The Hill Has Moved!

With a growing readership, and the realization that management of the blog needs to be able to be easily transferred, The Hill staff realized that we needed to move our blog to a new location.

With lots of new features, and an ease of access that will make maintaining the blog easier for many years and many editors to come, this truly was the best decision for the continuity of our blog.

But don't worry, we're still public and we've moved all the old posts to our new site! So please, continue reading!

Check us out at: http://chapelhillpoliticalreview.wordpress.com/

And, as always, check out our website at http://studentorgs.unc.edu/thehill/

Thanks for reading!

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Whose Power Is It?

United States immigration policy has long been formed at the federal level, with Congress and the president setting the agenda. The state of Arizona, however, just passed a bill giving local law enforcement authority over immigration and illegal immigrants. Under the new bill, which Governor Jan Brewer signed into law on Friday, it will be a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona; more than that, all immigrants will have to carry their “alien registration documents” at all times. The new bill also gives local law enforcement the power to ask people about their immigration status if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that those persons are undocumented.

Critics of the law claim it will lead to racial profiling. Anyone who appears as though they are not a natural born American citizen can be asked to prove their citizenship. And the most obvious way of guessing whether one might be a citizen or an alien? Ethnicity, of course. So perhaps these fears aren’t entirely unfounded. It seems clear that certain people will be stopped and questioned more than others.

One cannot entirely blame Arizona for taking a step towards combating the influx of illegal immigrants. Arizona does have the right to protect its borders against illegal immigration. And like any state, Arizona pays many costs for housing illegal aliens. Given that federal action against the illegal immigration problem has fallen by the wayside as a result of the financial crisis and conflicts abroad, it makes sense that Arizona chose to try and solve the issue on its own.

It seems, however, that there are still issues to work out regarding this legislation. Many question the law’s constitutionality by arguing that only the federal government has authority over immigration. Furthermore, with claims that the law will lead to racial profiling, regulations and oversight mechanisms need to be put into place to prevent such profiling—which maybe impossible, given the subject and the law. At this point, however, it’s up to the courts to decide. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon has already promised to take the law to court, where a judge can decide whether states have any authority over immigration.

SARAH WENTZ

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A Victory for American Power

At first glance, an agreement that will send hundreds of deployed warheads back into their silos might not seem like a boon for US power. But by restricting America’s hard power, the “New START” treaty recently signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will amplify America’s soft-power capabilities. Soft power is the amalgam of economic, social, and cultural influences that a country projects to improve national prestige and to increase its influence on other nations. Footage of the President of the United States signing an agreement condemning hundreds of missiles to the scrap yard is a powerful way to show that America is not an aggressor nation. This symbol is even more powerful considering that, twenty years ago, Obama and Medvedev would have been at each other’s throats. Although the treaty alone will not convince Jihadists on the river Euphrates—or even fellow-travelers on the river Seine—that America does not aspire to global hegegmony, voluntarily reducing our arsenal could strengthen the international consensus for tough sanctions on Iran by demonstrating that our purpose is reducing the threat of nuclear war, not toppling the Iranian government and setting up a neo-colonial oil venture. And should worst come to worst, our newfound credibility will allow us to vigorously check Iran’s aggression if and when that country acquires nuclear weapons.

This strategy of voluntary arms reduction could reinvigorate the tradition of the morally humble liberal hawk. Better suited to conduct foreign policy than either the pacifist left or the Manichean, interventionist right, the liberal hawks have suffered over the last decade due to the polarization of the post-9/11 era. An anti-proliferation agenda would help to improve America’s flaws while ensuring peace and safety around the world—precisely the principle upon which the liberal hawks base their ideology. Reciprocity is the key; any attempt to improve the world must begin by recognizing that America itself is not morally pure. Cutting our nuclear arsenal while acting to reduce proliferation abroad will put this principle into practice; enhance the internal consistency of America’s defense policy, and re-establish the foundations of a foreign policy tradition that should not have been allowed to atrophy.

