A NEW DEAL DONE RIGHT (via Tom Morin):

Party Parity: ABCNEWS Poll Finds Country Evenly Split Between Dems, GOP (David Morris, Telis Demos and Gary Langer, 11/05/03, ABC News)

A year from the next presidential election, the nation stands at a rare point of political parity: Across 2003 precisely equal numbers of Americans have identified themselves as Democrats, Republicans and independents, a first in 23 years of ABCNEWS polling.

The year's averages — 31 percent for each group — mark an uneven but long-term rise among Republicans, to a new high, and the fewest Democrats in annual averages since 1981. All else being equal, the trends suggest continued Republican competitiveness in election politics, albeit far from the Democrats' onetime dominance in sub-presidential races. [...]

Whatever happens at the presidential level, the change over time in party ID has been accompanied by a change in the division of the nation's other political spoils.

The Democratic Party controlled 23 more state legislatures than did the Republicans in 1983, and 24 more in 1990; today, Republicans control five more. There were 18 more Democratic than Republican governors in 1983; today, there are two more Republican governors, not counting the yet-to-be sworn in Arnold Schwarzenegger (although the GOP advantage in governorships was higher, +15, in 1997). And in 1983, the U.S. House had 103 more Democrats; today it has 24 more Republicans. [...]

In the period reviewed here, Democrats peaked at 39 percent of the population on average in 1983, slipped to 35 percent by 1993, and dipped further to this year's 31 percent — three points below their 1981-2003 average.

Republicans moved in the same period from 23 percent in 1983 to 26 percent in 1993 and 31 percent today; they're now three points over their average for the period.

Professor Gary Jacobson has authoritatively explained why, never mind this narrowing overall, the uneven geographical distribution of Republicans and Democrats benefits the GOP at least for this decade (PDF file.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the general contempt in which the "smart" folk of both Left and Right hold George W. Bush is that they fail to comprehend what he's achieving right under their noses. Obviously he and Karl Rove don't deserve credit for such megatrends as those above, but they recognized them sooner than anyone else and they therefore positioned the GOP to take advantage of them in historic ways. Had John McCain not run so strongly to Mr. Bush's Left, the President would have entered office in good position to impose compassionate conservatism; instead he's having to do it gradually.

One of the ways this plays itself out is that they accept cluttered pieces of legislation or dubious policies--like Homeland Security, the steel tariffs, No Child Left Behind Act, and the coming Energy Bill--because they know that the short term waste of money pales in comparison to the long range effects: destruction of civil service rules, free trade authority, vouchers, and energy independence--respectively.

The Energy Bill is only the latest issue about which the Right has begun squawking:

The centerpiece of the bill is a $16-billion package of tax breaks and production subsidies designed to further rig the market to favor well-connected energy producers (almost all of which enjoy plenty of federal handouts) at the expense of others.

The biggest winners will include nuclear power, small domestic oil producers (which dispense some of the highest-cost oil in the world market today), "clean coal" technology (which has yet to produce a commercially operable plant despite billions in public subsidies) and various exotic energy technologies that can't attract much private capital from skeptical investors.

In an unrigged market, a technology with economic merit needs no subsidy. Likewise, if a technology were without economic merit, no public subsidy — no matter how large — would turn an ugly market duckling into a beautiful economic swan.

Ethanol producers are another bunch that will make out like thieves. Ethanol, for the uninitiated, is distilled grain alcohol generally blended with various amounts of gasoline, ostensibly to reduce oil consumption. Apparently, the lavish subsidies bestowed on that industry over the last couple of decades haven't been enough to placate farmers. So Congress and the administration are preparing to further artificially increase demand for corn — the main ingredient for ethanol today — with new ethanol subsidies and preferences. [...]

Still, the Midwest is a region that throws its presidential and congressional votes to those who promise farmers the biggest sack of federal loot, so ethanol we shall have, regardless of its merit as a fuel source.
Various energy fads also find their way to the federal trough. The example with the highest profile is President Bush's $1.2-billion "Freedom Car" initiative, which promises commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells in a couple of decades, though it fails to require Detroit to actually make any vehicles with such engines. This initiative is surprising given the president's opposition to requiring auto manufacturers to adopt conventional off-the-shelf technologies to clean up cars.

and once again represents a failure of comprehension. Obviously oil is the most economic fuel source going, so, if you want to wean the U.S. from dependence on the inherently unstable oil states, you can't rely on the free market.

Shocking, we know, but Mr. Bush happens to view national security as a higher priority than the market. In his book, The Right Man, David Frum has a revealing passage on the topic:

I once made the mistake of suggesting to Bush that he use the phrase cheap energy to describe the aims of his energy policy. He gave me a sharp, squinting look, as if he were trying to decide whether I was the very stupidest person he had heard from all day or only one of the top five. Cheap energy, he answered, was how we got into this mess.

Alternately-powered cars, nuclear energy, electricity, ethanol, etc. may not be cheap--and surely this bill waste a lot of taxpayer money--but they will reduce oil imports and that's what the President's purpose is.

Mr. Bush keeps winning major legislative victories--and enacting other policies through executive rule-making powers--and the Party keeps winning elections and the synergy between the two builds. If this GOP tide can be parlayed into the filibuster-proof Senate majority needed to move tort and tax reform (towards taxing consumption rather than earnings) and privatization of the welfare state--or if the Republicans play hardball and dispose of the anti-constitutional filibuster--Mr. Bush stands to be the most transforming figure since FDR.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2003 10:04 AM