Doug and others have noted myriad examples of Republicans and Democrats alike who have served in the administrations of the other major party; however, what most have failed to note is that in virtually all of these cases, the person in question did so at the conclusion of their partisan political careers. Huntsman’s choice to return to partisan politics after serving as part of an administration, on the other hand, is relatively unprecedented—and to run against the president who appointed him is almost unheard of. The one prominent Republican who attempted such a feat, Wendell Wilkie, suffered a rather ignominious fate in the 1944 Republican primaries that reminds one of Huntsman’s current national polling numbers quite eerily.

One might reasonably argue that Huntsman was only serving his country, rather than the administration of the day, but the charge of an ambassador (like that of a cabinet secretary, but in contrast to the role of a military officer or enlistee) is primarily to represent the administration’s political positions, to the extent that any departure from the administration’s stated policies is grounds for immediate dismissal.

In this regard, Huntsman’s duty as ambassador was first and foremost to advance the foreign policy agenda of the Obama administration, even in circumstances where fellow Republicans (or even he) might reasonably argue the administration’s position was incorrect. This is most notable in the stance to take in enlisting the aid of China in containing the nuclear ambitions of its client state North Korea and other countries where it has substantial influence and ties such as Pakistan. More broadly, an ambassador represents the government of the day on all issues, large and small; thus, to serve as an ambassador, one has three choices: agree with all of those positions; disagree with some but not air those disagreements; or decide that the depth of their disagreement is so profound that they cannot faithfully serve in the position.

Given the length of Huntsman’s service, and given that he has not taken the position that he resigned because he could not faithfully represent the president’s policies to China, his fellow Republicans might reasonably be skeptical of his partisan and conservative bona fides. That skepticism was unlikely to be dampened by Huntsman’s statements on global warming and evolution. Regardless of their veracity, many in the Republican base might reasonably have viewed these statements as needlessly antagonistic or an effort to shore up support from the establishment media as the “reasonable alternative” to the other candidates. That Huntsman gained the endorsements of liberal-leaning editorial boards, at least in part on the basis of those statements, lends some credence to the idea that he was more interested in appeasing the “liberal media” than his fellow Republicans.

All of this is not to say that it is right that Republicans rejected Huntsman’s candidacy. If the American political culture historically had more of a tradition of cross-partisan coalitions in the cabinet and ambassadorial corps, perhaps some of the initial skepticism of Huntsman’s bona fides would have been dulled, but the reality is that most of these cross-partisan appointments (with the notable recent exception of Obama’s retention of former secretary of defense Robert Gates from the Bush 43 administration) have been to rather dull, generally apolitical positions that primarily exist to ladle out pork, most notably the Department of Transportation.

However, Huntsman also made tactical mistakes that reinforced the critique, particularly by seemingly going out of his way to criticize the views of his party’s base. For example, he might have argued that regardless of whether global warming is human-caused, or even if it isn’t, that the U.S. needs to cooperate with other countries lest they use global warming as an excuse to erect non-tariff barriers against American companies like the recent imposition of Europe’s emissions trading scheme (a cap-and-trade system that has been beset with serious technical and political problems since its creation) on U.S. air carriers.

Similarly, while the scientific evidence for evolution is irrefutable (and the competing “theories” of young Earth creationism and intelligent design are non-falsifiable, and thus inherently unscientific), nonetheless it is difficult to identify what part of the president’s job requires him to make pronouncements on the veracity of it or what policy consequences there would be of such statements at the federal level (given that school curricula are properly the responsibility of the states). He also failed to secure sufficient financial and political backing for a successful campaign, instead jumping in late like the similarly ill-fated Rick Perry; had he not taken the ambassadorial appointment, in addition to no longer being handicapped by association with the incumbent president, he would have been freer to secure the backing he needed to be a serious contender.

Like Doug, in my case Huntsman was never my first choice, at least while Gary Johnson remained in the contest (and, given that both of us now reside in Virginia, our upcoming choice is rather circumscribed anyway). That said Huntsman seemed to be an honorable man, and the Republican field is worse off for his impending departure from it, but frankly his campaign and the candidate should take their shares of the blame for the campaign’s inability to gain any traction with Republican primary voters and caucus-goers.

The folks at Reason have been keeping a rather keen eye on the escalation of the Obama administration’s war on medical marijuana; the latest salvo is apparently going to involve aggressive prosecutions of those advertising dispensaries, along with targeting landlords and other property owners whose tenants are dispensing pot, regardless of state licensing. Considering that the average Democrat supports legalizing pot outright,* and polls show even wider support for medical marijuana, the administration’s increasingly anti-pot position seems a bit inexplicable on the surface. However, I do think there are two potential explanations for this seemingly-conservative shift on the issue:

1. Presidential politics: Most of the medical marijuana facilities are in California, a state that Obama has virtually no chance of losing in 2012. The policy is actually designed to shore up Obama’s support in swing states, where medical marijuana is not legal and the administration’s policy can be spun as “tough on drugs and crime.”
2. Assertion of national authority against nullification more broadly: Although one would think that the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Raich, which (contrary to a line of Supreme Court cases leading to that point) found that non-commercial, intrastate activity, such as marijuana use, could be regulated under the commerce power, had settled the power of the national government to continue to regulate marijuana as a controlled substance, the behavior of the states that adopted medical marijuana laws has effectively advanced the doctrine of nullification, albeit this time from the left rather than its traditional home on the right. By cracking down on medical marijuana, the Obama administration is signalling that other nullification efforts, such as state laws against participation in ObamaCare and REAL ID, along with other efforts by states to make end-runs around federal policies, will be dealt with in a similar fashion.

The latter explanation, in particular, would explain the rather vehement reaction of the administration over the past couple of years to medical marijuana as other state-level efforts to nullify or crowd out federal policymaking prerogatives have emerged. But I’m certainly open to entertaining other theories.

* According to the 2010 General Social Survey, 52.0% of Democrats and Democrat-leaners supported legalization of marijuana (margin of error: ±4.0%).

The former New Mexico governor won the right to participate, according to Fox sources, by cracking 1 percent in the latest five national polls in which he was included—Fox News, CNN, McClatchy-Marist, ABC, and Quinnipiac—which was the criterion the network had set for inclusion.

Johnson is a quirky character, a libertarian who wants to legalize marijuana and is opposed to a border fence to stop illegal immigration. But he has attracted a passionate if tiny following while mostly flying below the media’s radar.

