A Stitch in Haste

Economists and political scientists often use location economics to explain politics.

Here's a typical example: Assume a public beach that is 100 yards long, like an American football field. Two ice cream vendors selling identical products are granted a government duopoly on the condition that their prices are fixed. Customers are located uniformly along the beach.

The only way the two vendors can compete is by deciding where along the beach to sell their ice cream. Customers will, if they're rational, simply go to whichever vendor is closer. However, assume that they will not walk more than a certain distance to get their ice cream, perhaps 25 yards.

Economics, and game theory, tell us that the optimal strategy for the two vendors is for each to locate on one of the two 25-yard lines (i.e., to carve up the market and not really compete against each other at all). But that assumes both cooperation and communication (or the more loaded term, "collusion"). Without cooperation, one vendor will try to encroach on the other's territory by moving closer to the "50-yard line." The other will reciprocate by also moving closer to "midbeach." Without cooperation, they will eventually be on top of each other at the middle, with both losing customers at either end (i.e., "goal line") of the beach.

It's actually a little more complicated than that, but it's the basic result, and is a variant of the classic "Prisoners' Dilemma" (i.e., that lack of communication and cooperation can lead to sub-optimal results for all parties).

Political scientists have applied this reasoning to two-party politics, with "the beach" becoming the "liberal-conservative spectrum." Theoretically the major-party candidates should "split the market," with the Democrat locating halfway between the radical left and the mainstream moderate positions, and the Republican doing the same with conservatives. But then the Prisoners' Dilemma kicks in and each moves to the center to try to capture moderate voters, and by Election Day the differences between the candidates almost completely evaporate.

Well, it seems to me this model of location economics explains perfectly the nominally inexplicable stories recently about John McCain supporting a bigot initiative in his home state, and Jerry Falwell doing a mini-flip-flop in favor of (some) anti-discrimination rights for gays.

Falwell is the easier anomaly to explain. He is locked in a classic "location duopoly" with Pat Robertson, recently of Sixth Commandment notoriety (see my previous post).

As the "backlash" against Vermont and Massachusetts fades into distant memory (i.e., 10 months ago), gay marriage is dropping off most people's radar screens. Even relatively radical fundamentalist Christians are starting to realize that the fire and brimstone are simply not coming.

So if you define the "beach" as the political spectrum, or even just as the conservative Christian political spectrum, then why shouldn't Falwell jump on this opportunity to distance himself from Robertson by moving to the mainstream on gay rights? Perhaps Falwell, who has his own agenda and his own earthly interests, is tired of being lumped together with Robertson. A relatively straightforward case of location economics.

McCain is more complicated. He's considered among the most moderate (i.e., leftist) of Republicans. Is he adopting more "midfield conservative" positions within the conservative spectrum? Is he positioning himself against other potential Republican candidates by pandering to the supposed Republican base (i.e., fundamentalist Christians)?

McCain has repeatedly shown himself to be a man of politics rather than a man of principle, so whatever his motivation in pandering to bigots, it is undoubtedly driven by politics rather than by anti-gay animus. That may be sad, but it's hardly surprising.

This is one of the dumber things I've seen recently:

Kerrey said that he considers McCain "one of the most important political leaders in the world today," and added that he is "unfortunately caught up in the politics of the day," and that he "accepted our invitation before Liberty's."

Huh? It's "unfortunate" that a politician gets "caught up" in -- gasp! -- politics?!?

Only another politician -- which Kerrey is -- could utter such a mind-boggingly stupid sentence. What a terrifying thought that the man is now a university president.

It's quite simple really: John McCain has sold his soul for votes. Just like every other hack politician before him and just like every other hack politician that will come after him.

"If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money?"
--"Francisco's Speech," Atlas Shrugged

A few days after I called "Shenanigans!" on John McCain in another context, George Will dropped the other shoe on this most miserable and decrepit of politicians:

Then ponder his implicit promise to "complete the job" of cleansing Washington of corruption, as McCain understands that. Unfortunately, although McCain is loquacious about corruption, he is too busy deploring it to define it. Mr. Straight Talk is rarely reticent about anything, but he is remarkably so about specifics: He says corruption is pandemic among incumbent politicians, yet he has never identified any corrupt fellow senator.

