The Old Roman by Orlando Plumbe

WSJ.com - Harvard Board Weighs Summers's Presidency

Link: WSJ.com - Harvard Board Weighs Summers's Presidency.

These people say members of the board, known as the Harvard Corporation, have become increasingly concerned that continued faculty discontent with Mr. Summers, a former U.S. treasury secretary, is hurting the university. Mr. Summers, who took over as president in 2001, has alienated some faculty members with a brusque management style and sometimes-outspoken views.

Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities - New York Times

Link: Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities - New York Times.

"We're selling our party short; you've got to stand for a lot more than just blasting the other side," said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. "The country is wide open to hear some alternatives, but I don't think it's wide open to all these criticisms. I am sitting here and getting all my e-mail about the things we are supposed to say about the president's speech, but it's extremely light on ideas. It's like, 'We're for jobs and we're for America.' "

Was the Election About This

Apparently I am not the only one who is dismayed by how unrpomising the second term of Bush II is turning out to be. Reform is going nowehere, we are spending like drunken sailors, and Republican's are pushing stupid and devisive issue like the judicial fillibuster and limitations on stem cell. What happened to getting government off the backs of the American people as a guiding principle, if not always a reality? From Larry Kudlow at RealClearPolitics.

Conservatives were near ecstatic last November when President Bush won handily and the Republicans strengthened their hold in Congress. Hopes were high that little could stop the implementation of a true conservative agenda, one that featured supply-side economic reform, investor-owned Social Security reform, serious budget restraint, large-scale energy deregulation, legal-abuse-curbing tort reform, and the confirmation of pro-business, pro-life judicial nominees. But the hoped-for domestic-reform agenda has gone nowhere.

It is as if the Republican's had a rare power play potential in 2005, but the window is closing  Tthe democrats are going to have a comeback in 2006 and 2008, and an opportunity to achieve all sorts of more moderate reform is going to be lost.

More on Blue to Red Migration

Link: The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Laura Bush Talks Naughty.  The new columnist Tierney seems to have more balance and insight than some of his colleagues:

The favorite Democratic explanation is that the red staters are hicks who have been blinded by righteousness, as Thomas Frank argues in "What's the Matter With Kansas?" He laments that middle-class Kansans are so bamboozled by moral issues like abortion and school prayer that they vote for Republicans even though the Republican tax-cutting policies are against their self-interest. But middle-class Americans don't simply cast ballots for Republicans. They also vote with their feet, which is why blue states and old Democratic cities are losing population to red states and Republican exurbs. People are moving there precisely because of economic reasons - more jobs, affordable houses and the lower taxes offered by Republican politicians.

I'm Dreaming of a Purple Christmas

As recommended, by NYT's David Brooks, William Stuntz's Tech Central Station meditation entitled "Faculty Clubs and Church Pews" on the common ground between  red and blue America is worth the read and encouraging for those of us who stubbornly disagree with the "two americas" myth.  Stuntz is both a professor at Harvard Law School and an evangelical christian, giving him a perspective that can only be described as unique.  He notes of the twin pillars of his life:

"Not surprisingly, each of these institutions is enemy territory to the other. But the enmity is needless. It may be a sign that I'm terminally weird, but I love them both, passionately. And I think that if my church friends and my university friends got to know each other, they'd find a lot to like and admire. More to the point, the representatives of each side would learn something important and useful from the other side. These institutions may be red and blue now. But their natural color is purple."

Noting the  love of inquiry and belief in human fallibility common to both institutions, Stuntz concludes.

"Humility, love of serious ideas, commitment to helping the poor -- these are things my faculty friends and my church friends ought to be able to get together on. If they ever do, look out: American politics, and maybe American life, will be turned upside down. And all those politicians who can only speak in one color will be out of a job."

What Makes The Blue States Blue--The Blue-State Tax Burden

Another interesting article about some of the structural economic problems the blue states face.  Link: WSJ.com - The Blue-State Tax Burden.