Kurtz speculates that Johnson’s inclusion may “help the top two candidates, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, by diluting the airtime available to the other contenders”; however, it’s also possible that Johnson will provide a more mainstream libertarian counterpart (at least in messaging, if not substance) to Ron Paul’s quirky mix of economic laissez-faire and social Darwinism, not to mention an alternative to the other, mostly social conservative, dwarves sharing the stage.

If nothing else, Republicans are likely to benefit from having another candidate with serious political credentials cutting into the airtime of pizza empresario Herman Cain.

Political scientist David Mayhew once wrote that members of Congress are “single-minded seekers of re-election”; in other words, if we want to understand Congress, we need to understand the electoral incentives that members face. The role of reelection in the current debate over raising the debt ceiling is obvious; for every Republican congressman who may get redistricted out of his seat for refusing to play ball with the leadership, there are several others who quite reasonably fear that bucking the Tea Party and Grover Norquist may lead to a primary challenge to their right. Since John Boehner and his allies can’t threaten to redistrict all of the Tea Party Caucus out of Congress, he has to work out a deal that will protect rank-and-file Republicans while at the same time ultimately producing a bill that can get to the president’s desk.

Much of the commentary (including some here at OTB), however, has made the assumption that the bill the House passes has to be pretty close to what comes out of Congress at the end. And while it is easier to build a coalition to pass such a bill, in the sense that you only need to assemble one winning majority under those circumstances, the reality is that political circumstances aren’t going to allow that to happen. Rounding up a majority now for what will be palatable to the Senate majority and president has been demonstrated over the past few weeks as impossible. But the House is constrained, by rules and tradition, to pass something for the process to move forward.

That’s where parliamentary procedure comes in. Whatever compromise is adopted will affect taxes and spending. It is rather well-known that Article I of the Constitution requires that revenue bills originate in the House of Representatives; what is less well-known is that, by tradition, the House also originates all spending bills and by standing procedure will not consider a spending bill that originates in the Senate. Hence the ultimate compromise bill must originate in the House of Representatives, at least in some form. That requires a bill that can at least be amended into a compromise to pass. As Doug Mataconis notes today, the House just did its part by passing a bill that the Senate can now act on.

So that’s the first step. What happens next? The Senate must adopt a bill as well, either as an amendment to the House version of the bill or its own freestanding bill. But the Senate operates under its own constraints, most notably the threat of a filibuster. Hence whatever passes the Senate must be palatable to at least 60 senators. It is of course, extremely unlikely that 60 senators will approve of the bill the House passed today, but again all that needs to happen for the process to move forward is for the Senate to approve something that involves revenues and spending.

After that the traditional “how a bill becomes a law” chart says that the House and Senate will appoint members of a conference committee to work out the differences. In modern practice things don’t really work that way; a pro forma conference committee, comprised of senators and representatives loyal to the leadership, will eventually meet, but only to ratify a deal that is made elsewhere among the congressional leadership and senior White House officials (perhaps including the president in person, perhaps not). Importantly, the deal that’s worked out here only needs to accomplish three things:

• It has to be able to get a majority vote in the House.
• It has to be able to get either a majority vote or 60 votes in the Senate, depending on whether or not the bill is considered a reconciliation bill under the terms of the Budget Act.
• The version of the bill adopted by the conference committee must satisfy the gernameness requirements under the Senate’s rules; generally speaking, this means that the conference committee can’t add items to the bill that weren’t in either the House or Senate bill originally. (That’s why having radically different bills from both chambers is actually a good thing, as it increases the range of possible options for a compromise bill that can accomplish the first two goals above.)

What’s notable here is that the conference version of the bill ultimately doesn’t have to be approved by the same legislators who approved the House and Senate bills originally. This allows Republicans fearful of Tea Party retribution to argue that they voted for the original House bill, even though that’s not what ultimately will pass, and they’ll also be able to say they voted against ultimately increasing the debt ceiling. It also allows Democrats some political cover for supporting a spending cuts package along with the debt ceiling increase; after all, what Democratic primary opponent can criticize a Democrat for voting for the conference version of the bill, especially if the president signs it?

The trick now is for a House majority to support what comes out of the conference committee. The good news for Bohener is that the hard part of his job is done: while he may have to tack a little to the left for a few days his new ally Barack Obama will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting with the Democrats; Boehner just needs to deliver a few dozen Republican votes when the conference is done.

And the price the Republicans will pay for their brinkmanship? Getting the Democrats to own both the debt ceiling increase (unpopular with moderates) and spending cuts without much in the way of tax increases (unpopular with the Democratic base). For all the alleged craziness and irrationality going on in their caucus, it seems like a pretty good deal for Republicans to me.

The [Center for College Affordability and Productivity] report is technically accurate but substantively misleading. In particular, the CCAP provides a muddled picture of teaching at UT by describing the distribution of teaching duties for the university’s entire faculty together, lumping together data on full-time faculty with data on part-time faculty and data from graduate colleges and programs with data from colleges and programs that mainly serve undergraduates. As a result, the CCAP report creates a false impression of inequity in the assignment of teaching duties at UT and overstates the feasibility of reducing faculty costs without undermining the quality of UT’s academic programs.

James, of course, pointed out some of the same issues in his previous post. Ura further illustrates that when you break the numbers down, most of the main undergraduate colleges at UT-Austin meet CCAP’s recommendation that faculty teach, on average, 300 150 students a year already:

CCAP’s aggregate analysis of UT’s data masks the existence of much high volume teaching already in place at UT. Indeed, several of colleges at UT already exceed the productivity guidelines suggested by Dr. Vedder’s Wall Street Journal editorial. Faculty in the colleges of Business, Communication, Natural Sciences, and Pharmacy all teach a weighted average of more than 150 students each year. Also, faculty in the colleges of Liberal Arts and Engineering are within 10 percent of a 150 student per year target (weighted average), as is the university as a whole. Thus, in colleges for which economies of scale may be reasonably leveraged to provide instruction to large numbers of students, average faculty teaching productivity is quite high.

In contrast, lower teaching loads are centered in colleges that principally serve graduate students or require the close supervision of students in clinical, practical, or performance settings. Half of the colleges with weighted average faculty teaching loads of less than 100 students per year — the colleges of Law, Public Affairs, and Social Work- — are exclusively or predominantly oriented towards graduate and professional studies. Among low-teaching load colleges that principally serve undergraduate students, the academic programs offered by the colleges of Architecture, Nursing, and Fine Arts almost certainly deal with subject matter that simply requires closer supervision of students than we might expect in other undergraduate colleges on average.

