Pawlenty's Last Coup

A few days ago, a new chief justice and a new associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court were sworn in at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Most of the state’s district and appeals court judges were present, as were many regional federal judges. It was a brilliant display of democratic and judicial ritual and passage, and given added drama by the unexpected appearance of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to speak briefly before swearing in the young associate justice, his former law clerk.

This was an unexpected turn of events inasmuch as Governor Tim Pawlenty had appointed a new chief justice only three years ago, and it was expected that he would at least fill out his 10-year term (and that Pawlenty would have no more appointments to the state’s highest court). Pawlenty is a conservative Republican who is completing his second term a governor of a state which used to vote liberal and Democrat (in this state, the party is named the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party or DFL). Pawlenty’s two predecessors, Governors Arne Carlson (a moderate Republican) and Jesse Ventura (a conservative independent) were given praise by all sides for their judicial appointments. Inasmuch as the there has not been a liberal governor in the state for 20 years, the tone of the judiciary is is moderate to conservative. (With the governor’s seat open this year, DFLers are more than thirsty for a return to gubernatorial power for a wide range of public policy issues, not the least of which would be the opportunity to appoint liberal judges to the state’s district benches, court of appeals and supreme court.)

Pawlenty’s previous choice for chief justice did not always seem comfortable in the job, including his presiding over the 2008 senate election recount (which remains controversial) and deciding against the governor’s consitutional right to unallotment in the recent budget-balancing confrontation with the DFL-controlled legislature.

His sudden resignation gave his former law partner (Governor Pawlenty) an opportunity to not only replace him, but by elevating the most conservative sitting associate justice to the chief justiceship, he got to appoint a new justice as well. This is similar to the opportunity that faced President George W. Bush when he nominated John Roberts to be chief justice to replace the recently-deceased William Rehnquist instead of nominating Roberts, as he originally did, to fill the seat of retiring Sandra Day O’Connor. He then appointed Samuel Alito to fill the O’Connor seat. This transformed a split court into a mostly conservative court, and even though President Obama now has had two appointments (to replace retiring liberal justices), he has not been able to change the ideological bent of the Court.

Governor Pawlenty, now leaving office this year to run for president in 2012, has been able to accomplish the same goal. His appointment of a new associate justice to replace the newly-elevated chief justice was a 35 year-old conservative wunderkind who had previously been law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. The choice of this new justice has provoked muttering and even complaint from some liberal members of the Minnesota bar, but no one could deny his qualifications and brilliance. For liberals to also argue against him because his primary legal experience has been as a professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School might seem colossally hypocritical inasmuch as President Obama has just nominated a woman for the US. supreme court whose credentials likewise are primarily as a legal teacher and scholar.

Having made a powerful imprint on the Minnesota judiciary that will last long past his departure from office, Governor Pawlenty now leaves his strongest legacy with a “two-fer” at the level of the state supreme court.

None of this will likely be lost on national political observers trying to decipher what a President Pawlenty might do in 2013 or later.

A Democratic Party Revolt Is Coming

As I noted in my most recent post, President Obama and his administration continue on a political path of self-immolation. I have stopped trying to figure out why there are doing this. It defies, after all, reason, history and good sense. The political consequences of this path are simple. It leads to defeat. A huge defeat this November in the mid-term elections, and then an even bigger defeat two years later in the presidential election.

As I previously suggested, Democratic elected officials at all levels, but particularly this year at congressional and statewide levels, will tolerate this only so long. As their poll numbers dip to unrecoverable levels, and they become premature lame ducks, anxiety will become panic. To lose an election in an off-year is not without precedent, and end-of-the-first-term presidential dips in popularity are the rule not the exception, but to throw away huge majorities in both house of Congress, and to demolish the recently revived brand of the Democratic Party in less than two years, is politically unforgiveable when it is done incompetently and for no visible reason.

