Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave an interview to an Egyptian television network recently, and her responses to questions about that nation’s ongoing process to create a new Constitution for itself were interesting to say the least:

Amid fresh clashes in Egypt, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo has posted an  Alhayat TV interview of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She traveled to the region last month in coordination with the State Department to meet Egyptian counterparts as they begin the nation’s constitutional transition.

“It is a very inspiring time, that you have overthrown a dictator, and that you are striving to achieve a genuine democracy,” the U.S. Supreme Court associate justice says. “So I think people in the United States are hoping that this transition will work, and that there will genuinely be a government of, by, and for the people.”

She says that after meeting with the head of the election commission, she was pleased to see that the recent elections in Parliament’s lower chamber were considered free and fair.

“Let me say first that a Constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.,” Ginsburg, 78, says in the Jan. 30 interview. “If the people don’t care, then the best Constitution in the world won’t make any difference. So the spirit of liberty has to be in the population, and then the Constitution, first, it should safeguard basic fundamental human rights, like our First Amendment, the right to speak freely, and to publish freely, without the government as a censor. ”

Asked by the interviewer if she thought Egypt should use the Constitutions of other countries as a model, Ginsburg said Egyptians should be “aided by all Constitution-writing that has gone on since the end of World War II.”

“I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the Constitution of South Africa,” says Ginsburg, whom President Clinton nominated to the court in 1993. “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. … It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.”

Here’s the video of the full interview, the first minute or so is in Arabic but the rest is in English:

And, here’s the transcript of the part of the interview that’s gotten the attention of more than a few people:

Q: Would your honor’s advice be to get a part or other countries’ constitutions as a model, or should we develop our own draft?

A: You should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II. I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution: Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world? I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.

Not surprisingly, this comment is already arousing the predictable response from the right. John Hayward at Human Events put it this way:

The Egyptians could use exactly the kind of timeless and powerful ideals laid out by the brilliant framers of the United States Constitution, a document written precisely to thwart the ambitions of “reformers” who think utopia is just a few trampled individual rights away.

They could also stand to hear a robust endorsement of American ideals from someone who actually loves and understands this country, not a mealy-mouthed half-hearted squeak from someone who dwells on our failures, and admires the rest of the world for being so much more enlightened than we are.  The darker forces battling for the soul of Egypt will not be hesitant in advancing their ideals.  They won’t waste any time talking about the deficiencies of their ancient laws, or suggesting the Egyptian people look around the world for more advanced upgrades to their timeless ideals.

Meanwhile, those Americans who recoil from the idea of a Supreme Court populated by people who are willing to express such casual contempt for the U.S. Constitution before foreign audiences should remember that electing Democrats to the White House means you’re absolutely guaranteed to get more of the same.

Having watched the entire interview, I think its somewhat absurd to characterize Ginsburg’s statements as expressing “contempt” for the U.S. Constitution. To me at least, it seemed as though she was making an entirely practical point about whether the system of Government that the United States adopted in 1787 is really appropriate for a non-Western country 200+ years later. It’s worth noting that our system of government is rather unique in the world, and that it hasn’t really adapted well when other countries tried to adopt something similar. David Weigel notes, for example, that the Mexican Constitution of 1824 was based to a large degree on the still-new U.S. Constitution. It proved to be a bad fit for Mexico and was abandoned by 1835. Since then, few nations have fully adopted the structural elements of our Constitution, preferring instead to copy some variation on the Parliamentary systems developed by Great Britain and France.

Of course, as John Tabin points out, there is one area where our Constitutional system has worked better than most others in the world. There are few nations in the world with protections for freedom of speech and religion as broad as those we have in the United States. In Canada, for example, freedom of speech is under constant assault by so-called “human rights” laws that would seek to prosecute people for voicing opinions or making statements of religious faith that some group or another finds offensive. To that degree, I would say that Ginsburg is wrong to say that such nations should be a guide for any other nation seeking to create a Constitution that would both create a functional government and protect individual liberty. Were I looking for a guide in that regard, I doubt one could find a better example of where to start than the Bill of Rights. Of course, I doubt the Egyptian powers-that-be really want to have the kind of freedom that a real Bill of Rights would give the Egyptian people. That’s why so many of nations have a very diluted example of what one would call a “Bill of Rights” that gives far too much authority to the government.

In that sense, then I think Ginsburg is mistaken to point to nations like Canada and South Africa as ideals for a nation considering a charter of rights to add to their Constitution. As far as her main argument goes, though, I think Weigel gets it about right:

I don’t see how you could argue the opposite — all transitional democracies should start with the Constitution we wrote in 1787! — unless you’re writing a Toby Keith song or something. Hell, we’re among the countries that have done some constitution-writing since the end of World War II. Ask a sponsor of the Balanced Budget Amendment; more boringly, ask someone who helped institute presidential term limits.

As a final point its worth noting that Constitutions are above all a reflection of the culture and values of the people that they are adopted by. The idea that we could just take a document that was written during one hot summer 225 years ago and graft it onto a completely different nation without taking into account not only those differences, but also; the numerous Amendments we’ve ratified over the years, the Court decisions interpreting the document, the things we all agree should be fixed, and how other nations have done things is little more than mindless jingoism. We live in a nation of 50 states with 50 different Constitutions, many of which have been changed several times over the years, why wouldn’t the same be true of the world? More importantly, I doubt you’d find a single person on either side of the political aisle who has advised other nations on drafting new Constitutions that would disagree with with the fundamental point that Ginsburg made.

So, yes, Ginsburg is partially incorrect here, but “contempt” for the Constitution? Don’t be ridiculous.

John Avlon asserts that the Florida Republican primary has been, judging just by the the television ads, the most negative ever:

Repeating a survey that they had conducted two years ago, Gallup reported on Friday that, based on their surveys,  the partisan gap between Barack Obama’s job approval ratings was once again among the highest it had ever measured:

The historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama’s third year in office, with an average of 80% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans approving of the job he was doing.

