Premature Polls

From MSNBC/Newsweek:

Conservatives will have to decide who they hate more in 2008, Hillary Clinton or John McCain. That’s how a veteran of the Reagan White House sizes up the current field. The religious right loathes Hillary, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and they love Virginia Sen. George Allen, an amiable, Reagan-like figure whose father once coached the Redskins.

Allen will do well in the Republican primaries, but polls will show him losing by 7 percentage points to Hillary at the same time they show McCain handily beating her....

In 2004, polls showed all three Republican candidates for the 5th Congressional District's open seat losing to the officially unopposed Democrat. Then, after running one of the most incompetent campaigns I have ever seen, State Rep. Cathy McMorris won the election by twenty points.

So here we are, almost three and a half years from the next presidential election. Entire articles are devoted to how Republicans need to support McCain or other media favorites because he does well in hypothetical polls. What they don't mention is a fairly important question: name ID. How many people knew who Bill Clinton was in 1989? Or George Nethercutt in 1991? Hillary, however, is essentially universally-known (as is McCain), while Allen is probably best known in more politically active circles.

Seven points down, three and a half years out, everyone has an opinion about Hillary, but they haven't met George Allen- it doesn't sound so bad for him anymore.

And for that all-important name recognition, who is George Allen?

• Senator from Virginia (2001-present)
• NRSC Chairman during 2004 election (GOP expands majority by 4 seats)
• Governor of Virginia (1994-1998 - term limited)

For more information:

• Allen for Senate
• Senator George Allen
• Commonwealth Conservative's "Allen for President"

Slightly-Related Update, June 29:

(Fox News) Even though it was recently reported that Bush had slightly higher grades than Kerry did at Yale University, a 43 percent plurality of voters still think Kerry is the one with better grades. About a quarter (27 percent) got it right and say Bush had better grades in college.

Rational Foreign Aid

From Nairobi, Kenya:

Kenya will pay the price of an estimated Sh1.2 billion in withdrawn military support for its unwillingness to shield American personnel from prosecution at the International Criminal Court, it has been revealed....

Details from Washington show that the Bush administration may deprive Kenya of Sh616 million ($8 million) in funds for fighting terrorism, building democracy and resolving conflicts in the Horn of Africa and a similar amount in military aid.

The loss would be a result of an amendment added last December to the American Service Members' Protection Act to prohibit US military assistance to countries that have signed up to the formation of the ICC unless they have entered into no-surrender agreement with the US.

The law restricts US participation in any peacekeeping mission and prohibits military assistance for those nations that ratify the ICC Treaty, with the exception of Nato member countries and other major allies such as Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The so-called Nethercutt Amendment, named for its chief Republican sponsor, intensifies US efforts to coax developing countries into signing bilateral immunity deals with the United States.

Thank you Congressman Nethercutt, for reminding the world that they don't have a right to American tax money. Of course, this is just a drop in the bucket, but it's a good start:

The pending loss of Sh1.2 billion in military and economic support funds, however, represents less than 10 percent of total US assistance to Kenya.

Later in the article, we learn it isn't even a rigid rule. The Nethercutt Amendment exempts Millennium Challenge Accounts ("an aid programme that rewards compliance with anti-corruption, human rights and economic-reform standards.") Furthermore, it "gives President Bush the authority to waive the military aid reductions for other countries."

So not only does the Nethercutt Amendment only apply to a fraction of foreign aid, it exempts performance-based aid, and the President can waive the reductions to reflect American interests.

Diplomatic success to date is demonstrated:

A total of 100 countries, including 36 in Africa, have signed Article 98 agreements with the United States. The Bush administration argues that these bilateral immunity pacts are needed to protect American personnel from frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions.

After years of foreign policy abuses, we're glad to see foreign aid openly linked to foreign policy objectives and its effectiveness on the ground.

The EU: A Little Crisis Can be a Good Thing

Panic has set in at the EU as both France and the Netherlands seem poised to vote no on the new EU "Constitution." (Which must be approved by all 25 members to take effect.)

In our view, the "Constitution" tries to do too much. Portions cited by the "yes" and "no" campaigns (e.g., enshrinement of social and economic policy) have no place in a constitution. A constitution exists to establish the basic structure of government - the powers granted and restricted.

It would strengthen social policy in the bloc by setting out goals such as full employment and equality between men and women.

That's nice, but what does it have to do with the structure and powers of government? Maybe it should include the long-term goals of the European Space Agency too? (They seem, for the most part, to have limited themselves to the meaningless content of Article III-155: "The Union shall establish any appropriate relations with the European Space Agency.")

As far as we can tell from this side of the pond, the "yes" campaign has centered around two basic messages: (1) vote yes because we want you to and (2) everybody else is doing it, so if you vote no we'll keep asking until you say yes.

Odd, but interesting, from a BBC reporter in Paris:

The 'Yes' campaign hasn't been well handled. Sending a copy of the constitution to every householder may have been a worthy democratic move, but it wasn't very popular.

In the building where my flat is, the letter-boxes were jammed with 'Yes' literature. The vast text was too finely printed, making it seem like a dodgy insurance prospectus, and I thought the explanation that came with it, treated me like an idiot.

We downloaded the 325 page-document from the BBC and skimmed it. Here's an example of a provision of Constitutional importance:

Without prejudice to Article 5 of the Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank, measures for the production of statistics shall be laid down by a European law or framework law where necessary for the performance of the Union's activities. (Article III-335)

One of the "Constitution's" main authors notes the many problems of the final draft:

The European Constitution should still be praised for setting out Europe’s common values, and defining the powers of the institutions that run it.

