rightsideup.org blog

Move to WordPress platform

2008-02-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Blogger's support of my FTP site has been so woeful over the last several weeks that I've decided to abandon ship and migrate to the WordPress platform. All new posts will appear there rather than here. The new address is blog.rightsideup.org.

Romney out - what next for him?

2008-02-07T13:45:00.000-05:00

Very disappointed but ultimately not completely surprised given the odds that Romney conceded the race today. I wonder if Huckabee will now drop out at some point, since he's achieved his objective of preventing Romney from winning and needs to make some kind of concession to McCain to get the VP job he's really after at this point.

All this leaves me wondering where Mitt will go from here. His CPAC speech was - like the last one - one of his best (one of my biggest frustrations about his candidacy has been the way he is sometimes right on the money, energised and fired up, and other times just seems to be going through the motions). When this guy is in the right mood he's amazing, so as a starting point he's going to have to figure out how to achieve that mood more regularly.

Jim Geraghty of the National Review has a piece which I think sums up nicely where Romney could go from here. It waffles on for several seemingly irrelevant paragraphs but finally gets to this:

McCain is likely to get the nomination, and he will face a tough race against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. There may be a Republican president running for reelection in 2012, or there may not be. Even if McCain wins, there may be room for a conservative to challenge a sitting Republican president (a true rerun of Ford vs. Reagan). President McCain may decide one term is enough, and a conservative may find himself contemplating a challenge to McCain's vice president.
Mitt Romney's going to learn a lot from this race, no matter how it shakes out. If he doesn't win the nomination, he has four years to spend tending to the vineyards of conservatism, to make his dedication to pro-life, pro-gun, and other conservative causes beyond question. He will be able to wonder if he should have spent less here and there, focused a bit more on South Carolina, made a play for more winner-take-all states on Super Tuesday. (His success in caucuses suggests he's the favorite of those willing to commit several hours to a presidential primary choice.) He may figure out how to jab his opponent without seeming negative, how to show appropriate, steely anger, and how to effortlessly rebut an opponent's attack.
A little less than four years from now, Mitt Romney may enter another Republican primary looking different, and perhaps more complete as a candidate.

I think he hits the nail on the head there in the last two paragraphs. But who knows what Mitt will want to do between now and then, and whether he will be willing to give it another go in four years' time. One thing I find extremely unlikely is that Romney would ever want to serve as VP or even a cabinet member under another president - this guy has been top dog in everything he's done since 1984 - that's 24 years of running the show and if I were him I'd find it very difficult to go back to being just a member of a team where someone else calls the shots.

Romney Super Tuesday post-mortem

2008-02-07T09:06:00.000-05:00

Now that I've had a day or so to get my head around it, I wanted to do a bit of analysis on what happened to Romney on Super Tuesday.

First, a look at where he won:

His home states (Utah, Massachusetts)
Two other Western states with high Mormon populations (Montana and Colorado), although the latter is also the home of Focus on the Family and a cluster of evangelicals
Some others that were less obvious: North Dakota, Minnesota and Alaska. And he won the first ballot in West Virginia, although subsequent tactical voting by McCain supporters gave Huckabee the win in the end.

The media has essentially written off his wins in the first category (even though with three home states Romney arguably has an edge over McCain and Huckabee, who only have one each). They've also to some extent written off the second group for much the same reason (although they don't seem to expect Southern Baptists or evangelicals in general to vote in blocs for Huckabee, or exhibit the same dismissiveness when he wins Southern states where they form a substantial part of the electorate).

I haven't heard good explanations for his strong performance in the other states - Ron Paul had a stronger local operation in Alaska and was expected to win, and neither North Dakota or Minnesota are obvious ones for the Mitt column. West Virginia would have been particularly impressive and if McCain's supporters had split by their own preference rather than tactical voting he might well have taken it. One explanation would simply be that where neither Huckabee (in the South) or McCain (in more liberal coastal areas) has a natural edge, Mitt actually does very well, even with little advertising, presumably as a result of honest assessments of qualifications for the job.

Overall he did well outside the South, put in a reasonable showing in a couple of other Mid-Western and Southern states, and unfortunately did equally well/badly in almost all the California congressional districts, giving him very few delegates to show for his 34% of the vote.