ALEX JONES

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Environmentalism in the Balance

Recently, The New York Times ran an unusual headline: “Obama Proposes Opening Vast Offshore Areas to Drilling.” Unusual, that is, to anyone who hasn’t followed the debate over climate policy taking place in the US Senate during the last few months. Amid the public options and accusations of Hitlerism, a quiet revolution is taking place in the most important environmental debate of our time. Environmentalists, long caricatured as beatniks prepared to sacrifice the economy on the altar of the polar bear, have in fact become ruthlessly pragmatic, cutting hard bargains with business interests and their satellites in Congress to reach deals that balance the dual imperatives of economic growth and climate protection. The best strategy for emissions reduction—a simple carbon tax—was dismissed as politically impossible. The best alternative—cap-and-trade, with all permits auctioned—is eroding, as nervous senators worry about high energy prices depleting the industrial base. Nevertheless, all the major environmental groups maintain their support for the bill. Given all the compromises that brought climate legislation to this point, the failure or passage of this bill will likely determine the direction of the environmental movement. To paraphrase Al Gore, environmentalism hangs in the balance.

If the climate bill passes and the US begins reducing emissions, environmentalism will remain largely intact. Some elements may complain that the mainstream organizations are too close to the industries and government institutions they are supposed to check, but these frustrations will go mostly ignored. If, however, Congress fails to take action, the environmental movement may become more stridently anti-establishment, more interested in civil disobedience and less inclined to seek a balance between nature and commerce. In short, the movement could become more disruptive and less predictable. The results might veer in one of two diverging directions. On the one hand, a die-hard environmental movement could be a useful counterweight to the polluters, who have often shown little concern for the objections of environmental advocates (or citizens in affected communities, for that matter). On the other hand, aggressive, narrowly focused advocates might not be able to influence policy effectively—especially on mundane matters that require a great deal of expertise and receive little publicity. Plus, influencing legislation is difficult when your representatives on the Hill have little clout or connection to the grassroots.

A moderate, establishmentarian wing is essential to ensure that environmental objections are met without sacrificing too much prosperity or alienating too many erstwhile allies. In order to build broad-based support—a necessity for any successful social movement—environmentalism must appeal to as many potential partners as possible. If we want to continue to see clean air, clean water and intact wilderness—and if we want to avoid climatic catastrophe—we must pass this imperfect bill. Otherwise, the earth and its advocates may slip from the balance, and we will lose what many have worked to protect.

ALEX JONES

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You Still Gotta Play Nice

Politics is tough, I get that. When you’re president of the United States, you have to make tough decisions. But I think that good manners and civility should be indisputable, irremovable components of political strategy. President Obama’s recent actions regarding Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seem to suggest otherwise. Never before has a United States president snubbed a fellow world leader within the White House itself.

Admittedly, Israel came in unwilling to make concessions. President Obama met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, but the prime minister refused to make any written agreements of concession. After a while, President Obama excused himself but invited the prime minister to stay and “let [Obama] know if anything changed.” The Israeli delegation felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed that they eventually left for the Israeli embassy, not even feeling secure enough to use the White House telephone lines.

Sources report that Prime Minister Netanyahu failed to convince President Obama that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Some suggest that Israel hoped the president would be too busy with domestic issues to pay much attention to the Middle East. In the end, not much got done, and the Israel delegation left in a huff.

Playing hardball is well and good, but actions like abandoning a world leader because they don’t want to negotiate seem petty. The United States has garnered a fair amount of international respect, but when our president embarrasses a diplomat who has come to negotiate, it does not reflect well on our country.

Obama aides report that bonds between Israel and the United States are still strong, and that the two allies can disagree without much damage. It looks as though the incivility didn’t hurt the process too much, but such tactics hardly seem like good political strategy. Nations are less willing to make concessions if you don’t treat them with respect.

SARAH WENTZ

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"18 Millions Jobs," The Nation, and the Role of the Media

“...The unemployment rate will stand at around 4 percent when Obama runs for re-election in 2012.” This seeming pipe dream can actually happen, writes economist Robert Pollin in a recent issue of The Nation. Pollin arguesthat by propping up demand through fiscal aid to states, releasing bank reserves and channeling them toward business investment, and boosting the supply side by spending on infrastructure, Congress can create 500,000 jobs every month for the next two-and-a-half years, bringing the economy back to full employment just in time for the next presidential election. The proposal is far from perfect—in particular, Pollin seems far too sanguine about the possibility of inflation—but the piece is worth reading. Pollin lays out a coherent alternative to the pessimism that dominates discussions of the US labor market. More cautious publications would not print such a radical proposal, perhaps out of (well-grounded) fear that the idea might turn out to be catastrophically wrong. And that’s why media outlets outside the country’s political center are so important.

