Kiwiblog

Obama has done exactly what he needed after the mid-term drubbing, and chalked up some wins. And he has done it by going both right and left. His three major victories are:

1. A deal with the Republicans on cutting taxes to stimulate the economy
2. Ratification of an arms reduction treaty with Russia
3. Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

It’s a nice combination of something for everyone. Almost all Americans like treaties which reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Those sympathethic to the tea party movement will like the tax cuts and the liberals will hail the repeal of DADT.

His net approval rating is now just a -2% average.

The Republican’s main problem is finding the right challenger. A generic GOP candidate out polls Obama, but the moment you put a name in there, Obama leads. This article divideds up the potential candidates as being populists or managers. Populists include Palin, Huckabee, and Perry, Managers are Romney, Daniels, Barbour with Gingrich and Pawlenty (my pick) being a bit of both.

A recent poll has Obama vs Palin being a 54% to 39% landslide for Obama. If Bloomberg enters the race as an independent, then it is 47% to 31% to 18%.

Another poll has Obama beating Romey 47% to 40%.

The net favourability ratings for Obama and the three leading Republicans are:

1. Huckabee +11%
2. Obama +5%
3. Romney +3%
4. Palin -15%

So Huckabee has some popularity, and is a rare person who can rally the christian base without scaring off liberals. However fiscal conservatives do not trust him, and hard to see the tea party rallying behind him.

If the economy picks up in time for 2012, Obama will be hard to defeat – unless the Republicans can find a candidate who appeals to both their religious and fiscal conservative wings – but also does not scare off independents and moderates.

This week Obama stuck a deal with Republicans which sees him try to revive the US economy with tax cuts instead of extra spending. Labour in NZ should take note. Obama has agreed to:

• Extend the Bush tax cuts for two further years which were due to expire at the end of 2010
• Reduce for one year the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%
• Increase the threshold for the death tax from $1m to $5m ad reduce the rate from 55% to 35%

It will be interesting to observe the President’s poll ratings in the next month.

Barack Obama established a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to come up with ways to reduce the huge fiscal deficit. They have 18 members – 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans on it.

So what has this bipartisan group recommended:

• $200 billion of domestic and defence savings by 2015
• Tax reform that reduces rates, simplifies the code and broadens the base to reduce the deficit
• Measures to control long-term health cost growth
• Mandatory savings from farm subsidies, military and civil service retirement
• Ensure social security solvency for next 75 years

This would achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction by 2020, reduce the deficit to 2.2% of GDP by 2015 and caps revenue at 21% of GDP (note NZ is well over 30%).

Obama, to his credit, has not rejected it. Sadly Congressional Democrats look likely to – which will impose future generations with horrific levels of debt and interest on the debt.

The situation in NZ is not so dire, but we still need bold measures to stop borrowing $250 million a week.

This is very enjoyable. It’s pro-Obama, but done in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Yahoo News reports:

A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy. …

the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights organization that filed the lawsuit in 2004 to stop the ban’s enforcement.

So who would have thought that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would not be killed off by Obama (who had promised to do so), but instead by the Log Cabin Republicans.

18 months into the first terms, the presidential approval ratings for various Presidents was:

1. Eisenhower 75%
2. Bush GWH 74%
3. JFK 67%
4. LBJ 65%
5. Bush GW 65%
6. Nixon 55%
7. Ford 48%
8. Carter 43%
9. Clinton 43%
10. Reagan 41%
11. Obama 41%
12. Truman 34%

Reagan, Clinton and Truman all went on to win another term, so maybe Obama is following their strategy of not peaking too early!

The Herald reports:

A senior member of the Obama Administration has praised the Prime Minister as a “key player” on the international stage, who has developed a “real chemistry” with the US President. …

Speaking at a seminar on United States-New Zealand relations in Washington, Dr Campbell said Mr Key had “animated the discussions” and “drove the deliberations” at the President’s Nuclear Summit in April.

Labour, and many in the wider left, have been underestimating John Key for years and years, and still do so. This is partly why they lost the 2008 election – they were convinced Clark would destroy Key in the debates.

Even today they have their fantasies that he is some sort of smile and wave lightweight, whose only asset is his smile. And you compare that to Campbell’s assessment that Key drove deliberations at the US convened nuclear summit.

Dr Campbell said the Obama Administration had at first considered the US-NZ relationship was “profoundly underperforming”.

The change of regime in both counties has probably helped

Very watchable attack ad on Obama. The production quality is excellent.

Reuters reports:

US President Barack Obama has fired top Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal over inflammatory comments that angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.