But of course he has a huge mountain to climb now, with the following states remaining:

February 9th - Louisiana (Southern, so likely to go Huckabee), Washington (caucuses - coastal, but Western - McCain and Romney likely to both be strong) and Kansas (mid-Western, so likely to see strength from all three candidates like Missouri)
February 12th - DC, Maryland and Virginia (clumped together in a single media market - if Romney wanted to spend the money he could probably do well. His WV showing suggests he may be able to put in a strong showing. But MD and DC in particular may lean liberal and therefore McCain)
February 19th - Washington (primaries - see Feb 9th), Wisconsin (tough to call - might be influenced by neighbouring Michigan and the George Romney factor)
March 4th - Ohio (MO/KS), Vermont (McCain?), Texas (Southern but also very varied - McCain should be strong, but Romney may be able to compete) and Rhode Island (close to MA, so Romney gets a bump? But McCain likely strong too)
March 11th - Mississippi (Huckabee has to be the favourite)
March 22nd - Pennsylvania (Depends a lot on ad spending - if it follows the NYC cluster it will go strongly McCain)
May 6th - Indiana (KS/MO), North Carolina (could go like South Carolina, but lots of business in the Raleigh metro - perhaps they lean Romney?)
May 13th - Nebraska (KS/MO)
May 18th - Hawai'i (who knows? liberal but also a large Mormon population)
May 20th - Kentucky (Huckabee), Oregon (see WA, but perhaps more liberal so McCain?)
May 27th - Idaho (Romney)
June 3rd - New Mexico (close run between McCain and Romney), South Dakota (Romney again as in ND?)

It would take a major shift in the race to allow Romney to win what he needs from these remaining states to be close to McCain in total delegates - likely only his opponents running out of money and/or Huckabee and/or Paul dropping out would do it. He can continue spending on ads and that will make a difference, but not enough to put him into real contention. On the other hand, unless someone drops out, it will also be hard for McCain to go into convention with a majority of delegates. Of course, Huckabee's are likely to swing behind McCain at that point in return for the VP slot, but potentially things could still go another way. But Romney ending up as the nominee has to be a minority probability at best.

The Statesman or the Politician?

2008-02-05T16:31:00.000-05:00

The question keeps coming back to me: what do we want for a president: a statesman, or a politician? In the debate last week McCain came across as every bit the politician, with not an ounce of statesmanship in him, persisting with his nasty slurs about Romney's positions on Iraq withdrawal and sneering unpleasantly most of the time while Romney was speaking. And then there's the "I Hate Mitt Romney" Club I posted about previously, and more sleaziness like this trick McCain pulled on Sunday and Monday. Apparently keener to "get into Romney's head" than to lead, he again reinforced the perception (at least in my mind) that he's more politician than statesman.

Contrast this with Romney, who remained above the fray and pretty much unflappable during that debate and has been polite and dignified throughout the process. I know which qualities I prefer in a president, and I imagine others do too.

The "I Hate Romney" Club

2008-02-04T10:58:00.000-05:00

Time Magazine has an article which even I found shocking, describing the personal animosity other campaigns harbour against Romney. The headline is The I Hate Romney Club and the article shows just how vicious the other campaigns are. Although McCain is now the only candidate of the four mentioned who still has a chance of winning, it's clear that they all hate Romney. The reasons given just don't cut it for me as explaining the strength of feeling exhibited by these candidates and you just have to wonder what's really behind it all. I can't figure it out, but it just doesn't make me feel good about McCain as a human being, especially after the display he put on in the last debate.

WSJ puts another nail in the coffin

2008-02-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal today puts another nail in the Romney campaign's coffin. If he can't even rely on a conservative newspaper like the WSJ then he may indeed be in real trouble. The article makes several points to back up its dislike of Romney's candidacy, some of which are inaccurate or at least unfair:

Insurance in Massachusetts is among the most expensive in the nation because of multiple mandates, such as premium price controls and rules dictating that coverage be offered to all comers regardless of health. Mr. Romney's cardinal flaw was that he did not attempt to deregulate and allow the insurance market to function as it should.

That last line is the kicker. He did try, but faced with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature which had created the mandates in the first place he wasn't successful. This is inaccurate to say the least.

The mandate in combination with other regulations effectively socialized the Massachusetts insurance market.

Does the Wall Street Journal have some other definition of the word "socialized" than the rest of the world? There is no government provision or insurance for healthcare here - just private insurance provided by private companies to private individuals which can be used for private care in private hospitals. Absolutely, the plan wasn't perfect, and absolutely the Democrats hijacked it and created something of a Frankenstein's monster out of it - but this point too is overplayed in the op-ed:

None of this would bode well for a President Romney facing a Democratic Congress that would be even more relentless than the one in Boston.