As long as the bulk of the old media pretended that Mr. Obama was doing an acceptable job as president, and the Congress was fulfilling the will of the people, this administration had some cover and, combined with the majority of Americans unwilling at first to admit to themselves they had made a grievous mistake in 2008, Democrats went along and continued to rationalize that everything was o.k.

Now even the old media is increasingly skeptical and critical of Mr. Obama, his cabinet, his foreign policy and his domestic legislative agenda. Once a huge draw for Democratic candidates and a dependable fundraiser for them, Mr Obama is now seemingly only welcome in inner cities where his radical brand of liberalism retains popularity. Independent voters have begun to abandon Mr. Obama big time, and suburban middle class and rural voters are following close behind.

Mr. Obama now faces two simple choices. He can continue on his current path, e.g.., sue Arizona over immigration, bail out and take over U.S. industry, press on for unfunded healthcare reform, insult and turn away from our historical allies while pandering to our enemies in the world, etc. or he can change course to a path that would be at least understandable if not more acceptable to the voting public.

Actually, he has only the latter choice. The former choice will, at some point in the near future, lead to an open revolt in his own party. I do not know if this would happen before or after the November elections. I suspect it will happen after they occur, when there is not even an iota of ambiguity about what he has done to his own party.

A political revolt will then occur in the Democratic Party, the like of which we have not seen since the 19th century. A small version this almost happened in 1980 when Jimmy Carter faced double digit inflation and interest rates, and a hostage crisis in Iran. That intraparty effort failed, although Carter went on to an historic defeat in November that ushered in a new conservative era in U.S. politics.

Mr. Obama is also trying to expand the public sector of the economy, and to increase federal governmental intrusion into questions of privacy, clear constitutional rights of the states, and even areas where government has not ever had, nor should not have, any business. Even welfare state Europe, facing the same crises we face, has turned its back on this kind of neo-Marxism, and is cutting its bloated public sectors.

After The Summer, Comes The "Fall"

I took a month-long departure from U.S. politics to try to understand a bit about European politics. I thought I might miss something of the former in seeking the latter, but on my return, I discover almost nothing has changed in the prospects of the U.S. mid-term elections, now only four months away.

This is particularly bad news for the Democrats who have been facing an historic reversal in their electoral fortunes.

Like many others, I have been confused by President Obama’s refusal to change at least part of his political course. I have NOT been confused by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority Leader Harry Reid in their stubborn political death wishes in the form of radical and unpopular legislation. The latter, combined with President Obama’s amazingly weak performance as chief executive, has fueled the unpopularity and disapproval of the new administration. Pelosi and Reid, as Newt Gingrich has pointed out, are psychic prisoners of their political generation. They are old and inflexible. They are not going to change course. They are also not going to remain in the kind of power they have held for the past two years. In fact, Mr. Reid is unlikely to return to the senate next year following a probable defeat in his Nevada senate race. But a much younger President Obama faces re-election in 2012, as well as renomination, and one would think he has very high motivation to recover his popularity.

Some pundits have suggested that Mr. Obama and his coterie want to lose the 2010 election, that is, lose control of both houses, and then run in 2012 against the GOP “blockade” that results. That is, on the face of it, superficially rational, but, looking more closely, politically absurd.

First, the Republicans will make dramatic gains, but are still quite some distance from control of both houses. Second, Mr. Obama is no Bill Clinton (who did, after reversing field, pull off a comeback in 1996). Third, the Democratic program, perceived widely, according to Democratic strategist James Carville, as “socialist” has virtually zero chance of appealing to an anxious and generally conservative electorate.

We are now halfway into July. The state fairs of August aren’t far away, and the election cycle is now in high gear. The Republican Party, through Tea Party participation, is generally strengthening its electoral appeal. At same time, the Obama administration continues to fail so far in its economic measures, and the negative financial impact of Obamacare begins to be revealed.