Obama relieved General McChrystal of his command after a private, 30-minute meeting at the White House and named General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, to replace him, a senior administration official said.

That’s a smart decision, Petraeus is well regarded. Ironically it is technically a demotion for Petraeus, but I suspect he won’t mind being closer to the action.

Republicans love Petraeus. If things do not progress well in Afghanistan, any other appointment could have seen greater attacks on Obama’s strategy.

The Herald reports:

The tiff between General Stanley McChrystal and the White House is the most extraordinary airing of military-civilian tensions since Harry Truman stripped Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command a half-century ago.

Which doomed any chance of Truman standing again for President. Mind you he was justified – MacArthur was a great general and leader, but he was refusing to follow orders.

The White House summoned McChrystal to Washington to explain disparaging comments about his commander in chief and Obama’s top aides. The meeting, set for tomorrow, is a last-ditch moment for the general once considered the war’s brightest hope.

If not insubordination, the remarks in a forthcoming Rolling Stone magazine article were at least an indirect challenge to civilian management of the war in Washington by its top military commander.

The comments are pretty much inexcusable. The military are sworn to not be partisan and to be loyal to their elected Commander in Chief.

However if Obama sacks McChrystal, he may doom his own strategy for Afghanistan. It will be fascinating to see what he does,

I do like the annual tradition of the President having to make fund of himself (and others) at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

My favourite lines are about how is still popular in the country of his birth, and how glad he is to see Jay Leno, as his ratings have fallen even more than his.

The US presidency is the most powerful position in the world, and this semi-requirement to take the piss out of yourself is a healthy one. It is unthinkable that this would happen in Russia or China.

Gwynne Dyer writes:

In the real world, the United States is giving up on space, although it is trying hard to conceal its retreat. Three Americans with a very special status – all have commanded missions to the Moon – have made their dismay public.

In an open letter Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13 and Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, condemned President Barack Obama’s plans for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as the beginning of a “long downhill slide to mediocrity” for the United States.

What has changed?

The letter was timed to coincide with Obama’s visit to Cape Canaveral to defend his new policy, which abandons the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020, or indeed ever.

The idea of a permanent base to the Moon was a good investment in the future.

So for the next decade, at least, the United States will be an also-ran in space, while the new space powers forge rapidly ahead.

And even if some subsequent administration should decide it wants to get back in the race, it will find it almost impossible to catch up.

And that is why the first man on Mars will be probably Chinese or Indian, not American.

I suspect he will be right. And the nationalism that will surround that will be massive.

Fans of libertarian Ron Paul have got very excited by this Rasmussen poll:

Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Could a 77 year old libertarian from Texas really beat Obama?

Five Thirty Eight puts it into context:

But as regular readers of this website will know, the person conducting the poll can have a profound impact on its results. Rasmussen, in particular, has had a substantial Republican-leaning house effect thus far this year. Perhaps they will turn out to be right (although their idea of trying to apply a “likely voter” model 2.5 years in advance of an election is dubious). But it would be wrong to take a Rasmussen poll (or any other) at face value without taking into account this context. …

After adjustment for house effects, Obama’s lead over Paul is not 1 point but more like 10. This result is closer to that obtained by a PPP poll in November, which had Obama ahead 46-38 against Paul (PPP’s 2012 polls have also had a very slight Republican-leaning house effect.)

Paul’s 9.9-point deficit is not awful — it’s better than of Newt Gingrich (-12.2), Jeb Bush (-13.4) or Sarah Palin (-14.4) do — but lags behind the performance of Mitt Romney, who is just 5.6 points behind, or Mike Huckabee, who is down 6.6. It also lags behind the performance of a so-called generic Republican, who is actually slightly ahead of Obama.

This is what is interesting. A generic Republican candidate beats Obama by 1.9%. But the moment you name a specific candidate, Obama leads by 5% or more. At this stage I think Obama will be re-elected – due to the lack of electable Republican candidates. But if they do find someone without serous baggage, then it is definitely game on.

Back to the Rasmussen poll, the Tea Party movement gets stronger:

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters now consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, an eight-point increase from a month ago. Another 10% say they are not a part of the movement but have close friends or family members who are.

The TP movement was derided or ignored for months, but it has become the most powerful grass roots movement in recent times. It dwarves liberal counterparts such as Move On.

When it comes to major issues confronting the nation, 48% of voters now say the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than Obama is. Forty-four percent (44%) hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Again, there may be some house bias, but that is still a powerful result.

For those interested in US politics.