Relentless? What does that mean? Certainly the national congress, even if Republicans lose further seats in November, would not be anywhere near as Democratic as the Massachusetts legislature. And with far more Republicans there, as well as broad support for Democrats for the principle, it's quite possible Romney might be able to get something much more like his original vision passed in Washington.

The op-ed ends up reading like a hatchet job by a group of people who have already made up their minds, not a thoughtful examination of Mitt's candidacy. What we really need - both from Mitt and from observers like the WSJ - is an examination of what we need in our next president, and how he measures up. I'll provide my version shortly

Nice summary of Obama's substanceless appeal

2008-01-31T22:31:00.000-05:00

James Taranto in his Best of the Web column today puts into words very well something I've been thinking for some time but haven't been able to express nearly so well:

Such empty oppositionalism has been the dominant theme of Democratic politics at least since the emergence of Howard Dean in 2003. But there is a weird genius about the way Obama, with his soothing style and inspiring persona, is able to present it as if it were something of real substance.

This is the real issue with Obama - there's no substance there and yet he's able somehow to convince his supporters that there is. Will the media ever call him on this? Or will the scales fall from the electorate's eyes at some point anyway? I find it hard to believe that he can really keep this up for another nine months, but with the media's help it's perhaps just possible.

Strategy memo from Romney campaign

2008-01-31T17:40:00.001-05:00

A strategy memo from the Romney campaign citing figures from Florida exit polls has made its way into the blogosphere and shares a lot of my own thoughts about how Romney wins - some key points:

McCain has won around a third of the vote even in states where he won overall. This means two thirds of the vote is up for grabs by Romney (at least theoretically)
Romney leads McCain in several important categories and if he can reinforce these and switch some voters to his cause in certain others this will be enough to be at least competitive on Super Tuesday
If you take away the effect of McCain's misleading comments about withdrawal timetables in Florida, that race would have been even closer.

In short, there's still everything to fight for. Good to see that the Romney campaign thinks so too.

Radio hosts have to endorse Romney

2008-01-31T14:34:00.001-05:00

I see that Mark Levin has officially endorsed Romney in a piece on National Review Online. About time, too. These guys have been saying for weeks now that either McCain or Huckabee would be a disaster. Since Rudy's dropped out and Paul was never in, that really leaves only Romney. So why haven't these guys (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity primarily, but also others) endorsed Romney outright? He needs that kind of boost to push his campaign as we head for Super Tuesday. Good for Levin for being the first of the big ones, but let's hold off on the talk about the conservative movement having fractured (Rush) and the pretend conversions (Hannity) and look at the task in hand - nominating a conservative candidate.

Time's debate scorecard - McCain won??

2008-01-31T08:59:00.000-05:00

Time's debate scorecard for last night's debate demonstrates some incredible mental dexterity from Mark Halperin, who gave McCain a winning B grade (Romney got a D). The following quote is the first two thirds of his blurb on McCain's performance:

As a testament to his suddenly strong position in the battle for the nomination, he showed off all of his worst traits — and still won! Alternately cranky, elderly, caustic, equivocating, inarticulate, passionless. But he flexed his ability to intimidate Romney as needed, usually with an arch one-liner that was 3/5 mean-spirited and 2/5 light gag. Made little effort to defend his own tax record or negative Florida attacks, and failed to drive a positive message.

And this is the guy who won? It reads like satire. The idea that Romney was intimidated bears no relation whatsoever to what actually happened in the debate, where Romney stood very firm and countered all of McCain's smears. In the last third of Halperin's summary he suggests that questoiners and the other candidates treated him as the front runner. No doubt the questioners did - this has been their line for the last several weeks, even when McCain was badly lagging Romney in the delegate race. But given there are only two serious candidates left in the race, who else was Romney to go after? Huckabee? Paul?? And McCain certainly focused his attention on Romney - does this mean he thinks Romney is the front runner? The whole thing is bizarre, and another sign that the media is desperate to have McCain as the nominee - either because they believe he will implode or because they like his centrist positions better than Romney's conservative stance.

The media's refusal to call Mitt a front runner

2008-01-31T00:10:00.000-05:00

I've been increasingly frustrated over the last several weeks by the media's insistence that McCain, not Romney, has been the front runner. It happened despite Mitt's wins in Michigan and Nevada and his strong second place showing in two more states. He was leading by a wide margin in delegates until Florida, and had he captured just a few percentage points more there would now be streaking ahead instead of lying in a close second.

