the brilliant Dylan Matthews is here--

--and in the space of a couple days, has already both nailed the IOP with a force unseen since Garrett's famous "neutered mandarins" column, AND launched a campaign for the UC which is completely serious and not a joke at all:

Dylan Matthews is a man of extreme, Godly, near Obamian greatness. His loyalty to his arbitrarily assigned UC district of South Yard extends beyond any normal man’s basic restraint impulse. Why? Because he is not a normal man. He is a great man.

In fact, if Thomas Carlyle were to have met Dylan, he would have hanged himself in despair at the impossibility of achieving such greatness. And Thomas Carlyle was a total baller.

...My view is that any committee is subject to bias and prejudice, for or against the students that come before it. The Ad Board should be abolished and replaced with a coin and a loaded Colt Revolver. Heads, you live. Tails, you die. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair.

Smart and witty freshmen make me feel old and stupid. STOP IT

The IOP likes to reinforce its own stereotypes

Seriously? Among the IOP's spring study groups:

Drawing from her experience in American politics, Morella will head a study group on the past, present, and future of political moderates in Congress.

[...] Morella, who was also an IOP fellow in 2003, said she is pleased to return to Cambridge to discuss issues such as redistricting, special interest groups, and globalization with students.

Why not just cut out the middleman and rename it the Lieberman Institute?

...I remember the outcry when Garrett wrote about "neutered mandarins" and the "catechism of centrism" last month... everyone was so very upset...

...In fairness, the other newly-announced spring fellows seem inoffensive (two reporters, a former Indianapolis mayor, an Irish parliamentarian, and some environmentalist guy), but this just absolutely takes the cake. Are they trying to be walking caricatures of themselves?

Above: "OMG OMG OMG! I HAVE TO TIVO THIS!"

(Also, I'm having a bit of trouble with "redistricting, special interest groups, and globalization." Do those three issues have anything in common at all? Other than that they're all unbelievably boring crap that nobody other than junkies and D.C. insiders cares about? I guess I just answered my own question there...)

Garrett Smacks the IOP in Today's Crimson

Read read read read read:

On its face, the IOP purports to support exactly what the misty-eyed memoirists of the activist Sixties want Harvard students to be doing. In the style of the civic-minded academy, it implores Harvard students to “examine critically and think creatively about politics and public issues.” The entire circus operates under the spiritual aegis of President John F. Kennedy ’40, who, one imagines, looks down with rolled-up sleeves and a winning smile upon the IOP’s noble young activists.

Marketing, however, can’t gloss over the truth forever. What transpires down at the end of JFK Street is not the catalysis of idealism but rather a sort of cotillion for political nerds. It absorbs every freshman looking to exercise their obligations as a citizen and churns out a mixture of political technicians, professional hand-shakers, and disillusioned burnouts.

[...] the IOP inculcates a worrisome catechism of centrism in its followers. The maxim of political involvement IOP-style is to mold yourself into just the right mixture of sensible sentiments and professional suavity. Of the nineteen members of the IOP’s Student Advisory Council, for example, only four choose to identify as “liberal” or “conservative” on their Facebook profiles. Nine, apparently, have no political views whatsoever.

And having a corral for the political set on JFK street means Harvard mirrors a problem endemic to the nation: the consigning of civic duties to a self-contained class of “political people.” This flies in the face of the very notion of democratic society: that we are all political people. Political mobility is a sentiment which needs to boil through everyone who comes to Harvard College, a trade school of citizenship.

Absolutely right. Plus Garrett is much more intellectual and pragmatic about it than I can ever bring myself to be -- my solution to this problem has never grown much past "burn the motherfucker down", which for the record is also how I feel about the Crimson, the final clubs, and the GODDAMN NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS -- so you should really just go read his piece.

Though I would add that the IOP is ultimately not a cause of our political inertia so much as a symptom; there is a whole social and economic order that demands just those centrist sycophants the IOP churns out. (Let's not pretend the Dems are innocent on that front either.) After all, the all-inclusive "democratic society" Garrett proposes does not coexist well with a capitalistic one...

