{"id":4462,"date":"2013-09-26T19:13:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T00:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=4462"},"modified":"2013-09-26T19:51:06","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T00:51:06","slug":"with-luck-a-four-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/09\/with-luck-a-four-way\/","title":{"rendered":"With Luck, a Four-way"},"content":{"rendered":"

May I predict, with perverse pleasure, the coming split of both the Republican and Democratic parties.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, read Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” during his non-filibuster 21-hour address in the Capitol.
Random House, image from University of Illinois<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am not referring to the politics as usual intra- and interparty squabbles. The GOP is as strong as ever, but it’s not without the occasional flare. Mid-month and again this week it was over the pronouncements of Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a>, Republican of Texas, a case of who’s more conservative.<\/p>\n

These particular Cruz missiles<\/a> likely are to be wispy memories in 13 months. But the overall point this fall is whether this man is a loner or leader of a faction.<\/p>\n

That would be the Tea Party. Today, Gallup released a survey report<\/a> indicating declining support for this far right coalition. Which could change on a Lincoln penny.<\/p>\n

For all the posturing there is this fact: The executive branch drafted what would become the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009<\/a>, majorities of both houses of Congress approved it in democratically conducted votes and, last, the Supreme Court found nearly the entire law constitutional. The executive branch since has moved to implement the federal law along with all 50 “several states<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Democrats as usual face at least one similar split. The simultaneous popularity and vulnerability of Hillary Rodham Clinton makes the party nervous. Still, the people’s party historically is fractious. “I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat,” said Will Rogers, 1879-1935.<\/p>\n

There’s a deeper split going on, and I want to point it out without penning an encyclopedic proof-text.<\/p>\n

Domestically,<\/em> the Edward Snowden release<\/a> of National Security Agency documents — not of secret-secrets but more of how post-9\/11 policies have come to be implemented — has created parallel rifts in the parties.<\/p>\n

One might think liberals would herald “openness,” but progressives worry about America becoming vulnerable. One might think conservatives would value a weakening of the federal government, but some right-wingers value privacy for citizens, a constitutionally protected civil liberty. And on and on.<\/p>\n

Matters such as this could confound the November 2014 elections.<\/p>\n

In foreign policy,<\/em> who’s an isolationist and who’s an interventionist? In recent weeks this debate has concerned Syria and its civil war. The violence has waxed and waned until a documented gassing of civilians<\/a> has gelled into treaty discussions as well.<\/p>\n

Caring, well-informed friends can’t figure out how to stop another holocaust. Should Washington interfere, at the seemingly likely cost of innocent Syrian (and American) lives? Should it instead let the dictator Assad continue to quash Syrian rebels any way he chooses? Of the various middle grounds, such as highly targeted drone strikes, are they too small in focus to do any good?<\/p>\n

Back in early July, foreign policy debate concerned the military coup that ousted elected (and with Western supervision) President Mohamed Morsi. Yet Morsi is a leader of Egypt’s fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood (which would seem to have no auxiliary Muslim Sisterhood), which by Western lights is not pro-democracy?<\/p>\n

Where can Egypt go from here? This cradle of the Arab Spring<\/a> now seems a mockery of the idealism that thrilled so many of us.<\/p>\n

Matters such as this could confound the November 2014 elections.<\/p>\n

<\/em>I think the NSA has deeper implications than national health care, until it’s had a couple of years for its kinks to be ironed out. The Arab clashes have longer pull than, say, China trade, which continues to be fairly well controlled.<\/p>\n

My ego wants my hunches on record. A set of reflections like this won’t really do anyone much intrinsic good, especially me. The most I can get out of this might be an “I told you so,” and those have been satisfying since childhood. Nyah nyah nyah!<\/p>\n

While I’m at it, I don’t believe Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. Both she and Vice President Joe Biden will be just a little too old. Outside of Ronald Reagan, recent first-term presidents have started lots younger than 70.<\/p>\n

I don’t really see fully split Republicans and Democrats, because it’s not quite happened before. These 20-teen years are not worse than any other strife-filled period. Certainly not the Good Old Days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May I predict, with perverse pleasure, the coming split of both the Republican and Democratic parties. I am not referring to the politics as usual intra- and interparty squabbles. The GOP is as strong as ever, but it’s not without the occasional flare. Mid-month and again this week it was over the pronouncements of Sen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":372,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/11\/teddy-the-greatest-kennedy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":0},"title":"Teddy, the Greatest Kennedy","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock When I clicked on C-SPAN2 midday Tuesday I did not know Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was giving a speech important enough to make the national news. He was criticizing George II's veto of a big domestic spending bill. Big Ted, Old Ted, swatting at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/06\/hang-on-hilly\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":1},"title":"Hang On, Hilly","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Be like Huck, Sen. Clinton: Hang in until the delegate count passes the point of no returns, when the opponent has that crystal majority of pledged delegate votes. Oh, that's coming up soon, isn't it. Republican campaign underdog and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday [May 8, 2008] that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":655,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/08\/palin-comparison\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":2},"title":"Palin Comparison","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sen. John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. Details are a click away, but here's quick thoughts from the hour since the announcement. McCain just evened the Brick odds of winning. Once the primaries indicated the top candidates, I never saw him\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6064,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2018\/05\/2020-vision-in-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":3},"title":"2020 Vision in 2018","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember Conner Eldridge? He was the Democratic opponent to Republican Sen. John Boozman in the 2016 general election. Because Republicans are hot stuff these days and it\u2019s tough to tackle an incumbent he lost. He\u2019s back to lawyering. There\u2019s any number of good people like Eldridge who at least for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Arkansas flag","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/68E60AA6-8967-4CE1-BED4-D7B3EF7BBCE2.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1183,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/05\/dixublican\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":4},"title":"Dixublican","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Stereotypes are tough. Arkansas can move right along, minding its own business with no Huckabee or Clinton (either of them) feeding the 24-hour international news cycle in at least 168 hours, when a politico from my northwestern part of the state, prominent only here, opens his yap. State Sen. Kim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2009,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/06\/robo-fall\/","url_meta":{"origin":4462,"position":5},"title":"Robo Fall","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock Dear Democratic and Republican parties of Arkansas, and all the interest groups at sea: On behalf of the news media of the state -- and independent blogs such as this, seeing that the corporate media don't pay me to represent them but instead to shape\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4462"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4477,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions\/4477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}