In fact, Obama’s Year Three average 68-percentage-point partisan gap is tied for the fourth highest in Gallup records dating back to the Eisenhower administration. Only George W. Bush’s fourth, fifth, and sixth years in office showed higher degrees of political polarization. Together, Bush and Obama account for the 7 most polarized years, and 8 of the top 10.

Notably, 3 of the top 10 years coincided with presidents’ re-election years, including Bush in 2004, Bill Clinton in 1996, and Ronald Reagan in 1984. In fact, a president’s fourth year tends to be the most polarized, as has been the case for each of the last six elected presidents. Since 1953, Eisenhower is the only elected president whose fourth year was not his most polarized; his sixth year — a midterm election year — was the one with the largest gap in his approval ratings by party.

Looking just at 2011, Obama’s third year in office and one year before he stands for re-election, Gallup finds that polarization between Republicans and Democrats was higher than it has ever been in any other third year of Presidential term since they became taking measurements:

As Gallup notes, one can probably expect polarization to be higher in advance of an election year than at other times during a President’s term. Nonetheless, Obama’s polarization numbers have been high since the beginning of his term. The gap between Republicans and Democrats on job approval was 65% in 2009 and 68% in 2010, and 68% again in 2011. One can imagine that it would be that high, if not higher, again in 2012. Of course, as James Joyner noted when he wrote about the 2009 Gallup numbers two years ago, the one thing that’s most notable is that this increased (above 50%) polarization that started with the Reagan years. Consider this chart of the average partisan gap in job approval numbers for every President from Eisenhower to George W. Bush during their full term in office:

Until we get to Reagan, no President had a partisan gap above 50% during their term. Not Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam. Not even Richard Nixon. There was a slight reversal of the trend during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, but one imagines that is at least partly due to the massive spike in popularity that he received during and after the Persian Gulf War. His predecessors, though, went right back to the “new” era that started under Reagan, where a President would find himself not just opposed, but despised, by supporters of the opposing party. It’s a new development in American politics. If even Richard Nixon couldn’t get a 50% partisan gap in the 1970s, what it is that changed in such a short period time that, starting in the 80s, it was not only possible, but now, it seems, commonplace?

Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake argue that numbers like this are a reflection of the hyper-partisan atmosphere of modern American politics:

We are simply living in an era in which Democrats dislike a Republican president (and Republicans dislike a Democratic one) even before the commander in chief has taken a single official action.

The realization of that hyper-partisan reality has been slow in coming for Obama. But in recent months, he seems to have turned a rhetorical corner — taking the fight to Republicans (and Republicans in Congress, particularly) and all but daring them to call his bluff.

Democrats will point out that Republicans in Congress have played a significant part in the polarization; the congressional GOP has stood resolutely against almost all of Obama’s top priorities. And Obama’s still-high popularity among the Democratic base also exacerbates the gap.

For believers in bipartisanship, the next nine months are going to be tough sledding, as the already-gaping partisan divide between the two parties will only grow as the 2012 election draws nearer. And, if the last decade of Gallup numbers are any indication, there’s little turnaround in sight.

John Harris and Jonathan Allen at Politico point out the extent to which this hyperpartisanship has made the idea of bipartisanship and the so-called legislative “Grand Bargain” pretty much a fantasy at this point:

Every time there is divided government in Washington, there is a revival — among elite journalists, think tank commentators and respectable politicians of all stripes — of a cherished idea about how business should get done in the nation’s capital:

Get the most responsible adults of both parties in one room, shoo away the cameras and microphones, and don’t let the two sides come out until they have cut a deal on the most pressing problem of the day.

Call it the Split the Difference Scenario — a dream of Washington at its civic-minded best that has flourished for decades, even as the reality of Washington became ever more snarling and contentious.

Sometimes, the dream even came true, in iconic closed-door moments: a bipartisan bargain over Social Security in 1983, a high-drama budget summit at Andrews Air Force Base in 1990, a landmark spending accord between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1997.

The striking fact about Washington at the start of 2012 is how many people, in public and private, say they have concluded that the capital is no longer a city of splittable differences.

This sullen judgment is by all evidence driving the political strategy of President Barack Obama, formerly an apostle of a grand bargain to solve the country’s fiscal problems.

He’s being joined by a critical mass of Washington influentials — witnessing the inability of the two parties to find common ground on the budget in 2011 — who are ready to discard the old ideal: Politicians huddling behind closed doors to cut deals is no longer viewed as necessarily even a desirable scenario, much less a plausible one.

“This election is built to have a fight,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican and the House majority whip, told POLITICO. “If you watch from the rise of the tea party [on the right] to the rise of the Occupiers [on the left]—in ’08, our country said they wanted a little more government. In 2010, they said, ‘Whoa, that was too much.’ I think 2012 is going to be the argument for the size and scope of what they want America to be, and that is healthy. We should have the debate of what we want this country to look like.”

We hear this about every Presidential election, of course. This year, we’ve been told that the 2012 election is about “the soul of the country,” and some on the right have gone so far as to say the very fate of America as anything other than a “European Socialist Welfare State” hangs in the balance. As I’ve noted in the past, the idea that any single Presidential election is so important as to be transformative is, just based on history, usually wrong. The 2012 elections will be important, of course, as all elections are but they aren’t anywhere near being the “most important election ever” as some  have suggested. More importantly, though, Republican paranoia over what Barack Obama what Barack Obama might do in a second term, motivated mostly by foolish notions of the President as some sort of force of evil, are largely overblown.