Their articles can sometimes be shrill and intemperate—and also bold and visionary. Because they need not hew the line of the governing parties, they permanently enjoy the freedom of the opposition. This is the freedom to safely propose ideas too transformative to penetrate the cocoons of those who must concern themselves with the day-to-day stresses of governing. Dissident publications become laboratories for concepts that might one day fundamentally change the way policymakers view American life.

Without the writings of another unorthodox economist and Nation contributor, John Kenneth Galbraith, our fixation with growth at the expense of other measures of social welfare might have pre-empted Medicare, Medicaid and other achievements of the Great Society era. Today, our society is kept affluent—even in times of recession—in large part due to the stabilizing effects of these programs. It would be foolish if the media outlets that voice “conventional wisdom”—a term coined by Galbraith himself—kept us from considering what the mainstream perpetually deems unattainable.

ALEX JONES

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Peace in Sudan? Perhaps

Okay, I’ll admit it. In the rush of day-to-day life, I often forget about Sudan. The Darfur conflict has been going on since 2003 but is still generally ignored by the media. Issues closer to home tend to grab my attention. The conflicts between Republicans and Democrats over health care and the Iraq War seem far more relevant, especially since those issues receive much more mainstream media coverage than does Sudan.

But since the conflict began in 2003, the estimated death toll has reached 300,000, and more than 2.5 million civilians have been displaced. Maybe it deserves our attention. So when I was flipping through Google News and a saw the little blurb “Peace in Sudan?” I was caught off guard. Surely I’d have seen something if the conflict was over. And it isn’t yet, but for once it looks like an end might be in sight.

As of now, a temporary truce has been signed between the largest opposition group and the Khartoum regime. The two have plans to talk further to reach a permanent agreement. A worrisome component of this agreement, however, is the March 15 deadline for a permanent peace treaty. Can two groups that have been fighting for seven years reach an agreement in three weeks? As much as I’d like to believe the answer is yes, I find it nearly impossible.

After all, there was a peace agreement in 2006 between one faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Sudanese government. Unfortunately, another faction of the SLA did not sign the treaty, and violence continued in the region. The latest treaty was signed by the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) and the Khartoum regime. Other rebel groups such as the SLA refuse to sign even this temporary treaty until all violence is stopped. And while the Sudanese government says they intend to include other factions in the negotiations, those factions are angered by the separate ceasefire with Jem. Some rebel groups have united to form the Liberation and Justice Movement in opposition to Jem.

It may be a little early to expect a permanent ceasefire. The current negotiations seem to be further alienating rebel groups rather than bringing everyone to the table for a discussion on ending the conflict. It’s disheartening when one of the major obstacles to peace results from excluding some dissenting groups. However, if the Sudanese government reaches out to the other rebel groups, as they claim they intend to, perhaps peace in Darfur is closer than we think.

I hope that if a permanent peace agreement is reached in Darfur, then the media will give it the proper coverage. After all, the end of a seven-year-long conflict that many had written off as hopeless is nothing if not newsworthy. And it’s certainly more interesting than hearing more reports that Congress is at a standstill as they argue about healthcare.

SARAH WENTZ

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Obama and the Lama

After reading about Obama’s one-hour meeting with the Dalai Lama last week, I sat there pondering what in the world the two could have talked about.

Dalai Lama: I recall your victory speech at Chicago’s Grant Park—good speech.
Obama: Why thank you. Uhhh, I've heard that green tea from the high mountains of Tibet is excellent.
Dalai Lama: Yes...
59 minutes of awkward silence)
Obama: Well, it was great seeing you, and I hope to see you again in four years because then it means I’ve been reelected.

OK, that’s probably not what the two talked about, but I think this is a good summary of what passed between the former and current Nobel Prize winners: absolutely nothing substantial. It wouldn't be the first time...

Lama to George W. Bush: Maybe the Texas Rangers will win it all this year!
Lama to Bill Clinton: It’s a shame I can’t eat beef, because I sure want to try that McDonald’s Big Mac you recommended.
Lama to George H.W. Bush: I’ve been invited to many homes, and I have to say that yours is the nicest!

The Dalai Lama has been to see each president since George H.W. Bush, who is responsible for initiating this useless and counterproductive tradition. The Tibetan figurehead has treaded the middle line for decades, carefully distancing himself from the violent rebellion in Tibet in 2008 while loudly calling for increased autonomy, but he has never called and never will call for independence. America has always respected the integrity of China’s geographical boundary, which includes Tibet. So why did Obama meet the lama in spite of strenuous protests from America’s most intimate trade partner and biggest creditor?