The sad irony of this whole issue is that Vedder, as a tenured faculty member at a research-oriented university, should know better than to produce a slipshod report, but apparently is so blinded by his animus toward his own university’s redirection away from a teaching-oriented mission over the past decades to that of an emerging research university—the sort of redirection that is necessary to attract and retain world-class faculty in this day and age—that he is willing to undermine his own broader argument about the prioritization of minor, incremental research over teaching (which, like James, I share some sympathy with) by advancing a weak analysis that is an easy target for criticism from within the ivory tower.

Post image © Twitter user BlazerMan. Used under a Creative Commons license. (Post edited to correct an error in the student head count target.)

There’s a rare bit of good news for TSA’s army of security screeners, who are best-known for being the first federal workers to successfully steal the mantle of “America’s most-disliked government employees” away from IRS auditors: they get to join a union!

The head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Friday gave the nation’s 40,000-plus airport screeners the opportunity to engage in limited collective bargaining, pressing ahead on a hot-button issue that has separated Republicans and Democrats since the creation of the TSA after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Congress prohibited airport screeners from collective bargaining when it created the TSA in 2003, arguing that managers needed the agency to be nimble in responding to the changing terrorists threats. But it gave the TSA administrator the authority to allow collective bargaining if he determined it would not hurt national security.

On Friday, TSA Administrator John Pistole announced he would allow airport screeners to select a union for collective bargaining, or to forgo bargaining. In a statement, Pistole said sitting down at a bargaining table with screeners would not jeopardize the nation.

Unions, of course, are known in our history textbooks as the pioneers of promoting workers’ rights in America by negotiating things like pay, working conditions, and the like with thuggish, greedy employers. So, of course, TSA’s union won’t actually be allowed to do any of these things:

[T]he paper outlining his decision precludes negotiations on security policies, pay, pensions and compensation, proficiency testing, job qualifications and discipline standards. It also will prohibit screeners from striking or engaging in work slowdowns.

So, apparently TSA screeners will be able to sign away a portion of their paychecks to a union to… send it to Democratic candidates for federal office or something, because that would seem to be about the only thing the union would have the power to do in the service of its members. I suppose if you were trying to establish a system to help finance Democratic campaigns for Congress and the White House, this union might be a good idea, but I’m at a loss as to how it will do anything at all for rank-and-file TSA employees, or the traveling public for that matter.

But since TSA screening is here to stay—the desires of the traveling public, airlines, and airports be damned—at least there’ll be plenty of employees’ dues to collect for the lucky winners of the organizing drive.

Midterm grades are tough, as one really never knows how things will finish out and so my predilection is to want to assign an incomplete, as that is really the only truly fair grade.

A main problem with any of these types of things is the question of the criteria to be used in the evaluation.  If one is an adherent of the Tea Party faction, one suspects that “Fs” would be in order.  Likewise, if one is a Green Party progressive, disappointment might render a similar grade, although for very different reasons (probably “Ds”).  I see no point in scoring based on ideological expectations, however (or even on the basis of what I, personally, wanted in terms of policy outcomes).

Further, in evaluating a given president there are issues of comparison to other presidents to consider (it is inherent in the grading, even if it not always explicit in the reasoning) as well as the prevailing conditions under which a president governs (for while being the President of the United States America is always a difficult job, sometimes it is harder than others).

Ultimately I think that grading a presidency is a combination of the following:  relative comparisons to other presidents, the specific challenge of the day, and understanding a president on his own terms (i.e., what did he say he was going to do and did he accomplish it)?

Ok, keeping in mind that A=excellent, B=above average, C=average, D=below average and F=failing,I would assign the following grades in the following categories:

Communication:   C+

By this I mean his ability to effectively communicate with the public regarding his political/policy goals.  If we were just grading things like the Tucson speech, the grade would be higher.  In many ways this is an incomplete, as I think he is still learning how to do this.

Domestic Policy: B-

This is hard to grade.  On the one hand, Obama was able to pass his signature goal, health care reform,   yet on the other, the economy remains hobbled and the unemployment rate hover just under 10%.   On yet another hand [this must be a mutant grader!---Ed.], we have avoided a second Great Depression and the Great Recession appears to have avoided a double dip.  On those later point, the issue is did the stimulus and various bailouts accomplish that feat?  (And some credit along those lines  also belongs to Bush, Paulson, Bernanke and company).

Foreign Policy:  C-

On balance, the Obama foreign policy has been the same as the Bush second term foreign policy.  I see no radical difference on Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, the War on Terror (or whatever we are calling it these days) or a host of other issues.  In general, US global relations are stable.  He loses points for not being especially different than his predecessor despite campaigning on change in this realm.

Legislative Success: A

Regardless of what thinks of the actual legislation in question, it is impossible to look at the legislation passed that Obama wanted passed and not give the man high marks:  the stimulus package, financial regulatory reform, the PPACA and the tax cut deal.  Anyone who has any kind of historical perspective regarding legislation has to score this one with high marks.

Update: It occurs to me that the DADT repeal needs to be in here as well, which will have long-term historical significance along with the ratification of New START.

Practical Politics: B/B-

This is linked to the communication issue above, but also to the legislative success.  On the one hand, there has been a lot of learning (as one might suspect) for a first term president, especially one with a short political resume to begin with.  However, while at times his political communication has faltered, the bottom line is that he has achieved a lot that he set out to achieve.  Further, the tax deal with the GOP showed that he can be pragmatic (and use that pragmatism to political gain).

I will leave it at that, and let my colleagues join in as they see fit.

James Joyner:

Communication:   C-

Obama is a first rate orator, on par with Reagan and Clinton — the two best American presidents in this area in my lifetime.   But, unlike those two, he’s not good at messaging and frequently hurts himself by sending mixed signals.

For example, on Afghanistan, he’s managed to simultaneously double down on the mission and undermine confidence in America’s commitment to it.  He spent months hemming and hawing about the surge and then undercut it with a July 2011 deadline.

Similarly, by not taking control early on the health care bill, a rather major achievement (albeit not in a direction I preferred) was received as a failure.

Domestic Policy: C

He’s gotten a lot done:  Healthcare reform, the stimulus, gays in the military, and other milestones.   But he did not lead well publicly on any of them, letting others carry the water.

The economy remains a disaster — indeed, it’s much worse than he warned it would be if we didn’t pass his stimulus package!  I don’t actually think this is his fault — it’s a global meltdown — but it’ll be how voters judge.

Foreign Policy:  C-

I’m in essential agreement with Steven on all fronts.  I’ll put up a longish post on this topic and link it here later this afternoon.  [As promised:  Obama's Mid-Term Report Card, foreign policy edition.]

