Mary Landrieu: centrist with experience

Regardless of whether it is past performance or future promises, Louisiana Democrats running for reelection to Congress keep trying to say one thing and hope you don't look deeper to find out what they say they are and what they truly are in fact are different things.

Both Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Don Cazayoux keep trying to run from their liberalism, carefully choosing their rhetoric to shield themselves from reality. But their actions and words keep tripping them up.

Landrieu's actions belie the "centrist" label she keeps trying to claim, even as it has fooled some otherwise intelligent, attentive people. She will spout off how the for 2007 the publication National Journal rated her at the median of senators on her voting record and how she votes with her liberal party the second-least of any senator.

But looking at Landrieu's relative standing among her peers obscures the fact that she is very liberal, by her record, because even if she is among the least liberal of all the liberals she's still being very liberal. Or another way to look at it, put Landrieu-endorsee for president Sen. Barack Obama, and his associates the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Rev. Michael Pflegler, and admitted terrorist Bill Ayres together in the same room, and Obama might be the most "centrist" of the bunch. Yet that does not change the fact that he was rated in 2007 by the National Journal as the most liberal senator as he is scored as extremely liberal.

Landrieu the magazine ranks on the liberal side, if not by much, at 53.7 (100 being perfectly liberal) in 2007. However, Landrieu has a history of sliding towards to center in the years leading up to an election. A better indicator comes from the American Conservative Union's scorecard of her, which shows she has a 22.4 lifetime rating (1997-2007, where 0 is the perfect liberal score), but remove the years 2001, 2002, and 2007 where she scored  28, 35, and 40, respectively, her average when she thinks she isn't being watched is an 18. Somebody who votes the liberal line when uninfluenced by electoral politics 82 percent of the time simply is no "centrist" or "moderate." (Her liberalism is mirrored if not better shown in the ratings put out by the Americans for Democratic Action, where, for example, she scored an Read More...

Jefferson touts minister endorsement

Am I missing something here? A collection of black ministers has endorsed embattled Rep. Bill Jefferson, who is black, for reelection despite the fact he is under indictment for influence peddling, against political newcomer and non-black Helena Moreno for the Democrat nomination.

As regards someone accused of dishonesty in government, one might think ministers in particular would shy away from that candidacy. But apparently not, as Jefferson is touted as the best choice because they believe him to be "effective."

Ministering to the faithful requires some degree of wisdom, yet in remarks made about the endorsement leads to wondering whether they possess the good judgment needed to lead their flocks. Their spokesman, for one, believes in Jefferson's innocence. While this certain adheres to the power of faith, after a certain point faith becomes wishful thinking. Besides the mountain of evidence and Jefferson's associates, friends, and relatives singing like birds about his role, just last week former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd plead guilty to a separate crime which implicated Jefferson. Legally, anyone not yet found guilty of a crime is innocent of it, but at a certain point when giving political direction credulity must factor in.

But let's really give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt beyond what he deserves. Regardless, there must be great doubt about whether he is "effective" as a member of Congress. He has been stripped of committee assignments where most influence is attained and is shunned by the Democrat leadership, desperate to deflect attention from other scandals such as those concerning Reps. Barney Frank with improper influence and Tim Mahoney with hush money.

All right, let's concede that, somehow believing Jefferson still could have more pull that a new representative unencumbered by all of this baggage. Yet this brings us to the most baffling aspect of the endorsement, where the spokesman argued even if Jefferson were found guilty and subsequently removed, "I would rather at least go back and have a special election than put the wrong person in."

Silly me, but if that happened, wouldn't that prove that Jefferson himself was the "wrong" person? So wouldn't it make more sense to put someone in office initially that could build up some seniority and not have to go to the trouble of a special election in the first place? And thus avoid the risk of starting over and dealing with a felon?

("Wrong" is a poor choice of words in this instance; I hope it isn't being used as …
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Crisis similar to '29 crash, but outcome likely different

Unfortunately, ignorance about political history and economics is all too common in the American public, but it is particularly tragic when we see it in those who disseminate information (that does not constitute a politically dishonest attempt to persuade; in that case it is not tragic but venial). Regrettably, longtime political journalist Jim Beam fell victim to this in a recent column.

Beam asserts that the recent difficulties in the credit markets that caused big selloffs in the equities markets make 2008 too uncomfortably close to 1929, considered the start of the Great Depression, raising the specter of another economic dislocation of that magnitude. This misunderstands that the precipitant of the two events, easy credit. In 1929, borrowing money to buy securities without any real collateral was the straw that broke the camel's back, whereas in 2008 the borrowing comes with substantial real assets attached. Nor are the magnitudes of the events even closely comparable.

