One can define elitism as, say, resistance to progressive taxation, and make a case that Republicans better merit that description. But, broadly speaking, the Democratic Party is the party to which elites belong. It is the party of Harvard (and most of the Ivy League), of Microsoft and Apple (and most of Silicon Valley), of Hollywood and Manhattan (and most of the media) and, although there is some evidence that numbers are evening out in this election cycle, of Goldman Sachs (and most of the investment banking profession). That the billionaire David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation supports the Tea Party has recently been much in the news. But the Democrats have the support of more, and more active, billionaires. Of the 20 richest ZIP codes in America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 gave the bulk of their money to Democrats in the last election, in most cases the vast bulk – 86 percent in 10024 on the Upper West Side. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of non-high-school educated white males are happy with the direction the country is going in. The Democrats’ overlap with elites leaves each party with a distinctive liability. The Democrats appear sincerely deluded about whom they actually represent. Democrats – who would have no trouble discerning elite solidarity in the datum that, say, in the 1930s the upper ranks of Britain’s media, church, business and political institutions were dominated by Tories – somehow think their own predominance in similar precincts is … what? Coincidence? Irony?

Republicans, meanwhile, do not recognize the liability that their repudiation by elites represents in an age of expertise and specialization – even in the eyes of the non-elite center of the country. Like a European workingman’s party at the turn of the last century, the Republican Party today inspires doubts that it has the expertise required to run a large government bureaucracy. Whatever one thinks of Obama’s economic team, and Bill Clinton’s before it, the Bush White House was never capable, in eight years, of assembling a similarly accomplished one. Nor is there much evidence that Republicans were ever able to conceptualize the serious problems with the nation’s medical system, let alone undertake to reform it on their own terms.

Christopher Caldwell, in today’s New York Times. Go read the whole thing.
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Jerome Armstrong writes a post I could have written…(checking the temperature in Hell…)

1. The Democrats became the face (you could argue they embraced it), of the DC banker bailout culture of the privileged (those with access), while the average American has been downsized.

2. For those of you who have been at the forefront of the attacking the Tea Party enthusiasts, bloggers or otherwise, give yourself a big pat on the back for going after (usually in a obnoxious elitist manner) this years swing voters.

3. Tim Kaine, with the status-quo Moving America Forward, delivered a faulty to the core messaging. Saying that the status-quo is just fine will go down as an out-of-touch, and helping to exacerbate the losses. He really should be fired, and so should the pollsters and consultants who advocated for this messaging disaster.

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And no one says it better than this:

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I’ve been mulling a followup housing policy post, and meanwhile looking over the news about housing. One thing that stands out to me is the shadow that’s about to be cast on the legal structures of housing ownership, title, and finance.

I spent a few years doing RE Investment banking, and have some friends in that world still – mostly in the larger institutional-commercial space. And I’m guessing that many of the same issues apply there – except that the borrowers have the resources and skills to hire very smart lawyers.

The root of the problem is that we have a mortgage finance system – legal and administrative regime – that was deliberately undermined in the name of efficiency by a bunch of half-smart people who then made (and in many cases doubtless lost) zillions from the new financial conduits they established.

Here’s a great post on Barry Ritholz’s blog that sets out one major part of the problem.

You’ve heard the name Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems or “MERS” mentioned in relation to the foreclosure problems in the residential real estate market.

But what is MERS?

It is the company created and owned by all of the big banks to process title to property in the U.S. Approximately 60% of the nation’s residential mortgages are recorded in the name of MERS.

MERS is a shell corporation with no employees, but thousands of officers.

That’s not necessarily a problem. The way they managed it is.

And the implications are massive; a challenge to the validity of billions in mortgages, putbacks of mortgage securities to banks that are already stressed, and a frozen hosuing market because title is impossible to insure.

Go read the whole post, and think about it when you write your next mortgage check.
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Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

…next Tuesday can’t come fast enough.
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Michael Gerson in the Washington Post

Obama clearly believes that his brand of politics represents “facts and science and argument.” His opponents, in disturbing contrast, are using the more fearful, primitive portion of their brains. Obama views himself as the neocortical leader — the defender, not just of the stimulus package and health-care reform but also of cognitive reasoning. His critics rely on their lizard brains — the location of reptilian ritual and aggression. Some, presumably Democrats, rise above their evolutionary hard-wiring in times of social stress; others, sadly, do not.