The usual story is that, since Romney has outspent and out-campaigned (horror of horrors) the others in some key states, that his results don't really count. To which you have to counter, "have you seen who he is running against?" and "have you seen the stories they write on Mitt?"

First, who he's running against. McCain and Giuliani have been the only serious candidates in this thing from the start. Ron Paul certainly has his small but vocal fan base, and Huckabee and Thompson likewise had their niches, but the front runners in national polls all along have been McCain and Giuliani. McCain has run previously and as such has high name recognition and a following built up over the last eight years. Giuliani was the high profile mayor of the first mainland American city to be attacked in living memory. These guys don't need the advertising because if anyone doesn't know who they are at this point, it's not because they haven't seen enough ads but because they are completely disengaged from the political process.

Then you look at the stories which have been written about each of the candidates from the beginning of the campaign. Paul has lots of articles about his plucky Internet supporters, Huckabee benefited from stories about his (brief) "surge" in the polls just before and after Iowa (and perhaps the occasional piece about weight loss and the Fair Tax). But all the pieces about Romney are in one of four camps: "he is outspending all the others with his vast personal fortune", "can a Mormon really be elected?", "Romney is a flip-flopper" and "isn't he too perfect?" All the other candidates have at least merited a serious evaluation of their policies and achievements, but not Mitt.

So what's he supposed to do but go on the attack, advertise like crazy to get awareness of his candidacy but more importantly awareness of his positions and achievements out there? And when through this well thought out strategy he takes, as he puts it, two golds and two silvers and leads the early running, who do the media call the front runner? McCain. Which is ultimately a self-fulfilling prophecy, since people like to vote for winners.

All of this goes back to the fact that these primary campaigns have always been about momentum, and the media has always enjoyed the opportunity to call the election by anointing front runners. Their frustration this year has been that simply calling one candidate a front runner and writing off others hasn't been enough because it's been such a tight race with at least two real contenders on each side. But they keep reverting to type by attempting again and again to call the election prematurely for their favoured candidate. It hasn't worked so far (except perhaps by pushing McCain over the top in Florida) but we certainly have to hope that the electorate is smart enough to recognise that there are two front runners on both sides and vote their consciences and not what the media tells them to.

From your mouth to the evangelicals' ears, pal

2008-01-29T08:44:00.000-05:00

This article by a non-Mormon living among Mormons makes excellent arguments for why the conservative base should be getting behind Mitt Romney, and especially why evangelicals share far more than they differ on with Mormons.

This paragraph is representative:

As a seeker of knowledge that is too analytical to achieve faith, of any religion, I am befuddled by the apparent animosity of evangelical Christians towards The followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons have been the equivalent of at least a couple of vertebra of the back bone of the Christian conservative movement that has brought to fruition the Reagan Revolution and all subsequent gains in the growth of the conservative movement.

Excellent piece on Tony Blair

2007-07-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

An excellent piece today in the Wall Street Journal online by Theodore Dalrymple of the Manhattan Institute on Tony Blair's legacy. It captures very well indeed the somewhat baffling contradiction between the gut reaction many people have (or once had) towards Tony as a "straight kind of guy" and what he actually achieved (or failed to achieve) as Prime Minister, and what he really stood for.

This paragraph sums up the thrust of the piece nicely:

Many have surmised that there was an essential flaw in Mr. Blair's makeup that turned him gradually from the most popular to the most unpopular prime minister of recent history. The problem is to name that essential flaw. As a psychiatrist, I found this problem peculiarly irritating (bearing in mind that it is always highly speculative to make a diagnosis at a distance). But finally, a possible solution arrived in a flash of illumination. Mr. Blair suffered from a condition previously unknown to me: delusions of honesty.

This is the inherent contradiction within Tony Blair, and Dalrymple does an excellent job of putting his finger on it - that Tony Blair believes the TB myth himself and so can blithely go on spouting the stuff he does and sound sincere at the same time. As far as he's concerned, it's all true and everyone who doesn't believe him simply isn't listening hard enough. Well worth a read of the whole thing.