In New Zealand, the PM has a formal press conference every week, and often several standups on top of that.

How many weeks do people think have gone by, since President Obama held a full press conference at the White House?

The NZ Herald has advice for the Catholic Church:

A Vatican newspaper claims the hailstorm of allegations of priestly sexual abuse is a conspiracy aimed at the present Pope and the Catholic Church.

Ironically, it targets the “media” as leading or cheerleading this conspiracy, the New York Times being the latest to publish a historical claim, from up to 70 young, deaf boys who allege abuse by an American priest now dead.

It is unfortunate the messenger is being criticised rather than the message heeded. There is much still to be done for the church to put this sin behind it. …

Some calculate the total number of priests and the relatively small number of offenders over many years and then compare that to percentages for the secular world.

Their argument is that church-linked offending is no greater than the sad reality of society’s norm. But it is a forlorn and defensive mindset.

As the Economist magazine has argued, if you preach absolute moral values you will be judged against absolute moral standards.

The church cannot accept relative failure or relative consequences, particularly under this Pope who argues forcefully for an end to relativism.

If it is true to itself, the Catholic Church cannot be satisfied with being as good as, or not as bad as, other parts of society.

If any conspiracy exists, it is the one in which sexual offenders were protected and victims abandoned by those in authority.

A new conspiracy is needed, one which confirms in deeds the Pope’s words to the Irish. Responsibility must be taken by those who hid wrong.

I’m just glad I was raised Anglican!

The Dom Post focuses on the Mary-Anne Thompson affair:

The most alarming aspect of the Mary Anne Thompson affair is not that a senior public servant falsified her CV, but that the former head of the public service halted inquiries into her falsehood years before it was exposed.

This is the point I made a couple of days ago.

But within minutes of Mrs Bell questioning her about the doctorate she claimed to have obtained from the London School of Economics, Thompson withdrew her application for the post.

Mrs Bell undertook further investigations on her own initiative and advised Mr Wintringham that there was no record of Thompson gaining a doctorate. But, instead of initiating a formal investigation, Mr Wintringham told Mrs Bell to stop her inquiries.

He was, he subsequently said, concerned that further inquiries could “damage both the defendant’s considerable professional reputation and the reputation of the commission as well”.

He was right about the first. He was wrong about the second. What has damaged the commission’s reputation is not Thompson’s fraud, but Mr Wintringham’s failure to properly investigate a matter of obvious concern.

Really it was a disgraceful decision – and one made worse by his failure to even leave a file note on the issue for his successor. You’d expect better from the most junior HR manager, let alone the State Services Commissioner.

The Press hails a triumph for Obama:

The United States health reform controversy continues to swirl with such intensity that it is difficult to decipher the dispositions of the antagonists. However, one thing is sure – President Barack Obama has won his place in history, if only because of the health bill’s emergence into law.

No other president has pushed through such important reform in this field and most have not dared to try. Obama’s handling of the process was less than stellar and it has united his opponents, but the result is legislation that will transform a fundamental foundation of American society.

Hmmn. I wonder if they have read the law change. It isn’t that dramatic.

And the ODT takes issue with Pita Sharples:

The thrust of his speech clearly implied that for tribal Maori, democracy does not work and does not sit comfortably with Maori cultural concepts.

Historical fact suggests this argument does not wash in national politics, since Maori candidates have long been elected to general seats and the specific provision of Maori electorates has ensured at least a foothold in Parliament.

The notable absence of Maori at local body level has been regrettable, but why that is so cannot merely be attributed to “prejudice, cultural arrogance, and institutional racism”.

Relatively few people are aware that in Parliament, Maori are over-represented in relation to their proportion of the adult population.

So I find it hard to see how the democratic system is failing Maori.

The Herald reports:

President Barack Obama has told American forces during his surprise visit to Afghanistan that US lives would be at risk if the Taleban retake control of the country.

Not just US lives.

Karzai promised that his country “would move forward into the future” to eventually take over its own security, and he thanked Obama for the American intervention in his country.

He told Obama he has begun to establish more credible national institutions on corruption and made clear he intends to make ministerial appointments more representative of the multiple ethnic and geographic regions of the country, according to a US account of the meeting.

Obama’s trip was intended to emphasise US demands that Karzai deal with corruption and cut the flow of money from poppy production and drug trafficking that is sustaining the insurgency. The US also wants Karzai to create an effective, credible judicial system and to halt cronyism and rewards for warlords in government hiring.

I think Iraq is on track to be a relatively successful country by 2020. Afghanistan, I am not so sure about – but I agree with Obama this is no time to quit.