But key sections “got out of control” in two years of drafting. Its authors took on too much, and tried to solve problems they were not equipped to tackle. They were too ambitious, and they started two years too late.

That is the verdict of Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, one of the main authors of the tome which polls suggest will be rejected by French voters on Sunday, very likely followed by the Dutch on Wednesday. “Why did it get so big? We tried to do it all,” he said yesterday.

...

He thinks that “the parts that got out of control were defence and foreign policy”, as well as some of the legal framework. The 181-page “part III” is particularly at fault, he now feels.

“It is an extension of part I into actual policies with not enough excisions. We didn’t want to knock out bits.”

Part III contains almost every existing treaty, including the Growth and Stability Pact, the hugely controversial financial rules for countries which have adopted the euro currency.

“We were the wrong body [to tackle that]”, he offers, because of the financial complexity and political sensitivity. “We couldn’t have amended it.”

...

Looking back over the whole exercise, he concludes: “I don’t think we did it incompetently. But it would have been easier to sell to the public as a short, 60-article, institutional treaty.”

Europeans (as well as interested persons worldwide) would be well served by a constitution that can actually be read and understood without extensive study. Internationally, how much influence would the U.S. Constitution have had if it included every federal statute?

Update, May 29: French Voters Reject EU Charter

Update, May 30: Der Spiegel: Chirac Gets French Fried

Stem Cell Research: Have a Good Old-Fashioned Fundraiser

With politicians still chattering about throwing federal money at fanciful hopes for embryonic stem cell research, we thought we would ask why federal money is so important. Why can't this money be raised privately from willing donors rather than through confiscatory taxation?

First, we'll remind everyone that President Bush never made the research illegal, it simply is not being subsidized by the federal government. Whatever you think of stem cell research, whether adult or embryonic, the federal government does not prohibit it. Now it turns out that federal funding might not even be necessary:

(MSN) [A]dditional government funding might have a limited impact because work is still in large part at the relatively inexpensive basic research stage, and so much private funding is available. Harvard has raised $30m towards stem cell research as part of an ambitious plan to hand out over $100m. Three New York medical institutions - Rockefeller University, Weill Medical College of Cornell and Memorial Sloan-Kettering - this month announced a $50m stem cell initiative. The state of Massachusetts is contemplating a $100m programme to fund stem cell research. And California is poised to hand out $3bn. "It's a lot of money, no matter how you look at it," says Charles Jennings, executive director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

By comparison, South Korea spend $27 million on stem cell research that has produced "results" recently.

So if you want your pet project funded so bad, why don't you ask the people and organizations that actually have their own money? It's working so far, it just doesn't make the 15-second evening news report.

To Euro or Not to Euro

From the BBC:

One of the Czech National Bank's top policymakers has questioned the merits of eurozone membership, arguing that it may damage growth.

The comments by Czech National Bank board member Robert Holman are more explicit than previous comments and may signal a policy change, analysts said.

...

What has caught many observers by surprise is that Mr Holman has not only voiced this scepticism but also shifted the emphasis of what should determine euro membership for the Czech Republic.

Previous comments had focused on internal reform and fiscal discipline, but now the focus has been shifted to the economic performance of the countries that share the euro.

"The eurozone economy has been growing very slowly in the past five years, and among other factors, it could have been caused by having the common currency," Mr Holman said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

When I traveled about Europe, I certainly appreciated the Euro. It wasn't until visiting Prague that any difficult currency conversions were necessary. However, I would not have spent any more money if shops set prices in Euros. I just would have made purchases faster and returned to wandering. A little convenience for tourists is hardly worth sacrificing control of your monetary policy - especially with the EU's looming demographic and economic problems.

Democrats Against Democracy

From CNN:

During floor debate Wednesday, Minority Leader Harry Reid accused the Republican majority of "moving toward breaking the rules to change the rules."

"Right now, the only check on President Bush is the Democrats' ability to voice our concern in this body," said the Nevada Democrat. "If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check on this power."

Try winning an election, Harry. If you keep up Daschle's trend, the Republicans will have 60 Senate seats after the next election.

Do the Reid Democrats stand for democracy or merely obstruction? It's one thing to fight legislation or nominations for actual stated reasons and reasoned debate, it's another to abuse procedural rules to deny even an up or down vote for nominees who already enjoy majority support.

For more on the Observant Observations view of filibusters, please visit "Let's Have a Good Old-Fashioned Filibuster".

"Filibusters: A History" may also be of interest.

Update, May 24: A timely quote:

The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action.

-President Woodrow Wilson, 1917

We are not certain, but would not be surprised if this is still true.

Yet They're Not Blowing Themselves Up in Prague...

From Deutsche Welle:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Tuesday condemned critics of the Czech Republic's refusal to abolish wartime decrees forcing the expulsion of the "Sudeten" German minority from Czechoslovakia.

...

Around 2.5 million people were expelled from Czechoslovakia under the 1945 Benes decrees on the basis that they had supported Hitler's annexation. Their property was confiscated. Between 25,000 and 30,000 people died during the expulsion.

The postwar transfer of the strong German minority from Czechoslovakia's border areas, the Sudeten territories, continues to stir up emotions in both the Czech Republic and Germany, although not at a government level.

Millions more Germans were expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II. A few years later, less than a million Palestinian Arabs fled the new state of Israel in exchange for a similar number of Jews from Arab nations. So why aren't the Sudeten Germans blowing themselves up in downtown Prague? Maybe because the Federal Republic of Germany integrated them instead of keeping them in refugee "camps" as political pawns.