In all likelihood, the 2012 elections will result in marginal changes at best regardless of which side wins. On the Presidential side specifically, it’s similarly unlikely that we’d see the kind of definitive election that McCarthy, and others no doubt, seems to be hoping for. Presidential elections are seldom decided on such bright line issues. In fact, one can only point to a few examples in American history where that was actually the case. If the Republican nominee (most likely Mitt Romney) wins, it will be because voters decided they didn’t want to give the incumbent the reigns of office for another four years. If Obama wins, it will be because they did. None of the big issues dividing the parties will have been resolved by the outcome of a single election, although that will certainly be the way that the winner will try to spin things as they claim their “mandate.” As we’ve learned repeatedly over the past decade or so, though, mandates are fleeting and often fall apart quickly upon the rocks of Washington politics.

The real question, though, is whether the outcome of the 2012 election would make bipartisanship and the so-called “grand bargains” more or less likely. The answer seems to me to be a rather clear no regardless of what the results happen to be. If the President is re-elected, and regardless of what happens with Congress, the odds that Republicans will find it in their interest to be more conciliatory toward the White House seem pretty low, especially given that the President would likely take re-election as an endorsement of his agenda. A compromise on tax reform between a Democratic President and Republicans in Congress? Not likely. Similarly, a  Republican victory in November is likely to lead Democrats to follow the example that Republicans set in 2009 and 2010. If Republicans manage to gain control of the Senate in 2012, Harry Reid can play the filibuster game just as well as Mitch McConnell has. So, regardless of who wins, the odds that Washington will actually veer from the course that it has been on for the past 20 years or so seems to be somewhere between slim and none.

The explanation for how we ended up here will vary depending on which side of the political aisle one sits on, but at the very least it seems rather clear that the 365/24/7 nature of our political culture has tended to increase polarization rather than bringing people together to work on common problems. That may change someday, but one wonders if it might not take some kind of existential crisis to bring it about.

People who ought to know better are now concocting absurd scenarios to get around a really weak Republican presidential field. UVA political scientist and ubiquitous talking head Larry Sabato tweeted earlier today, “A major impact of Gingrich victory tonight in SC will be the reopening of discussion about ‘a late entry’ in GOP sweepstakes. But who?” And the last couple “Morning Joe” episodes featured Joe Scarborough and his cast of rotating panelists talking about an Establishment Republican fantasy of creating a brokered convention by running “favorite son” candidates in upcoming states.

It. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

When I last checked some weeks back, it was all but mathematically impossible for a new candidate to get on the ballot in enough states to win enough delegates to get the nomination. The Rubicon may now have been crossed. Even if it hasn’t, however, Sabato’s question is pretty daunting: “Who?”

After all, if there were some candidate out there able to generate excitement, instant organization, and boatloads of money, why didn’t they join the race to begin with? Scarborough mentioned Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, and a couple of others. But, presumably, they either lack the fire in the belly necessary to put up with the scrutiny that comes with a White House run or they calculated that this wasn’t their year. Why would that have changed now?

The “brokered” convention scenario is a little less far-fetched, but only by comparison. It presumes that, not only will the party elders–most of whom have already endorsed Mitt Romney–so despondent at the prospect of nominating Romney or Gingrich that they are willing to throw a Hail Mary but that there are a bevy of major Republicans out there willing to sacrifice their political careers to help them. Not to mention that Republican primary voters would vote for a “favorite son” not on the ballot in other states in hopes that the ploy will work, rather than instead voting for their preference between Romney and Gingrich.

What if the fanciful scheme succeeded beyond all odds? Again, we’re left with Sabato’s question: Who? Who is it that could jump into the race on August 30th and beat an incumbent president with a billion dollar war chest and a rock solid organization? And, again, why isn’t that person already running?

Additionally, one imagines that some very large subset of the Republican base would be outraged at having the party elders come in and take the decision out of their hands. In particular, there will be people who spent months of their lives working to get Romney and Gingrich elected. They’re going to be angry at having someone who got fewer primary votes than Herman Cain simply handed the nomination.

The bottom line is that either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will be the Republican nominee. My bet remains where it has been all along, with Romney, because I think Gingrich is his own worst enemy. I can understand why people don’t like that fact, since I don’t much like it myself. I don’t know if either can beat Barack Obama. (Indeed, some significant percentage of us who normally vote Republican will vote for Obama if Gingrich is the nominee.) But we have to live in the real world, not a fantasy world.

UPDATE: Looking at the Related Posts below, I’m reminded how perennial this brokered convention fantasy is. Doug Mataconis wrote about it (“A Brokered GOP Convention? Not Likely“) back in November and I had two posts on it around this time last cycle (“Brokered Convention?” and “Huckabee Praying for Brokered Convention“)

After first saying that they would not be declaring a winner for the Iowa Caucuses due to counting errors and eight lost precincts, last night the Iowa Republican Party declared Rick Santorum the winner of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses:

GREENVILLE, S.C. — On the eve of the South Carolina primary, ­ Iowa Republicans dealt Mitt Romney’s campaign a blow by formally declaring Rick Santorum the winner of their Jan. 3 caucuses.

At 18 minutes before midnight Friday, South Carolina time, the Republican Party of Iowa released a statement revising its Thursday announcement that reported Santorum ahead of Romney but also saying the two-week-old race had no clear winner.

“In order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results released January 18 by the Republican Party of Iowa, Chairman Matthew Strawn and the State Central Committee declared Senator Rick Santorum the winner of the 2012 Iowa Caucus,” the state GOP’s statement read.

The news that Romney — who for two weeks celebrated what he jokingly called a ‘landslide’ eight-vote victory in Iowa, only to see it reversed this week when the state GOP certified Santorum the leader by 34 votes — officially lost the first contest muddies his narrative, especially as Newt Gingrich surges in the polls in South Carolina.

It’s also a boon to Santorum, who can now claim victory in one of the three key early states, though the former Pennsylvania senator badly trails Gingrich and Romney in polls here.