But this "blue-state tax blues" problem is much more than just an issue of fairness. It also contributes to a pernicious economic and fiscal cycle for the Northeast and other high-cost, high-tax regions. If a family can live as well on $90,000 in Oklahoma as they can on $130,000 in Connecticut, they obviously would require more money from their employer to live and work in a high-tax state. There may be quality-of-life reasons that might induce them not to demand the whole differential, but they would certainly require more. And, of course, if they must pay an additional $8,200 in federal income taxes for the privilege of living in a high-cost area, this would also fit into their calculations. But from an employer's point of view, it is quite difficult to justify these kinds of differentials, particularly when they are exacerbated by tax differences. As higher-wage jobs leave the overtaxed, higher-cost areas, both the local economy and the state's tax base decline. This often creates a need to raise state and local taxes still further, making those states and regions still less competitive.

Thus suggests that the red states will coninue to pick up population and economic growth and their political ascendacy will continue.

More Red/Blue Demographics

Link: The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The New Red-Diaper Babies.

So there are significant fertility inequalities across regions. People on the Great Plains and in the Southwest are much more fertile than people in New England or on the Pacific coast. You can see surprising political correlations. As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.

Why the Blue States Should Be Blue

ProfessorBainbridge.com picks up on the recent release of annual freedom index ranking by state.

"The 50-state ranking has a decided Red State-Blue State flavor: 23 of the 25 (and 28 of 33) "most free" states are Red States that voted for President Bush, while 9 of the 10 (and 14 of the 17) "least free" states are Blue States that voted for Senator Kerry."

As with the census data showing out migration from Blue states, this suggests that the Blue States suffer from structural governmental issues that hamper their growth and the make them, and their policies, unattractive to voters and potential residents.

What Culture Wars? by Morris P. Fiorina

I remain skeptical of the value gap. For those of you, who share my skepticism you may want to read. What Culture Wars? by Morris P. Fiorina.

"Publicly available databases show that the culture war script embraced by journalists and politicos lies somewhere between simple exaggeration and sheer nonsense. There is no culture war in the United States; no battle for the soul of America rages, at least none that most Americans are aware of."

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"The answer is that while voter positions have not polarized, their choices have. There is no contradiction here; positions and choices are not the same thing. Voter choices are functions of their positions and the positions and actions of the candidates they choose between."

Republican and Democratic elites unquestionably have polarized. But it is a mistake to assume that such elite polarization is equally present in the broader public. It is not. However much they may claim that they are responding to the public, political elites do not take extreme positions because voters make them. Rather, by presenting them with polarizing alternatives, elites make voters appear polarized, but the reality shows through clearly when voters have a choice of more moderate alternatives—as with the aforementioned Republican governors

Why The Blue States Really Should Be Blue

Blue state residents should be concerned about more than the results of last week's election. Ongoing and long term demographic trends show that the political base of the coastal cities is shrinking.    Link: City Journal Autumn 2003 | I’m Outta Here by Steven Malanga.

While the census study does not say what propels such massive out-migration, job-killing taxes are a likely culprit. Most of the states joining California and New York on the list of losers—including Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio—also have among the heaviest state and local tax burdens in the U.S., with Gotham being one of the country’s highest-taxed places to live. Most of the states that had the greatest net gain in residents, by contrast, have low taxes, with four—Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Washington—having no personal income tax at all.

In short, people are voting with their feet, looking for a life they can no longer find in America's "great cities."

Significantly, they are moving to a new areas with unfamilair political and social structures. David Brooks explains.  The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Take a Ride to Exurbia.

"Ninety percent of the office space built in America in the 1990's was built in suburbia, usually in low office parks along the interstates. Now you have a tribe of people who not only don't work in cities, they don't commute to cities or go to the movies in cities or have any contact with urban life. You have these huge, sprawling communities with no center. Mesa, Ariz., for example, has more people than St. Louis or Minneapolis."

In  Brooks' excellent books, Bobo's in Paradise and  On Paradise Drive, he tries to  map the ethos and structure of this new burgeoning sector of our nation. More bad news for blue people.  It appears that Karl Rove has found these new communities first.  But these communities are far too dynamic to stay locked up with any poltical partyand are in play. Nonetheless, one doubts that they are going to trust their affairs to the politicians and policies that continue to run  our great cities into the ground.