The Moderate Voice - Latest Comments in Undecided no more: It's Obama

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:16:00 -0000

Oh, I'll even admit that I catch myself doing it sometimes, or at least have to stop and consider why I feel that something that the liberals did was worse than something comparable than what the conservatives did (sometimes there are legitimate reasons for that difference, other times I have to admit that it's just my gut reaction.)

But thanks for exonerating me, Rambie. ;-)

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

Rambie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:05:11 -0000

CS: "The difference in what I'm saying is that when we all evaluate the guys that we oppose, we set high standards or scrutinize them thoroughly (because we're cynical about them, don't give them the benefit of the doubt.) That's the standard that I think we should apply to all politicians- the ones that we mostly agree with as well as the ones we don't agree with."

I have to say I didn't notice a big difference in the two statements, but now that you clear it up I agree. Some people do tend to give a "pass" to those they agree with and hold those they disagree with to a higher standard.

I try NOT to do that but I've seen it here from time to time. Not you CS, nor George, and others on both sides.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GreenDreams — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:54:23 -0000

CStanley, I'm not sure whether your making accusations of corruption or ineptitude or what. The truth is that many many well intentioned and well conceived programs fail, not only at all levels of government, but also academic and philanthropic including church projects.

And it's very common for the funds of such programs to go to the investigators, analysts etc. Often the best use of resources is to analyze and recommend, or to offer some kind of technical assistance or technology transfer. These could all be seen as going into the pockets of the organizations involved, but there's nothing wrong with that design per se.

I don't see any allegations, let alone proof, of malfeasance of any kind here. Things fail, we learn. Where's the smoking gun? In this discussion of standards, it seems you are expecting that successful and talented people have made no mistakes.

And the "mistake" if it was one, was just being on a nonprofit board.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GeorgeSorwell — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:28:25 -0000

Um, because holding your own side to standards at least as high as what you set for the other side (which is what I advocate) is the opposite of holding the other side to standards at least as high as what you set for your own.

Honestly, CStanley, do you think we don't know how to read?

I guess I can see the confusion because both of us argue for equal standards being applied on both sides-

Oh my. Confusion indeed. I get that you think you're automatically smarter and fairer and more honest than me. This is a public thread, and I'm willing to let people judge me based on what I say for myself here. All I can add is, by this time you should know how much I object whenever you misrepresent what I've said.

So please stop doing it.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:54:11 -0000

Um, because holding your own side to standards at least as high as what you set for the other side (which is what I advocate) is the opposite of holding the other side to standards at least as high as what you set for your own.

The difference in what I'm saying is that when we all evaluate the guys that we oppose, we set high standards or scrutinize them thoroughly (because we're cynical about them, don't give them the benefit of the doubt.) That's the standard that I think we should apply to all politicians- the ones that we mostly agree with as well as the ones we don't agree with.

The way you phrased it was to use the standards that you apply to your own party (which for most people are pretty lax standards, if we're honest about it- because we often overlook things since we still think that party being in power is better than the other party being in power) when you evaluate members of the opposing party. I guess I can see the confusion because both of us argue for equal standards being applied on both sides- but which party you use to set the standard does make a difference as to whether that's a high bar or a low one.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GeorgeSorwell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:25:46 -0000

CStanley--

This is what I said:

Shouldn't your standards for the other side be at least as high as the standards for your own side?

This is what you said:

Actually, George, I'd say the opposite-I think if people would hold their own side to the standards that they hold the other, we'd be in much better shape.

I'm not really why you think what you said is the opposite of what I said.

???

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:46:33 -0000

so unless there was a lot of graft...

That's my impression, because from what I've seen the programs weren't even meant to put money directly into schools but instead into these external partner entities (which coincidentally happened to be voter registration groups and political donors and boosters of many of the principles involved in the foundation.)

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

mikkel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:11:11 -0000

No the first sentence is "there was no statistical improvement."