Kennedy and Democratic snobbishness

2007-07-09T15:41:00.000-04:00

An article in the Wall Street Journal today captures nicely the disconnect between those who ought to be the natural supporters of the Democratic Party (and its equivalents in other countries) and those who actually hold most of the leadership positions in those parties. The article is about the way the Democratic party has lost its way since the days of JFK precisely by misunderstanding and inflating the achievements and appeal of JFK himself. Towards the end we get the following astute observations (emphasis mine):

"John F. Kennedy & Co. took the party up-market, making it an Ivy League and, later, a Hollywood operation. After the Kennedy administration, the Democrats were no longer the party of the little man (Harry Truman's party), or the party of the underdog (Franklin Delano Roosevelt's party), but that of the intellectual and cultural sahibs pretending to speak for the little man and the underdogs because it makes them feel virtuous to do so; they turn politics into an affair of snobbery, where politicians are judged on elegance not substance. One recalls how much of an outsider the Kennedy people made Lyndon Baines Johnson feel -- LBJ, that vulgar Texan who attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College.

Because of the regularity with which John F. Kennedy's name is invoked by his skillful PR flacks, the Democrats keep turning up rather anemic Kennedy imitators -- Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, John Kerry (with only an occasional genuine hustler like Bill Clinton popping up almost by accident) -- to head their presidential tickets. But the criteria for president of the United States aren't the same as those set by the deans of admission at Harvard or Yale, Brown or Duke. The happy snobbery of feeling culturally superior and morally virtuous that is at the heart of the Kennedy myth shouldn't be what politics is about."

Government creep alienating law-abiding citizens

2007-05-14T14:00:00.001-04:00

The trend which started with ever more intrusive traffic and driving regulations has now begun to spread to other areas, at least in the UK. Extensive driving regulations have had the effect of creating a whole new class of citizens who see it as acceptable to break the law and who see the police negatively rather than positively, at least in one department of their lives. This spread of regulations and the misapplication of intellectually solid zero tolerance policies is going to further undermine respect for the law and the ability of law enforcement personnel to go after the real crimes in our societies.

Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’

2007-04-26T22:17:00.000-04:00

More on the carbon cap and carbon credits scam from the Financial Times. Further evidence that the global warming lobby and its supporters have been more interested in being seen to do something than actually doing anything that makes a significant impact.

The Taxpaying Minority

2007-04-16T15:38:00.001-04:00

Ari Fleischer - former press secretary to President Bush - has a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the progressive nature of the US income tax system. He focuses especially on the fact that a bare majority of American taxpayers actually pay any income tax at all and that 40% of the population pays 99% of the taxes.

This serves as another reminder of the fact that, while it's easy to raise taxes on "the rich" it's nigh impossible to lower them again later - "tax breaks for the rich" being unpalatable to even Republican politicians. So the system becomes ever more skewed in favor of progressive and redistributive taxation, with no end in sight.

It's not at all obvious how we ever get beyond this situation and move to a more rational future approach to taxation which allows the burden of additional taxation (which is inevitable given the inexorable rise in spending) to be spread more evenly across the population as a whole. Of course, in an ideal world, we would be reducing the overall tax burden by reducing spending, but that seems even less likely than a less progressive tax system.

Two candidates with ailing wives

2007-03-23T16:55:00.000-04:00

In all the coverage over the return of John Edwards' wife's breast cancer, there has been little or no mention of the fact that he now becomes the second current presidential candidate - not the first - to have a spouse afflicted with a serious illness. Mitt Romney's wife Ann, of course, suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, and although the illness is currently in remission, it could presumably return at any time. It will be interesting to see how the illness of both these candidates' wives affects their candidacy and campaigns.

Some Dems take Andrew Jackson literally

2007-03-23T07:11:00.000-04:00

The quote attributed to Andrew Jackson, "One man with courage makes a majority," (see this link for an explanation of why we shouldn't really attribute it to him) appears to have been both taken a little literally and distorted by his political descendants.

For the last several years (essentially since the 2000 election) Democrats and other liberals have acted as if small groups with strong enough opinions should be treated as if they were in fact majorities. After accusing George W Bush of "stealing" that election, they have since claimed that he was "not listening" on the war in Iraq, that we needed to pull out of the war, etc. even though for a long time these people did not constitute a majority. James Taranto included some comments on a recent story in his Best of the Web column this week (see Vandals for Peace).

Although the 2000 election provides a pretext (the 2004 election surely should have neutralised this, but of course didn't), Democrats no longer even tie their civil disobedience back to the stolen election. They just act like they're in the majority, and express disbelief when neither Bush himself nor their elected Democratic leaders in Congress are willing to adopt their extreme positions. They assume this means that they are "not listening" rather than understanding that their political leaders have listened and yet disagree with them. This must be particularly frustrating for them since Democrats now have a literal majority in Congress and yet haven't pulled troops out yet. On the other hand, it appears the original quote (even if attributed to Jackson's biographer and not Jackson himself) appears to have been "desperate courage makes one a majority" - so not such a far cry from the Democrats' current interpretation "desperation makes a majority".

