Favorite Debate Moment

The look on John McCain's face is priceless. Apparently he didn't read Barack Obama's healthcare plan.

New Jersey: More than Polluted Beaches and Congested Highways

(I hope you appreciate the shout-out, Jarret).

It looks like a massive new clean energy project is coming to the Armpit of America (energy-independent deodorant, if you will). According to the New York Times:

Regulators in New Jersey awarded the rights on Friday for construction of a $1 billion offshore wind farm in the southern part of the state to Garden State Offshore Energy. The rights, which include access to as much as $19 million in state grants, is part of New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan, which calls for 20 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. The decision comes on the heels of decisions by Delaware and Rhode Island to allow the installation of offshore wind farms.

Once again, state governments that have realized the value of clean energy development. The kind of message that that one billion dollar figure sends is enormous. The momentum resulting from this investment will likely facilitate similar developments in New York.

The new technology being used in New Jersey will allow turbines to be placed even farther offshore than before, leading to more reliable wind sources (as wind is much stronger out off the coast). As a result, not only will it be able to power tens of thousands of homes, but it also makes opposition of the Cape Wind sort even less likely for future offshore wind developments. Hopefully we'll never see anything like this again:

Ok, so Ted Kennedy isn't perfect, in case you forgot over the last few months. After all, look what the windmills would have done to his Nantucket view:

(Cape Wind would have been 4-11 miles off coast. The New Jersey project is 16-20 miles. )

On another renewable energy note, for once the federal government hasn't left innovative states behind, in case you didn't look at the details of the bailout package:

The legislation extends for one year the production tax credit for wind energy, with an eight-year extension for investment tax credits for businesses and homeowners to install solar energy equipment.

Buyers of plug-in electric cars would receive tax credits ranging from $2,500 to $7,500.

Are the tax extensions perfect? No. A one year tax extension for wind is hardly sufficient for long term investments (even if it will carry us over to an Obama Administration). There are also credits for refineries processing oil from tar sands and shale, things that we certainly shouldn't be paying for. I'm not arguing that there aren't things to criticize with the bailout package; However, it's important to remember that some good came out of the 400+ pages that were tagged on to the original three page proposal.

When Words Come Back to Haunt You

Paul Krugman yesterday pointed out a major McCain gaffe that will come back to haunt him as the economy becomes the major issue of the election:

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking , would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Oops (I added the bold in for emphasis). Sorry to rain on McCain's "blame greedy Wall Street" parade, but I don't think anyone's going to forget that McCain helped promote the regulatory failures that led to these massive bank blowouts. Most people don't understand the moral hazard issues with the current system of mortgage-backed securities and the problems of accounting sheet voodoo and banking mistrust, but one thing's for sure: public sentiment is shifting towards more regulation, and John McCain's on the wrong side of the tracks.

Update: I forgot to add one more important part. Since deregulation worked so well for the financial system, it will work well for health care, right?

The Silly Party

I think this speaks for itself.

Black Monday

While Markus has a tendency for laughing at I-Banking recruits as banks collapse , Instead I'm more worried about the possibility of total financial system failure. As Paul Krugman noted over the weekend before the news broke, right now Mr. Paulson is playing Russian Roulette (and no, that's not a good thing):

But Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was adamant that he wouldn’t sweeten the deal by putting more public funds on the line. Many people thought he was bluffing. I was all ready to start today’s column, “When life hands you Lehman, make Lehman aid.” But there was no aid, and apparently no deal. Mr. Paulson seems to be betting that the financial system — bolstered, it must be said, by those special credit lines — can handle the shock of a Lehman failure. We’ll find out soon whether he was brave or foolish.

The real answer to the current problem would, of course, have been to take preventive action before we reached this point. Even leaving aside the obvious need to regulate the shadow banking system — if institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks — why were we so unprepared for this latest shock? When Bear went under, many people talked about the need for a mechanism for “orderly liquidation” of failing investment banks. Well, that was six months ago. Where’s the mechanism?

And so here we are, with Mr. Paulson apparently feeling that playing Russian roulette with the U.S. financial system was his best option. Yikes.