Strawn’s Thursday announcement, which placed Santorum ahead but didn’t definitively declare him a winner because eight precincts had yet to report their results, had left enough uncertainty for Romney’s campaign to suggest that the state was a draw.

Now, with Iowa formally in the Santorum column and Romney polling behind Gingrich in the most recent public poll in South Carolina, the former Massachusetts governor faces the prospect of leaving here Sunday morning one-for-three in early state voting — a dramatically different scenario than when he arrived.

There’s no reason given for why the Iowa GOP had decided to reverse it’s decision on Thursday to decline to officially declare a winner. At that time, of course, they cited the fact that the results from at least eight precincts had been lost and could not be included in the recount. That decision was criticized by some Santorum supporters who accused the Iowa GOP of failing recognize the fact that their candidate was in the lead, even if that lead was a narrow one. Perhaps that’s what caused Strawn to change his mind, I suppose we’ll have to for him to answer questions about that one at some point.

Nonetheless, this still a bit of an embarrassment for the Romney campaign as South Carolina voters go to the polls. After two weeks of campaigning as the first Republican candidate since Gerald Ford, and the first non-incumbent, to win contested races in Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s now the guy who “lost” Iowa (is 34 votes really a loss?) and only won the state everyone expected him to win. If he does lose South Carolina tonight as I expect he will, then his campaign won’t look quite as strong as it did just a week ago. It’s not a fatal blow, but it’s going to require the Romney campaign to come back strong against Gingrich, and to make sure that the Florida firewall doesn’t collapse on them.

The biggest loser of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses, though, are the caucuses themselves and the continuing absurdity of Iowa being the “First In The Nation” every four years for no reason other than that’s the way we’ve done it since 1972:

The winner of the 2012 caucuses, we now know, was Rick Santorum. The loser, it’s becoming clear, was Iowa.

The certified results released this week from the nation’s first presidential nominating contest revealed that Mitt Romney’s declared eight-vote victory on caucus night was actually a 34-vote defeat. They revealed that eight voting precincts went missing in action, and their votes will never be counted. And they were accompanied by evolving statements from the Republican Party of Iowa, which, having initially called the race for Romney, first declared this week’s result a “split decision” and only later acknowledged victory for Santorum.

Such a muddled result and response threatens the already-contested legitimacy of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and underscores the need for reforms to professionalize the voting process, political observers and party officials said.

“It’s bad. It really hurts the caucuses,” longtime Iowa observer David Yepsen said. “The caucuses have lots of critics, and for this to happen really jeopardizes the future of the event.”

Criticism of Iowa’s place on the nominating calendar has long come from other states envious of the attention it receives, and has often focused on the demographic realities that make it unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

But this year’s fumbled result opens a new line of attack: that Iowa’s process is amateurish, and that its results cannot be trusted.

“Iowa was just indicted for not being able to add. We look silly,” said Yepsen, the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and a former Des Moines Register columnist.

The entire process in Iowa has been silly from the beginning. From the entirely meaningless Ames Straw Poll and the corn dogs and Butter Cows at the Iowa State Fair, to the endless need to kow-tow to farming interests on issues like ethanol, to the caucuses themselves which seemed to me a fundamentally silly way to pick a Presidential nominee even before these latest issues arose this week. All of those other elements have been brought up by critics of Iowa’s status in the primary schedule for years, of course, but this week’s events are the exclamation point on the end of that argument. If we cannot even trust the integrity of Iowa’s process, then why give them such a prominent role in “weeding out” candidates? Why not give it to another state for awhile and see how they do with the task? South Carolina could perform that role quite nicely, now that I think about it, and the candidate wouldn’t have to worry about campaigning in the cold quite so much.

There have already been suggestions made about how to improve the process in Iowa, such as relying on more technology and fewer paper ballots and bringing in state and county election officials to conduct the balloting instead of relying on party volunteers. If you’re going to go that far, however, why continue having caucuses that don’t start until 7 at night to begin with? In the run up to this year’s caucus, there were dozens of news stories profiling voters who could not participate in the caucuses at all because they work nights, or because they can’t leave their children alone at night for several hours at a time. That’s not a problem in a primary, of course. The polls are open in South Carolina today for twelve hours and people can go vote whenever they’re able to. If they’re unable to vote today, they could have voted absentee. In Florida, there have already been more absentee and early votes cast today than there were people (122,000) who participated in the 2012 Iowa Caucuses. If Iowa wants the rest of the nation to take them seriously as the first decider in our quadrennial primary fights, then maybe they need to implement a selection process that’s more up-to-date than one better suited to choosing the County Sheriff in 1912.

In addition to the absurdity of Iowa’s process, of course, is the fact that nothing that happened on January 3rd has anything to do with the nomination of the Republican candidate, and neither did last night’s announcement that Santorum was the official winner. As I’ve noted several times before, Iowa’s delegates won’t be named until well after this race is wrapped up. If they can’t count, if they’re process is so antiquated and silly as to be useless, and if it doesn’t even result in the awarding of any delegates, then tell me Iowa, what’s the point of all the time we wasted on you in 2011? I sure don’t see it.

A new Gallup poll proclaims “Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents in ’11.”

The percentage of Americans identifying as political independents increased in 2011, as is common in a non-election year, although the 40% who did so is the highest Gallup has measured, by one percentage point. More Americans continue to identify as Democrats than as Republicans, 31% to 27%.

Now, this trend is interesting: Not only do more Americans identify as Independents than at any time since Gallup started asking the question in 1951, but more Americans now identify as Independents than as members of either of the two political parties that have run the country since 1861.

But what does this mean, exactly?

It’s reasonable to conclude that, as both parties have effectively become ideological/programmatic parties rather than the centrist catch-all parties that they had been historically, they no longer do a good job of representing those of us in the broad center. Additionally, for that reason and others, Americans are likely simply more comfortable thinking of themselves as free agents rather than duty bound to identify themselves with a party.