Legislative Success: A-

Again, I basically agree with Steven.  I ding Obama, though, for failure to take charge early.  He succeeded by muddling through but presidents don’t get much credit for that.

Practical Politics: B

Ultimately, he’s done as well as can be expected.  He’s broken many of his campaign promises and quietly de-emphasized previous major goals upon seeing that the view looked different from the Oval Office than the campaign trail.  That doesn’t win him any points from either flank but it’s a shrewd way to govern.

Alex Knapp:

Communication:   B

I personally, largely agree with James and Steven. But I think that’s an inside baseball perspective. If Obama were really as bad as I think he’s been, he wouldn’t have an approval of over 50% at a time when the economy is still really, really terrible. So I’m thinking his communication skills must be stronger than I give him credit for. Which makes sense – folks like me who live and breathe politics are, thankfully, a fraction of a percentage of the population.

Domestic Policy: C

The good: Lily Ledbetter Pay Act, DADT, Financial Reform, most of the ACA, though I think it could have been much better if it weren’t such a conservative package.

The bad: kowtowing to Wall Street, the deficit increasing tax package “compromise” with Republicans, which resulted in a MORE expensive bill than either party was asking for, the stimulus package that was too long on tax cuts, too small on real and effective spending. Also, continuing the stupid Bush policy of having the Justice Department pursue “counterterrorism” by conducting elaborate sting operations against comically inept people who would pose no threat if left to themselves is another black mark against him.

Foreign Policy:  D+

Terrible in Iraq and Afghanistan, were he continues to fight wars with no defined objectives that we never should have started in the first place. Doubling down in Afghanistan, in particular was a mistake, though I’ll freely admit that’s in hindsight because I also thought it was a good idea in 2008. Despite “ending torture,” the CIA maintains its black sites in Bagram and elsewhere. The drone strikes into Pakistan are unconscionable, and he spent a considerable amount of capital into arranging “tough” sanctions on Iran that will go nowhere. Although in fairness, sanctions may forestall the even more insane policy of attacking Iran, so that might be a positive.

Legislative Success: A

Unlike James, I think it was a stroke of brilliance to let Congress lead the way on most of Obama’s signature legislation, all the while subtly manipulating them into doing what he wanted. The best way to manage egotists is to lead them to believe that they’re managing you. And you don’t get into Congress without a healthy dose of egotism.

Practical Politics: B+

Overall, Obama’s kept most of his promises, is actively working towards them, or got them as far as they could go in the current political climate. That ain’t bad.

Doug Mataconis:

Communication:   C-

Perhaps the most striking to me about the Obama Administration versus the Obama campaign for President has been the extent to which the same communications team that did such a great job during a hard-fought Primary and General Election campaign has done such a bad job since they’ve been in office. This was most in evidence during the health care debate, when the GOP and the conservative opposition was essentially able to take control of the talking points without much of a fight. Yes, the Administration ended up getting a health care package passed, but they lost the communications battle and ended up paying the price for that throughout the 2010 campaign season.

Part of the inevitable mid-term staff shuffle that has been going on since Rahm Emanuel left office appears to include a shake-up in the Communications Office. Robert Gibbs will be leaving, and the White House announced today that most political functions will be shifted out of the White House and into either the DNC or the Obama re-election campaign, which will be headquartered in Chicago.  Whether that solves the Administration’s communications problems remains to be seen.

Domestic Policy: C

With the exception of Card Check and Cap & Trade, virtually all of the major legislative agenda items that were part of the 2008 Obama campaign have been passed into law by Congress, albeit not always in the form (or manner) promised in 2008. As James notes above, though, Obama wasn’t much of a leader in getting any of his agenda items passed. Starting with the $700 Billion Omnibus Spending Bill that was passed in February 2009, the Obama White House had the habit of letting the Democratic leadership in Congress control the content and communication of everything from the Affordable Care Act (arguably the most significant piece of legislation of Obama’s Presidency even if he manages to win a second term). The result has been that the most important pieces of legislation of the past two years were associated with the unpopular Democratic Congress, rather than a relatively more popular Democratic President, and the President looked weak.

More importantly, though, the biggest domestic issue is the economy and the President’s economic policies have been less than helpful to say the very least. When Election Day 2012 comes, though, it will be the state of the economy that decides the President’s fate and, at the moment at least, it’s beginning to look like Barack Obama may turn out to be very lucky in that regard.

Foreign Policy:  D

I essentially agree with Steven here as well. I give the President a D here mostly because I think he is continuing to pursue a policy in Afghanistan that cannot work, and that he is not being honest with the American public about the fact that our strategy there isn’t working the way his advisers told him it would. We need to turn around and get out of there, soon, but with an election coming up in a year I doubt that’s going to happen.

Legislative Success: B+

As I noted above in the Domestic Policy section, Obama’s biggest problem has been the extent to which he ceded control of the legislative agenda early on to Congress, a decision he ought to great.

However, he did two things. First, he has gotten most of his legislative agenda through Congress. Second, during the lame duck session, he wisely (from a political point of view) compromised with Republicans over extension of the Bush tax cuts, thus allowing other items like the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and ratification of the START Treaty. Had that deal not been reached, the lame duck session would have likely been a waste of time.

Practical Politics: B

For the most part, President Obama has handled the practical politics of his position rather well. Evidence of that can be seen in the fact that he has manged to maintain relatively respectable job approval and favorable/unfavorable numbers even though polls show that the public disagreed with his position on policy issues. In fact, if the economy had been in better shape over the past two years, I would imagine that Barack Obama would be in  far better position than he is now.

As I wrote earlier today, there are signs that we may be witnessing a turnaround for Barack Obama, if that continues, it’s likely that the next two years are going to be far different from the past two for the White House.

Chris Lawrence:

I can’t say I disagree much with my colleagues, so my commentary will generally be brief.

Communication: B-

Obama is an effective communicator, in general, but sometimes he fails to make an effective case for his policies. How much of this is due to an often-muddled White House communications strategy, as opposed to Obama himself, is debatable. And, regardless, the public is no longer really buying his administration’s repeated attempts to pin all of Obama’s problems on his predecessor.

Domestic Policy: C-

Health care reform is generally the only “bright” spot on his record, and even that was arrived at by walking back campaign positions. While most of the individual elements poll as popular, the “if we pass it the public will like it” strategy hasn’t really come to pass in reality.

The rest of Obama’s 2009-10 domestic policy agenda is effectively DOA with the Republican House takeover, and there isn’t much sign yet of a new one to replace it. With the economy overshadowing everything else, even Democrats will have difficulty supporting major new spending initiatives, leaving Obama to try to fiddle at the margins through the regulatory process.