Does the president not have anything better to do? Health care reform, immigration reform, Afghanistan, and unemployment rates are all issues that voters care more about than some place few Americans can find on the map. Does the average jobless family in Detroit care about Tibet?

I’m guessing that when Obama looked at his schedule on the day of the lama meeting, it probably said: “9 O’clock: Meet with Dalai Lama and piss off China.”

The Dalai Lama is a moderate; a moderate and soft-spoken man is all he is. I mean, God/Buddha bless him, but has he actually changed anything in Tibet? Chinese control of Tibet has only tightened over the last few decades, and it is increasingly clear that China considers a meeting between the U.S. president and the Dalai Lama to be an insult.

I just wish the government could see the political consequences of its gesture, because that’s really all the meeting is: a gesture. The meetings are always hush hush and brief, and nothing concrete has ever come out of them. But future cooperation between the United States and China is vital in every aspect, from politics to the world economy to the military. There are direct negative consequences from this one-hour meeting that has not produced, does not produce and will never produce any changes in Chinese policy. China has already backed out of helping the United States corral Iran, and the Chinese military is closing its curtains again just as the two powers began working on military transparency. Why strain a potential world-leading partnership? I think if some future president decides to stop the meetings, China will be grateful and give back in the form of a little more autonomy for the Tibetans.

DAN KANG

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Showing Some Spine

After Scott Brown's victory in the special Massachusetts Senate election nearly a month ago, many in the mainstream media sounded the death knell for Barack Obama's health care reform. Brown's victory stripped the Democrats of their 60-vote supermajority. Without the numbers, it was said, Democratic senators had no chance of blocking Senate Republicans from filibustering health care reform, and the bill would not pass unless it was watered down to attract at least some Republican support. However, after Harry Reid's recent announcement that Democrats will push health care reform through the Senate using a congressional procedure known as budget reconciliation, it seems as if the bill may indeed have a chance of passing without any Republican support.

The reconciliation process is an obscure and complex one that can be used to streamline the passage of any measures that affect the federal budget and reduce the deficit. Essentially, when a bill is brought to Congress under the reconciliation procedure, debate in either house is limited, and, in the Senate, the use of the filibuster is forbidden. As a result, only a simple majority of 51 votes—rather than the traditional supermajority of 60—is needed to pass the bill in the upper chamber. This would solve the Democrats’ 60-vote problem, and enable them to include particularily divisive provisions—such as a public option—which conservative members of their own caucus (Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and Ben Nelson) oppose.

The Democrats have long had the reconciliation option on the table, and the progressive wing of the party (yours truly included) has for some time been urging the president and congressional leadership to use it. However, as a result of President Obama's desire to pass the health care bill under the guise of bipartisanship, the procedure had been put on the back burner.

Reid's announcement—and the support the President seems to be offering for the use of reconciliation—represents a welcome shift in Democratic strategy on the health care issue. Ever since President Obama made health care reform the centerpiece of his domestic agenda last year, the reconciliation procedure has been available for him to pass meaningful health care reform. But by not taking advantage of this opportunity and instead caving in to Republicans and Democratic moderates, the president has capitulated on one of the most crucial issues to come before the United States Congress in the history the Union.

What the president has termed “bipartisanship” has devolved into outright appeasement of Republican demands, and it has come at the expense of the American taxpayer and the American economy. Soaring health care costs are a significant strain on not only individuals and families across America, but also upon the federal budget. If spending on Medicaid and Medicare continues at the current rate, these programs will increase in cost from 5% of our national GDP today to 20% of GDP in 2050. Rising health care costs are breaking the federal budget and contributing greatly to the already formidable federal deficit. Clearly, this is not an issue on which he can afford to compromise.

If the Massachusetts election has taught the president anything, it's that ordinary voters are worried about the desperate financial plight of many individual Americans and about the enormity federal deficit. It is these voters—not the Republicans—the president needs to appease, and he can do this by implementing real, substantive health care reform to reduce the burden of health care costs on American families and the American government. In order to do so, however, he needs to play some hardball politics.

