…for Democrat Senate nominee in California: Mickey. And it’s not an “anybody but Boxer” recommendation (though that’s a good voting criterion as well). I’d actually love to see him in the Senate, except for the fact that he’d caucus with the Democrats.
5 thoughts on “My Cherished Endorsement”
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As a DINO in CA, he’s the only person I’ll vote for tomorrow, so for me this will be a real quick ballot. 🙂
How about the Props? I’m voting “Yes” on 13 and “No” on everything else. What’s your opinion on 16 and 17?
At first, 16 made a lot of sense to me in blocking some expensive foolishness. But how’s this for a counter example: a local courthouse puts up solar panels on the roof and over a parking lot and plugs them into the grid. Under 16, wouldn’t that require a 2/3 vote? Of the entire county?
The thing with Mickey Kaus is that he is only halfway in his journey (cue dramatic music) to becoming a Libertarian.
His Cause is not to downsize government but to make Government Work. In that sense he sounds like a Moderate Republican or a “Wet Tory” in British politics. You know, the Labor Party enacts the Socialist Agenda and the Tories get in and tinker around the edges to “get the system to work” because as you know, you cannot repeal any Socialist Reform, once enacted — you know, Mencken’s litany about how if “you are against unions, you are against the working man, and if you are against trying Dr. Quack’s Magic Anti-Cancer Salve, you are in favor of letting Uncle Julius die.”
Getting Health Care Reform to work instead of getting Health Care Reform repealed is a noble sentiment, and one or the other has to happen because Health Care Reform as it stands is a cobbled-together mess, whatever the Usual Suspects are going to rush to the keyboards to tell us. Mickey Kaus likes Health Care Reform, and I can respect that in the way that I don’t respect the usual knee-jerk response in defense of everything out of the Obama White House, but he want to “take on the unions”, which is a courageous, correct, and principled stand if one wants Health Care Reform to work, or for what matters, to get education to work, which is Mr. Kaus’ main platform point.
But then we get to the philosophical point. Is government something we can get to work or want to get to work in substitution for whatever form of private enterprise or initiative? I am not a “Sell the streets and drop the Bomb” right-wing Libertarian, but I remain skeptical that getting Government to Work — that is not doing away with government but getting good government — is that simple of an undertaking.
Mencius Moldbug has some interesting (and long) takes on this (I was “introduced” to MM here on Rand’s site). Mr. Moldbug seems to think you can and must “get government to work”, but you would have to do away with democracy for that to happen, so I guess that makes Mr. Moldbug a right-wing Fascist (OK, OK, Rand, I know that Fascists are supposed to be Lefties, but check out Mencius Moldbug some time when you have a spare 40 hours).
Mr. Kaus thinks he can “get government to work” by as a Democrat by standing up to unions and “other special interests who have captured the Democratic Party.” That makes Mr. Kaus a kind of naive Kerensky-esque Idealist.
I think the health bill, for all its flaws, stands as a great triumph for President Obama and the Democratic party.
While Kaus may be an improvement over Boxer, statements like the above are troubling, but then there are political realities.
He likes Reagan, he just doesn’t understand anything about him.
I’m pulling the lever for Mickey tomorrow, and I sent him $20 earlier to help with his campaign. (Yeah, big spender me.)
What I think is most important about his candidacy is the remote possibility of beginning to take the Democratic Party back from the cynical academic aristocrats into whose hands it’s fallen. We need the Truman/Jackson Democratic Party back again, because while a Democratic Party run amok in Washington as we have now is a disaster, a Republican Party freed of the restraint imposed by having a realistic and reasonable alternative is also a disaster.
Given the decline of the Republican Party (after 35 years, I switched to Independent), I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to take over the Democrat Party. In all my years of dealing with them, they were much friendlier to small business, and more in favor of personal liberty than were any of the Republicans. Why not just infiltrate, divide, and conquer?