Foreign Policy: C+

The best that can be said for the Obama foreign policy agenda is that it hasn’t been as disastrous as the Bush foreign policy agenda. Then again, the second-term Bush foreign policy agenda wasn’t either, since realistically the “military option” to solve any problem has been off the table since mid-2004. On the plus side, we have managed to avoid Clintonian adventures that might not have worked out; intervention in Ivory Coast and/or Darfur would have potentially been palatable to Congress had Iraq gone swimmingly or not at all. On trade, the Obama administration has presided over the massive failure of the Doha round, alienated allies by refusing to push through free trade agreements, and only reluctantly acceding to our NAFTA obligations after an unnecessary, union-inspired spat over Mexican trucking based on bogus arguments about the safety of American-manufactured trucks being operated by experienced Mexican drivers on American roads.

The only reason the grade is as high as it is: institutionally he is constrained to failure on many key foreign policy issues. Israel has no interest in solving the Palestinian conflict in the current environment (where the Palestinians are internally divided and the Arab world has seemingly diminished its interest in their cause); Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons capabilities are going to come about regardless of American efforts to the contrary due to European, Russian, and Chinese sanctions-busting (and, regardless, are probably not the existential threats to American safety some make them out to be; if anything, the sanctions-busters are far more vulnerable than the United States to rogue Iranian and NorK behavior); and the administration is inclined to simply repeat the cycle of failure in Latin American policy due to nativist sentiment from both parties’ congressional caucuses and the public at large.

Legislative Success: B+ (but falling)

It’s hard to give presidents much credit or blame on this score; regardless, the sheep-herding in Congress went well when he had a working majority, and I’d expect it will go rather less well now. This is an element of the grade that seems likely to be a poor prediction of his 2013 or 2017 final grade, so I would discount it accordingly.

Practical Politics: B-

Much to the chagrin of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, the Obama administration thus far has been more Clintonian (or Bush43ian, particularly on foreign policy) than Carterian (or Reaganite). As James suggests, “muddling through” is about as well as can be expected given the economic downturn, a hostile foreign policy environment, and a decidedly conservative public policy mood swing since Obama took office. His use of regulatory policy so far has been relatively shrewd, particularly for a president without any prior executive branch experience to speak of; that prowess will be challenged over the course of the next two years, and likely will determine whether his final grade is a B or a C.

Dave Schuler:

I don’t actually have a great deal to add beyond the points that my colleagues have made.

Communication: B-

If it weren’t for the occasional excellent speech, e.g. Tucson, he’d be drifting lower. Too frequently, he’s lecturing rather than addressing.

Domestic Policy: D

There is only one domestic policy issue: the economy. If unemployment remains high and we’re in an L-shaped, Japan-style recovery, D is being generous.

Foreign Policy: D+

In my view expanding the war in Afghanistan has been an error. Given that he has squandered the last two years in terms of trade agreements and that otherwise, as has been mentioned above, his foreign policy has closely resembled that of President Bush’s second term, I can’t even award a C.

Legislative Success: A

Passage of major healthcare reform, a goal that has eluded Democratic presidents for the last 30 years, assures President Obama an A in this area.

Practical Politics: C

In terms of practical politics President Obama is about where most presidents are at this point in their first terms. However, there are storm clouds on the horizon. His political opponents don’t like him a bit more than they did when he was elected, he’s in danger of losing independents, and he’s alienated portions of his base.

In summary, I think that President Obama deserves what we used to call a “gentleman’s C”.

Robert Prather:

I, too, have little to add, but here’s my two cents:

Communication: C

His oratorical skills are second to none, but his messaging has been poor. Political communication requires bullet points that can fit on a postcard. He prevaricates so much its almost like he’s thinking out loud.

Domestic Policy: B+

He learned one of the primary lessons of the failure of HillaryCare and didn’t try to do it himself and ram it down Congress’s throat. He gave them a blueprint and negotiated with them and it was a success. The stimulus was too small, by around $400 billion and contained way too many tax cuts, but it still likely allowed us to avoid a second Great Depression.

Foreign Policy: B

In spite of his campaign rhetoric, he was never going to be able to hit the reset button. He inherited two wars, only one of which should never have been started, and he has essentially stuck to Bush’s second term as a model, as Steven says elsewhere. Realistically, it’s about the best that can be expected.

Legislative Success: B

Health care and stimulus alone merit an A. However, he did, and didn’t do more. Gays in the military was a success, the renewal of all of the Bush tax cuts was not. Not that he had any choice, but it ranks as a failure with me.

Practical Politics: C+

If practical politics took into account his strategy for passing Obamacare, he would merit a higher grade. However, it doesn’t and he has missed some opportunities by not maintaining a consistent message. It’s hard to know how he makes decisions because he doesn’t have any guiding principles; for better or worse, we knew where Bush 43 and Reagan stood. Not so much with this president. If he had Clinton’s skills with messaging, even though Clinton didn’t have firm principles that I’m aware of, his score would be higher here.

As far as I know, the primary determinant of his winning reelection will be the state of the economy (or at least the people’s views on it). I’m hoping for a good economy and that he does win reelection. Yes, I’ve moved to the left in recent years.

[M]y support for a deal obviously depends on reaching a good deal. If Republicans refuse to consider revenue increases, then no deal. If they insist on means testing or increases to the retirement age, then no deal.

Now, one might reasonably argue that a compromise to ensure Social Security’s long-term solvency should not solely consist of tax increases (in the form of higher contribution rates and/or removing the earnings cap). One might also reasonably argue that a compromise would not solely include conservatives’ prescriptions such as means testing (which seemingly would make social security more progressive and thus more in-tune with liberal ideals, but is anathema to liberals as it would strip the veneer of non-redistributiveness from what is, effectively, a redistributive program already) or increasing the retirement age.

However, if you decide beforehand that all of the other side’s preferred solutions are anathema—and, tellingly, he doesn’t even bring up ideas like privatization (private investment or private accounts) that most conservatives would like to see on the table, even if they’re complete non-starters with the left—you’re arguing for something that isn’t really a compromise between the two sides in the first place.

Such a deal might be a compromise of liberal or progressive principles (to the extent that it doesn’t transform Social Security into a cradle-to-grave guaranteed minimum income, presumably their political end game in their ideally-conceived universe), but it’s a really unrealistic conception of how compromise from a minority position in a multiparty political arena works in practice.