I don’t want to suggest there is no hope for the Democrats and President Obama. They are still in control, and they still hold the pulpit. Four months, contrary to some platitudes, is not that long a time, even in politics, but it is long enough to allow for electoral reversal if the political actors do something to make their prospects better. Of course, events and history could intervene, but I don’t know how one can bet one’s political fortunes on something unpredictable, and win the bet, when predictable action so clearly improves the odds.

Summer will become autumn soon enough. As a writer, I prefer to use the word “autumn,” but this year the only appropriate word might be “fall.”

Spain vs. The Netherlands

Although most American sports fans are not paying attention to the climactic moments of the World Cup competition taking place in South Africa, most of the rest of the world is paying close attention the finals which will match Spain against The Netherlands.

Having just returned from Europe, I could not avoid these games, although my own preoccupation was in getting nightly baseball scores and how my favorite team was doing.

When it comes to Europe, incidentally, I love the way current news, even sports news, almost always brings up some historical irony, paradox or coincidence.

Five hundred years ago, this year’s match-up could not have occurred because Spain and The Netherlands were one country ruled by the same king. King Phillip II was a Spaniard who married the queen of England, thus also became king of England, lived in The Netherlands, and who came to think that the Spanish part of his vast empire was more important than the rest of his kingdom, so he moved back to Spain and heavily taxed his Dutch subjects, provoking a revolution that eventually separated the two countries.

The leader of the Dutch revolution was a man named Prince William of Orange, and after Phillip II had him assassinated, his son became king of the Netherlands. Later, he also married another royal Princess Mary of England, and so he also became king of England. The English later made a German, George I the king of England, and that Hanoverian German line of the British throne continues to this day (although the royal family had the good PR sense as the 20th century world wars with Germany approached to change the royal family name to “Windsor”).

Actually, World War I was fought mostly between large kingdoms whose heads of states were cousins. King Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria (who had married her first cousin, a German prince), was the cousin of German Emperor Wilhelm II, the grandson of Queen Victoria. The mother of Czar Nicholas II of Russia was an English princess, and later Danish princess, and sister of Edward VII and daughter of Victoria. The Czarina Alexandra was the first cousin of Wilhelm II. Before 1914, all of these folks used to hang out together at fabulous parties during holidays at various castles, palaces and resorts owned by them or the nobility over which they presided in opulent 19th century splendor. More recently, Queen Elizabeth II, the current chief of state of the United Kingdom, married a Greek prince who was, like her, a great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria, but also directly related by blood to the last Russian czar. Even today’s heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has married the direct descendant of the woman who was the mistress of his great-great grandfather, Edward VII.

Confused? It gets much more complicated than this. I have not even mentioned the blood relationships of the other European royal families to the Hapsburg dynasty which ruled Austria-Hungary for 300 years, and was the other large kingdom in World War I. The Hapsburgs intermarried so much that they developed their own genetic deformities. Since I know most of my readers don’t care about World Cup soccer or European royalty, I only mention this in light of the current crisis in the European Union whose leaders have been trying to advance their tentative economic cooperation into a true political union that would take away the remaining sovereignty of each member nation. If the European leaders of a century ago were closely related to each other, played and socialized with each other, and then fought some of the bloodiest wars in history against each other, what makes anyone think that the Europe of today will give up their national and cultural identities, and turn their governments over to bureaucrats? I have already suggested in previous posts that such a political union simply is not going to happen any time soon (if ever). Should any proof be needed, just try to imagine a future World Cup in which all of Europe is represented by just one team. Right now, the Flemish half of Belgium is trying to secede. The Scots are trying to break away from the United Kingdom, as are the Welsh. The Catalans have their own parliament, and would like to separate from Spain, as would the Basques. As for the former Yugoslavia, it is now broken up into numerous small independent countries, and they are still fighting. Czechoslovakia is now The Czech Republic and The Slovak Republic. There are separatist impulses in Rumania. Andorra, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Vatican City, S.M.O.M. remain as microscopic nations placed as punctuation marks scattered throughout the continent.