My take away message was that it was a failure to actually improve anything but it was helpful it determining some future areas of study. (My instant thought was that during periods of rapid increase and decrease it is difficult to get statistical improvement. It could be that the overall increase was masking benefits of the program that would be seen once the increases stopped or even declined...of course this requires massive long term programs that are politically unpalatable and perhaps realistically impossible, but it's seen all the time in systems.)

From a scientific outlook where outcome failure is the norm, it looks like the whole ordeal wasn't a failure because they knew more than they did before. I am agnostic on whether it was a good use of resources because on one hand it seems like a lot, on the other only $40k per school doesn't seem like much at all....so unless there was a lot of graft...

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:01:01 -0000

The foundation's executive summary is certainly a place to start, but naturally they're going to cast the results in the best possible light- and unless people are completely misrepresenting quotes from their final report I've seen statements that indicated that their goals in increasing test scores weren't met because the schools involved improved on par with the rest of Chicago schools. True that that's not the only goal of education improvement, but apparently it was part of their internal evaluations so it must have been a goal.

BTW, I will correct my earlier statement about taxpayer funds because it apparently was private money. I think the issue is that a good bit of the money in the view of critics went to political cronies who were supportive of the agenda and politicians like Obama.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

mikkel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:21:36 -0000

Reading the executive summary of the final report it looks like the program was helpful (you can argue about whether it was for the amount of money spent).

Basically it looks like they tried increasing resources to a lot of schools, saw that it wasn't working in most of them and then attempted to understand why and cut off the schools that didn't have the fundamental administrative requirements for success.

Its conclusion is that increased monetary support is NOT sufficient to cause improvement and talks about some broad overlapping changes that need to align to actually help, and it sounds optimistic that even though test scores hadn't improved, there was marked social improvement that could lead to higher scores in the future. I assume that specifics are scattered throughout the 200 page+ report that I don't have time to read right now.

Also I see that they only spent $35 million or so and much of the rest went into the successor: the Chicago Public Education Fund which looks like it is continuing a grant based model.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:11:53 -0000

Mikkel: there's a lot more info here:
http://globallabor.blogspot...
You're right that I may have overstated the public funding because it was initially set up with private philanthropic money from Annenburg. I'll have to look at that more closely.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:08:20 -0000

Actually, George, I'd say the opposite-I think if people would hold their own side to the standards that they hold the other, we'd be in much better shape. I've said it here before: I think it's often far to easy to overlook the faults of people with whom you have a certain amount of agreement- the ends tend to justify the means.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

The Pajama Pundit — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:03:29 -0000

My thoughts, summed up nicely:

There is a place for Maverickiness in this world, but it’s not the Oval Office.

I think that you are absolutely correct Polimom. While there are many attributes about each candidate that I find less-than-desirable, Barack Obama is the guy who gives me hope that our country will get through the 'tough waters' in a calm and levelheaded way. The idea of a 'maverick' at the helm, using bluster and more aggressive rhetoric about our problems (not to mention with other world leaders) is increasingly frightening to me.

Kudos to you.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

mikkel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:54:34 -0000

I didn't know what it was called. I also never heard anything about the, you know, actual project it's all about Ayers. I read up about that but not about whether it worked.

A couple of points now that I'm looking up the actual program. I've seen from multiple sources it says $50 million (matched with another $60 million from other private contributions), not $160 million and secondly they all say that it was from a private philanthropic foundation, not taxpayers. Where did you get the $160 million of tax payer money from?

The Foundation concluded that there was no improvement in performance from the money that was spent.

A few initial impressions:
Since it didn't work I'd be very interested in hearing from Obama why he thought it didn't work, what they learned from the experiment and why he thinks that his similar grant program (with taxpayer money) would help.

The fact that it didn't work doesn't mean it was a "waste." It looks like the program ran more or less like it was supposed to and there was research done. The ideas didn't actually help education but from a scientific standpoint if the money was spent properly and helped give insight into education then it was money well spent....as long as we keep the conclusions in mind going forward.

