j a c k *

Obama Cabinet Shuffle…

Rumors are flying that President-elect Obama will offer Hillary Clinton the job of Secretary of State. This seems to have caught a lot of people by surprise, and the discussion has focused on wondering why he would want her at all. I think it’s brilliant politics.

Basically Obama can’t lose by making this offer. If Clinton takes the job then not only does he get an extremely capable hand in what is considered the number three position in the administration, but he has also effectively neutralized any opposition she might represent. She may have been critical of some of his positions in the past, but she would not be able to do that in the SoS role. He could drop her at any point if she became combative. Any ability for her to be a focus of opposition in the Senate, especially on domestic policy, would be gone as well.

It serves Obama even if she doesn’t accept. By offering her such a high-profile plum in his administration he closes the book on the bitter primary. Hillary’s strongest supporters are split on whether they think she should take the job, but all are thrilled that she’s being considered. She may prefer to consolidate her power in the Senate (although it looks like she won’t have the pull in domestic policy that she wanted) but that will mean snubbing a president’s request to serve. That’s a somewhat humbling choice to have to make.

Obama has a history of keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. This case highlights how that’s both good politics and good policy.

- jack*

The Emergence of Hope…

There’s something different about this presidential campaign. It’s hard to pin down for those who see it and easy to dismiss for those who don’t. No matter how remarkable Barack Obama is as a candidate – and there is much to find remarkable – the difference is not located in him. It’s not in his campaign staff who never waver in their message of hope, nor in the volunteers who arrive before the office opens and refuse to leave at night, nor in the voters who cheerfully stand in eight hour lines. It’s not in any of these specific people or actions or attitudes; but it’s in all of them. I’m going to call it an emergent property.

Election results are already a kind of emergent property. For all except the most provincial of plebiscites no one vote ever won or lost an election. By one to ten-million no one person staying in bed on November 4 will make any difference, and yet if everyone stays in bed then all will be lost. This is the paradox of emergence. No one can point to one vote, one volunteer, or one whispered conversation and say that is the one that changed the world. They all did, or none.

So it should be in a democracy. And yet there is another way, the path of division. Dividing citizens by their in-group concerns and pitting them against each other offers a vicious political calculation. Concerns can be recast as cohorts, and their percentages computed. Can we win enough blacks? Can we win enough women? Can we win enough evangelicals if we ignore the unions? Both politics by wedge issue – which force groups to vote in easily coerced unison – and triangulation – which panders too all in fear of alienating too many – treat people as things. Those things put together in small coalitions can win elections, and it’s easy to point to the one that mattered most. But this way loses emergence, and we lose ourselves.

The braver, more difficult path is to embrace the emergence, and to transcend the politics of division. But it pays dividends, and I think we’re seeing the results. This campaign is counting on millions upon millions of individual votes, not the aggregate votes of a few antagonistic camps. Every single person working to get Obama elected realizes that while they are a tiny part of something huge, they are just as essential as every other part. Citizens have grappled with the paradox that their vote in the end is infinitesimally small, and they have concluded that casting it is the most important thing in the world.

I guess what I’m saying is: go vote.

- jack*

Stop! The Insanity…

Perhaps when the election is over we’ll start getting good reporting on the economic crisis. Or perhaps not. Apparently the situation is so complex that even a supposed expert like Paulson doesn’t know what to do. First it was taking over failing banks (except for some). Then the great idea was buying up bad debt (except for experts across the spectrum who thought it was idiotic). Finally recapitalization was the answer. Taxpayers will pour hundreds of billions into giant banks to give them enough cash so they can start moving commercial paper again.

Except that banks had plenty of cash; they weren’t making loans because they were afraid of the risks of everyone else defaulting. So what are they doing with their first installment of 250 billion? Buying other banks.

Now I’m by no means an expert on these things, but doesn’t this make the situation worse? Not only are banks still not lending, but buying up failing banks exposes the stronger banks to whatever toxic strain of highly leveraged obligations that got those banks in trouble in the first place. It also means there will be fewer giant banks and those that remain will be even bigger, exacerbating the “too big to fail” problem.

I don’t want my banks too big to fail. I want them small, specialized, highly regulated, and federally insured. Really solving this crisis might require some old-fashioned trust busting.

- jack*