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 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.

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.

The great city of Chicago prepares to greet an influx of anti-trade protesters.

Eager not to have a repeat of Daddy Daley’s 1968 fiasco, Da Mare has threatened to sue any individuals or groups who cause damage to city or private property. Here’s the kicker, though: “City officials also announced that parking will be banned from 6 a.m. Wednesday until 6 a.m. Saturday in two large areas: from Wacker Drive to Congress Parkway between Michigan Avenue and Canal Street; and from the Chicago River to Oak Street, from Lake Michigan to Clark Street.”

That seems a bit over the top. That’s a huge expanse of territory downtown, inconveniencing everyone just because of the possibility of unrest. I dunno about that.

Apparently, gun manufacturers must not only provide safety locks with their guns, but they’ve got to be able to divine the future as well. Such is the basis of Chicago’s suit against gun manufacturers, which was OKd by an Illinois appelate court yesterday.

Didn’t Smith & Wesson know that they had to hire the precogs from Minority Report in order to sell guns in Chicago?

After running a series of stories about how UAL Corp., United Airlines’ parent company, has landed itself in the crapper, the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board comes to the solid conclusion that it needs to bailed out.

More specifically, United wants a $1.8 billion-dollar federally guaranteed loan. They’re in such bad shape that the only way they can convince any lender to give them money is to have the feds backing them up. Yep. Sounds like a hot investment. Of course, the Sun-Times editorial board argues that if United goes under, we’re all doomed. Gee, I guess people will just stop flying in and out of Chicago if United goes bankrupt.

Doesn’t the fact that United is being outdone by smarter, more effective competitors like Southwest and JetBlue mean anything? That perhaps United’s way of doing business just doesn’t cut it anymore? That perhaps we’d be better off having them disappear?

The most fallacious part of the argument is as follows:

The airline is a strategic asset to the nation. Having a solid U.S. air transportation system is important enough that the government has kept foreign carriers out of local service by law. What good will that be if we allow our local carriers to wither and die, victims, in part, of an unprecedented meltdown in their industry sparked by terrorism?

Good point; we should allow foreign competition. And, yes, Chicago may suffer a little if United goes under and more people connect through Denver or Atlanta, but the nation as a whole will not suffer one bit. But taxpayers will suffer if United defaults on its loan and the feds have to pick up the bill. The Sun-Times is being just as provincial as the steel-producing states’ newspapers which argued that upping steel tarriffs is good for the country.

The New York Times reports, “The Central Intelligence Agency, using a missile fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft, killed a senior leader of Al Qaeda and five low-level associates traveling by car in Yemen on Sunday, American officials said today.”

How’s that for a change? Actually going after folks with a known connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and who pose a continuing threat to U.S. national security. Interestingly, while Dubya cannot wait to personally strangle Saddam, White House officials would not say whether Dubya had “personally authorized” this action.

(Also posted to Stand Down.)

A very good Tribune investigative story by Andy Martin & Co. about the Hispanic Democratic Organization. The nut of it:

HDO has amassed a roster estimated at more than 1,000 members using the same techniques that helped the mayor’s father, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, build a massive patronage army: raising money for favored candidates, swarming precincts on Election Day to get out the vote, and, some members say, doling out city jobs and promotions to friends, relatives and campaign workers.

Handing out city jobs to political workers was deemed illegal by a federal court decades ago, an order that became known as the Shakman decree. The Daley administration is currently arguing Shakman is no longer required because the city’s hiring practices are so fair.

Yet about 500 of HDO’s members are city workers, mostly employed in departments where HDO lieutenants hold high-ranking posts, according to an analysis of city records by the Chicago Tribune and Exito!

No big surprise, of course. Everyone knows that, among other things, the key to Daley’s political success has been the white-Hispanic alliance he’s forged. Hand out enough city jobs and you’ll find plenty of votes, even among supposedly oppressed minority groups.

And ultimately for Hispanics, when it comes to choosing between throwing their fate in with the white ethnics like Daley versus blacks like Bobby Rush, it’s an easy choice.

Stand Down is a cool new collaborative blogging venture that my buddy Julian Sanchez helped create. It’s billed as “The Left-Right Blog Opposing an Invasion of Iraq.” Here’s one of my first posts about why such a coalition is of crucial importance, especially to libertarians — who are often grouped with “the right.”