The cliche works very well, as some people are already calling September 15th, 2008 the next Black Monday, and Barack Obama has already called it the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Dow has already fallen over 250 points within the first hour of trading. The surprise simultaneous takeover of Merrill Lynch might soothe things a bit, but the shock of the double whammy is still a little much to process, and panic has already set in. Of course, there's the potential failure of AIG down the road as well, and bearish speculators attempting to short-sell aren't helping the market either (and may drive things further towards collapse). And as the New York Times noted:

Now, the risk for the financial firms is that investors will respond by trying to do exactly what they are trying to do — minimize their risk. If enough investors do that and choose to sell, stocks could plummet in markets worldwide, thus increasing the risks rather than easing them

At least the banks are finally taking this problem seriously:

Ten banks-- Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS-- each agreed to provide $7 billion "to help enhance liquidity and mitigate the unprecedented volatility and other challenges affecting global equity and debt markets."

If we're going with cliches, we might as well add in "too little, too late", but it at least serves as a nice gesture. It's been a dark (but widespread) secret since Bear Stearns that Lehman Brothers was heading towards collapse, so it would have been nice to see these measures sooner.

Why should we care? For starters, as a New Yorker, I can say that as the financial system goes, so goes my city (and state), because our tax revenue depends largely on it. We're already dealing with huge budget deficits, and the loss of thousands of jobs won't exactly help our fiscal situation. We're already seeing ads from the states' entrenched interest groups who are all hoping that their budgets won't disappear. I wouldn't want to be Governor Paterson right now; even though he's managed to cut a billion out of the budget already (which is amazing enough, if you don't know New York politics), he still faces tough choices on education, health-care, and other obligations.

So no, I'm not exactly laughing right now. The only upside I see is that Mr. Obama should be getting a big boost in the polls as McCain and Bush take the blame for the deregulation-induced economic failures.

Update: Mr. Greenspan noted that the United States couldn't afford John Mccain's tax cuts and called this the greatest crisis he had seen in his career. With the focus of the election going to the economy, his words will be very important. Barack's campaign should be salivating over this policy critique. I suggest you read the piece at the very bottom of the article:

"I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money," he said. "I always have tied tax cuts to spending."

Oh, Sarah: A Few Random Thoughts

I imagine I'm not the only one who is tired of hearing about Sarah Palin. Truthfully, I don't care whether she's a pig with lipstick or a moose with a wig. Maybe Hillary Clinton would like to explain some things about sexism to Mr. McCain, Mr. Schmidt, and their friends.

I'm glad that McCain is being challenged on all the false claims he made lately on earmarks, sexism, and sex education (he really got trashed on "The View"). Nevertheless, it's saddening to see the media busy dealing with this nonsense, even if it is to be expected. And of course, when the McCain campaign screws up with their lies, they inevitably blame it on the media and somehow manage to get away with it, and then it's on to the next round of untruths (however doubleplusungood they may be).

Sarah Palin's foreign policy interview with Charlie Gibson was certainly enough to give us politicos a chuckle and make us shake our heads, but I'm not sure that it will be enough to really scare undecided voters. Ok, so one is expecting her to have personal relationships with world leaders like Joe Biden does, but it isn't odd to expect for a woman who could become president to know the basics of the last 8 years of US foreign policy (even though I wish that we had never heard of the Bush Doctrine). However, while this definitely gives Obama's campaign something to work with, I truthfully think that her shoddy interview performance won't be enough to shift people's opinions by itself (after all, many undecided voters probably couldn't care less about the Bush Doctrine). The thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency hasn't scared voters so far, and it won't likely make enough of a difference until we get to the vice-presidential debates. If Joe Biden can make her look foolish on foreign policy, there might be a narrative to work with.

However, even her approval ratings start to slide, it doesn't make sense for Democrats to be distracted by the Palin circus. Instead, I'd really like to see more noise about the Interior Department scandal. Foreign policy doctrines are hard to understand; that's not the case with sex and drugs. Seriously, sleeping with the oil industry? Campaign advertising strategists should be salivating at the thought of the possibilities. Obama has spent the last months reminding people that McCain means more the same; it's time to remind people why that wouldn't be a good thing. If Obama forgets Mrs. Palin and turns this election into a referendum on the Republican Party (however hard it may be to do, consider how hard McCain is fighting to avoid it), then New Hampshire won't need us, and President Obama will be able to enter office with a comfortable mandate. Moreover, it would have the added effect of helping down-ticket races trying to run against the Republican Party.

Note to McCain: Fire Your Ad Guy

Ok, so I understand that the "elitist" line of attack utterly collapsed and that McCain needs something else to work with. I know that the McCain feels that Barack's experience seems like an appropriate thing to go after (even though it didn't work for Hillary in the primaries).

That being said, if you're going to spend the money for national ads, you might as well make sure that they are going to be serious. While my comments come with a liberal bias, I can say that this ad was an utter failure. My more conservative mother and I were cracking up at the horrible voice-over. My parents are certainly the type that these Israel ads appeal to (i.e. older Jews), and you don't want even those voters laughing at your apocalyptic ads.