If the Republicans were focused more on attacking his policies instead of associations then maybe Obama would be pressured to explain his position and thinking, and then they could have an argument about whether his ideas are good or not. So far it looks like nearly every one is just interested because Ayers was on the board and ...well that's the extent of their thought process.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GeorgeSorwell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:42:01 -0000

CStanley--

Shouldn't your standards for the other side be at least as high as the standards for your own side?

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:35:00 -0000

George: If you become that which you claim to hate, then you deserve to be criticized for it all the more.

Mikkel: CAC= Chicago Annenburg Challenge. You have heard of that, no?

Thanks for your candor in the final paragraph.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

mikkel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:29:35 -0000

I'm not aware of the CAC thing at all (maybe because I skip almost all the political threads) what is that?

Also about the education thing, the primary thing I've read him support is increased teacher pay based on merit and also grants that local districts would compete for and then continued funding would be based on increased performance and whether they can help expand the successes into other districts. Both of them had relatively low price tags and I thought were pretty conservative in approach (maybe he has changed things when I wasn't paying attention).

My primary thinking about Obama is from reading exposés on what drives his thought process and decision making, and how he changes positions based on new evidence.

Now I will be the first to admit that he makes "wrong" decisions (bailout bill, farm bill, etc.) because he is trying to balance political motives with expert opinion and sometimes the political ones win out. You could even argue that he is always going to err on doing unhelpful things for political reasons and I will admit that it is a leap of faith to support him eventually doing the right thing. On the other hand I have read parallel things about McCain and I don't see any ability to even synthesize new information and use it to alter his path.

If you want me to be honest though I am worried that Obama isn't really going to be that good either. I've often (and increasingly) wished that I could be an advisor because I think I understand his (at least publically projected) temperament and thought process enough that I could use some of my "depth and intelligence" (although I'd argue that I cheat because I have nothing on the line) to influence his views.....or if I'm unable to realize that he's not the one to have hopes for either.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GeorgeSorwell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:28:08 -0000

CStanley--

Complaints about Pelosi's unwillingness to compromise are laughable in the face of President Bush's intransigence.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

GeorgeSorwell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:25:27 -0000

Unfortunately, I expect to find very few of those to support.

I agree with this. Hopefully this election will begin the process of change.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:01:58 -0000

Marlowe: Truth is that no one should plan on getting old or sick no matter who wins the election, because we can't pay for the exploding costs of Medicare. At least McCain's being honest and even if he can't cut costs as much as he's saying (of course he can't), I'd prefer to vote for the person who will seriously attempt to cut the massive fraud and waste in a program that will grow beyond our capacity to pay for it.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

CStanley — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:57:44 -0000

Ugh, I think you're all wrong (perhaps unsurprisingly, but it's discouraging because all of the commenters here are people whose thinking I respect.)

Mikkel, I find your answers to be most compelling yet I can't help but think that you project your own depth and intelligence onto Obama. I just don't find his record to be convincing at all (I've mentioned repeatedly, for instance, that the real story behind the Ayers connection is the utter failure of the CAC at the expense of $160 million to IL taxpayers) and education is one of the hallmarks of the investment that Obama now feels we have to undertake on the national level. I don't disagree in principle on the importance of education, but I have a huge fundamental disagreement with liberals on the degree to which federal involvement is helpful and I truly believe that every time the liberal side wins that argument our education system falls further behind while our debt grows even more.

I guess I'll have to agree to disagree because on foreign policy too I have a fundamental disagreement on core cause of our rifts with other countries. Certainly Bush's rhetoric and demeanor haven't helped matters but mainly he's been the scapegoat as other countries have simply been vying for some of the power that the US had by default at the end of the Cold War. Old alliances are shifting and being congenial to those who are trying to reposition themselves isn't always in the US best interest either. Truth is that I prefer a lot more finesse than Bush, but not so much bending over as I think Obama will show.