Anyway, he vows to "complete the job" of extirpating corruption, regardless of the cost to freedom of speech.

But of course we have understood for almost fifty years that money does not corrupt. And we have known for well over a century what does corrupt.

If John McCain is so worried about corruption in Washington, then the answer is not to restrict money, but to restrict power. If there were less power in government, if the politicians weren't activist legislators always on the prowl for something to do to curry favor and votes, then money would become ancillary if not irrelevant to the political process. Who would try to buy off a politician who not only doesn't do anything, but couldn't do anything even if he wanted to?

With a government of limited powers (which, remember, was America's ultimate "original intent" and which should always trump all subsequent legislative intents), there would be no need for campaign finance laws, and certainly no need to put the First Amendment in scare-quotes.

And there would be need for dangerous "maverick" politicians like John McCain cloaked in reformer garb offering to protect us from the Bill of Rights.

I have admittedly not blogged much recently about John McCain. My priorities lied elsewhere — very "elsewhere."

That will of course now change. In the meantime, here is some good recent McCainBlogging by others:

--Justin Logan on McCain's mentally unstable hyper-militarism, both abroad ("Bomb Bomb Iran") and at home ("those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it live a half-life").

--Hodak Value also chimes in on "Ein Volk, Ein Maverick, Ein McCain":

John McCain is all about getting elected. No one gets this far in politics by accident, without being acutely, intensely aware of where their personal interests intersect with the voter's willingness to hand them power — not McCain or Romney or Hillary or Obama. Each of these politicians has survived this far in an extraordinarily demanding tournament for power by selling the interests that motivate them as somehow more noble and worthy than yours or mine. Amazingly enough, they achieved this by disguising their self-interest as "something larger than our self-interests." And, more amazingly enough, tens of millions of individuals buy it.

In other words: "John McCain, Politician."

--Matt Welch on the Great McCain Contradiction:

But there's a bizarre disconnect in the warm embrace between McCain and the electorate's mavericks. They hate the Iraq war, while he's willing to fight it for another century. The most pro-war presidential candidate in a decade is winning the 2008 GOP nomination thanks to the antiwar vote.

How much of that is due to the media "maverick" myth remains unclear.

--Dalia Lithwick on the kind of judges President McCain would nominate (hint: second verse same as the first).

--Alan Reynolds on why it's myopic for libertarians to praise McCain's lip service to earmark and pork reform given his hawkish love of military spending (not to mention military using) and his likely willingness to "compromise" on tax hikes, especially scrapping the Social Security wage cap.

I will of course be turning my attention to McCain much more frequently going forward.

--If John McCain is opposed to torture, then why is he urging President Bush to veto a bill banning torture?

--Does John McCain's 2004 vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment mean that he "supports gay rights"?

--Did the McCain campaign promise bankers that, had he failed to win the Republican nomination, he would stay in the race anyway just to get taxpayer money to pay off his loans? (Via Obsidian Wings; see also here.)

--Does anyone remember the Keating Five?

--Who said, in 2000, that he believed John McCain would be too old to run for president in 2008?

If you've been tracking the table in the left sidebar, then you are hardly surprised:


The other relevant number in this context is, of course, "100" -- well, maybe.


It's quite simple really. Roadside bombs do not detonate in Germany. Terrorists are not blowing themselves up alongside the Korea DMZ.

Staying in Iraq for 50 years -- "maybe 100" -- is simply not the same as staying in Korea or Germany for 50 years -- "maybe 100." And anyone who, among innumerable other faults, simply cannot grasp this most rudimentary distinction between events current and historical must be kept as far away from the White House as electorally possible.

