Sarah Palin:

Peter Schweizer's new book, "Throw Them All Out," reveals this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory. (Full disclosure: Mr. Schweizer is employed by my political action committee as a foreign-policy adviser.)

Doesn't this suggest that Schweizer is the true author here, and Palin is the byline for strategic reasons?

Schweizer's book got a plug in yesterday's Personal Finance section:

First, you pretend you're in it for the people, or America, or some nonsensical ideology. Then you get elected. Then you chase money.

This article (as the author, Al Lewis, notes) follows on the heels of a 60 Minutes story about Schweizer's new book -- a segment which WSJ columnist Holman Jenkins pooh-poohed last week.

Have you read Schweizer's book? (I found it interesting that every one of the 15 reviews gives the book five stars. Really? "If you have an active [Amazon] account and would like to make very easy money please respond.") The book's title reflects an anti-incumbent attitude, but in the book jacket blurb he takes it to its logical conclusion:

The Permanent Political Class must go.

Palin echoes this objective, writing:

No more revolving door, ever.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the proposal would bifurcate the population into a private working population and a permanent political class, legally barred from ever (re)joining the private workforce after having served in office. So what are ex-politicians supposed to do for a living? Is there really a world of difference between an ex-Senator lobbyist and an ex-Senator senior executive who hires a lobbyist to carry the ex-Senator's business card onto Capitol Hill?

Does this policy also apply to Congressional staffers, who, after all, are the ones actually writing the legislation? Are they, too, prohibited from returning to industry? Who would accept an offer to work for a first-time Senator if it meant permanently abandoning your industry?

David Gergen and Michael Zuckerman think Lessig's work is more deserving of attention than Schweizer's:

Without "great evil," Lessig reflects, he is "not yet sure that we can muster the will to fight." That's a deep concern, and it calls to mind the memorable formulation of the economist Charles Schultze, who once divided our problems into two categories: a wolf at the door, or termites in the basement.

As a nation, we've always been a lot better at handling the first than the second. But if Lessig is right about the camp... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

noteworthy wrote:
Sarah Palin:

Peter Schweizer's new book, "Throw Them All Out," reveals this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory. (Full disclosure: Mr. Schweizer is employed by my political action committee as a foreign-policy adviser.)

Doesn't this suggest that Schweizer is the true author here, and Palin is the byline for strategic reasons?

It doesn't really matter who wrote it - many politicians don't write their own stuff. Whats important is that herein Palin endorses a bold and, at first glance, genuine path toward addressing corruption within our political system. Suddenly her claims of being a maverick have some credibility. She actually appears to be standing for something important instead of merely claiming to have done so in the past.

(I found it interesting that every one of the 15 reviews gives the book five stars.)

I noticed that one of those positive reviews was posted by Marc Thiessen, the former Bush administration speech writer who a year ago was calling for cyberwarfare over wikileaks.

The presence of Thiessen increases the suspicion that this book is to become official party dogma and this might even be a calculated election season move, as the Wikileaks war mongering was transparently coordinated to make Leiberman's inappropriate actions appear moderate in comparison.

Of course, whether or not the litany of solutions proposed here address the right problem is an important one. If you found yourself having whipped up a populist movement and that movement wanted to see action taken to solve a problem that you didn't want to solve, providing a credible sounding solution that addresses the wrong problem might be just exactly the sort of strategy you'd play, and it would certainly be good for kicking the can down the road for a few years.

I haven't read Schweizer's book yet, nor Lessig's, but the later is on my short list. I'm aware from some of Lessig's presentations that studies have shown that campaign finance has absolutely no influence on Congress. I haven't read these studies. I therefore approach the matter with an open but skeptical mind. Perhaps these studies are asking the wrong questions. There is clearly a problem. If you haven't figured out where it is you aren't looking carefully enough.

I'm skeptical of Lessig's proposed solutions because I figure the "coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies" exist entirely outside of the direct campaign finance world and tinkering with that world won't make a lick of difference. The Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford Memo makes it clear - if you don't do what these rich people want, they'll go after you. They'll dig up dirt and they'll nail you to the wall with it. They don't have to directly donate money to your opponent in order to do that.

The people who get the support of the parties needed to get elected and avoid getting discredited by "the coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies" are the people who do what the people with the money want them to do.

