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Ohio Special Election

The amount of money and volunteer time being raised and directed to the special election in Ohio's 2nd Congressional district is amazing. And of course, a lot of it is being done outside of the structure of the official Democratic Party -- the DCCC hasn't particularly gotten involved.

Some on the internet (before the votes are even cast) are proclaiming this a new era of Democratic politics. They may be correct, but they are probably wrong. This is a special election, occuring in summer in a year when only 2 states (New Jersey and Va) are holding statewide elections and there are no other federal election contests being voted on for at least 10 months.

The problem is that the other 434 Congressional seats all get voted on at the same time. If you've got $2,000 (or $100) to give to a candidate, it's easy to have a show of force when there is only one candidate to give to. Many bloggers wanted to turn the OH-2 race into a test tube race where new techniques could be tested for use on other non-targetted races. But that's not what has happened. The campaign is being run like every other real campaign (with all of the television/mail advertising you'd find) because unlike most other longshot races, this candidate has been able to fundraise as if he were in a targetted district.

By all means, Paul Hackett should be in Congress. And I hope he wins on Tuesday. If he does, bloggers should remember that this is a "special" election and it's hard to tell what exactly that holds for normal ones held on election day. Remember, Democrats won all of the special Congressional elections in 2003 and 2004 and didn't exactly ride that non-existant momentum to victory on November 2nd. One thing that's certainly special about this election is the ability of a candidate running in a 35% Democratic district to raise serious money. Unfortunately, all to many candidates running in 45%+ Democratic districts next year won't be able to come close.

Two Faced Tom

Kudos to Tom Price (R - Georgia) for voting against the Patriot Act reauthorization. But hold on a second. He voted No on House Vote 414, which was the final passage vote. Minutes earlier, however, on House Vote 413, he voted with the majority Republicans not to table the bill and send it back to committee in order to modify it so as not to extend some of the provisions in the act to infinity.

If Price was really against the Patriot Act (as he claims in order to try and score points from the libertarian wing of the Republican primary electorate) he would have assisted Democrats in amending it and sending it back to committee. But he voted with Republican leadership on those votes, the ones that counted.

Before the age of the internet, it was easier for politicians like Tom Price to have it both ways -- be team players in committee and behind the scenes but then make a different vote in front of the cameras. Thanks to the internet there is a little more scrutiny for flip floppers like the Congressman from the 6th.

ARM's length

I read a very interesting point in the Wall Street Journal the other day that I thought I'd pass along to my readers. Like many other people I know, I have noticably seen the amount of money I spend on my car increase because of the upward spike in gas prices. I drive a pretty fuel efficient car (Honda Accord) but before I started riding MARTA to work, I was seeing my weekly fuel costs top $30 (two years ago they would have been closer to $15) which added up to $60 a month more. I would imagine that people that A) drive less fuel efficient cars than I do and B) have longer daily commutes have seen their additional costs approach nearly $200/month.

If you think fuel increases have caused a budget crunch, just wait until adjustable rate mortgages start adjusting upward. The WSJ (as well as Kevin Drum and others) have noted that more than $1 trillion of mortgage debt readjusts in the year 2007, at which point someone who got a mortgage in 2002 could see a rate of 4.5% readjust to 6.5%. On a $225,000 house that's $282 more a month. What's more, many people signed agreements (in exchange for even lower temporary rates) that prevented them from paying off the loan early (like by a refinancing) without paying thousands of dollars, generally around $25,000. So if you're up to your neck in debt, you can always trade in that gas guzzling SUV for a fuel efficient Honda Civic, but you can't refinance OR even sell your home without facing a hefty penalty. Someone that sells or refinances could face a hefty loss of equity -- in effect the real estate bubble will burst for millions of Americans (they'll lose value) even if no bubble bursts.

So what can you do? If you find yourself in an extreme scenario, start considering your options. How much of your loan can be paid off without triggering a pre-payment penalty? It probably makes sense to refinance at least that amount. And if you are purchasing a new home or refinancing, secure as much of your debt as possible in a fixed rate investment.