Charles Krauthammer, with his typical chest-thumping indignation, accuses critics of John McCain, apparently including me, of "a rank falsehood" for pressing McCain's now infamous "maybe 100" remark:

"We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so." Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

There would be a grain of truth — more like truthiness — in Krauthammer's screed but for a few pesky contrasts (i.e., "truthhoods") between Iraq on the one hand and Germany, Japan, Korea and even Kuwait on the other:

--In all the previous occupations there was a clearly delineated switch from "war" to "occupation" — V-E Day, V-J Day, etc. Such a demarcation has not occurred — and cannot occur — in Iraq. Roadside bombs were not exploding in Germany in the 1950s; suicide bombers were not self-detonating along the DMZ in the 1960s, etc. This is exactly the conundrum that McCain cannot bring himself to admit: One cannot "win" an occupation; one can only commence it, prolong it or end it.

--Whether friendly toward U.S. occupation forces or not, the Germans, Japanese, Koreans and Kuwaitis were and are unified peoples. Unlike post-Saddam Iraqis, their agendas never included blowing each other up (especially via women, children and incompetents).

If, for example, post-Hitler Catholic Bavarians had been perpetually obsessed with killing Lutheran Hessians and vice versa (in God's name, of course) — and with U.S. troops perpetually dying as recurring collateral damage — then I sincerely doubt that we would have stayed in Germany as long as we have.

The Iraq that McCain and Krauthammer expect us to be nonplussed to occupy for a century is a geopolitical impossibility. The fact that McCain cannot grasp, or is unwillingness to acknowledge, this self-evident reality makes him all the more untenable as a post-Bush commander-in-chief.

--Two words: Cold War. Only rabid warmongers and "national greatness" fetishists like McCain and Krauthammer could pretend that "Iraq isn't different." We stayed in Germany, Japan and Korea because we had to. As McCain's own recent episode of foreign policy illiteracy demonstrates, the "al Qaeda will take over" bogeyman is a laughable canard. When al Qaeda acquires ICBMs, nuclear submarines and a fleet of tanks along the Elbe, then let's talk about where we need to set up shop for "maybe 100" years.

Unlike our previous great conflicts and their subsequent great occupations — which were fundamentally strategic in nature — the War on al Qaeda requires tactical strikes on a tactical organization — bombing a training compound, assassinating a leader, infiltrating a terror cell, etc. It's a war best fought not by GI Joe but by Tom Quinn.

The only basis for wanting to occupy the world is the geopolitical equivalent of excess testosterone — of which we have had more than enough these past five years. That is hardly, to borrow Krauthammer's insolent term, a "rank falsehood."

Similar deceitful apologia from The Washington Post.

Nowadays, it's cutting the gasoline tax:

Senator John McCain ... called on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent a gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Mr. McCain said that doing so would provide "an immediate economic stimulus," but some environmentalists said that the change might encourage more people to use their cars, while Mr. McCain has made combating global warming central to his campaign.

We must fight global warming -- unless it gets too expensive for the soccer moms and NASCAR dads. Real "maverick" thinking, eh?

The gasoline tax is either meant to be an enlightened Pigou tax or a backdoor revenue raiser. If the former, then high prices be damned -- collect it and deploy it to correct whatever "externality" you have convinced yourself needs correcting (global warming, falling bridges, whatever rationalization you care to concoct). If the latter, then scrap it permanently and apologize for having imposed such an abomination in the first place.

So too with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which McCain wants to freeze). If it is, um, "strategic," then treat it as such. If it is instead a tool to manipulate oil markets and propagandize, then admit as much. You can't have your oil and eat it too.

---

Meanwhile:

"People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don't need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers," he said. "Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so. This reform alone will save billions of dollars that could be returned to taxpayers or put to better use."

(The definition of "Bill Gates," incidentally, is "single people earning more than $82,000 a year and married couples earning more than $164,000." Who knew becoming a billionaire was so inexpensive?)

Of course, the 800-pound contradiction in the room is that it is precisely the rich who have already paid for their Medicare benefits through their taxes. The idea that the rich elderly, who paid a lifetime of uncapped Medicare taxes, are somehow now "mooching" off younger taxpayers is an insolent fraud.

But then again, so is McCain.