More importantly, political consultancy is still divided by two types. You've got managers who play by instinct and feel. For them, education is frowned upon. Consultants don't know what to do with someone with a lot of book smarts. I've worked for them and it's frustrating.
Then you've got technocrats who do everything based on numbers. But they're too nerdy to ever get out in the real-world to see how their numbers relate to the real world. Much like many political scientists I know.
Either way - from my own personal experience - I have to agree with the sentiment that those who have made it big in political consultancy are loathe to lower barriers to entry. The biggest barrier is money because consultancy is an expensive career. You've got to be willing to spend lots of hours for very little pay to make it. This tends to crowd out kids from working-class backgrounds who can't rely on pops to indefinitely pay their bills.
It's a tough world. I'd go back to full-time campaign work if the right circumstances came along; but, I'm cynical enough that I wouldn't expect to be able to make a comfortable living doing it.
Political consulting is an exceptionally insular world where advancement and financial reward are rarely about competence, but much more about who you know and who is comfortable with you. For a primer, read Amy Sullivan's important, yet (unfortunately) non-influential essay on the subject.
Instigated by the far left, infighting does have the potential to mar what otherwise is shaping up to be a dominant session of Congress by congressional Democrats. The problem is the so-called "public option" plan. Obama wants it, he campaigned on it, but he's also willing to give up on it if private industry and congressional moderates develop an alternative plan that substantively offers coverage for the 47 million Americans lacking health care.
Does this mean Obama is bucking his principles or does it mean he's willing to compromise? The far left might excoriate him for it, but Obama knows the lessons of the Clinton's 1993 health care reform efforts that eventually cost Democrats their congressional majority. What's more important is a long-term majority than doing short-term harm by ramming through a public option plan that has little support outside the far left.
Texas oilman (perhaps energy man) T. Boone Pickens announced that he has been unable to raise the requisite funds for a huge 600+ wind turbine farm in the Texas panhandle. It's a shame. Despite the fact that he's a Texan who gives all his money to pokes in Oklahoma, I appreciate Pickens's style and determination. Plus, his plan was a good one. In general, I'll support anything that reduces our dependence on foreign oil in a clean, sustainable fashion. Unfortunately, this will only serve as a setback for private entrepreneurs of wind energy because the costs - without massive government subsidies and money spent on grid infrastructure - are simply too prohibitive.
Yes, I'm sure I'll turn some students off, but I'm not the first person to refer to this generation of college students as the Entitlement Generation. It's gotten so bad that researchers study the phenomenon of students expecting better grades simply because they worked hard. They tend to not realize our job is to reward actual performance, not merely effort.
Have you ever lived with someone of a different race? Did it change your perspective of what you thought of that person's race? The answer largely depends on the environment in which you were raised. If you grew up in a heterogeneous neighborhood with lots of diversity, living with someone that looks different from you was no big deal. If not, then problems are likely. Research shows that interracial roommates can reduce prejudice among college students...sometimes.
However, interracial roommates were also more likely to break up. Why? Sometimes the differences (i.e. music, friends of friends) are so vast as to be irreconcilable. Of course, roommates of the same race break up often too, so it's hard to say. One thing researchers safely agree on is that it is these instances of living together where efforts at diversifying college campuses really make a difference. In class, whites cluster with whites, blacks with blacks and so on. But, one-on-one in the dorm room? Adapt and acclimate or fight and become embittered.
Fox News's Brian Kilmeade complains that Swedes and Finns are better because they are "pure" whereas Americans too often marry "other species." Classy.
The Nation has a story on NAACP chief Benjamin Jealous. He's a young guy, but a traditional thinker. For many black youngsters, the NAACP has become an anachronism. They appreciates its good work throughout history, but aren't quite sure of its relevance today. The major civil rights battles have been fought, but as the article points out, when protesters descended on Jena, LA, no one thought to call the NAACP first.
Analysis For the NAACP to remain relevant it must figure out a way to meld its historical mission for achieving social justice in a fast-paced, interconnected world in which the patience for patient, steady change is gone.
Here's a shocker for you. Salon blames not Sarah Palin for the Republican tickets debacle last November, but the men who brought us Sarah Palin. Their sloppy work was responsible for foisting Palin on to the rest of us.
Blacks are religious folks. That devotion to religion helped blacks survive the dog days of slavery and Jim Crow. The civil rights movement was launched in blacks churches across the South. Yet, many (but certainly not all) of today's religious blacks are among the most ardent opponents of gay marriage. Their reasons are similar to white evangelical resistance to gay marriage. They believe it to be unholy and without a basis in scripture.
Analysis While that last point is debatable (Don't think so? Ask Gene Robinson), what is not debatable is that black opponents of gay marriage are actively working to discriminate against a class of people for something they cannot control. I'm not sure if black opponents are aware of the irony (not to mention their hypocrisy) on this issue.
Analysis Future generations of Texans will be considerably more ignorant when it comes to basic nutrition, sex education, and alcohol awareness. Embarrassing.
A new report by the Congressoinal Black Caucus raises concerns that a number of committees, chaired by whites, have far too few black staffers and aides serving on them. I have no reason to doubt the CBC's numbers, but I strongly disagree with how problematic that is.
Besides drawing on seasoned veterans (yes, not every congressional staffer is a rich college intern), most committee chairs use their privileged position to reward their home constituencies. Meaning, their committees tend to reflect their home districts. Committees chaired by blacks have more black staffers because their district is black. You really wouldn't expect an Agriculture committee or its subcommittees, which are manly populated by Plains state legislators that represent states and districts that are upwards of 90% white to have large numbers of minorities.
Does it affect policy? Yes. But, so does not having strict gender parity too.
The Economist has a special report on Texas. It is an honest, sobering look at the state. This includes both the good (Texas economic growth) and bad (the state's many shortcomings in education and insurance).
As a political scientist, one of my pet subjects is federalism, the relationship between the states and the federal government. One benefit (there are many flaws, but that's for a later discussion) of living in a federal system is that states are generally free to experiment with public policy in order to find the best recipe for that state's particular circumstances. To that end, I've focused often on Texas (because I'm from there) and California (because it has been the single-biggest engine for economic growth in post-war America and it houses 1 in 8 of all Americans).
So, I'm not terribly surprised to see that The Economist has copied me with a story on both California and Texas. California is in a fiscal funk; Texas barrels on a path of sunshine success. At the end of the day, for all their warts, Texas and California are the two most important states in the country (Manhattan runs a close third) and they deserve the ink. What happens in these two states are realistic harbingers for America's future.
Recent work by the New York Times and the United States Conference of Mayors shows that large cities often get far short of what they should in stimulus spending (based on population and economic activity) by state officials that are more concerned with spreading the money around instead of focusing on greatest need. It's a real shame because research by the Texas Transportation Institute estimates Americans waste over 4 billion hours a year stuck in traffic. Talk about inefficiencies. You would think that alone (not to mention the millions of gallons of gas wasted each year by idling engines) to spur the demand for more mass transit.
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Saturday, July 18, 2009