While in Atlanta, [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell made clear the connection between Atlanta hosting a third Super Bowl and Atlanta getting a new stadium.

The NFL has staged Super Bowl XXVIII and XXXIV at the Georgia Dome, which was opened in 1992.

“I think this is a great community,” Goodell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But as I mentioned to the people earlier today, the competition for the Super Bowl is really at an all-time high, in a large part because of the new stadiums. The provisions that they have for a new stadium in this great community, I think that’s a pretty powerful force. We have a history of going back to communities when they have those new stadiums.”

Costa argues this is a pretty despicable move by the league:

It’s fairly idiotic to think that a world-class venue like the Georgia Dome has a shelf life of only twenty years. This is a pure greed move by the NFL. Having already extracted new stadiums from most franchise cities, the league is now trying to re-start the process by prematurely declaring barely-used buildings as outmoded. Essentially, they’re trying to make supposedly long-term landmarks into disposable commodities, to be recycled every few years for a cash infusion to team and league.

Similarly, on tonight’s NBC NFL pre-game show, Sports Illustrated reporter Peter King stated that the NFL’s long-awaited (well, by the media and the NFL, at least) return to Los Angeles is likely in the near-future… depending, of course, on the outcomes of ongoing efforts by the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers to shake down their communities for new stadia.

Of course, the NFL’s greed is nothing particularly new, but as Costa points out while it’s one thing to argue for the replacement of outmoded stadia that were designed for a different era, often for both baseball and football–sports played on very differently-sized fields, leading to compromises that made fans of both sports unhappy–it’s another to argue that a stadium with modern amenities that has barely reached an adult age is somehow decrepit and in need of replacement.

The move is not without precedent, though. The NBA somehow got Memphis’ politicians to pony up to build the FedExForum to house the ex-Vancouver Grizzlies, which opened only 13 years after the city opened the Pyramid, itself built in large part to (ultimately unsuccessfully) attract an NBA franchise to the city. Maybe Roger Goodell thinks Atlantans are equally gullible.

Via the Monkey Cage by way of Chris Lawrence’s Friendfeed, comes a Slate piece that asks the question “What if political scientists covered the news?” (which, itself, was inspired by a CJR article—how’s that for a chain of connection?).

The Slate piece, penned by Christopher Beam, attempts to write a news story as if it was written from a polisci perspective.  The basic observations in the piece are fairly accurate, although the tone is hardly academic (which, for readability purposes, it probably a good thing!).

Some paragraphs that struck me:

Obama now faces some of the most difficult challenges of his young presidency: the ongoing oil spill, the Gaza flotilla disaster, and revelations about possibly inappropriate conversations between the White House and candidates for federal office. But while these narratives may affect fleeting public perceptions, Americans will ultimately judge Obama on the crude economic fundamentals of jobs numbers and GDP.

Indeed.  While many of these events are significant in and of themselves, the overall economy is far more likely to determine Obama’s electoral fate—but that is pretty boring to note over and over again.

Really, the piece is far more a critique of mass media than it is an exhortation of political science.

To wit:

Chief among the criticisms of Obama was his response to the spill. Pundits argued that he needed to show more emotion. Their analysis, however, should be viewed in light of the economic pressures on the journalism industry combined with a 24-hour news environment and a lack of new information about the spill itself.

[…]

At the same time, Obama’s job approval rating fell to 48 percent. This isn’t really news, though. Studies have shown that the biggest factor in a president’s rating is economic performance. Connecting the minute blip in the polls with Obama’s reluctance to emote or alleged failure to send enough boom to the Gulf is, frankly, absurd.

Indeed and indeed.

Or:

Prospects for an energy bill, meanwhile, are looking grim, since Obama has spent all his political capital. He used to have a lot. Now it’s gone. Why winning legislative battles builds momentum but saps political capital, I have no idea. Just go with it.

Possible “game changers” for Obama include plugging the oil leak, peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and World War III, although these events would be almost entirely outside Obama’s control.

The basics: Today’s election will fill 649 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, the directly elected chamber of the British parliament; one seat will be filled at a by-election later this month due to the death of a minor-party candidate during the campaign. Each seat, like seats in the U.S. Congress, is filled on a “winner-takes-all” (plurality/first-past-the-post) basis, even if a candidate does not get an outright majority of the vote in the constituency (district), and each constituency elects a single member to the Commons.

By modern convention, if a party wins a majority of the seats in the Commons (effectively around 322–325 in the upcoming parliament, as the Speaker is officially nonpartisan and does not usually vote and Sinn Féin is unlikely to take their seats), its leader will be invited by the Queen to form a government.

If no party wins an outright majority, the incumbent prime minister–in this case, Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, since late 2007–by convention (see Chapter 6 of the Cabinet Manual) will have the first opportunity to attempt to form a government, either as a formal coalition that commands a majority of the Commons — rare in British politics at the national level — or a “minority government” that relies on the tacit support of parties outside of the government to pass legislation and sustain the government.

In Britain, an election that has no clear winner typically results in what is called a hung parliament, on the presumption that the country will not be governable after such an election. While minority governments have tended to be unstable and short-lived, for much of the last Conservative government under John Major (1992–97) his party was able to remain in government for several years with the support of minor-party lawmakers (principally from the Ulster Unionist Party) after his majority evaporated due to Conservative defections and by-election losses over time.

Dramatis personae: The vast majority of the British population lives in England, which consequently has the most seats in the Commons: 533 of the 650 total seats. In England, there are three major parties contesting the election:

• The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, which has its origins in the pre-partisan era of British politics (essentially prior to the 1830s). The Conservatives are commonly referred to as the “Tories,” after the pro-monarchical faction of the Commons that existed in the pre-partisan era. The Conservatives are traditionally the party of the wealthy and upper middle class, and also of small business; they are also traditionally the most nationalistic and pro-Union (essentially, in favor of the traditional British unitary state that existed prior to 1997, rather than supportive of devolution of power), to the extent that the Conservatives are legally incorporated as the “Conservative and Unionist Party.”

  The Conservatives are the most “Euroskeptical” of the three major parties, although there is a significant pro-integrationist faction. They lie on the center-right of the British and European political spectrum. They are often compared with the U.S. Republican Party, perhaps due to their similar social bases, but the Conservatives tend to be more secular and less socially conservative than their American counterparts.

• The Labour Party, led by Gordon Brown, which emerged as a social democratic party around the turn of the 20th century. Labour is traditionally the party of the British working class, although the party has reached out more effectively to white collar voters since the 1980s under the leadership of then-opposition leaders Neil Kinnock, John Smith, and Tony Blair, leading to its 1997 General Election victory. Historically Labour was committed to nationalization of major industry and a more socialist economic model, as well as a more conciliatory stance towards the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states during the Cold War (at one point being in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain).