...For a palate cleanser, make sure also to read Jarret's fun column comparing the GOP presidential race to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- though I do think Jarret seriously underestimates the impact of Ron Paul. He has a blimp, people! A BLIMP! HOW CAN HE LOSE??!?

I-Banker Journalism

Coming to this a bit late, but Tyler Cowen has an interesting post responding to Henry Farrell on economic biases among journalists. Farrell mentions (in the context of a larger discussion) that the media tends to swing right on economics, citing some Jon Chait work; Cowen, a libertarian, responds with some cogent points as to why journalists would swing more left on the issue. As follows:

2. Journalists are more likely to be suspicious of corporations and indeed more likely to be suspicious in general. People lie to them every day, repeatedly and often without shame.

[...]4. If anything, it is the odd mix between cynicism and idealism that defines the journalistic political point of view.

5. Most journalists work in a declining sector -- newspapers or TV -- and this does not augur well for their belief in progress and the virtues of economic growth. They are not well-positioned to enjoy "creative destruction."

6. Not many top journalists are "far left Democrats." But most are Democrats. I also do not think many journalists would endorse the economic proposals of the rational wing of the Republican Party, say Greg Mankiw or Martin Feldstein. Journalists are likely to think those proposals do not show enough concern for the poor.

[...]In sum, the left-right spectrum is not the best way to understand the economic views of journalists. But, when it comes to economic issues, it is hard for me to put journalists on the right side of that line.

Fair enough. But there's a distinction to be made, that I don't see Farrell or Cowen picking up on: between journalists as individuals, and the people who shape opinions and reporting in media organizations (that is, owners, editors, and commentators). Journalists may have these characteristics that make them more skeptical of free-market economics, but I certainly don't think the opinionmakers do.

At Harvard we are privileged to observe these people in their larval stage, where their thought processes can be easily analyzed. They are the people who hang around the Crimson and the IOP, and who enjoy things like "networking"; they will on graduation almost immediately aquire jobs at prestigious publications or think-tanks. You know exactly the type of person I'm talking about. (In my experience, they have a sizable but shrinking representation in the Dems; and they are almost completely absent from the Harvard Republican Club, which is greatly to the HRC's credit.) If they were less intellectual they'd be future consultants hanging out in final clubs; if they were more intellectual they'd be those annoying people in section who never stop talking. As it is they're able to interact quite well with the rest of us, but their motivations are the same: they want prestige and they want attention, and that -- though of course they'll tell you otherwise -- is what drives their politics.

These people -- let's call them I-Banker Journalists -- are often brilliant and tremendously fun to argue with, but their thinking (especially on economics) is establishmentarian and elitist, as befits someone who's trying to to get ahead. And this kind of status-quo triumphalism is it's a natural fit for Harvard College, where everyone is either already fabulously wealthy or assumed to be on the way towards it; the IOP, where calm, placid centrism has been elevated to an art form; and the Crimson, which reads less like a student paper than a wannabe Washington Post. It is a whole self-reinforcing world that is convinced of its own power and infinite wisdom, Harvard uber alles. Things like the Stand for Security campaign -- which called all those precious assumptions into question -- frightened and confused these people, which is why they all (including so many Dems, look at the mailing list archives if you don't believe me) reacted violently against it. We are talking about people who are unfailingly SERIOUS, as Atrios would say, and they feel obligated to look "sensible" by distancing themselves from radicals in their own parties. They simply know better, after all. Here is their platonic ideal:

You see what I'm saying. This is a class of people who pursue a certain kind of un-provocative intelligence, one that can be found only in the Ivy League and our elite media. (Anywhere else, of course, these people would be immediately recognized and beaten up by unwashed Middle American hoodlums, or at least that's what I assume they're afraid of. No other reason to stay in those godawful places like Manhattan and Georgetown all the time.) Unlike regular journalists, I-Banker Journalists carry none of the traits Tyler Cowen writes about; addicted to power and prestige, they naturally lack any kind skepticism or cynicism. They are certainly not "suspicious" of corporations or the elite, since they ARE that elite, and they have no reason to worry about economic fairness ("creative destruction" to them only means a generous severance package from whatever conglomerate they're currently at). They take the free market as absolute gospel, prompted by -- just as Cowen mentions -- Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw. (After all, how could two such SERIOUS Harvard professors possibly be wrong?) We are not talking about Woodward and Bernstein here; we are talking more about Chris Matthews.