Though there is plenty of competition, these are some of the most arrogant words ever uttered by an American president.

The neocortical presidency destroys the possibility of political dialogue. What could Obama possibly learn from voters who are embittered, confused and dominated by subconscious evolutionary fears? They have nothing to teach, nothing to offer to the superior mind. Instead of engaging in debate, Obama resorts to reductionism, explaining his opponents away.

One thing I believed about Obama was that his cerebral style would possibly lead to a bridge across the disastrous, emotional partisanship – on both sides – that is keeping us from squarely facing the important problems of the day. That’s what he said he was going to do, and that’s what he’s flatly failed to even try and do.

I wrote off the “bitter clinging” quote, because I felt that Obama was just bonding with his audience (rich Bay Area liberals). My mistake; that’s his default position.

In all my years of blogging, I’ve made it clear that what pisses me off are arguments that attempt to delegitimize opposing views. The idea that ‘relatively conventional’ liberal or conservative views should be so demonized that it’s illegitimate to even make arguments based on them is outrageous to me.

That’s what Obama has just done. And I’m outraged, on top of being disappointed. Six or eight months from now, we’ll see what he’s made of. So far, I don’t see much to be encouraged about.
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While Chris and I bicker in the comments, here’s some positive news.

For years, I’m groused that all the focus in energy policy has been on the AGW boogeyman – a boogeyman whose existence lots of people (including me) doubt, and lots of people flatly don’t believe in. Which made it an unproductive hook on which to hang changes in energy planning.

Someone got a cluebat, because here’s an article in the NY Times today:

Ms. Jackson settled on a three-pronged strategy. Invoking the notion of thrift, she set out to persuade towns to compete with one another to become more energy-efficient. She worked with civic leaders to embrace green jobs as a way of shoring up or rescuing their communities. And she spoke with local ministers about “creation care,” the obligation of Christians to act as stewards of the world that God gave them, even creating a sermon bank with talking points they could download.

“I don’t recall us being recruited under a climate change label at all,” said Stacy Huff, an executive for the Coronado Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which was enlisted to help the project. Mr. Huff describes himself as “somewhat skeptical” about global warming.

Mr. Huff said the project workers emphasized conservation for future generations when they recruited his group. The message resonated, and the scouts went door to door in low-income neighborhoods to deliver and install weatherization kits.

“It is in our DNA to leave a place better than we found it,” he said.

You don’t need to believe in, or even care about, climate change to agree that we need to change our patterns of energy use.

Back in ’06 I wrote:

From my point of view, there are three reasons energy is worth some serious investment:

1. Slow the rate of carbon emissions, in the off chance that they will have an impact on global warming.

2. Slow the rate of investment in jihad by the oil-rich Arab states, who have been the principal financiers of the spread of the core religious ideology that – when combined with alienation and anomie – leads to recruits who blow themselves and others up.

3. Shelter our domestic energy infrastructure from disruption – whether through embargo, terrorism, or system disruption caused by error or chance.

This program is a great example of what I talked about in that post – “The 3% Solution” to our energy issues.

Go read the NYT article, find a warmist and share it with them.
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Go read the NYT article, find a warmist and share it with them.
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Both of these are at about the same point in the development of the story:

Memeorandum October 14, 2:35pm

Memeorandum October 17, 4:35pm

when I wrote that “If a whiteboy GOP staffer made a comment like that, I’m thinking the gay community would be out for blood.”

It turns out that the gay community (relatively speaking) went after Jarrett. But notice how much more the mainstream went after Buck. To be sure, Jarrett apologized profusely to the guy covering the gay beat for the Washington Post, while Buck dug in.

But it’s interesting nonetheless, no? What does it say about the attention of the media, and about the relations between the Administration and the gay community?
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Via Zenpundit, here’s a great illustrated lecture by Sir Ken Robinson about education. My own views tip slightly to the other direction – I do believe that some basic standard skills are necessary, and I’m uncomfortable tossing aside the “standard curriculum.” But he makes several points in this that challenge my views, and require some serious thinking.

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Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot died in Cambridge, Mass on Thursday, the day I finished rereading his book The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence.

It’s a damn good book, and the work he began in studying cotton prices back in 1961 has led to valuable insights – if not yet well-applied insights.

He saw simplicity where others just saw noise, and to me that is the true sign of genius.
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