There are promising indications that the president is ready to dig his heels in for a fight; he has written his own version of the bill—to be unveiled in a public brainstorming session on health care with the GOP next week—and seems prepared to move forward with it under the reconciliation procedure. Despite claims from the right wing that such a move represents an unprecedented and extremist “nuclear option,” there is strong precedent for such action, especially with regard to health care: in 1985, Congress used the reconciliation procedure to pass the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), which allowed employees leaving a firm to remain enrolled in their employer’s health care plan if they continued to pay premiums. Again in 1997, reconciliation was used to pass the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicare advantage, two programs which now provide benefits to more than 17 million Americans.

Had the president and Congress employed this policy months ago, they would have saved themselves a lot of time, energy and political capital. Had the President acted with dispatch in passing the health care reform bill, the Republicans would have had no opportunity to take control of the debate, defame the president and his allies, and push the Democratic Party into such disfavor with voters. However, the Democratic “bipartisan” strategy lent itself to delay, and over time, the President and his party simply lost control of the message.

But what's done is done. We can only hope that, this time, the president will have learned from his previous mistakes and will take swift action to pass a meaningful reform bill. To act in any other way would result in absolute disaster.

DAVID ZOPPO

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Permit Me a Moment of Populist Rage...

A recent report by Neil Barofsky, Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), found that the government bailout of financial institutions has actually made a future economic crisis more likely. The main reason for this is that the megabanks which embroiled the US economy in the crisis now have no incentive to reduce the risk they take on, because they know the government will bail them out again. Indeed, in testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in mid-January, the executives of major financial institutions—Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley—made clear their belief that, should any of them risk failure, the government would step in.

In short, while TARP was necessary, and while it did provide the funds necessary to keep credit moving in the financial markets, the government has still done nothing to change the banking practices that created the crisis in the first place. That some financial institutions are considered “too big to fail” is a frightening—and absurd—fact.

The government must take steps to regulate particularly risky practices—such as credit-default swaps, derivatives trading (a practice so complicated, I'm still trying to figure out how it works), mortgage-backed securities, and short selling—and to break up the nation's largest banks, lest the taxpayers be forced to bear the brunt of more Wall Street irresponsibility. The government also ought to improve oversight of the financial system, such as implementing minimum capital requirements for banks that take on certain risks. There is no sense in the government waiting for a crisis in order to intervene; if it was justified intervening in autumn 2008 to prevent a complete fiscal meltdown, it is surely justified now, in order to proactively prevent such a catastrophe.

The recent reforms proposed by President Obama and Congress are a good step toward achieving this goal. Based on the substance of his reforms, it is apparent that the President has finally thrown his weight behind chief economic adviser Paul Volcker, who, since the inception of the crisis, has advocated for these and other reforms of the financial system. Volcker is a reformer, not a radical; he recognizes the importance of having robust financial institutions in today's complex, global economy. The goal of his reforms are not to exact vengeance on the banks, but to make sure they do business more responsibly. Should they not conduct themselves responsibly—should they take on risks which they cannot support—their downfall ought not to threaten the nation’s financial security.

It is this practical, proactive and realistic approach to financial reform that President Obama and Congress must keep in mind when shaping legislation in the coming months. Not only will it improve the health of financial institutions in the United States, but it will also sit well with voters, who will perceive him as taking a stand against the monied interests who caused the crisis.

The premise of these reforms must be twofold: firstly, egregious risk-taking on the part of Wall Street must be limited and regulated by the government. Secondly, Wall Street institutions must never be allowed to grow to the point where their failure would result in the collapse of the entire Western economy.

DAVID ZOPPO

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What Not to Wear

It may seem silly, but the French Government is currently considering a law that will affect how women dress. After President Nicolas Sarkozy’s comment last June that burqas are “not welcome” in France, the country is now considering legislation that would ban women from wearing a burqa or niqab in state venues such as hospitals, public buildings, and on trains and buses. The proposed law would not extend to the public streets, but it is expected that the legislation may lead to similar edicts in stores as well. This law could effectively make women who wear the veil prisoners in their own neighborhood.

This proposal follows the 2004 ban of “ostentatious religious wear” in French public schools. The ban forbids students to wear large crosses or Stars of David, and even prohibits Muslim girls from wearing headscarves. The law was mostly used against headscarves and consequently met with a large outcry from the country’s sizeable Muslim population; numbering an estimated 3.5 million, France’s Muslim population is the largest in Western Europe. The 2004 law, however, provided Muslim families with options. As the law only forbids headscarves and other religious wear in public schools, parents could choose to send their children to private school. The proposed burqa ban would give women who wear the veil no choice but to discard it or stay at home.