One of the things that many may not realise around Obama’s Healthcare Reform, is that it does not in fact create a public health system. To increase health insurance coverage, it has made it illegal not to have health insurance, with limited exceptions such as hardship or religious belief.

If a Republican President had tried to make private health insurance compulsory, I suspect the left would have decried the reform, instead of supported it. And i guess the right would have supported it, instead of opposed it.

13 states have filed lawsuits claiming it is unconstitutional to force people to take our private health insurance. I suspect this issue will get to the Supreme Court, and you do have to think there is a reasonable chance that may breach the Bill of Rights.

What I find ironic, is that Obama’s reforms have now made the US system almost the polar opposite of the Canadian system.

You see in Canada, it is illegal in some provinces to even have private health insurance. And federally there are laws that forbid hospitals from charging private rates (even if a private clinic).

So effectively in Canada it is illegal to have private health insurance, and now in the US it will effectively be illegal NOT to have private health insurance.

The Australian reports:

THE codename chosen for a secret policing operation to protect US President Barack Obama during his visit to Australia sounds innocuous enough.

But calling it Operation Blue Gum, after Australia’s iconic native trees, almost caused an international embarrassment.

US consular officials were aghast when briefed by their counterparts in the NSW Police Force about the title, Blue Gum. In America, a “bluegum” is offensive slang for a lazy African-American who refuses to work. …

Australian officials have been at pains to stress that most NSW Police Force operation names are generated by a computer.

Now that would have been really embarrassing if no one had noticed in time.

Real Clear Politics publish polls of polls, averaging all the different polls out there.

They report today, that for the very first time Obama’s negatives are greater than his positives in their average of the polls.

47.3% say they approve of the job he is doing and 47.8% disapprove.

If healthcare passes, I expect he will get a lift from that, even though it is controversial. Being ineffectual is worse than being unpopular, when you hold the most powerful job in the world.

Chris Trotter writes:

Labour has become electorally implausible because it no longer projects itself as either psychologically, or morally, convincing.

Mr Goff, in last week’s “State of the Nation” speech, spoke of a Labour Party dedicated to serving the needs of “the many, not the few”.

He lambasted those who avoided paying their fair share of tax and he vowed to cap the salaries of state sector chief executives at the level of the prime minister’s annual income.

A traditional Labour message, and by all accounts powerfully delivered.

But was it real?

No, not really. It took the redoubtable Right-wing blogger, Cactus Kate, less than a day to uncover the fact that a significant number of Labour MPs belonged to one or more family trusts, the very same tax avoidance device that Mr Goff was railing against.

Rhetoric without substance doesn’t do well in the blogosphere.

And what about all those state sector CEOs on excessive salaries? Well, Mr Goff is to be congratulated for wanting to share the “pain” of economic recession more equitably.

But, in order to restore a measure of equity to the pay scales of the public service, surely Mr Goff would have to renounce his own, and Labour’s, continuing support for the State Sector Act?

After all, Mr Goff was a cabinet minister in the fourth Labour government, which introduced the State Sector Act. Its purpose?

To bring the private sector’s market- driven discipline into the public service: to give the heads of government agencies the same powers and responsibilities as corporate chief executives and pay them accordingly.

If Mr Goff is now acknowledging that the ideology underpinning the State Sector Act is flawed, then I, for one, will cheer him to the echo.

But if he still adheres to the neoliberal ethos which gave it birth, then he should let the market in CEO salaries find its own level, and like the original author of the State Sector Act, Stan Rodger, remain steadfastly on the sidelines and keep his mouth firmly shut.

And if Goff does suddenly declare the State Sector Act is wrong, the question will arise why has it taken 30 years to realise it. Longevity in Parliament is not always helpful for an opposition leader.

To win back the love Labour’s lost, the leader of the Opposition must learn how to channel not only the hopes and aspirations of Labour’s educated middle-class minority, but also the fear and antagonism of its sullen working-class majority.

A genuine political leader will gladly and gloriously reflect the idealistic light of his best followers but, when pressed, he must also be capable of tapping into the darkest impulses of his worst.

True leaders are feared as much as they are loved.

Think of Helen Clark in the midst of the “Corngate” scandal: chilling. Think of Rob Muldoon ordering Tom Scott out of the Beehive theatrette: terrifying.

Watching TVNZ’s Guyon Espiner interviewing Mr Goff on the Q+A programme, I was struck by how keen the leader of the Opposition was to please.