  Labour today is effectively on the center-left of the political spectrum, although the party does still have some vestiges of the pre-Kinnock far left despite purges in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the inner cities. Labour has presided over the devolution of power to elected Scottish and Welsh legislatures, as well as the reimplementation of local rule in Northern Ireland based on the Good Friday agreement, as well as a half-hearted effort to democratize the House of Lords (the unelected chamber of Parliament).

• The Liberal Democrats, led by Nick Clegg, which has its roots along with the Tories in 19th century politics and the former Liberal Party that existed until the late 1980s. The Liberals were displaced as a major party with the rise of Labour in the early 20th century as the Liberal-Labour electoral alliance of the day ceased to be necessary for Labour to influence government policy. For most of the 20th century, the Liberals were in the electoral wilderness; however, in the 1980s a centrist offshoot of Labour (the former “Social Democratic Party,” comprised of Labour politicians who were frustrated with Labour’s failure to rein in the far left during that period) emerged and formed an electoral alliance with the Liberals, which then was formalized as a unified “Social and Liberal Democratic Party” in the late 1980s. It was soon recognized that “SLDP” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and after an abortive rebranding as the “Democrats” the modern name emerged in the early 1990s.

  The LibDems are also on the center-left of British politics, although they tend to be a “left-libertarian” party with significant pro-environment influences who appeal more to the white-collar middle class and, generally, voters who don’t really see themselves as “fitting in” to the Labour or Conservative parties even if their class position might suggest otherwise; of the three major parties, they were the only one opposed to Britain’s participation in the Iraq war. They also are the party most stridently in favor of political reform in the British parliament. Although they inherit the lineage of the Liberals, nobody refers to the LibDems as the “Whigs.”

There are also a number of minor parties that might affect the election in some English constituencies. Two right-wing parties, the British National Party (BNP) on the far right and the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP, pronounced U-kip), have seen some minor success due to popular unease about immigration and European integration; UKIP is an offshoot of the Conservative Party, while the BNP is usually considered outside the realm of “respectable politics” on the same level as France’s National Front or the Austrian People’s Party.

On the left, RESPECT – The Unity Coalition, backed by the Socialist Workers Party and several other far-left organizations and headlined by George Galloway (a former Labour politician who was expelled from the party for his anti-war activities) may make an impact in some areas; the Green Party may also potentially win a seat or two in the Commons for the first time, although all three major parties have co-opted much of the environmentalist platform. There is also a smattering of local community-interest and protest parties, such as Health Concern, which may pick up or retain seats.

In Scotland, with 59 MPs, in recent years Labour has vied for top dog status with the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), which at present leads the devolved Scottish government. The SNP shares the economic left with Labour, although they tend to be less “reformed” than the Labour Party on economic matters. The Liberal Democrats are likely to also make a respectable showing.

The Conservative “brand,” on the other hand, has been tarnished in Scotland since the late 1980s, when many Scots saw their country (which, even during the era from 1707 to 1999 when there was no “Scottish Parliament,” has had a different body of law) as being used as the “testing ground” for unpopular Conservative policies such as the community charge or “poll tax,” which was a flat-rate per-person tax levied to fund local government services that replaced local property taxes as the source for funding local government.

Wales with 40 seats also sees Labour locked in competition with a local pro-independence party, Plaid Cymru (pronounced roughly as “PLY-ad CUM-ree,” translated as “The Party of Wales”); like the SNP, they are economically left-wing. The LibDems also are fairly effective in Welsh politics, while the Tories do a bit better in Wales than they do in Scotland.

Politics in Northern Ireland, which chooses 18 MPs, are almost completely divorced from politics in Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Northern Ireland is primarily divided on sectarian lines, with most parties identifying as “Unionist” (in favor of the continuation of the union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK) and “Nationalist” (in this context, in favor of the reunification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland to the south). Both the Unionists and Nationalists are divided into factions that are more- or less-conciliatory with the opposite side of the divide.

On the Unionist side, the two major parties are the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP, formerly led by Unionist firebrand Ian Paisley), generally seen as more militantly unionist, and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). While the UUP by tradition (and, in this election, formally) is linked to the mainland Conservatives, both parties would likely be willing to support a Conservative minority government in Westminster for the right price.

The Nationalist side is divided between the Social and Democratic Labour Party (SDLP, which despite its name has no real link to the mainland Labour Party) and Sinn Féin, widely believed to be the political wing of the Irish Republican Army terrorist group; neither nationalist party is likely to take any part in a British government, and Sinn Féin MPs have not to date taken their seats in the Commons (although they do participate in the devolved Northern Ireland assembly, where the DUP and Sinn Féin form the historically-unlikely governing coalition). There is also a non-sectarian Alliance Party which has representation in the Northern Ireland assembly but performs poorly in UK elections.

Polling and likely scenarios: Recent polls suggest that the Conservatives hold the lead in intended votes, with a share likely to be between 33–37%, and are likely to capture the most seats of any party; however, they are unlikely to capture an outright majority of seats (Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com projects the Tories will get 312 seats, while other projections suggest that the Tories might end up with as few as 284 MPs).

The closer the Conservatives get to an effective majority (again, something around 322–325 seats), the more likely they can make a deal with the DUP, UUP, and possibly some UKIP members to form a government, presuming that Labour would be unable to form a government first. If the Conservatives do form a government, however, it is likely to be short-lived as presumptive prime minister David Cameron would probably seek an early election — on the not unreasonable presumption that Labour will likely be in disarray and voters may be willing to switch their votes to support a majority government later in the year. (If the Conservatives somehow get more than around 320 seats, a snap election is unlikely. But so is getting that many seats.)

A Labour-LibDem coalition is unlikely to be long-lived either. The Liberal Democrats’ conditions for participation in a government feature at their center fundamental electoral reform–the adoption of a more proportional voting system and a directly-elected upper chamber of parliament. And elections held under such reforms would dramatically swing the balance of seats in parliament away from Labour to the LibDems, particularly with the current wave of support for Nick Clegg’s party; under current electoral arrangements, Labour is likely to get 2-3 times as many seats in parliament today with essentially the same share of the vote, a disparity that would not persist under any plausible electoral reform (with the possible exception of Labour’s preferred reform, instant runoff voting, although the LibDems are probably smart enough not to back IRV).