Many question the logic behind the ban. Legislators claim that it is a security risk to have one’s face covered. President Sarkozy has stated that, beyond the issue of security, the practice goes against Western culture. He says that the West is open and the burqa and niqab are inherently closed. Some supporters of the law say it will be a good thing; they believe that many women are forced to wear the burqa by their husband or by other male family members, and that it indicates female subservience. But women who wear the burqa disagree. They state that they choose to wear the veil, some even against their husband’s wishes.

Still others suggest that the law stems from “Islamophobia,” with the knee-jerk association of Islam with terrorism. Many see a direct correlation between the full veil and extremism, and from there it’s not a far jump to terrorism. In France, however, this seems unfounded. Many of the 1,900 French women (approximately 0.038% of the French Muslin population) who wear the burqa or niqab are refugees who fled from the extremism in their home country.

So does the French government have the right to ban the burqa? Should the French government be able to dictate what women can and cannot wear, and to force citizens to alter their religious practices? It hardly seems either right or constitutional. The preamble of the French constitution affirms La Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen, or the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which defines the “natural and imprescriptible rights of man" as "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” It would seem, therefore, that women should have the freedom to wear a burqa if they choose. And whether or not Muslim women are wearing the burqa by choice or by order of their husband, well…that’s hardly something for the government to decide.

Should the French ban the burqa and niqab and deprive women of the right to practice their religion as they see fit, especially when they are not harming anyone else? Unless the French are willing to ignore what they themselves decreed as the natural rights of man, the burqa ban should not go into effect. France may be the fashion capital of the world, but the government should stay out of decision making in regards to what not to wear.

SARAH WENTZ

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He's Not Dead Yet

It is one year after the inauguration of President Obama, and his approval ratings have taken a severe hit. But does that mean his number is up? Are his hopes for re-election dead before he even begins campaigning?

Recent Gallup daily approval polls show that fewer than half of Americans approve of President Obama’s performance since he took office one year ago. Given the long-standing trend of a decrease in approval ratings through the second year of presidential terms, the future looks cloudy for President Obama. But there have been exceptions to the trend of falling approval ratings. Among recent presidents, both President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush actually saw a rise in their ratings during their second year. Many political analysts, however, do not believe that President Obama can do the same.

In light of the recent special election in Massachusetts, the media has suggested that the defeat of the Democratic candidate is due to dissatisfaction with President Obama and the Democratic Party as a whole. But that election is a whole different issue best left alone for the moment. Scott Brown’s election is noteworthy, however, as many claim that this Democratic defeat forecasts even bigger losses in the 2012 presidential election.

But not everyone is so quick to write off President Obama. Confidence in President Obama’s abilities to turn things around came from a surprising source: Mike Huckabee. The former Republican candidate suggested that the Massachusetts election signifies “the beginning of the end of the Democratic domination of Congress,” but he also says that it signifies “the beginning of the re-election of Barack Obama.” Huckabee makes a good point: in reaction to the special election, President Obama will have to change his course, a change that more than likely put him in a better place come 2012. It is a change he might not have made had the Democrats won Massachusetts and thus kept their filibuster-proof Senate majority

But I digress. The question remains: do low poll numbers now indicate a future Obama defeat? Perhaps. They’re certainly not a good sign, and they do forecast a difficult re-election. Yet his election to his current office was no easy feat either. Two years ago today, he had been discounted as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, let alone as a candidate in the general election. So can he do it…again? Can President Obama overcome the poor approval ratings and the political analysts who say he hasn’t a chance? Maybe. He certainly has a fair shot. After all, a lot can happen in two and a half years.

SARAH WENTZ

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The Ignorance of the Supreme Court

In the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, the Court struck down campaign finance laws that banned corporate political spending on candidates in federal elections. Both the right and left have expressed outrage at the ruling, which, it is believed, will drastically increase the amount of money that corporations, unions and other interest groups spend to support or criticize federal candidates.

But despite all the outrage, one must ask: will the ruling really change anything? Though a great deal of campaign finance reform has taken place in America since the 1940s, the political system remains distorted in favor of elites, who have significantly more leverage than does the average American. Indeed, it could be said that the provision at issue in Citizens United did little to reduce the influence that corporations and special interests have in federal elections.