As an example, for less than $1,400/month, you can borrow about $225,000 towards the purchase of a property with a fixed interest rate. If $1,400 was the limit for your budget, it doesn't make much sense to seek out a creative source of financing that allows you to purchase a more expensive home but has no guarantee of a future affordable payment. Payments will almost certainly be $150 more a year from now and could easily be upwards of $300 more per month.

I hate to sound like a scold, or Clark Howard, but here's one more final example that unfortunately may be all too real for a lot of Georgians. A number of homeowners took out interest only adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). These mortgages feature a low introductory rate (say 3.5%) for a period of 5 years, during which time the borrower only has to pay the interest that is accruing on the loan. Again, on a $225K loan, that's about $656/month. At the end of 5 years, however, the rate starts readjusting (usually on an annual basis) AND the borrower has to start amortizing the loan (paying down the principal borrowed). Right now, that rate would adjust to about 5%. But the Fed has indicated that it plans on continuing raising rates, so a year from now (when many of these loans start readjusting) the rate will be at least 6% and maybe higher. The combination of a 6% rate and having to amortize the loan raises the monthly payment to $1449/month, an increase of $793/month or 121%! That makes $2 gas seem like a very minor inconvenience, unless you drive a Hummer 100 miles a day to work and back.

Helpful Tip: If you've got an adjustable rate mortgage, you can see what you're in store for pretty easily with Microsoft Excel. Here's an example formula to enter in to a cell. In my example, the interest rate is 6%, the number of months left in the loan is 300 (25 years) and the balance of the loan is $225,000. Simply type =PMT(.06/12,300,225000), press enter and $1,449.68 should appear in the column. That's the monthly payment on a mortgage with those variables.

Bogus Argument

One of the most bogus arguments Republicans and the media that loves to eat up those arguments and regurgitate them is making is that "you can't judge a Supreme Court nominee based on how he was arguing cases for his clients when he worked for them." Basically, with John Roberts being nominated to the Supreme Court, Republicans and the media are quick to say that (for example) you can't tell what his position is on Roe v Wade because he's never personally spoken on the issue, even though when he worked for the Reagan and Bush (I) White Houses he filed briefs in support of overturning those decisions.

Consider an attorney working for General Motors who argues against implementation of a government regulation requiring higher fuel standards. Would that person be against higher fuel standards? Not necessarily. You could certainly make the argument that if they really cared about higher fuel standards they'd be wrong to work for GM arguing against them, but that may not be a particularly high priority for the person and anyway maybe they are in favor of higher fuel standards but the particular government regulation does more to penalize GM than actually spur said standards.

Similarly, a defense lawyer who represents a client who has been accused of murder or a corporation that has been accused of cooking the books doesn't believe that murder is ok or defrauding your shareholders is something big business should get away with. You can work at Pizza Hut and still prefer Domino's personally. There's nothing wrong with any of that.

However, and this is a big difference, when people get into politics -- whether they are entering information into a database, making television ads or even working in the law department of a political administration, they have sought out that position not merely to practice their trade but to practice their trade in the service of an ideology. And so, if John Roberts at some level didn't want to overturn Roe v Wade, he probably wouldn't have been working in an administration determined to do just that, helping to write the briefs and arguing that position in front of the federal courts.

Ask yourself this: If a Democratic President nominated a former solicitor in a Democratic administration who had filed briefs in favor of Planned Parenthood and argued against overturning Roe v Wade (while working for a Democratic President) does anyone, including pundits so eager to parrot the Republican party line believe that it would be indeterminable where the nominee stood on such an issue? I think not.

So many polls

With so many polls appearing in the newsmedia these days (probably the legacy of the 2004 campaign) it would be helpful if news organizations would start reporting more than just the top line results. Political pollsters and the consultants and candidates who read their polls know that the real story is in the crosstabs.

Here's a non-partisan example. Imagine the AJC did a poll in which 90% of respondents said it was important to own a couch. Would you then rush to open your own couch showroom? No, you'd need to know if any of the 90% in favor of couch ownership didn't currently own a couch, or if they were looking for a new couch, or what it would take to get them to actually purchase said couch.