The dreamers who thought up the notion of Europe as a single nation were bureaucrats who put mechanical efficiency and centralized power ahead of anything that Europeans might wish for themselves. The nations of Europe will always have an economic interdependence on each other, but language, culture and customs of a thousand years cannot, and should not, be dismissed by bureaucratic fiat.

Just look at the World Cup finals for why this is so. Aupa Espana! Hup Holland! May the better team win, and may they all come back for the next World Cup.

Back Home

As my readers have probably noted, I have been away for a month, traveling to Great Britain and The Netherlands to observe how those two countries are reacting to their recent national elections. I also spent much time going each way by ship so that I could discuss international politics with a lot more persons that I could on land.

Both plans worked out well. Although the short time I was able to spend abroad could not give me the same in-depth understanding I could have by spending more time there, I think I now have a reasonable and first-hand appreciation of political feelings in at least those two nations. Some of my conclusions and stereotypes made before the trip were changed. Because this was my fifth trip to that continent, one of which included study at the University and Madrid and extended visits to Great Britain, Italy and France, I did not have to be much of a tourist, and could spend most of my time at work.

Just as perhaps we American have much misinformation about Europe today, it became very clear to me that Europeans have some distorted views of the United States. If I thought that the U.S. media had a strongly liberal bias, I learned that the media bias in Europe, particularly in Great Britain and The Netherlands, is even more extreme. President Obama, for example, is almost universally admired, and I found Europeans were shocked to learn that his popularity is well under 50% in the U.S. today, and that he and his party are headed for major losses in the mid-term elections this coming November. Europeans are also “shocked” to learn that most Americans oppose the recently-passed Obamacare legislation. They have had “free” healthcare all of their lives, and take it for granted that government should provide it. They are also taxed at much higher rates. A lot of Americans passionately opposed President George W. Bush after September 11 led to our activity in Iraq. I thought it often became an obsession among many liberals. But in England and Holland today, the anger at George W Bush is even more widespread and obsessive. I suspect this is also true throughout Western Europe (but not necessarily so in Central and Easter Europe).

Europeans, most of whom had not yet been born when World War II ended, also have a certain amnesia about the nature of totalitarian states and their insatiable aggressive appetites. Only in Germany does any collective memory (and guilt) exist about the world wars of the 20th century.

I thought it was revealing that when, on the Queen Mary 2, I found outspoken conservatives (Tories) speaking of their admiration for President Obama until mid-voyage when Mr. Obama denounced British Petroleum for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Overnight, several of these Tories told me that they had changed their mind about him. (British Petroleum is the largest publicly-held British corporation, and most Britons, through their pension funds and stock holdings, have taken a big loss as the company’s shares have declined.) As they say, most or all politics is local…..

Europe is now undergoing, country by country, a decidedly conservative trend as conservative leaders and more conservative parliaments are winning elections. This is clearly what happened in Great Britain and The Netherlands. But to say the word “conservative” about Europe does not mean the same thing as it does in the U.S. Nevertheless, the Europeans now seem ahead of the U.S. as they take stronger and stronger measures to deal with their enormous public deficits. Swollen public employee bureaucracies are being reduced sharply, and taxes are rising. Austerity is the notion of the day. Of course, conservative economists know that the reduction of public spending is a good thing, but raising taxes at the same time is counterproductive (as was the reverse, practiced by President Bush). Lower taxes is apparently not in the European public sector DNA.

President Obama, on the other hand, is not cutting the bureaucracy and is raising public debt as well as raising taxes (as the Obamacare legislation will clearly do). So Americans have no reason to feel smug. At least the Europeans seem to realize they have to do something about their economic problems. To their credit, it is not only European officials who have become economic realists, I found most British and Dutch “persons in the street” aware of the problem, and resigned to change. Again, our Western European friends overall seem a bit ahead of us in this regard.

I suspect, however, that the European left will not allow sensible measures and public austerity to occur without demonstrations, strikes and other public expressions of their outrage and disapproval. It could be a volatile summer this year across the Pond.