And the end result is a tangible bias toward establishment economics in our media -- cloaked in limousine liberalism sometimes, of course, but still ultimately in the mode of Ec10. Think about it; how many pundits can you think of that really question economic orthodoxy? Other than populist bomb-throwers like David Sirota (who now has a column, incidentally, not yet widely syndicated), you're pretty much out of luck. The closest mainstream pundit I can think of is the excellent Paul Krugman, and even he still works largely within a free-market mindset. Real economic dissent is pretty much confined these days to places like the World Socialist Web Site, which (while often insightful and valuable) is not really something you want to be citing in a argument.

Garrett wrote a while ago about Harvard's "liberal" mentality, and he's quite right, but I submit that there are specific people who drive this mentality -- through Harvard and right out into our media, dominating the discourse no matter how tiny a minority they may be. Whether this can be stopped, and whether it's a problem of the people or the environment, are questions for another post, but the trend is worth noting and worth observing if you want to really understand our college and our media climate.

(Feeling bad about Harvard economics? Remember, we may be stuck with Mankiw, but we also have Dani Rodrik. Read his blog.)

(h/t Reihan Salam pretending to be Ross Douthat)

Gov. Shaheen expected to enter NH Senate race today!

The Globe political blog, The Primary Source, reports that the IOP's own Jeanne Shaheen is going to announce her campaign to win the NH senate seat from John Sununu today.  A subsequent blog post says that Democratic primary contender, Jay Buckey, Dartmouth Med School Prof and former astronaut, will stay in the race even if she enters.  The post closes with the comment that he is already having fundraising issues.  I say he has a lot more to lose because he won't have the massive student force that are the Democrats of Harvard behind him.  

The Union Leader also has a story, with polling data that says Shaheen beats Sununu 54-38.  (editorial note: the comments under this story, at least the first few, are good for a laugh.)

Anybody know how to drive a bus, want to go to NH a lot? (I have this thing about buses, recently)

Pride of Chuckie

I make no bones about my feelings towards the IOP. I don’t really understand the drama of SAC elections or care about their power struggles. But, I can give credit where credit is due, and so I acknowledge that the IOP is great in its free-rider possibilities – I can contribute nothing and still take advantage of their programs. Case in point, Friday’s event with Senator Chuck Schumer.

In my mind, Schumer’s always been something of a conundrum. Outspoken Jewish liberal? Awesome. Fan of New York City? Don’t talk to me. Yet Schumer’s appearance and discussion of his 11-point plan for the Democratic Party impressed me on a number of levels.

1. Schumer can be liberal without being patronizing. Russ Feingold should take a few lessons here, as Schumer again and again emphasized that “the Bailey’s” – his composite middle-class family – need help from the government, but don’t want it accompanied by a shit-eating grin.

2. Schumer quite publicly distrusts the primary process. And, as one of the architects of the 2006 Democratic Takeover, he’s certainly justified: Bob Casey, Jim Webb, and Jon Tester might not be sitting in the senate today without the strong-arm tactics of Democratic Party leadership. Netroots are good people, but they also give us Ned Lamont.

3. Schumer states, point-blank, that the nation isn’t ready for universal health care. I’m not convinced that he’s right, but it’s refreshing to hear a voice of realism from a city full of optimists and cynics.

4. With a straight face, Schumer can lift a policy proposal from Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear. Seriously, his energy plan is to entrust a panel of experts to decide the nation’s future, and then give their plan a single up-or-down vote. Doesn’t anyone remember what Lt. Frank Drebin had to do to stop the forces of the Society of Petroleum Industry Leaders, “S.P.I.L” and the Key Atomic Benefits Office Of Mankind, “K.A.B.O.O.M” from kidnapping Dr. Albert Meinheimer?