At the same time, however, “Independent” has no effective meaning at the ballot box. While a large swatch of people–myself included–are likely to be unhappy with voting for either Barack Obama or the eventual Republican nominee (probably Mitt Romney) come election day, those will likely be the only meaningful options on the ballot.

Yes, there are various “third” parties out there. The Libertarians, Greens, Constitution Party, Reform Party, Socialist Party, and others will be on the ballot in many states. But none of these parties have benefited from the trend in “Independent” identification because the fact of being enthusiastic about neither the Republicans nor Democrats doesn’t translate into being enthusiastic about some fringe party.

A new centrist group calling itself Americans Elect will also field a candidate this cycle and may even be able have enough money to entice a credible politician to be its standard bearer and run substantial television advertising. Maybe they’ll even siphon off some votes from the major party candidates this year. In states that are non-competitive in the Electoral College, especially, there may be a strategic rationale for casting such a protest vote.

Beyond that, though, while many of us are increasingly disenchanted with the party for whom we’ve traditionally votes, there’s a strong inertia pulling us to support their candidate for president, anyway. For those of us in competitive states, our only real choices are Obama and his Republican opponent; not voting or casting a protest vote is, in effect, a vote for our least favorite of the two viable candidates.

Gallup acknowledges this in their write-up:

[W]hen independents’ party leanings are taken into account and combined with the party’s core identifiers, the parties end up tied. In 2011, 45% of Americans identified as Republicans or leaned to the Republican Party and 45% identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic.

In essence, the true number of “independents” isn’t the 40 percent who identify themselves as such but the 10 percent who don’t lean toward either party. The other 90 percent of likely voters are in the orbit of one party and have to be siphoned off; that’s much harder.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. While I’m increasingly moving from being a strong Republican to a mere leaner, I can’t at this juncture imagine voting for Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Whether I could make the move in one cycle to voting for Obama or instead stayed home or cast a protest vote for a third party candidate, I can’t say.

Thankfully, I don’t think I’ll be forced into that position, since Romney is easily the most likely nominee.

The “problem” with the Borda count is that it violates the assumption of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (or candidates). What this means is suppose that voters have a choice of 5 candidates, for simplicity call them A, B, C, D, and E. Suppose some voters change their rankings of D and E this change could result in B winning instead of C even though the voters who changed their rankings preferred C over B. In other words, the Borda Count produces a different outcome when re-ranking candidates that don’t have a chance of winning. Thus, with the Iowa Caucus we often see these weird results where a lower ranked candidate in opinion polls suddenly shows up near the top of the results or even winning.

So, does this mean that Santorum has a serious shot at being our next President? Probably not. Because the actual election that determines who will be President is a majority rule election. Santorum was not the first choice among many Republicans so it is doubtful that he’ll do well in a general election against Obama. For example, many voters in Iowa prefer Ron Paul over Santorum, chances are those voters will prefer Obama over Santorum.

What the Iowa Caucus does do is keep Santorum’s campaign alive for a bit longer and he might have a some shot at ending up on a ticket, maybe. However, it strikes me as highly unlikely that he’ll end up as the nominee for the Republican party. And while you might be tempted to think that majority voting is better than a Borda count think again. Majority voting also has its issues as well.

The answer is: since the beginning of the current rules for delegate allocations (1972) only twice has either party nominated someone who did not win either IA or NH.  In the 1972 cycle the nominee was Senator George McGovern, but Senator Edmund Muskie came in second in Iowa (“uncommitted” came in first) and he won New Hampshire.  In 1992 the eventual nominee was Bill Clinton, but Tom Harkin won Iowa and Paul Tsongas won New Hampshire.  Every other nominee of both parties since 1972 has won either IA or NH.  That is 18 of 20 nominees.

I would note, however, that no nominee of either party since 1972  has failed to at least come in second one of the two contests (McGovern was second in NH, as was Clinton).  That is to say:  the winner has always been competitive in either IA or NH.  In other words:  there is no example of an eventual nominees utterly failing in IA and NH (defined as third or worse in both) and then going on to success. Perry, Bachmann, and Gingrich all appear destined to achieve that level of failure in both contests.  As such, focusing on SC is a longshot strategy.

It is worth noting that 1972 was the beginning of the current system of delegate allocation and therefore was before the current system was fully institutionalized (i.e., the beginning of the modern era of nomination process where the primaries selected convention delegates bounds to specific candidates).  Further, the Iowa caucuses were not considered significant until after Jimmy Carter’s surprising second-place finish in 1976 (again, “uncommitted” came in first).  As such, really only the Clinton example is useful for contemporary comparisons.

While Clinton failed to win either Iowa or New Hampshire, he was still competitive in New Hampshire, coming in second to New Englander Paul Tsongas.  It is worth noting that Iowa Senator Tom Harkin won his home state with 76% of the vote in 1992.  The fact that a popular Iowan ran in 1992 meant that the Iowa did not serve a narrowing function for the Democrats in that cycle.

Here’s the run-down of Iowa and New Hampshire from 1976 to 2008:

The bottom line, to back up my earlier point, is this:  like it or not, candidates have to be competitive in Iowa and NH and, to date, no candidate has lost badly in both Iowa and New Hampshire and gone on to a successful run at their party’s nomination.  Even the one case of a post-1972 nominee who failed to win one of the two contests, Bill Clinton in 1992, underscores the point:  it was his second place win in New Hampshire (after winning 3% in IA) that allowed him to declare himself the “Comeback Kid.”  Had he lost badly in NH along with a single-digit showing in IA his momentum would have been crushed.  1992 was an odd year as well in terms of political geography:  Harkin was a sitting Senator in Iowa and Tsongas had been a Senator from Massachusetts, which gave him an advantage in New Hampshire.