It would not be surprising to me if there were both carrots and sticks. They have to motivate people to do this somehow, although many might be suckered in by a naive interest in serving the people and find themselves trapped. Once you get good at doing a thing, and well compensated, abandoning it for an entirely different profession is not always the path of least resistance in life.

In the end, I find the idea that Congress isn't barred from insider trading a bit hard to swallow. If Schweizer has identified any real problems, and they get fixed, that is good enough for a days work I think.

Decius:

It would not be surprising to me if there were both carrots and sticks. They have to motivate people to do this somehow, although many might be suckered in by a naive interest in serving the people and find themselves trapped. Once you get good at doing a thing, and well compensated, abandoning it for an entirely different profession is not always the path of least resistance in life.

In the end, I find the idea that Congress isn't barred from insider trading a bit hard to swallow. If Schweizer has identified any real problems, and they get fixed, that is good enough for a days work I think.

I am confused by their seemingly contradictory slogans against the "permanent political class" and "revolving doors". This seems to be Schweizer's main point, but it's baffling. If it's prohibited to make a career in politics, and it's also prohibited to enter private industry after serving in government, then where do qualified politicians come from, and where do they go when we're tired of seeing them in government?

I am unconvinced that meaningful progress can be made by replacing every old hand who knows all the angles with a bunch of political novices. The newbies might be less consciously corrupt, but their naïveté would expose them to manipulation from all sides.

Have you seen Ides of March? I recall an archived post about cynicism and truth ...

noteworthy wrote:
I am unconvinced that meaningful progress can be made by replacing every old hand who knows all the angles with a bunch of political novices. The newbies might be less consciously corrupt, but their naïveté would expose them to manipulation from all sides.

I agree with you. I think thats just tea party sloganeering that was relevant to their (successful) 2010 election strategy. I don't think its the substantive point that is being made here (anymore that the paragraph about Palin's success fighting special interests in Alaska).

There is this perennial debate about professional versus nonprofessional politicians. Its an even bigger deal in the state level. States that have part time legislatures have groups trying to make them full time because the part timers are often directly employed the rest of the year by the special interests that they represent. States that have full time legislatures have groups trying to make them part time because they think idle hands are the devil's plaything.

Its not clear to me that either approach is preferable ... solving the wrong problem.

Decius wrote:

noteworthy wrote:
Sarah Palin:

Peter Schweizer's new book, "Throw Them All Out," reveals this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory. (Full disclosure: Mr. Schweizer is employed by my political action committee as a foreign-policy adviser.)

Doesn't this suggest that Schweizer is the true author here, and Palin is the byline for strategic reasons?

It doesn't really matter who wrote it - many politicians don't write their own stuff. Whats important is that herein Palin endorses a bold and, at first glance, genuine path toward addressing corruption within our political system. Suddenly her claims of being a maverick have some credibility. She actually appears to be standing for something important instead of merely claiming to have done so in the past.

(I found it interesting that every one of the 15 reviews gives the book five stars.)

I noticed that one of those positive reviews was posted by Marc Thiessen, the former Bush administration speech writer who a year ago was calling for cyberwarfare over wikileaks.

The presence of Thiessen increases the suspicion that this book is to become official party dogma and this might even be a calculated election season move, as the Wikileaks war mongering was transparently coordinated to make Leiberman's inappropriate actions appear moderate in comparison.

Of course, whether or not the litany of solutions proposed here address the right problem is an important one. If you found yourself having whipped up a populist movement and that movement wanted to see action taken to solve a problem that you didn't want to solve, providing a credible sounding solution that addresses the wrong problem might be just exactly the sort of strategy you'd play, and it would certainly be good for kicking the can down the road for a few years.

I haven't read Schweizer's book yet, nor Lessig's, but the later is on my short list. I'm aware from some of Lessig's presentations that studies have shown that campaign finance has absolutely no influence on Congress. I haven't read these studies. I therefore approach the matter with an open but skeptical mind. Perhaps these studies are asking the wrong questions. There is clearly a problem. If you haven't figured out where it is you aren't looking carefully enough.

I'm skeptical of Lessig's proposed solutions because I figure the "coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies" exist entirely outside of the direct campaign finance world and tinkering with that world won't make a lick of difference. The Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford Memo makes it clear - if you don't do what these rich people want... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]