If I were a Republican strategist, I'd be hoping that they didn't put too much money into this one. It reminds me too much of Rudy's failed noun/verb/9-11 strategy. Time to get back to the drawing board.

When Thomas Friedman is Right

After peering at Eva's post, which talked about the failures of the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, I decided to take a look at Thomas Friedman's column for this week.

And yes, despite his many failings, he does occasionally write a solid column. While his latest piece is a bit late, he definitely came up with a respectable critique of McCain's so called support for renewable energy and gave a solid justification for why production tax credits are necessary. Many Republicans don't realize that renewable energy projects that would mean thousands of well-paying jobs are literally on hold because companies don't know what to expect with the production tax credits.

While most of his column was old news, there was one bit that made me chuckle and cry:

Roger Efird is president of Suntech America — a major Chinese-owned solar panel maker that actually wants to build a new factory in America. They’ve been scouting the country for sites, and several governors have been courting them. But Efird told me that when the solar credits failed to pass the Senate, his boss told him: “Don’t set up any more meetings with governors. It makes absolutely no sense to do this if we don’t have stability in the incentive programs.”

Yes, that's right: Chinese-owned companies are trying to create jobs into the US, but we won't let them. I don't think middle America knew about that one, but boy, that's an ugly twist of fate.

While I am tangentially ranting, I must also say that McCain's recent response to Obama's first national ad made me puke. In fact, any time he pretends to support renewable energy makes me cringe, as it does when almost any Republican says he or she does. If you really support renewable energy, then you could have bothered to show up to vote one of the EIGHT TIMES the bill came to the floor, as Thomas Friedman mentioned. No, renewable energy is not John McCain, even if you hire someone to say it in that dark and scary attack ad voice. That is assuming, of course, that we won't figure out how to produce electricity from personal character attacks and politically convenient lies.

Friedman did take a tiny shot at Obama for only showing up for three of the votes (which is unmerited, considering that it was obvious that Obama would come back if his vote would make a difference), but I'm willing to give it to his desire to appear to be "fair and balanced", for whatever that's worth.

When someone unfairly attacks Obama for voting present, remind them of the tough votes that Obama managed to take his time for this year that McCain somehow missed, from the War Supplemental with the GI Bill to the bill that saved Medicare. Talk about being afraid to take a stance.

It doesn't get odder than this

When asked how he felt about Ron Paul, Mike Gravel had some surprising things to say:

for those who missed it, it was amazing night indeed. Needless to say, Mike Gravel is an interesting man. I'll have to get around to reading his book sometime soon.

Defending Big Oil= Political Suicide

In case you have forgotten amidst the excitement of the presidential race, the United States actually still has a congress. While real progress on major legislative issues may not be very likely for another year, business still continues to struggle along.

And of course, as the last days of the Bush presidency fade away, the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot (with a shotgun or a bazooka, if I may add). As the Democratic-led Congress brings up the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, we'll get see Republican Representatives scramble to defend the tax breaks for the oil industry once again.

The main purpose of the act is to reform the tax code to take away tax breaks valuing up to 18 billion dollars from oil and gas companies and funnel the money towards renewable energy development. The livelihood of renewable energy projects such as the world's largest solar power plant depends on the future of such subsidies.

The Arizona solar power plant has been named Solana, which means “a sunny place” in Spanish, and will be located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, and cover 1,900 acres. The capacity of the power plant has been projected at 280 megawatts — a capacity which could power 70,000 homes and create 1,500 jobs. The electricity generated by the plant will be sold to APS to the tune of around $4 billion for over next 30 years.

Solana will make use of Abengoa Solar‘s Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology, which is based on solar radiation concentration to generate steam or hot air, which is used by an electric plant to run steam turbines.The CSP technology uses three different approaches to concentrate solar rays: tower technology, parabolic trough technology, and dish Stirling technology. The Solana power plant would primarily employ parabolic trough technology.

The GOP hard line on the issue is that higher taxes on the oil industry will merely lead to higher gas prices and reduce the oil supply, thus threatening America's energy security by forcing America to import more oil. Most Democrats have constantly disputed those arguments and stressed the importance of alternative energy. However, even some Republicans are starting to get tired of hearing the same nonsense:

I've been a registered Republican for more than 20 years. This year I find it impossible to support a party that bends to the wishes of Big Oil. Their excuse is that the White House does not want to reduce incentives for finding new sources of oil and gas. We've obviously got an energy shortage, but let's put these renewable energy incentives in perspective.