The bottom line is this:  the winners/competitive candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire are going to get a lot of press and will find it easier to raise money than will the losers/noncompetitive candidates.  As such, the notion that single-digit showings in IA and NH can be overcome later in the process is problematic, and if achieved will be historical in nature.

Note, too:  the non-political junkies are only just now starting to pay attention, just as the labels “winner” and “loser” are starting to be applied to candidates.

This is, by the way, one of the reasons I find Iowa and New Hampshire’s special status to be problematic:  it gives them too much significance.

Crowley starts with what strikes me as an odd claim (in bold below):

A week before Iowa’s January 3 caucuses, the outcome of the Republican contest is hard to predict: Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney all stand a chance at winning. But something else already seems clear: Iowa has blown its special claim as the first state to vote in presidential contests.

I was unaware that Iowa ever had a special claim (save in the minds of Iowans) to being first.  Rather, they became first as a fluke and took on an aura of “specialness” because of the Carter nomination in 1976.

Indeed, Crowley notes:

Iowa’s first-to-vote-status dates to 1972, when a quirk in Democratic Party rules scheduled its caucuses ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which had opened the presidential nominating process since 1920. Republicans followed suit four years later. Iowa’s political establishment quickly found that it enjoyed all the attention and economic activity that came with going first, and enshrined into state law a mandate that Iowa vote at least eight days before any other state.

So, we have a “quirk” in the schedule in 1972 and the recognition that being first was cool for the state—hardly the stuff of a “special claim” to going first.  It also helps the cause, so to speak, that Iowa was able to secure its position just as the modern nomination process was instituted (i.e., when delegates to the conventions were selected by the primary/caucus process in a binding fashion rather than functioning as so-called “beauty contest”).

In truth, Iowa’s status as “special” is a mix of media-creation (and is linked, again, in large part to Carter’s rise from obscurity to win caucuses, and then the nomination and the White House in 1976) and the simple fact that going first draws attention.  Iowa qua Iowa isn’t all that relevant or special.  The notion that (like claims in New Hampshire) that being small means candidate make a  special bond with voters via so-called “retail politics” has not credence in terms of actually enhancing the quality of nominees.   Indeed, Crowley notes what has been noted usually every election cycle, that Iowa is an especially odd choice for being the initial “testing ground” for the candidate:

But with every passing decade, Iowa’s electoral character grows more out of step with the reality of the United States. Iowa is an unusually homogenous — that is, white — and rural state in an increasingly diverse and urban nation. And it’s long been a custom of presidential politics to see the candidates extol the virtues of expensive farm and ethanol subsidies with precious little economic rationale.

My quibble with the above is the “with every passing decade” part, because Iowa has always been a non-representative state vis-a-vis the rest of the country.  It has always been whiter and more rural than that rest of the country and it is has always made policies like farm subsidies and ethanol ridiculously important to presidential politics.

Crowley goes on to question whether the allegedly special type of campaigning in Iowa matters:

Iowa’s procession of frontrunners — Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Gingrich, Paul — has roughly mirrored the boom-and-bust pattern found in national polls. It seems unlikely that these fluctuations have been driven by the “sophisticated and nuanced policy questions” of Iowans. More likely, they reflect the drama of the televised debates and national media events like Herman Cain’s string of female accusers. (Cain, by the way, leapt to first place in the state at a time when he was paying it no visits at all.) What’s the point in having Iowa go first if its voters are simply reacting to the same debate zingers as the rest of the country?

Now, to be fair to Iowa, its odd process (caucuses are a series of very small meetings held simultaneously across the state on caucus night) leads to low turnout and therefore can produce results out of sync with national sentiment (like Pat Robertson’s 1988 second place finish) and it does not always crown the eventual winner (indeed, is often does not).  However, the fact of the matter is that the candidates do run national campaigns, not just Iowa-centric ones, and those national campaign affect Iowans just like they affect everyone else.   His point about Cain leading in IA polls without visiting the state should be well-taken (as is the fact that while Rick Santorum has practically lived in the state and has visited all of the state’s counties apparently will end up meaning very little in terms of electoral success).

Crowley hits, what I think is a major media fallacy with one critique:

And by the way, remember the Ames straw poll in August? That contest was supposed to tell us important things about the candidates’ true strength and appeal in the state, and to winnow the field in ways that would make it stronger. But the straw poll’s victor, Michele Bachmann, promptly tanked, and the candidate whose third-place finish drove him from the field — Tim Pawlenty — looks in hindsight like the credible Mitt Romney alternative for whom the party has spent the past six months searching. It’s been six months in which Iowa has played along with the hyping of one candidate after another.

The fallacy in the above paragraph is this:  Straw. Polls. Do. Not. Matter.  Ever.  They represent something for the media to talk about.  They are non-scientific, they are self-selected, they usually require payment to allow participation, and they take place well before sufficient information in available within the selectorate. They are worthless as predictors.  They tell us the preference of those who participated in the given straw poll and nothing more.

In short, Crowley’s piece is right about it criticisms about the caucuses, but he is wrong in making it sound like these are new issues.  They are not.  It is not that time has made Iowa a lousy choice for going first, it is rather that it has always been a lousy choice for going first.  And, indeed, a major culprit in making Iowa so important is the media itself.  I think that many in the media (and, indeed, the public in general) are so smitten with the myth of Iowa’s significance that once they start to realize its deficiencies, they assume that something must have changed over the last three decades plus, but no:  giving Iowa the status it currently has was a mistake from the beginning.

Brazil has overtaken the UK as the world’s sixth largest economy, an economic research group has said.

[...]

Brazil has a population of about 200 million, more than three times the population of the UK.

Brazil’s economy grew by 7.5% last year, but the government has cut its growth forecast for 2011 to 3.5% after the economy ground to a halt in the third quarter, with analysts blaming the country’s high interest rates and the worsening situation in the eurozone.

On the one hand, this is part of the ongoing shift in relative economic power in the world and the specific rise of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, China, and India).