However, an election under an alternative voting system would not be able to be called right away (unless IRV or a pure PR system was adopted), as new constituencies would have to be created for the election. I would expect a new election in the case of a Lib-Lab coalition in approximately 12–18 months. This scenario is most likely if the LibDem surge gives them enough seats to build an absolute majority with Labour (even if the Tories get a plurality so long as they lack a majority), given that Labour does have the first opportunity to form a government in that scenario. It is unlikely any coalition could be assembled including Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and third party, as most of the other leftist or center-left parties have fundamental disagreements with Labour (and the other major parties) despite a common ideological stance, although a minority coalition government is theoretically possible.

The obvious arrangement omitted above is a Conservative-LibDem coalition. Given the Liberals’ insistence on electoral reform, and the Tories’ lack of enthusiasm for it such a coalition is unlikely at best. There is potential common ground on an elected upper chamber (the Tories favor a “mostly elected” chamber, although probably could be persuaded to favor a fully-elected one — and the LibDems could probably compromise at a 90%+-elected chamber), but the Conservatives generally oppose reform of Commons elections as not being in their electoral interest, even though the experience of the CDU/CSU in Germany (usually in coalition with the right-libertarian Free Democrats) suggests that a more proportional voting system need not necessarily favor the political left.

The elephant in the room nobody is talking about: Looming in the background is also the rather baroque semi-federal system that has evolved in Britain over the past two decades. While “home rule” in Northern Ireland has been an accepted principle of the British political system since the 1920s (despite its suspension during “The Troubles”), the introduction of elected legislatures with substantial autonomy in Scotland and Wales has substantially changed the balance of political power in Britain. The British parliament is in the unusual situation of legislating for all of Britain on “reserved matters” (principally, national defense, foreign policy, and fiscal policy, as well as guarantees of civil rights and liberties; the list varies somewhat between the various devolved assemblies) but on many domestic policy matters only legislating for England.

It is almost certain that the Tories will win an outright majority of the 533 seats that represent England and have a clear plurality of the English vote, yet entirely possible that they would have no role in government due to the lack of a devolved assembly for England and no established constitutional structure for governing England in a different way than the United Kingdom at large. This issue of constitutional ambiguity, known as the West Lothian question (after the constituency of the Scottish MP who raised the question during debates over the failed Scottish and Welsh devolution efforts in the late 1970s) and may come to a head after this election. As I have discussed before, the British political system as constituted really doesn’t offer any good answers to this problem, and nor do I expect this election to tackle those issues.

requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.

Reinforcing the Border Fence

But in the run-up to a midterm election where many Democrats in marginal seats are already running scared of Obamacare and likely facing Tea Party-energized Republicans and independents, scaring up enough votes for the Schumer-Graham plan in both chambers of Congress will be a serious challenge.

With a biometric social security card that looks suspiciously like a mandatory national ID card (at the moment, the social security card is an optional form of ID for people who can prove the right to work with a citizenship document), a “path to legalization” that strongly resembles the paths in the past that were spun by opponents as “amnesty,” and a guest worker system that working-class union members and non-union employees alike probably fear will amount to “foreigners stealing American jobs,” the bill’s chances of passage in any form, particularly before November, seem very slim.

Via Bruce Bartlett via Chris Lawrence’s Google Reader stream.

Looking back from 2014, it will be clear that the anger and the Tea Parties were the first sign of something bigger, something much deeper. But of what? My crystal ball reveals that one of two things will happen. First, the anger and celebration of conservative values may well be focused and directed by the Republican Party, reprising the Republican electoral success of the 1994 midterms. Alternatively, the Republican Party will be torn apart trying to deal with its own internal contradictions, as in the disastrous but portentous 1964 election.

All we know at this point is that the villagers have taken up their pitchforks and torches, and are marching up the hill. But it’s not clear whether the 2010 elections will burn the castle of the Al Franken monster in Congress, or if Palin and the Tea Party will simply go RINO hunting. …

In 1964, the right wing seized control of the Republican National Convention in the “Cow Palace” in San Francisco. They nominated Barry Goldwater, a “true” conservative who represented fundamental values of the right, and had no prospect whatsoever of winning the Presidency. Well, it might just be happening again. Remember, Ron Paul and the “Liberty Republicans” of 2007 and 2008 were not primarily running against Democrats. They were trying to take over the Republican Party, from the inside.

I’m not sure I would go as far as Munger. The lack of a presidential nomination contest will make it hard for the “RINO hunters” to organize behind a single leader who’s not a beltway insider already, and there really isn’t as much internal consensus among Tea Party supporters as their wannabe ringleaders like Palin would like to think: some are Ron Paul-esque paleolibertarians, some are centrist deficit hawks, many are social conservatives, a bunch have no well-defined ideology beyond a broad-based rage against liberals, self-styled “progressives,” and Washington, and a few are downright crazy. But nonetheless the potential is real.

The real question is whether the Tea Partiers and their allies will decide again, as they did in upstate New York last month, that they’d rather send Democrats to Congress who will support Barack Obama’s agenda 90% of the time instead of “RINOs” who support it less than 20% of the time. And they probably should remember that Republicans were able to force a Democratic president’s agenda much closer to the center with a more ideologically-diverse party that had a lot more “RINOs” from the northeast in the 1990s.

To most Americans, the conference process is an enigma, rarely taught in history or civics lessons. Even the “School House Rock” classic animated step-by-step primer, “I’m Just a Bill,” skipped over the conference committee’s role.

On Capitol Hill, however, it’s a tradition steeped in late-night, closed-door deals and howls of protest from the frozen-out minority party.

“Probably the best part of the sausage-making process is the least understood and the most important,” said former House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle.

Nussle, an Iowa Republican and a former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said it isn’t unusual for a chairman to call one official, open a conference meeting with all Democratic and Republican appointees present and then quickly adjourn the session.

The conference then usually goes behind closed doors, oftentimes without telling the minority conferees — in health care’s case, Republicans — when or where the meetings are being held, Nussle said.

Those commentators on both sides of the political spectrum who have lamented the rise of the “60 vote Senate” (typified today by Democratic-leaning commentators like James Fallows, and of course the president himself as noted by Dodd Harris earlier today; of course, not so long ago a lot of Republicans were making very similar noises) have been strangely silent about the thorough perversion of the lawmaking process in the United States into a system where debate–and even the bills themselves, which can be amended beyond recognition by shadow “task forces” and conference committees that don’t even bother with the pretense of debating the bill in public–has become nothing but kabuki theater until the very end of the process. The more light that is shed on this fundamental change by journalists and academics alike, the better.