Day: November 8, 2002

Wishful thinking

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Cato’s Michael Tanner says the elections were a big victory for Social Security choice. But all the races he cites as evidence don’t quite fit the description.

He cites Dole’s victory over Bowles in South Carolina. But while the race was close and certainly winnable for Bowles, it’s hardly a shocker that a Republican with high name recognition like Dole won in the conservative South. It’s not a referendum on anything but that the South is a solid Republican bloc nowadays.

In Georgia, Tanner even admits that Chambliss’s win over Cleland “largely turned on national security issues.” He also notes that Minnesota’s Norm Coleman took a Social Security Choice pledge. But that victory more likely turned on Minnesotans’ reaction to the Wellstone family’s memorial service turned liberal Democrat rally and Mondale’s flaccid debate performance. Anyhow, Coleman barely won that race.

Furthermore, when Dubya stumped for candidates his main selling points were the need to invade Iraq, create a Homeland Security Department, and make the tax cuts permanent. And it’s obviously his popularity as a war president, not as a Social Security reformer, that helped carry some Republicans to victory.

And the political reality, as opposed to the campaign promises, is that the real test on Social Security choice is not public opinion about a theoretical idea, but the pragmatic difficulty of killing the Democrats’ golden goose. It wasn’t a bad night for Social Security choice, but let’s not get carried away.

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

It’s only right that the poor souls who serve as Daley stooges and rule over their little ward fiefdoms voted themselves a long, long overdue pay increase Wednesday.

Their salaries are now pushing up against $100,000 a year with a $33,280 annual expense allowance! I’m not making this up. In their infinite wisdom, they made Hizzoner Jr. the highest-paid mayor in America, with a salary of $216,120.

Words are pointless at a time like this.

Not the best Bob

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

My dad and I and a friend from work saw Bob Dylan at the Allstate Arena last Friday. Both of the dailies’ rock critics raved, but I must admit that I was a little bit disappointed.

Dylan has been playing a lot of keyboards on this tour, and as Kot points out his playing was out of left field on a lot of songs. Some songs Bob just nailed. “Tombstone Blues,” “Things Have Changed,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleedin’),” “Cold Irons Bound,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” were standouts. And the best song of the night was the boogie-woogie dance ’til its hurt jump of “Summer Days,” on which Bob and his fine band just played their hearts out.

But too many other songs just kind of hung there, and Bob was in poor vocal form much of the evening. I don’t mean his voice, which is an acquired taste. I mean his enunciation, his phrasing, his overall care with the delivery of the words and their accompanying feelings.

Particularly off the mark, I thought, were “Lay, Lady, Lay,” “Just Like a Woman” and in particular, “High Water (For Charley Patton).” The last is probably the best song on Bob’s most recent album, “Love and Theft,” (aside from “Mississippi”) and his performance of it last year at the United Center was fabulous.

He tried to mix it up, as is Bob’s tendency, and it just fell completely flat. Bob’s never boring, but he can be frustrating when he goes and does a thing like that. A week later in the tour and “High Water” probably sounds great. Ah, well.

Who can speculate, but I thought Bob really put a lot of conviction into his rendering of “Masters of War,” which is a great anti-war song because it doesn’t belabor obvious tragedy of war but discusses how the machine for needless war can be fed. It’s like a poetic, musical study in public-choice theory.

I cannot honestly say that I didn’t enjoy myself, because I did. But I look forward to seeing a better show next time around, which is hopefully soon.

Shrug

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

It does not bode very well for the advocates of smaller government when the Republican president’s stump speeches for congressional and senatorial candidates center around his need to have allies to help him create a gigantic new bureaucracy.

And yet, that seems to have been exactly Dubya’s approach, and how successful it was. Certainly, we did not see a mandate for much change and the truth is we probably won’t see much. Sure, the monstrosity that is the Homeland Security Department will be signed into law. A few more of Dubya’s judges, for better or worse, will get voted on and confirmed.

The war in Iraq, of course, is already decided, as the Democrats folded faster Kathy Lee sweatshop worker. The 2001 tax cuts might be mader permanent, if Dubya’s really lucky. But there will be no major tax reform, no Social Security reform, no vouchers, no nada. You need 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, and I don’t care how many calls Dubya makes to Mark Pryor, it’s not going to happen on a regular basis.

See what someone much smarter than me had to say about all of this.

As for the Libertarian Party, disappointment as usual. The hopes were that Cal Skinner would somehow pull off 5 percent and get the LPI automatic ballot status for 2004, but he wound up with only 2.1 percent, even though the gubernatorial race was a blowout. Matt “I write crazy letters to well-read Chicago columnists” Beauchamp wound up with 2.25 percent in his bid for Secretary of State, while Stephanie “Versus the Machine” Sailor landed 2.9 percent.

Illinois government is now completely controlled by the Cook County Democratic machine, which certainly doesn’t bode well for the O’Hare expansion issue, taxes, gun rights, spending, etc. Gridlock has served the state pretty well for a long time, though the state GOP is alarmingly moderate and in Gov. Ryan’s case completely sold out. Again, it did not bode well for advocates of smaller government in Illinois when the Republican nominee ran for office on a huge public works program, Illinois FIRST.

Around the country, the big story was Ed Thompson, who managed double digits (10 percent) in his campaign for governor. Very impressive. A Libertarian-led initative to repeal the Massachussets state income tax just barely failed, garnering 47 percent support.

All the marijuana initiatives on the ballot around the country also lost, unfortunately.

Here’s the LP’s take on the GOP’s victory — a little hyperbolic, but pretty much right on the substance.