On the other, while raw economic output is an important measure, I still think that GDP per capita is the better measurement of overall economic development.  As noted above Brazil’s population is “three times” the size of the UK’s, as such the economic output of the average Briton is produces more economic output than does the average Brazilian.  Likewise, the standard of living in the UK is, on balance, higher than in Brazil.  Such things need to be taken into account when evaluating the overall economic picture.

Having said that, the growth in question for Brazil is quite impressive, especially to anyone who has been paying attention to Brazil’s long-term economic path.

The piece also has the following rankings and projections, which underscores the rise of the BRIC countries:

As Doug noted earlier this morning, several candidates did not submit a completed application on time to qualify for Virginia’s Republican primary ballot.

Richmond Times-Dispatch (“Bachmann, Huntsman, Santorum not on Va. primary ballot“):

Four Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Ron Paul — submitted paper work in time to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 primary ballot.

No other GOP contender will be on the Virginia ballot. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman did not submit signatures with Virginia’s State Board of Elections by today’s 5 p.m. deadline.

Those who submitted the required signatures must clear another hurdle. The Republican Party of Virginia has until Tuesday to certify which candidates qualify.

Romney was the first Republican presidential candidate to file his petitions. His Virginia campaign chairman, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, delivered them on Tuesday. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign filed earlier this month.

The most obvious point here is that Romney, Gingrich, Perry, and Paul would seem to have better campaign organizations than the other candidates. Even Gingrich, whose ability to get on the ballot in several states had been in question, managed to pull this off. (Although, as Doug also noted, Gingrich and Perry could still be disqualified.)

The more interesting and important point, though, is the absurdity of the process.

It’s a core teaching of American Politics 101 classes that there are no national elections in the United States. President of the United States and Vice President of the United States are national offices but we elect our presidents and vice presidents via 51 state elections (counting DC, per the 23rd Amendment), each of which (as we learned quite painfully following the 2000 election) have their own rules.

The primaries are even more bizarre. Despite the fact that we’re choosing candidates for a national office, we have an arcane process wherein the two major parties set rules and then try to enforce them on 50-plus states, districts, and territories–often without much success. The various states and other delegate-awarding entities are in competition with each other for influence on the process. Those entities must contend with the traditions that put Iowa and New Hampshire in an absurdly favorable position and where South Carolina thinks it’s next in line. And, inexplicably, each of the entities sets conditions for ballot access that seem quite whimsical and have little relation to the national race and on timetables that have no real relation to the increasingly fluid primary calendar.

That the two major political parties don’t control the primary calendar for nominating their candidates is beyond silly. Worse, however, is the fact that they don’t even control who’s on the ballot for their highest office. In a rational system, candidates would simply have to qualify one time to get on the Republican presidential ballot. Instead, candidates have to spend an absurd amount of time and money getting petitions signed and jumping through other hoops set by states and other delegate-awarding entities.

It’s madness.

As I have noted on multiple occasions, one of the most fundamental jobs of a national legislature is setting the budget.  The establishment of basic spending parameters for a given year, while complex (especially for a country the size of the United States) is not rocket science.  This is doublytrue when we consider, for good or for ill, that a substantial amount of the budget is effectively pre-set (i.e., entitlements* and interest on the debt).  The latest half-measures (and calling them “half-measures” is a kindness) regarding avoiding a showdown over the payroll tax cut (which still needs to pass the House), not to mention avoiding yet another possible government shutdown over lack of spending authority  simply underscores this situation all the more.  Indeed, as of this writing the measures have not passed both chambers, so they are not yet settled.

While one might point to partisan bickering as the main issue (or, worse, just assuming a “lack of leadership”) the fact of the matter is one would expect there to be partisan bickering in a legislature.  It is less that I expect everyone to get along and “do the people’s business” as much as I expect that governing institutions be designed in a way that they produce the results for which they were designed.  In the case of the Congress, there is no doubt that they have been charged, both in a theoretical and a practical, constitutional sense, with power and responsibility over the budget.

So, the question becomes:  what are the incentives put in place by the current institutional structures and, further, are there any factors within the functioning of Congress that impede adequate outcomes?**

This, of course, suggests a rather complex analysis (as multiple variables are in play).  Still, let me focus on one issue:  the electoral process.  As all of this leads me to a basic conclusion I have discussed before, and it is twofold:  there is fundamentally a problem with the feedback loop and, moreover, where the feedback loop works, it is supporting dysfunction.

Let’s consider the following:

1.  Congress is clearly not performing a basic function (the budget) and we further know that we have some serious issues that require addressing in terms of long-term issues of fiscal stability (both on the taxing and spending sides) and especially entitlement reform.   The prospects for seriousness any time soon on these issues appears grim, to be honest.

2.  The public, in general, is quite unhappy with the Congress.  Indeed, public approval of Congress is historically low.  Via Real Clear Politics:

3.  And yet, we keep re-electing most members.  As Doug Mataconis noted the other day, the re-election rates for both chambers, especially the House, are phenomenally high.

First, the House:

Second, the Senate:

There is a clear disconnect between the public’s view of Congress and the results of elections.  Yes, part of this is the phenomenon of “its pork when other members of Congress do it, but it is vital activity when my representative does it.”  But, I would argue that there is a more substantial disconnect here than that.

The bottom line is that the Congress doesn’t do a very good job of representing the population.  This is a problem if one values democratic governance.***  I am not sure how anyone can objectively look at the approval numbers, and then the re-election numbers, and not see a disconnect.  Also, it is worth nothing that while Congress is especially unpopular at the moment, it is generally the least popular institution of the federal government, historically speaking.

