Gaming the Debt Limit Constitutional Option Scenario

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner was apparently discussing the debt limit with somebody today, and insisted upon reading the text of the least glamorous part of the most glorious part of the U.S. Constitution, namely Amendment XIV, Section 4. Specifically:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned.

This sounds a lot like it means something like a statutory debt limit is invalid. Now, sure, we can quibble about whether it means exactly that, but it's a plausible argument that it means that. This is a strategy that's gaining traction among liberals, including pundits and Senators; if the Administration is considering using this option, just declaring that the debt limit doesn't exist so Republicans trying to use it as leverage can eff off, it's kind of a big deal. So, let's consider the various ramifications of using this tactic.

I did call it, didn't I?

Jonathan Chait has a piece today arguing that Obama's press conference yesterday was his imitation of Harry Truman's "give 'em hell" spiel. I would just like to say that I called it, writing back on November 3rd, 2010:

So make it clear, let's all come together to solve problems. Hope that Republicans agree to play on his terrain. And expect that they won't, and when they don't...

Give 'em hell, Barry!

My argument was that Obama should start out sounding like Clinton, wanting to work together with Republicans to find sensible, centrist policies to help the country, but anticipate that Republicans wouldn't work with him, and once they didn't, start sounding like Truman, castigating them for doing nothing and favoring the rich. And, uh, that's what happened.

+1 to me, +1 to Obama.

Nitpicking

I just happened to read a post on Fangraphs about the usefulness of the standard AVG/OBP/SLG "triple-slash" as a descriptive metric even in an age where there are all sorts of fancy offensive-evaluation metrics (the article mentions wOBA and wRC+ in particular, both Fangraphs creations which I'm not getting into here). In the course of doing so he mentions that, since AVG and SLG have the same denominator, you can subtract them and get something mathematically meaningful, in this case extra bases per at-bat (though he says extra bases per hit, which is wrong). This number is denoted ISO, short for "isolated power" and which I always pronounce as "iso-pop" in my head, for some obscure reason. Anyway, the point of this little blog post here is that ISO strikes me as a very strange way to go about measuring a player's pure power. Here's an example: suppose we have two players, one with a batting-average of .350 and a slugging percentage of .500, and another who's hitting just .220 but slugging .370. They both have an ISO of .150, but which one has more power? I'd say the guy with the abysmal average. Why? Because while the high-average guy is averaging 10 bases per 7 hits, or 1.43 bases per hit, the low-average guy is averaging 1.68 bases per hit. That's more raw power. ISO has the unfortunate quality that, while trying to isolate power, it is simultaneously including a bonus for the skill of not getting out, or at least of getting hits. You can subtract, but dividing makes more sense.

It's Not About Speech

The Supreme Court, by the tediously usual 5-4 majority, has just struck down a matching-funds campaign finance law in Arizona. The idea seems to be that a) we've already established that using money to disseminate political advertisements is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment; b) we've already established that the government cannot appreciably restrict that speech, i.e. enact contribution or spending limits; c) giving matching funds to the opposition is a dis-incentive for someone with lots of money to spend it on political advertising; therefore d) matching funds count as censorship. Oh my god I can't believe how wrong this is.

Tough Pars

Nate Silver writes (actually, tweets, but it is a form of writing, after all!):

Obama has a lot of pars on a tough course. Certainly could be much worse. But very few birdies.

This is part of an argument with Matt Yglesias structured around the difference between Andrew Cuomo's ability to exert effort and reap praise in the simple-majority NY Senate versus Obama's apparently more low-key leadership in the filibustered US Senate. They're sort of arguing over whether Obama has any particularly challenging and credit-worthy accomplishments that seem as much like an act of leadership as Cuomo's. I think it's actually a very apt metaphor. Roughly speaking, Nate's saying that Obama's playing the U.S. Open.

2016

Oh yeah, that's right. It's never too early.

Okay, maybe it's too early. Still, this seems as good a time as any to start speculating about the 2016 Presidential election. The main thing to say is just that, as of right now, you'd kind of have to say that Andrew Cuomo is the distinct front-runner for the Democratic nomination. I still think it's Hillary's if she wants it, but also that she won't want it. Cuomo was probably already the front-runner, being the popular governor of a very large, very big-deal state, having a big-ticket name, etc., but I think the gay marriage thing (which he seems to deserve a whole hell of a lot of credit for) strengthens his position even more. By 2016 I think being on the proper side of the gay marriage issue will be an asset nationally.

Anyway, that's my first thought. I'm going to spend a bit of time in the near future gaming out what the political landscape might look like as we approach 2015 or so, and what the nomination contests might shape up like. More detailed speculation coming later.

Political Prejudice

Gallup gives us the following chart of people's unwillingness to vote for Presidential candidates from various demographic groups:

Obviously what we see here is that something in the 5-10% range of Americans are just generally bigoted, unwilling to vote for people in such mainstream demographics as women, baptists (?), and Jews. But then there are three categories that make people who are not just prejudiced in principle get squirmy: Mormons, queers, and atheists. I'd bet that Muslims would manage to make even atheists look acceptable, and Gallup presumably didn't bother polling that question 'cause the result would be depressing.

Quite honestly, I understand what it is about Mormons or atheists that people object to. Hell, I'd be mildly uncomfortable voting for a Mormon, though if it was Harry Reid vs. Sarah Palin I'd do it in a heartbeat. Religion is a matter of individual belief, and the individual beliefs that constitute a religion or the lack thereof often intersect with matters of public policy. I don't honestly think it's totally unreasonable to prefer that your President have a non-wacky religious orientation. Now, I think it's a little depressing that people are much more okay with a Mormon (and Mormonism, lest we forget, is really, really wacky) than someone who is not religious, given how many perfectly decent people are not religious. But hey, this is America, and if I'm not used to the fact that people just hate atheists here, well, I should be. (And I am.)

But honestly, what the hell is wrong with the people who wouldn't vote for a gay person? Like, okay, I realize that a lot of people find gayness icky, but any given gay person will be gay whether or not they are President. You're not increasing Total Gayness in the world by electing one of them. Now, the 32% figure who are willing to say they wouldn't consider voting for a gay person is probably basically just the unreconstructed homophobes, who believe for religious reasons that gay people are Horrible Wicked Sinners who live to defy and mock god with their unnatural, icky lifestyle. And to some extent those are just crazy people, the equivalent of the people who fifty years ago were sufficiently unreconstructed racists that they would have admitted they wouldn't vote for a black guy for President. Probably in another fifty years this stat will have changed, just as the anti-black prejudice has diminished over time.

But honestly, there is no conceivable way in which being gay would change someone's approach to being U.S. President. It's just totally irrelevant. It's kind of ridiculous that we're still countenancing this kind of attitude in the year 2011.