve got to sort through the two types of cost increases in health care. Costs go up because some things cost more today than yesterday, like paying nurses more because that’s the only way to hire enough (that’s health care inflation) and because we use more health care now than last year, both because we’re older and because of treatments and technology that weren’t available previously (that’s utilization).

As you get older, you tend to need more care; reducing your age isn’t usually a viable option. But it does raise the question about those “futile, end-of-life procedures” encouraged by Medicare’s financial drivers that so upset Dr. P. Few patients get admitted to the hospital with a chart that says “6 months to live, max.” When it’s your life on the line, you tend to err on the side of more treatment. But if Dr. P is so worried about our country’s financial health and Medicare’s pernicious incentives, I’m happy to tell everybody if he’s hospitalized, don’t hesitate, pull the plug!

What Dr. P doesn’t mention is the unfunded cost projections also affect the private health care system. What’s looming isn’t just Medicare, but all health spending. Merely shifting people from one side to the other through (highly regressive) tax-advantaged accounts won’t make the problem disappear; it’ll just get it off the government’s books -- and help relieve ‘wingers from any sense of obligation to their fellow citizens who fall ill.

Privatizing Medicare with “Health IRAs” makes as much sense as did invading Iraq or attempting to privatize Social Security. It’s the same people and the same result -- and with their track record, it’s a good bet that if they get their way, the next day you’ll get really, really sick.

Guess Who Won The Oh-So-Crucial "Coppersmith Primary"?

The Napolitano endorsement of Barack Obama took a lot of people by surprise, both in Arizona and nationally. I normally don't get to break political news when I have to file 3 days in advance of publication. And for those of you who like inside baseball, the Obama people were calling me and the other Richardson supporters in Arizona the day after the NH primary. Very interesting -- a very nimble campaign. Let's hope they can keep it up. I love the Richard Land quote, even if I hope I can live long enough to throw my dentures at him at the old folks' home, because on everything else he's WRONG WRONG WRONG.

NO MORE OLDIES -- IN MUSIC OR POLITICS
East Valley Tribune, Jan. 13, 2008

As we political types differ from apes in zoos because we'll swallow anybody's offal, not just our own, I was truly surprised by the New Hampshire results. But it's a happy surprise, because suddenly, Arizona's Feb. 5 primary matters.

The GOP race already was pretty interesting, because Sen. John McCain -- despite relentless cheerleading by the other daily newspaper, which eight years later is still trying to make up for mentioning McCain's volcanic temper (scroll down to the fourth letter -- yes, Pat Murphy is still out there!) -- is anything but a favorite son. Arizona's presidential preference election is a "closed" primary, in which only those voters registered to a party can participate.

That means that while more than 28 percent of Arizona's registered voters are independents, they can't participate. (The 0.69 percent registered as Libertarians also can't participate, but they should have philosophical objections anyway.) New Hampshire exit polls showed McCain winning because of independents and losing among self-described conservatives to the recently-converted Mitt Romney, and self-described conservatives are the only people voting in Arizona GOP primaries.

Unfortunately for McCain, the only issue that seems to matter to GOP primary voters is his weakest, immigration. Mix in that independents can't vote, under-the-radar evangelical networking could deliver voters for Mike Huckabee, and some LDS identity politics could help Romney, so we just might get a competitive GOP primary in McCain's home state.

It's too late to open up the Feb. 5 vote to independents. Anyway, allowing independents to vote is opposed by state GOP chair Randy Pullen, who won't shed a tear if McCain loses.

As for the Democrats, after New Hampshire, I figured that Hillary Clinton wins Arizona, easily. Partially it's Bill Clinton's continuing popularity (Hey, Arizona -- how did that George W. Bush thing work out?), but it's also the apparently mass reaction, especially among older women, to the media's collective assault on Hillary, the whole "tears, wrinkles, brittleness, and her alleged cackle" business. It would be ironic if Bob Dole's 1996 unofficial campaign slogan "Annoy the Media!" sealed the deal for Hillary Clinton in 2008.

But two days ago, the only person who might make a difference in an Arizona Democratic primary, Gov. Janet Napolitano, endorsed Barack Obama. She was scheduled for a press conference, then a trip to Nevada for some campaigning. I still think Hillary is ahead here, but things just got much more interesting. And if you follow politics, there are fewer things more fun than having your state be "in play" for a maximum of four weeks, which is where we Arizonans find ourselves today. It's like being Ohio, but with better weather.

While my personal endorsement record, also known as the "kiss of death," remains unbroken (as an endorser for former Florida Sen. Bob Graham in 2004 and New Mexico Gov. Richardson this year, my personal mantra remains "Vote for the resume, not the awkward campaigner!"), I've also signed on with Obama, for my own idiosyncratic reasons. It's not so much policy disagreements, or hope vs. experience, as it is my deep desire that this election be about new arguments, not the old ones.

Michelle Cottle of The New Republic interviewed Dr. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, who believes that just as we self-obsessed Baby Boomers have ruined popular music, we're keeping American politics as an oldies station. If Hillary wins, we'll have the last Boomer campaign, one last fight over our split over Vietnam. Land says the war may be over, but Boomers will never let the argument die: "We're going to be throwing our dentures at each other when we're in the old folks' home. The problem is our generation split over this, and we both still think we're right."

And as Boomers, it's all about the argument; what you actually did doesn't matter. That's why John Kerry has a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts, while Jon Kyl got two draft deferments, and guess whose patriotism gets questioned?

So I'm changing my radio station presets, no more oldies. And I'm endorsing Obama; no more Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Let's listen to something new instead.

Coppersmith Humor

I assume that it's much funnier in the original Uighur.