All of this leads to the conclusion that a major problem within the US at the moment is an antiquated electoral system, i.e., the uses of plurality winners in single member districts.  One of the fundamental problems of a single member district system is that it has a tendency to limit competition (by definition there is an incentive to form large, catch-all parties).  Moreover, when districts are drawn by partisan entities (e.g., state legislatures) you end up in a situation where the parties pick their voters.  This is an unhealthy situation for democratic governance, as the way the feedback loop is supposed to work is that voters pick the parties by selecting representatives in truly competitive elections.  Note, of course, this latter point only applies to the House, as Senate districts are state boundaries (and note while there is still remarkably high re-election rates in the Senate, the numbers are a bit more volatile over time).

This situation is exacerbated in the US by the usage of primary elections.  Consider:  if one lives in, say, a safe Republican district then the real competition in in the primary election, not the general election.  As a result, the member of Congress is really selected in the primary.  Primary elections are notoriously low-turnout affairs and also ones in which ideologically driven voters are more likely to participate and much more likely to sway outcomes than in the general election.  The combination of the safe district and the primary process for nomination leads to members who are likely not as representative of their districts as one might think.

Consider a very real political dynamic at the moment:  there is a severe anti-tax strain in the Republican Party at the moment (something that even a very conservative Senator, Tom Coburn, has noted) that makes legitimate debate and compromise more difficult.  Now, not only is this often a factor of principle (which I can respect, even if I think it misguided) it is also a function of electoral politics:  many GOP members know that they will face a primary challenge if they fail to follow through on a hardcore anti-tax agenda (ask, for example, Bob Bennett of Utah).  The bottom line is this:  many of these members of Congress are from safe districts, but they are not safe at the primary level.  A primary challenge can empower the most conservative elements of the party to nominate a candidate who is not representative of the district (and may not even be representatives of the Republicans in that district, given the turnout issues inherent in primaries) but said candidate will be a shoe-in for election because of the districting issue noted above.  This is not a healthy pattern for a system predicated on the notion of representation.****

Is this the only issue at the moment with the US Congress?  No, but one blog post at a time, I guess.  There is also, for example, the fact that the public itself isn’t sure what it wants, not to mention the problems of the filibuster, as well as the fact that federalism, bicameralism, and separation of powers all create their own difficulties for efficient policy-making.*****

Regardless:  I take the time to write this because first and foremost I think it identifies a real issue that needs scrutiny within the US public.  I am fully aware that the default position for most Americans is a combination of assumptions that the current system is fine (after all, we’ve always done it that way, the Founders!, etc.) and a total lack of understanding that there are a myriad of ways to elect legislatures.  At a minimum, I would advocate for greater awareness of the issue in the hopes of generating debate.  I will allow, by the way, that no set of electoral rules is perfect, but some clearly work better than others.  Nonetheless, just because something isn’t a panacea doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.

To put it more succinctly:  I would like to see a national discussion to emerge on the topic of electoral reform.  And I think that the disconnect between congressional approval/performance and the re-election rates of its members demonstrates that such a discussion is not just something that theoreticians should be interested in, but rather is of serious practical significance.

*And yes, it is feasibly possible to redefine entitlements on a yearly basis, but the degree which it is a good idea is a whole other issue.  The bottom line is this on, say, Medicare:  once you have defined the benefit (i.e., in this case certain medical care for all people over a certain age) then the only real way to change it is to either a) change the nature of the benefit or alter the age of eligibility.  This really isn’t a practical process on an annual basis.

**I would define “adequate” in this case not to mean any specific budget outcome but, rather, simply a functional budget, i.e., the basic fulfillment of their responsibilities.

***And I am quite aware that not everyone does, in fact, value democratic governance because they prefer the morass of the moment over improved representativeness.

****After all, its even in the name of one of the chambers, the House of Representatives.  And, as we may all recall, part of the reason for seeking independence from the UK was, you know, taxation without representation.

*****And I do recognize that built in inefficiencies can have advantages—but it must also be acknowledged that they create disadvantages as well.

The Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney offers some good practical advice on how to read all the polls that are going to be coming out over the next 11 months:

1) Never put too much weight on any one poll. If the latest poll tells you something different from the previous ones, wait to see if the latest poll is an aberration, or the beginning of a trend.

2) Compare any new poll against previous polls by the same pollster to get a notion of trends. That’s what Byron York does in his blogpost on Gingrich’s drop. Comparing a Rasmussen poll today to a University of Iowa poll last week might tell you more about the different pollsters’ methodology than it tells you about trends in public support.

3) Don’t pay attention to polls that are of “adults” or “registered voters.” Only “likely voter” polls are apt to be very meaningful. And in Iowa and New Hampshire, the sample should be at least 500 likely voters.

4) Most polls have a margin of error, and most of those margins ar somewhere between 2 or 5 points. A 2.5% margin of error, for instance, usually means that the pollster is 95% certain that if they had polled the entire population in question, no candidate’s numbers would move up or down more than 2.5%.

As a related point, if Romney is leading Gingrich by 1 point, it’s probably more accurate to say that “Romney and Gingrich are within the margin of error” than to say that Romney is leading.

5) Finally, remember polls can’t directly measure enthusiasm or softness. And they’re often simply wrong.

So, here’s the general gist: use polls of gauges of trends and ballpark figures. Don’t ever use a single poll as a real prediction of election results. That’s one reason I love RealClearPolitics, which aggregates polls, so you can see a bigger picture.

All good advice, and I second Carney’s recommendation of RealClearPolitics, which is once again doing an excellent job of staying on top of the polls at the national and state level.

Two things immediately jumped to mind:  the 1964 process was substantially different than it is now (that was in the waning days of real conventions) and, more significantly:  yes, Goldwater got the nomination and went on to be trounced in the general election.  On this latter point, I suppose the comparison makes sense as that would likely be the result if Paul were to, by some miracle, win the nomination.

Regardless, in making the case for one’s candidate, comparisons to a candidate who won only 38.47% of the popular vote and only 52 electoral votes is probably not the best move.