Perhaps he does not recognize the difference because he does not understand what caused the Great Depression in the first place. Too much credit was being extended, but that doesn't answer why that happened. The answer: government intervention that distorts the marketplace (this summation of a larger academic work probably explains it most elegantly). In the 1920s it was because of government's expansionary monetary policy obsessed with price stabilization and trade flows, coupled with a sufficiently immature central banking system. None of these conditions operate today; rather, a reason just as political has caused it: policy to push lending to individuals of dubious ability to manage that debt (which Beam doesn't seem to grasp, either).

Instead, Beam relies on one of the most discredited pieces of boilerplate explanation for the Great Depression, income inequality causing underconsumption at the lower end of the wealth continuum. This view totally ignores that overproduction from easy credit causes a supply problem (too much) yet props up prices artificially so underconsumption occurs not because too many people have too little money, but that artificially low credit pricing encourages them to overextend and waste their resources on something they cannot afford. (During the 1920s, this caused wage stagnation even as prices barely crept up, not the case today.) Proportion of wealth held by various income classes has nothing to do economic performance (unless it is a matter of government policy to redistribute income for that very reason of perceived inequality, which then impedes economic performance and growth).

Not only does Beam not know what caused the Great Depression, neither does he know what ended it. While he believes it …
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Landrieu, Kennedy meet in first TV debate

While polls show Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu holding a decent lead in her reelection bid against Republican Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy, she has been unable to gain a decisive advantage with public's intended vote (which to some degree probably only reflected name recognition rather than real intent). She had a chance make progress towards that goal, and Kennedy an opportunity to work to closing the gap, at their Louisiana Public Broadcasting-sponsored debate Sunday night.

Landrieu's strategy has been to assert she has some kind of "independence" from her party and ideology - despite the fact that she votes with it most of the time and has a lifetime 22.4 rating from the American Conservative Union (0 meaning a perfect liberal voting record - and trying to convince voters that Kennedy is shiftless. By the same token, Kennedy plays up her liberal votes and stresses a mix of conservative themes especially on fiscal issues while trying to demonstrate he has rethought some of his past preferences. In their debate, both candidates went after each others self-drawn perceptions.

On several occasions she touted how she was "independent," that her "seniority" would benefit the state, how she had displayed "effectiveness," and that she could work in a "bipartisan" manner - playing to the populist mentality in Louisiana where many see their elected officials as paraders throwing goodies off of floats. He refused to concede, such as describing her agreeing philosophically with Sen. Barack Obama's nationalization of health care policy, or voting with Obama on the Democrat measure that would have forced withdrawal from Iraq, or that even as she is chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security responsible for disaster relief that her influence amounted to nothing in speeding up the ongoing recovery process from the 2005 hurricane disasters.

She tried to make him look hypocritical when possible, saying he had once favored the withdrawal (which he denied), or that he took money from interests from those appearing in front of the state's Bond Commission which he heads. The latter was responding to Kennedy's observing she had taken campaign contributions from financial entities that were alleged to have precipitated the mortgage-backed securities difficulties which prompted the huge bailout (with which both disagreed, although Kennedy faulted it for having too much government involvement while Landrieu found it short on government intervention).

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Candidates left viewers hanging

The good news for Louisianans is gas prices are falling. The bad news for Louisiana is gas prices are falling, and it's probably only going to get worse given election dynamics.

People often forget that prices in a marketplace are set not just by changes in supply, but in changes in demand. Typically, demand is highest in summer and slacks off to the end of the year. So the decline in prices is not unexpected.

But demand also is a function of overall economic activity, and that is tapering worldwide in part to the overleveraged mortgage market now being addressed by world central banks. However, in the short term, perceptions spawned from all of the alarmist attention being paid to government interventions have taken over from reality and are changing people's investing, borrowing and spending habits. This results in an artificial depressing of financial activity that contributes to the slowdown.

Worse, election-year dynamics are exacerbating this reaction. Democrats in particular such as presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama have been hyping the circumstances because they believe it helps them electorally, something that in Obama's case seem to work as he has been creeping up in polls resting on the Democrats' case Republicans are to blame - the tremendous irony being it was Democrat policy that set the stage for problems in the mortgage industry.

This now is creating a vicious cycle that threatens to make matters worse than they should be. In another irony, even though it is a Democrat-led Congress that has more responsibility for and control over the economy than the Republican president, Democrats are benefitting electorally from the uncertainty which depresses things further. While some of the recent incredible decline in the equities market obviously is due to the ramifications of the credit crunch, a significant portion of it as well comes from the fact that as Obama rises in the polls and Democrat congressional gains look larger, investors understand that their articulated policies are going to cause economic damage to the country if enacted and therefore are reducing their commitments.

This is no surprise given these markets serve as leading indicators of future economic performance. But the danger is that declines in stock markets create a bigger crisis in the general public's mind, which then seems to increase further Democrats' chances of being elected, and then feeds itself as more informed investors continue to reduce equities commitments, and the cycle begins anew. Further, regardless of who gets elected they will talk down the situation …
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