But now it’s time to turn back to our own “volatile” election environment, and the mid-term elections ahead. It’s always good to be back home.

After Two European Elections

I came to Great Britain and The Netherlands so that I would be there just after their national elections, and to observe both how the results would be managed by their politicians, and more importantly, how those results would be received by their voters.

Unlike the United States, where a two-party system with a three-branch executive-legislative-judiciary system usually brings a clear winner (the exception, of course, was the 2000 presidential election which was not resolved for several weeks), the European parliamentary system has many political parties, and elections often end with the creation of coalitions to run the country. Great Britain usually does not have such a situation, but it did happen this time, with the result that the new prime minister, Conservative (Tory) David Cameron, had two choices. His first choice was to govern with less than a majority, but no interparty compromises with his conservative program. This almost certainly would lead in time to a no-confidence vote that would bring down his government and lead to immediate new elections. He chose his second alternative, a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a left of center party. Technically, this coalition by written agreement stipulates that the two groups will not prematurely bring down this government for four years. Many Tory voters, I found, are skeptical this coalition government can last, as do many other voters, but Cameron’s move may be more shrewd than many think, giving Liberal Democratic leaders cabinet posts and making their leader Nick Clegg the deputy prime minister. I suspect that Clegg and his colleagues will enjoy their share (albeit small) of power, and be disinclined to end what is probably their only chance to have a real say in the Great Britain’s public policies.

Already, Mr. Cameron has presented a budget with severe public spending cuts and many increased taxes. (As one might expect, the Tories have lowered corporate taxes help British small business.)

Although the Tories did not win an outright majority, the previous ruling party, Labour, which had run the country for 13 years, did lose clearly. Most voters did not like the Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, nor Labour economic policies. Many Britons, including traditional Labour voters, now want their government to bring self-discipline to the nation, and are resigned to the short-term hardships that will be necessary to enable the country to get past the current economic crisis. Only some seem content with the “coalition” approach, however, and think it will unravel long before the agreement’s time. Mr. Cameron and his colleagues will almost certainly will need to continue and expand their austerity measures. At some point, Mr. Clegg’s party will have some of their fundamental political views challenged and questioned.

In The Netherlands, which has a 150-seat parliament, the previous ruling party (CDA) a left liberal party, led by Jan Peter Balkenende was reduced to 21 seats by the election. This was fourth place behind the more conservative liberal party (VVD) headed by Mark Rutte who by virtue of winning one more seat (31) than the labor party (PVDA) led by former Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen, will be the likely next prime minister. In third place, is the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, the super-controversial anti-immigration figure. The PVV went from 9 seats to 24. Two smaller left wing parties, the D-66 (10 seats) and the green party Groenlinks (10 seats) now could be included in a new coalition after the CDA refused to join a coalition. Thus, what is called a “purple-plus” coalition of the two moderately liberal parties and the two largest left-wing parties could run the country. This will seem hopelessly complicated to Americans, and not that clear to most Dutch voters, but that is the result. (The move to exclude Wilders and his PVV from the coalition is popular with most liberal Dutch voters of all parties, but it might be a political mistake in the long-term in that it will enable Wilders to continue to run and speak as an outsider, further expanding his volatile base.)

(Another nearby country, Belgium, also held its national elections recently, and a Flemish separatist party did much better than expected, raising the possibility that tiny Belgium will be divided even more. I did not go to Brussels, so I only mention this in passing, and because it further signals the disintegration of political allegiances on the continent.)

The European Union is facing its worst crisis. Its relatively new currency, the euro, faces very serious problems. Great Britain, a major member of the EU, but which did not accept the euro, is now even less likely to do so. Predictions of the collapse of the EU, however, may be premature. After all, its members are economically interdependent on each other in any circumstance. But the ambition to kick the EU up to a higher level of political unity (and more loss of national sovereignty) has been dealt a serious blow. Many have argued that Europe’s different languages, religions, and customs, as well as its centuries-old rivalries and wars, make any true political union impossible. Separatist movements in Scotland (UK) , Flanders (Belgium), Catalonia (Spain), The Basque (Spain), and elsewhere, indicate that unity is still not on the European mind.