Put into partisan-think -- I think Obama's too smart to bury his own party that wayScary thing there Polimom is the number of times I've said the exact thing about Nancy Pelosi when she first ascended to the leadership of the House. In some ways it's proven true because she didn't push for impeachment or to defund troops, yet she hasn't proven smart enough to actually push a moderate agenda or to tone down the partisanship either.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

Silhouette — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:54:24 -0000

Obama, no matter what, comes packing with the Clintons in his holster.

Bottom line, with the stock market plummeting and our nation on the brink of peril, Team Obama is the only one that will deliver us whole as a nation to go on thriving. The Clinton resume' nudging Obama in the right path will bring us back from the dead.

Period. No logical rebuttal can be offered to that conclusion..

So...

Following the breadcrumbs of logic, anyone left still supporting McCain at this point is anti-American and seeks ultimately to undo our very nation by electing an irresponsible, erratic maverick cowboy closely associated with the very powers that brought us to this brink. Foreign nations don't trust McCain. Even our allies are looking at McCain with jaded eyes and now with their economies crashing, will have no warm feelings for "another four more years". Our enemies, who sit more strong than we are today, thanks in part to McCain himself, sit poised and stubbornly opposed to negotiations with anyone who even hints of Bush-style cowboyism.

I love America. I want to see it recover...badly... There is only one way at this terrible point: Team Obama. It brings diplomacy, it brings sanity and it brings the Clinton resume'. I sincerely hope that Obama cuts any deal necessary to ensure the Clintons stay vocally and visibly on board and fully armed to be at Obama's side. With them and all the wise supporters in Congress we can save our country.

Otherwise, brush up on your chinese, russian and arabic because we're going to be their prison wives..

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

mikkel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:51:33 -0000

"My view of the bail-out was not based on "no spending", but that we can't keep kicking the can down the road. "

Yes the plan that a lot of economists are developing has the key features of:

Letting housing deflate more...this would cause even more foreclosures and people of course would lose a lot more of their wealth.

Letting all of the institutions that are the worst fail (this would be a lot).

Recapitalizing the better banks directly and the government takes a huge stake in them.

Increasing regulations and disallowing so much leverage.

Buying houses if they spiral below historical values.

In essence they advocate massive government intervention, but in a way to just try to stop a never ending free fall and that would provide liquidity to good companies. However their plan would still create much more asset deflation and much lower economic growth rates than have been projected.

This will mess with all side's plans as the government plans will be woefully underfunded but the private sector won't get back nearly to the growth it had between '81 and '07. In essence it will be about changing our lifestyles significantly, which is what few people are looking forward to.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

Marlowecan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:50:47 -0000

OT somewhat, but this is the latest on McCain's health care policy:

"John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.
...The McCain campaign hasn't given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn't dispute the analysts' estimate....Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. "

http://online.wsj.com/artic...

I hope no one at TMV is planning on getting older or disabled under a McCain presidency.

Re: Undecided no more: It's Obama

Marlowecan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:40:08 -0000

While I have not been a supporter of Senator Obama, I find this passage in particular from Polimom compelling:

"Barack Obama has displayed an almost surreal capacity for calm in the eye of a storm. . .I also feel that his steadier temperament is far more likely to resist panicked or Hail Mary reactions."

I do not know if Obama's almost supernatural discipline and calm is a pose or not . . . (perhaps this distinction does not really matter in a president). . . but given the idiocies demonstrated on the Hill in the recent bailout, I think most Americans would find a calm, reassuring hand on the tiller of the ship of state reassuring amid economic turmoil.

I find Obama's health policy is too right wing . . . and his foreign policy too left wing.

But I think his calm and discipline are very very reassuring for many Americans, when the world is in the midst of not even a bear, but a Chicken Little, market.