What we saw with Max Baucus during the health care debate is a perfect example: he received millions of dollars from insurance companies and hospitals to tailor the legislation to their benefit, while ignoring the demands of center-left and progressive Democrats for more radical changes like the public option. Campaign finance reform has done little to change the fundamental flaw in the democratic electoral system: namely, that those with the most money have the loudest voice.

Whatever the effect of the ruling, it's clear that the Court was not interested in addressing the problem; their arguments focused on the supposed “chilling” effect that the McCain-Feingold Act had on a corporation's free exercise of political speech. Their reasoning goes like this: according to the first amendment, the government does not have the authority to restrict speech based on the character of the speaker or the content of their speech; based on a long line of Supreme Court precedents, corporations are entitled to first amendment protection. As such, the Court concluded that McCain-Feingold's restrictions on corporate spending are unconstitutional because they restrict the ability of a certain class—big business—to express their political beliefs.

This is a stock argument against the ban; but read further into the Court's opinion, and you will note an important distinction that considerably weakens their reasoning. The ruling in Citizens United—that the government may not restrict corporate spending during campaigns—applies only to a corporation's independent expenditures on a candidate, not to their direct contributions to that same candidate. Corporations are still forbidden to directly contribute to candidates, but they may spend as much money as they like to promote or criticize said candidate. For instance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield cannot contribute to Harry Reid's opponent; but, after this ruling, they can spend as much as they like on their own ads criticizing Harry Reid and promoting his opponent.

The distinction between direct contributions and independent expenditures is crucial to the Court's argument. The Court admits that direct contributions from interest groups to political candidates fosters corruption, but when these groups make independent expenditures —for instance, a commercial for or against a candidate—there is somehow no threat or appearance of corruption. To quote Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion, “simply because speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt.”

Are you kidding me? What is an “independent expenditure” if not an indirect contribution to a candidate? The Court's argument rests on the fallacious assumption that only direct contributions from corporations to candidates foster corruption, and that any independent expenditures—though they have the same effect as direct contributions—do not create such a problem. Proponents of the Court's decision would argue that even after this ruling, campaign finance law remains the same: you still can’t buy a vote.

But the fact of the matter remains: it's not necessary for a corporation to provide direct financial support to a candidate in order for corruption to exist. Out of necessity, the relationship between interest groups and political figures has evolved beyond that point: not only is it illegal for politicians to receive direct contributions from these groups, but it's also unpopular among the American public. Americans have always despised the idea that someone should receive privileged treatment as a result of anything but their own hard work, and the populist rage against the elite—the banks, the politicians, the executives—reflects this attitude. So business and government have had to adapt their relationship to the point where a vote can be bought without even a penny being exchanged. The fundamental flaw in the Court's ruling is its frightening misunderstanding of the nature of corruption in contemporary American politics.

DAVID ZOPPO

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Two Cheers for Cronyism

Who can you trust? In politics, the answer increasingly seems to be "nobody." The newly-released book "Game Change," written by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, is Exhibit A. Halperin and Heilemann's gossipy behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 election is loaded with juicy quotes plucked from "unnamed sources," "anonymous staffers," and "campaign higher-ups," each one desperately trying to spin the truth to their own advantage.

So how are politicians supposed to act when everything they say or do might eventually find its way into a tell-all memoir? Frank Bruni explores the issue in a though-provoking New York Times article.

The biggest problem, as Bruni rightly points out, is a lack of loyalty. In the past two decades we have seen the rise of a new political class, a gang of mercenary advisers who hop from candidate to candidate in search of the big score. True, they are not completely unprincipled; most work only one side of the political spectrum, for either Republicans or Democrats. But beyond that, they have no connection to their candidate other than a paycheck. Think of Steve Schmidt, brought in to advise John McCain, or Chris Lehane, formerly of the Edward campaign.

Maybe, then, cronyism isn't such a bad thing after all. Maybe a candidate should surround himself with close friends rather than hired guns. Yes, they might not look as flashy, and they also might cause a certain ideological cocooning. But at least the candidate's friends know his strengths and weaknesses. They won't try to make him something he's not. Plus, if a candidate is more comfortable with his advisers, he'll be more comfortable in general. Can you really share your feelings with a campaign manager you hired two weeks ago?

Two cheers for cronyism--at least the cronies are usually loyal.

WILL SCHULTZ

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