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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (208286)	11/10/2012 8:43:44 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 540725

Krugman. --------------------- November 10, 2012, 4:19 pm Unqualified Back during the late unlamented era after the Supremes installed W in the White House, it was common to hear assertions from the Beltway types to the effect that the effectiveness of the Bush political campaign demonstrated that the Bush team had the competence needed to run the country. This was completely wrong-headed; many of the skills needed for campaigning have nothing whatsoever to do with governing. Smearing your opponent, flattering the news media, and suppressing the vote may work fine against hapless Democrats (back then they really were hapless in a way they no longer are); they’re no use at all in dealing with foreign governments and a troubled economy. Yet there are some skills that do apply to both campaigning and governing — above all, an ability to face up to reality. And this, we’re now learning, was a skill that the Romney campaign utterly lacked. At least if postmortems are to be believed, they drank their own Kool-Aid, “unskewing” the polls and thus failing to understand what anyone reading Sam Wang, Drew Linzer, or Nate Silver knew. Now, it’s one thing to do this and misjudge the prospects of rival American candidates. But suppose Romney had somehow ended up winning, and made the same kind of misjudgement of, say, Iran or al Qaeda — or of the economic outlook. Living in a bubble of conservative denial can lose much more than an election if it becomes a style of governing. And look, we’ve already seen that play. Remember the Bush administration’s state of denial over the failing occupation of Iraq? (We were supposed to be welcomed as liberators, and the Bushies were the last to realize that it wasn’t happening). Remember how Bush’s aides ended up making a DVD of Katrina coverage to get his attention and convince him that Brownie wasn’t actually doing a heckuva job? So this time the campaign was indeed an indicator of fitness to govern. Romney wasn’t ready, and neither was his party. krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

To: JohnM who wrote (208286)	11/10/2012 10:10:30 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540725

:-) I know the republicans think it's awful here, but it's really not. I've been all over the world, and stayed in some wonderful places, but this is by far the best place I've ever been. Maybe the democrats will not be able to solve our problems, but I suspect a rising economic tide will probably get rid of most of them. And if that tide does restore California, the dems can take the credit, and the republicans will be even more marginalized.