Will this trend continue, or will things change if a Democrat wins in 2008? Chances are, the left wing of the left wing will continue to be unhappy with virtually any political leadership and will continue to act as if its strong opinions (not courage) make a majority.

The UN is a target too

2007-03-22T16:03:00.001-04:00

Many news outlets covered the story about the attempted attack on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon - including CNN, which had both an article and video.

So, it appears that even the UN is a target for Al Qaeda - it doesn't make (to them) subtle distinctions between Westerners who favour the removal of dictators and Westerners who want to talk dictators down. Much as Democrats and other liberals want to suggest that the way to success in the Middle East is a UN-type approach, this is a useful reminder that Al Qaeda doesn't think so.

Separately, Ban did remarkably well to regain his composure after the explosion hit, although even more impressive was Al-Maliki, who appeared barely to flinch.

Gordon Brown creating new "rights"

2007-03-22T16:01:00.001-04:00

Gordon Brown delivered his 11th (and presumably last) budget on Wednesday. It appears that, among other things (including surprise "tax cuts") Brown is going to force all children up to the age of 18 to stay in school. However, instead of honestly describing this initiative in this way, he puts it thus:

"We will, for the first time in our country’s history, make education a right for every young person until 18" [my emphasis]

So now, when we force people to do something, we are describing it as a "right" on their part. I wonder what other rights we could think up? The "right" to pay high taxes? The "right" to have our children's education entirely dictated by the government? The "right" to speak only those words which are considered politically correct? Is this a preview of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister? Creating new obligations and labelling them rights?

More coverage of the climate change debate

2007-03-19T14:50:00.000-04:00

The WSJ has a good article summarising some of the changes in the coverage of the global warming debate of late - focusing on Al Gore's personal issues in this department but also some of the other coverage of respectable scientists who disagree with Gore in part or in totality.

One of the biggest themes of the last several weeks is hypocrisy on Gore's part. It appears that, while urging all others to change their lives now to save the planet, he continues to live the same old luxury lifestyle while using his cash to pay off his guilt. There are obvious parallels here with the old practice of rich landowners sending others to fight in their place in wartime - it was no more honourable then.

Global warming - perspective on the debate

2007-03-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

The BBC has published the first of a number of pieces which constitute a backlash against hte alarmism of the climate change industry and Al Gore's movie in particular. Respectable scientists - most of whom are in agreement with the basic premises that warming is occurring and that CO2 emissions play a part - are questioning the tone of Gore's movie and some of its more outlandish predictions. Great (and somewhat surprising) that the news media are actually covering this - perhaps because Gore is a wealthy politician and not just a bleeding-heart activist? Perhaps the hypocrisy about his Tennessee home pushed them away? Who cares - as long as we now begin to get a more realistic picture of the ongoing debate about climate change I'm all for it.

More on business and climate change

2007-03-04T06:36:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal has an article on climate change (Cap and Charade) which looked at the issue of businesses getting sucked into the climate change debate. See previous blog from 27 January for the first mention of this. It focuses on the artificial scarcity in CO2 emissions caused by a cap-and-trade system, and the perverse incentives a plan to introduce such a system creates for businesses. Efficient ("green") businesses which already have low carbon emissions are seeking to get their allowances set as high as possible so they can make big windfall profits from selling their CO2 rights.

A nasty cynicism on the part of businesses has crept in around climate change - whereas they used to fight the climate change agenda on the basis that it would force them into changes in practices that would be detrimental for their businesses, they are now embracing it at least in some cases because they see a way to make a quick buck. But of course this lends additional false legitimacy to the whole campaign and it could end up coming back to bite them if it adds further to the "the debate is over" trend we're seeing.

Romney's CPAC speech

2007-03-03T22:31:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney gave a phenomenal speech at the CPAC conference on Friday. It's great written down (RedState has the full speech here) but he also did a great job delivering it (you can see part of it on Mitt TV here). So much better than his announcement speech, which was a bit of a damp squib. I guess it's a pretty different audience at CPAC from the nightly news, but this is the kind of stuff he's got to be saying and the way he's got to be saying it to really get attention and win votes. I hope we have more of it.