Europeans, at least those in Great Britain and The Netherlands (and Belgium), are unsettled. The fabled welfare states of Europe, with their large government bureaucracies, no longer seem to be working and are being cut back. But I think one has to be careful about drawing too many conclusions from recent elections, other than there seems to be some acceptance on all sides that a new austerity lies ahead.

Europe has clearly turned to more conservative and younger leaders. Mr. Cameron, Mr. Clegg and Mr. Rutte even look alike. But even as Europe turns rightward (it’s still to the left of most U.S. politics), the U.S. seems at a crossroads between its right and left as the American midterm elections approach. I think it’s time to come home and look again at those prospects.

Whither Europe?

The questions about the future of the European Union (EU) remain to be answered, and won’t be resolved clearly for some time. But it does seem clear that the ambitions for the the EU to advance beyond its current economic relationships are not any more likely than they were at its genesis.

The fundamental problem with the way the European Union was created is that it was formed by a bureaucratic elite in each country that did not bother to create a political base for the whole concept in each nation’s grass roots. These elites felt they knew better than did the voters of each country what was good for them and for Europe. In the post-World War II era, there was a genuine continental desire to avoid Europe’s chronic conflicts and problems of past centuries, and the extraordinary violence and disruptions of the 20th century that arose from fascism, communism and extreme nationalisms, and it was possible to enact change without true voter suffrage.

Whereas “sovereignty” was a necessary ingredient of European history for a thousand years, it was determined to undo this concept in a very brief time, notwithstanding long-established differences of language, culture, custom and identity. This, of course, was no problem for highly-paid, highly-educated, multi-lingual and self-styled “sophisticated” bureaucrats. Inasmuch as most of Europe had only a recent acquaintance with true representative democracy, it was not considered vital to obtain popular support before proceeding with dismantling centuries of barriers and national feelings.

With its many member nations large and small, Europe is still dominated by three countries, Great Britain, Germany and France. Spain has a comparable population, but has come late to its new prosperity and influence, and the many smaller European states struggle to be heard. Great Britain which, of course, has tremendous trade relationships with its neighbors, joined the EU, but did not go along with the new common currency, the Euro. The latter did enjoy considerable initial success, but always remained only as strong as the economic well-being of its member states. When the recent worldwide economic crisis began unfolding, the weaker states, such as Greece and some of the newer members, required “bail-outs” paid for by the larger states (and thus their taxpayers), and the glaring weaknesses of the EU became visible.

It is not unlike the famous and recent incident of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota in which a major bridge across the Mississippi was fundamentally flawed in its original design, but nevertheless carried millions of cars and passengers for decades until its design thresholds were breached and the bridge collapsed.

The design of the economic European Union is, I think, lacks some fundamental elements, including most notably, genuine popular support. As even its critics point out, there is no point in going backwards, that is, the economic interdependence of all the European nations cannot be undone, but it may be time to build a “new bridge” of solid design (as was recently done in Minneapolis).

Using the crisis to attempt to hasten political unity in Europe and the total loss of sovereignty is, of course, exactly the wrong strategy to solve Europe’s economic woes. Euroskepticism, long considered unfashionable even in the United Kingdom, has reawakened among the continent’s working and middle class voters.

As for Americans observing this spectacle from across the very large “Pond,” there are omens and portents for this New World nation and economy. Already, discussions and plans to cede U.S. sovereignty to international courts and other global institutions are afoot, including among official of the current administration. There is very little popular support for these notions in the U.S., and politicians flirting with these ideas have only to look a Europe to see the risks and dangers they would lead to inevitably. If nothing else demonstrates the futility of this “world government by committee,” it is the United Nations organization itself, an institution created in idealism and to avoid the mistakes of the past, but which has become a sad, ineffectual forum for propaganda and the ultimate distortion of the very principles it set out to establish.