Similarly, Americans could have huge disapproval ratings of the Congress -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that Democrats are about to sweep the Republicans out of power. The poll might actually show that a lot of the disapproval comes from Republican voters who are upset at Democratic obstructionism, while many Democratic voters are happy with increased entitlement spending.

And don't even get my started on horserace polls taken years before an election even happens. As the Insider noted today, those are great for fundraising, but if the election date isn't that close they're pretty meaningless, unless you can see the crosstabs and see where the opportunities lie both for you and your opponent. Nothing proves this more than all of those Presidential polls from 2003 that showed Bush crushing his many Democratic opponents by margins of 15 and 20 points. We all know how that race turned out.

Dual Responsibilities

So much attention has been focused on the roles and responsibilities of reporters (specifically Judith Miller) that not much focus has been on the responsibilities of the leakers and anonymous sources that talk to reporters on a daily basis.

Because of my job, on occasion I have the opportunity to go off the record and/or on background with reporters that cover Georgia politics. They know, as do I, that in such a special circumstance we have essentially entered into a bargain -- I will answer questions truthfully that I might not want to be associated with on the record in exchange for not being identified in print.

If I were to shield my identity to a reporter in order to tell a bunch of lies or break the law, I'd be violating that trust and at the very least I wouldn't expect that reporter to go off the record or on background with me again. If a law has been broken, there certainly exists no reporter/source priviledge similar to an attorney/client or priest/confession -- especially if the law that is broken is the revelation of information during the conversation.

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to Judy Miller herself. She is the worst kind of journalist -- not only were her articles on Iraq WMD's that helped fuel the start of the war riddled with errors, but she sucked up to sources (such as Challabi) like an unpopular high school student who makes one friend and is desperate to be accepted by the whole school.

In fact, Miller's decision not to testify has less to do with holding up some sort of journalistic standard and more to do with holding up Judith Miller on some sort of pedestal. In the process of saving herself, she could be destroying a key aspect of journalism for reporters everywhere. A generation of Woodward and Bernsteins that got into the business to expose corruption will be told by wary editors that it isn't worth it to print a story based in part on anonymous sources.

The Flip Side of Eminent Domain?

As awful as it is for some local government to decide that your home's property would better "serve" the community as a parking deck or office complex, consider the case of the Medical Arts Building in downtown Atlanta, which just today was set ablaze probably by vandals.

The building has been empty for over a decade. In its heyday, it was considered one of the most advanced medical buildings in the world. This is what it looked like


And now, this is what it looks like (pre-fire) as it languishes, empty


In recent years, two deals to purchase the building have fallen through. Most recently record producer Dallas Austin tried to purchase the building to convert it into a boutique hotel. The building has had the same owner since the 1970's, an owner who let it slip into disrepair and because of a refusal to sell (allegedly he is asking too high of a price) the building sits vacant, overrun by vandals and vagrants. Shouldn't the city of Atlanta condemn this building in order to force a sale to an owner who will maintain it properly -- regardless of the increased tax revenue the city is likely to see?

It's a confusing world we live in, not one that generally calls for one size fits all fixes. Interestingly, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's stinging rebuke to the majority opinion in the Kelo v New London decision took a well reasoned middle ground position that almost certainly would allow for a city like Atlanta to use eminent domain to do something about blighted property like the Medical Arts Building.

My hope is that the many politicians who are eager to pass laws and Constitutional amendments in response to the Kelo decision don't get carried away and prevent local governments from legitimate uses of eminent domain. The O'Connor opinion, which clearly should have carried the day, is an excellent guideline for formulating a policy that protects legitimate usage and prevents egregious abuse.

The fight to replace Justice O'Connor will surely not be a tribute to her willingness to find common ground on the court and more often than not single-handedly broker a consensus opinion that prevented the court from veering off in too radical a direction one way or another. The push to craft legislation to correct the court on one decision O'Connor's moderation was not able to prevail on should be a bipartisan cooperative effort that balances the needs of the many with the rights of the individual, just as I suspect O'Connor would have had it.