Renewable energy legislation that Republicans should pass moves $18 billion in tax incentives from Big Oil to the renewable energy industry over 10 years. In 2007 alone, the profits of the top five oil companies were more than $120 billion - at the current pace, they'd generate $1.2 trillion in profits during the same 10-year period.

Sound public policy is compromised when there is that much money at risk by incumbent industries. As a result, many people in the renewable energy industry are resigned to wait until the next president takes office for any substantive change in federal policy. But that delay will jeopardize thousands of Silicon Valley jobs, cost our local economy billions of dollars and, compared with the rest of the world, puts us just that much farther behind.

It's an opportunity lost for the most obvious of reasons - Big Oil's influence on our country's energy and environmental policies. The impact is now being felt economically as higher energy prices create inflationary pressures. Our economy is going into a recession while our country writes continually bigger checks to foreign oil producers.

Big Oil does not need tax breaks while they're earning record - some say windfall - profits. Senate and House Republicans need to wake up to the fact that their continued votes for Big Oil are embarrassing and politically suicidal. Our country's energy policies are an economic and environmental dead end, and we cannot wait until next year to turn around. Let's get an energy bill passed now that removes unnecessary support for Big Oil and accelerates the growth of clean, renewable power.

While there's a difference between congressional Republicans and Republicans in the press, it's refreshing to see that conservative moderates are finally shifting towards the democratic viewpoint. It's worth reminding ourselves that the rift between Obama and Clinton is nothing compared to the widening rift with the Republican Party.

As rising Democratic primary turnouts have shown, Republicans can't afford to alienate the voters who are straggling away from the party. If the party's leaders don't realize that a lot of the moderate base isn't fond of big oil very soon, things could get ugly for the GOP.

In case you didn't know that the GOP isn't doing so well...

As Democrats are well aware, many Republicans weren't happy with the possible choices in '08. I've already had two conservatives tell me that they'd rather vote for Obama than for McCain, simply because they'd rather get another chance in 2012. Even if Obama lost, I could not imagine not voting for Clinton; while others may feel different, the difference isn't that big to me, as Markus noted.

However, if the current sorry state of the GOP wasn't apparent enough, the latest from CNN is enough of a reminder. In an interview with Colin Powell, CNN found out that the former Secretary of State was considering voting for a Democrat or an Independent:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican who served under President Bush, said Friday he may not back the GOP presidential nominee in November, telling CNN that “I am keeping my options open at the moment.”

“I have voted for members of both parties in the course of my adult life,” Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “And as I said earlier, I will vote for the candidate I think can do the best job for America, whether that candidate is a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent.”

Powell also offered praise for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, calling him an “exciting person on the political stage.

“He has energized a lot of people in America,” said Powell, who briefly weighed his own run for the White House in the mid-1990s. “He has energized a lot of people around the world. And so I think he is worth listening to and seeing what he stands for.”

Powell, who has largely steered clear of politics since leaving the administration in 2004, noted that the next president will need to work to restore America’s standing in the world.

“I will ultimately vote for the person I believe brings to the American people the kind of vision the American people want to see for the next four years,” he said. “A vision that reaches out to the rest of the world, that starts to restore confidence in America, that starts to restore favorable ratings to America. Frankly, we've lost a lot in recent years."

While Powell may have lost some of his credibility in his days in the Bush Administration, his words still carry a lot of weight. The possibility of an endorsement of Obama is very intriguing and would not be surprising. It has already been noted that Obama has sought foreign policy advice multiple times from Powell, and Obama himself has said that he would consider putting moderate Republicans in his cabinet. A Powell endorsement would certainly help in a hypothetical match-up between Obama and McCain because it would allow Obama to protect himself against claims of inexperience, especially in foreign policy matters.

However, whether or not Obama claims the nomination, it can only be good news for Democrats that moderate Republicans are wavering.

Clinton carries primaries??

After spending last night glued to an CNN internet feed and watching Obama and Clinton nearly evenly split the delegates, I was surprised to find the title "Clinton, McCain Carry Primaries: less than 'super' night for Obama and Romney in nomination contests" at the front of today's Harvard Crimson. While McCain certainly did carry the day and Romney is in a lot of trouble, I was shocked to see the note about Obama. Had they been reading the same 5 websites that I had open on my computer last night?