5. Schumer admits that his ideas aren’t perfect, and sometimes aren’t even great. But he’s happy just to put ideas out there to get people talking, rather than getting defensive when people question his suggestions. Schumer isn’t That Guy in the giant section that is the U.S. Senate – and I’m pretty sure he wants to smack That Guy as much as we all do.

All this being said, Schumer certainly wasn’t flawless. He tangled himself up by stating that the Bailey’s can’t understand limits on democracy and capitalism, and later admitting that he dislikes interest group politics because they represent the extremes of both philosophies. But, maybe that was the most refreshing part. Does he contradict himself? Very well then contradicts himself. (He is large, he contains multitudes.) And, after the event, I’ll publicly admit for the first that I’m jealous of New York, if only for its senior senator.

Ned Lamont Coming Back to Harvard

The Crimson reports that lovable Connecticut shmuck Ned Lamont will be an IOP fellow this spring. I can only imagine how phenomenally, hilariously awesome that will be. (Especially watching him awkwardly hanging out with failed Republicans Kerry Healey and Nancy Johnson... oh man.)

I can only imagine who will show up to his study group. We may wind up accidentally burning down the Kennedy School.

(Plus, at the end of every study group, Ned should say "I approved this discussion," then everybody will shout "AND SO DO WE!")

Turnout Among 18-24 Year Olds Could Break Records, IOP Survey Released

The IOP has just released the results of its Fall 2006 Young Voter Survey.

For the first, time we polled college students AND non-college 18-24 year olds.

LINK: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/

HIGHLIGHTS

• Midterm election turnout among 18-24 year old could reach record levels in 2006.

• A strong majority of likely young voters favor Democratic control of Congress.

• A near-majority of young people favor total troop withdrawal from Iraq within the next year.

• 18-24 year olds trust the military and the United Nations more than Congress and the federal government.

• President George W. Bush gets “C-” grade on seven key issues.

• President Bush’s handling of Iraq, clearly the issue that is driving this election and the President’s second-term agenda, is viewed by more than two-in-five (43%) young Americans (and 67% of young African Americans) as a
  failure or “F."

Obviously, this is big. Youth voter turnout for midterm elections is usually very low. High turnout next week would represent both an individual record-breaking event as well as reveal a trend of increased youth involvement in politics.

Also, as the poll clearly shows that young people are strongly siding with the Dems, high youth turnout could confound the pollsters who always weight their polls based on expected demographic participation.

Check out the rest of the poll results. It's a treasure-trove of interesting data. For one, I can't get over how much young Americans HATE the media.

Response to Crimson Confusion

I beg to differ with Ms. Loncke of Cambridge Common in her most recent article, titled Crimson Confusion, specifically her comments on grassroots organizing:

A campus event today illustrates this short-sightedness. The e-flier in my inbox invited me to “LEARN GRASSROOTS POLITICS” at the IOP study group with Karen Hicks, called “People Power and Electoral Organizing.” The problem here isn’t that progressives want to teach and learn grassroots politics. It’s that we treat grassroots politics not as a philosophy, but as a tactic. What was once a guiding principle emphasizing local empowerment and mass cooperation for change now serves as a tool to attract votes and consolidate elite politicians’ power. Yes, winning elections is very, very important. But it’s not the whole game. Grassroots organizing can’t be the secret weapon Democrats whip out when we mean business; it should be an integral part of the way we want politics to work at all times. For progressives, it should represent the underpinnings of any and every political discussion, not just another topic for a focus group.

Have you even been to the Karen Hicks study group, Ms. Loncke? Granted, I missed the first week, but having gone every week since then, and I have seen her espouse a message that grassroots is not a tactic but a guiding principle for all actions of a campaign. How about the Harvard Dems skills summit over the weekend with the DNC, did you make it to that? Because you would have met Parag, the head of training for the DNC and you would not still believe that the Democratic Party is not wholly committed to authentic connections between a broad base of organizers and their communities. Microtargeting is a tool, just one in a large toolbox. Direct quote from Karen Hicks yesterday. Also, Karen Hicks leads not a focus group, but a study group so that when we graduate, we'll be more effective organizers who know the best ways to connect with people. There's a new game in town, and we want you as a player, not a hater.