I don’t think it is a bad thing, that Phil Goff does not have a streak of Clark or Muldoon in him. While I disagree with his policies, I think Phil Goff is a pretty decent person, who achieved many good things as a Minister. I don’t think he will become Prime Minister, but if he did I think he would do an okay job (again I probably would disagree with a lot of his policies).

Democracy, it is said, substitutes ballots for bullets. And that’s fine so long as, like the metal projectiles they replace, ballots also have the capacity to inflict real damage.

Labour needs policies that not only help but hurt.

Out there in the electorate, some groups need to understand that they will be paying for Mr Goff’s promises. Sweet reason and bipartisanship, as President Barack

Obama has discovered, make for poor politics. There’s nothing the voter enjoys more than the whiff of fear and panic – especially in high places.

No politician gets elected purely on the strength of being everyone’s friend. At least symbolically, and preferably in reality, a party leader must also be somebody’s enemy.

Actually Obama has not been at all bipartisan. I think problem has been his moving to the left, instead of the centre. And by doing so he seems to have positioned himself as the enemy of fiscal hawks. The trouble is they are winning the war.

Too early to know if he will follow the rhetoric up with substance, but it is pleasing to see this language from Obama:

Mr Obama said he welcomed all suggestions on cutting spending.

“It’s time to hold Washington to the same standards families and businesses hold themselves,” he said.

“It’s time to save what we can, spend what we must, and live within our means once again.”

He added that spending could not continue “as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money”.

This is in great contrast to NZ Labour which seems to think borrowing $240 million a week is not enough, and constantly calls for more spending.

It would be great to hear Phil Goff or David Cunliffe talk about protecting the hard-earned tax dollars of New Zealanders.

Politico report:

President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up Wednesday’s State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with the plan tell POLITICO.

The move, intended to blunt the populist backlash against Obama’s $787 billion stimulus and an era of trillion-dollar deficits — and to quell Democratic anxiety over last Tuesday’s Massachusetts Senate election — is projected to save $250 billion, the Democrats said.

This is a massive move to the centre, if true. It would also be a very good thing economically.

So in the UK Labour are talking spending cuts. In the US, Obama is talking a spending freeze. But in NZ, Labour’s only response to every issue is to demand more spending and more borrowing.

I’ve been saying for months and months that NZ Labour do not realise the world has changed. People understand that with huge deficits, there can’t be massive spending increases, big pay increases for public servants etc.

The first quote is:

A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee

The second quote is:

a “light-skinned” black man “with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

So was this Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin? Dick Cheney and Bill O’Reilly?

No, according to a new book called Game Change, the first quote was made by Bill Clinton to Ted Kennedy, and the second by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Clinton’s quote is of course incorrect. If it involved serving himself and Ted Kennedy, there is no way they would have been getting served coffee – whiskey is far more likely.

An article in the Herald:

When the Nobel peace prize committee awarded President Barack Obama the ultimate accolade, its members can never have imagined that his acceptance speech would set out an eloquent defence of war.

His speech in Oslo could have been delivered by George W. Bush, when Obama spoke of “evil” in the world and of reserving “the right to act unilaterally”.

I bet you they still cheered wildly though.

He offered an outstretched hand to Iran and North Korea, instead of the fist of his predecessor, Bush. But now the talk is of “crippling sanctions” as the Iranian authorities continue to ratchet up their nuclear defiance.

Welcome to the real world.

He disappointed human rights advocates by not standing up to China and for hesitating too long before expressing support for the demonstrators in Iran.

Gay rights campaigners point out he has not yet fulfilled his campaign promise to welcome gay men and women into the military.

His pledge to close Guantanamo by the end of the year is proving complicated to implement.

Rhetoric vs reality

Obama’s approval rating in the polls now stands at 47 per cent.

It is the worst poll rating for any American President since Truman at this stage in the presidency.

Is this the case? Let’s check.

1. George W Bush 86%
2. John Kennedy 77%
3. George H W Bush 71%
4. Lyndon Johnson 70%
5. Dwight Eisenhower 69%
6. Richard Nixon 59%
7. Jimmy Carter 57%
8. Bill Clinton 54%
9. Gerald Ford 52%
10. Ronald Reagan 49%
11. Harry Truman 49%

So in fact at 47% it would be below every modern President.

Now again there is a long way to go before the election, and Reagan, Truman and Clinton all won second terms. But this presidency is certainly no JFK and Camelot.

But the 2010 mid-terms are looking to be fascinating. The Republicans now lead on the generic congressional poll by 43% to 41%. However they have large internal rifts and many of their more electable candidates may not win the primaries.