While rampant optimism had been running through the Obama camp in the last few weeks, realists were aware that it was unlikely that Obama would win a majority of states. His practical hope lay with the possibility of coming close enough to Clinton in terms of delegates that he could continue to compete in the following weeks. While Clinton may have had some surprisingly strong showings (Especially considering all the talk of the "Obama Surge") , Obama's victory in a majority of super Tuesday states was all that he could have pragmatically hoped for. As an Obama supporter, I was certainly satisfied.

However, whoever came up with the Crimson front page article apparently felt that Obama hadn't performed up to expectations. The title was clearly picked by either A) an overly optimistic Obama supporter or B) a Hillary supporter seeking to stress her candidate's achievements. While I'm not suggesting that the title was maliciously unfair, it clearly was a mis-characterization of the night's occurrences, and apparently the Crimson Staff agreed (or at least got enough complaints from Obama supporters that it decided to change the article). The article's title now reads (on the crimson website) "McCain Carries Primaries, Clinton and Obama Trade Victories", which I believe that Obama and Hillary supporters can agree is a fairer description of the night.

The Crimson clarification reads as follows:

The Feb. 6 story "McCain, Clinton Carry Primaries," was put to press before full results became known from California. As a result, it said that Senator Hillary Clinton of New York had outperformed Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in yesterday's "Super Tuesday" contests. In fact, while Clinton won the major states of New York and California, the complex manner in which delegates are awarded means that the Clinton now has only a narrow lead in the total number of delegates. Additionally, Obama won 13 states yesterday, while Clinton won just nine.

I don't know at what hour the Crimson goes to press, but I still feel that even before the California results came in that it was clear that the delegate difference would not be so big. However, considering my bias, there's a limit to how much as I can argue. Either way, I'm glad that they decided to insert that clarification, and I hope that Harvard students will pay attention. The quest for the nomination still continues.

Wow, that's a long line.

Hoping to get one last chance to see Barack (as well as an opportunity to finally hear John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, who I hadn't yet seen speaking) I headed over to the World Trade Center with some people in my entryway. Having left nearly two hours before the doors were supposed to open (which was two hours before the event even started), we figured that we would be there in time to get a decent spot.

When we got off the T, we ran into this line, which someone was nice enough to post on DailyKos. The volunteers told us that we only had a bit farther to go. But the line kept going...and going...and going. Apparently around twenty thousand people showed up, making a one mile long line. We ended up being around nearly the nine thousandth in line; we barely made the cut off to get into the room, after waiting in the cold for around three hours.

Cold exhaustion is getting to me, so I'm ready to head to bed before my brain completely shuts down at my computer. However, being one of the few people who noticed the port-a-potty in the adjacent parking lot, I wonder how people were willing to stay in line that long just for a slight glimpse of Obama. It was nearly impossible to see him in that room, but his speech drew the usual roars.

My eyes are starting to shut, so I'll just note that A)there definitely was a big Harvard contingent there that was part of the larger college contingent that dominated the event and B) It's finally super Tuesday. the day has arrived. It's going to be a long but unforgettable event.

32 million???

The '08 presidential campaign has now been going on for exceptionally long time, but apparently the money hasn't dried up yet. While many campaigns have been strapped for cash (as Rudy was before he bowed out, along with other remaining Republicans not named Romney or Paul), Barack Obama's totals are surprisingly stronger than ever. While his campaign has been gaining energy while he narrows the gap in the national polls and picks up various endorsements, few could have expected that he would pull in a whopping 32 million in one month, as the New York Times political blog reports.

Even Hillary supporters must admit that Obama's campaign machine is incredibly fine tuned. By attracting 170,000 new donors (most of whom are donating in small chunks, and thus are able to give more), Obama has built an incredibly strong base with which to fund a possible general election campaign.

Either way, no matter who the democratic candidate is, it is increasingly clear that the Republican candidate will face an uphill fund-raising battle when the general election approaches. The gigantic figure raised by Obama is enough to tell Republicans that they should be very wary come November.

And on a final note, let me just say this:

damn, that's a lot of money.

And the first votes are cast

While many of us are eagerly awaiting the results of today's (yes, it's finally the day) primary and plan on attentively watching the votes come in, for those who can't bear the wait the first votes have already been cast. CNN reports that Barack Obama and John McCain have carried the towns of Dixsville Notch and Hart's Location (pop. 72 and 42 respectively).

It's interesting to note that Barack has as a whopping 16 of the 23 votes cast by democratic voters in the two towns. While the voting turnout for the primary may be a couple of powers of ten greater, It looks a good start for the senator, even if it may not mean much.

And of course, as a side note, I must say that any village that has an episode of West Wing devoted to it must be pretty awesome.