Is Cash King? A short discussion about money in this campaign.

For years, reformers have decried the growing amount, and nefarious source of money in campaign. While Citizens United is the focus of most anger, it really was the Buckley Valeo (1976) case that protected campaign spending (so long as it was not tied to quid pro quo corruption) as free speech.

But this campaign is openly challenging the commonly accepted assumption that money talks.  The Republican nominee (not yet but typing presumptive each time is just silly at this point) has spent far less money in the primary to gain  the nomination and many of long-vanquished foes.  Hillary has spent freely, but Bernie has been able (at least until recently) compete with her without the use of PACS and bundlers.  His small, but numerous contributions, belie the concerns about millionaires buying  elections.

Democrats expect to spend over $1 billion in the fall election. Let me gently remind you that until 2008, the general elections were limited by the acceptance of the Presidential checkoff funds. It was candidate Obama, who reneged on his pledge to limit funds, once he realized that he had a chance to win nomination, but not without spending very large amounts of money.  No serious candidate today would handicap their campaign by accepting those funds with those limits.

But will this campaign turn those truisms on their head? Will the celebrity of Trump, which earns him literally hundreds of millions of dollars in free coverage, overwhelm the PAC spending? Is there a diminishing return on spending on negative campaigns?  At some point, does reliance on the Koch brothers or Tom Steyer become a disadvantage?

If there is such a year, this might be it. With the exception of spending to Get Out The Vote, gas for drivers, calls, and on the ground knock on the door work of volunteers, is traditional advertising transforming into a very different kind of fungible good, overwhelmed by non-traditional sources of media impact?

Which leads to the real question, for 2014 and beyond.  When will the ticket of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie appear on the ballots of Americans?

I just witnessed the AP announce that Trump had secured the delegates sufficient to become the Republican nominee. And Hillary, once again exposed by the State Department IG report to have repeatedly lied about her private server and email practices, is facing a very strong challenge by Bernie in California.  You all are actually relevant again.  Miracles do happen.

Kurt

Knowing the known unknown.

Apologies to Donald Rumsfeld (does that make us even), but this campaign, certainly the coverage of  it, has now turned on its head for the umpteenth time.  A short  few weeks ago, when Cruz was riding high, the narrative was that the Republicans faced a convention fight that  would make Chicago 1968 look like a Girl Scout meeting. But Trump swept and Cruz faded and then the most remarkable thing began to happen.  Republicans, who for the better part of a year were repulsed by Trump began to come around. Voters who had favored one of the 18 or so former candidates begin to assert that, well, Trump might be a dolt but he could be the one to win the election. The most recent polling showed that over 80% of Republicans would support Trump in a general election. That is higher than those who said they would support Romney at the same time four years ago.

So, what is going on? Well, let's remember that polls are but snapshots of a general feeling at the time the questions are asked.  So, as far as being predictive, do not put too much faith in them at this point. What is probably happening is that voters in general are facing a binary choice.  Trump or Hillary (you can use Bernie if you want, the choice for Republicans is still binary). And they dont want either Hillary or Bernie.  So, the majority has moved on to Trump.

What happens over  the next few months is what matters.  And it is hard to see any issues that might move a large enough collection of voters from one candidate to another that is not already in the equation.  What that means is that the campaign may not be about traditonal issues, and may be more volatile, more subject to effect by events, than past campaigns.  Economic upheaval, terror attacks, events that we cannot yet imagine, and how the candidates respond to them will be vitally important. Will the voters like the shoot from the hip Trump, or the careful, calibrated Hillary?  

And the electorate is not happy.  There is both palpable anger, and an undercurrent of unease. And the majority of voters are not yet  engaged, though there is indication that they are paying more attention than in prior elections at this stage.

Will money used in the traditional way, to undercut, define down and disparage the opponent work?  With the negatives of both leading candidates so high, how much worse can we voters think of them? And if individual issues are not key, what good will issue ads do? If this is a campaign based on who we trust more, well, that might be no better than  a coin flip.

The primary season grinds closer to finality, but this general election portends to be a very interesting one.

Turning to the general

Good morning class,
 Please allow me a short moment of personal reflection.  I was thinking the other day (yes that does still happen) about how this journey of mine which brought me back to the farm in Nebraska has opened my eyes up to a broader perspective of what Americans face each day.  I get  up, as I always did, very early and make my coffee, and read the news on my phone.  I read the NY Times, the regional news, the two major papers in Nebraska, and various political sites.  But now, when I read the times, I envision myself back in LA, recalling the places I saw, the roads I traveled, the people I met.

That has meant that I can never think of LA, or anyplace, for that matter, without putting it in the context of the people that live there.  As Americans, we all have some similar interests, but we also have local interests, views and problems that are distinct and different from other citizens elsewhere.  The last two weeks here have been rainy, and this weekend we approached a late frost. And the neighbors worried about the damage to the crops that had already emerged.  Agriculture is king here, and weather is its master.  We dont sweat traffic and mass transit much.

But that does not mean that we should think that those who do worry about how to get to work, about the cost of building faster and more convenient and sustainable ways to move  people in huge urban areas are wasting our time.  What I am seeing more and more is that while we are a big country, we have very different issues that effect us in very different ways.

What we need to understand is this: we have a very large, and very diverse country. It spans a continent, and is unique in its political complexity because it provides a means to address those broad and narrow issues. There are times for a national solution and there are times for local ones, and that has been, and remains, the essential value and conundrum of federalism.  Take, for example, the current controversy over transgender bathrooms.  We have national values intended to promote fairness and end discrimination for all our citizens; but we also worry and wonder about protecting the privacy of citizens in public places.  The battle (for the most part, despite what the media has depicted) is not about Caitlyn Jenner; it is about which solution we choose for our students at Emoryville Elementary in rural Kansas.

Onto the election:
Is is not yet over, but the Republican establishment (anyone holding elective office for more than 12 months or anyone who thinks Trump ought to hold more conservative views) has swallowed hard and decided, well, maybe we can work with Trump if Hillary is the other choice.  Hillary is still facing Bernie, and he is still winning primaries, which does not really hurt her chances because she still is winning super delegates.

But the fact that she is losing elections, after nearly everyone knows she will be the nominee (absent a criminal referral or indictment on her mishandling of secret government documents), is troubling. Many Republicans think Trump ill-suited to be President, but it  seems that just as many Democrats prefer someone other than Hillary.  This looks like an election which may turn on getting people who have never voted or people who couldn't care less about character to vote.

What might be different now is that Hillary is living in 1999, where she thinks Former President Clinton is an asset.  For those who like him, it is likely that they already like Hillary.  Yesterday, she used him by indicating he will be THE jobs engine in the election. She believes that Bill is that because of his record in the 1990s, (remember the dot.com boom... ignore the bust), but how many of the voters looking at Bill on the stump are reminded of that?  And can her campaign accuse Trump of his ill-treatment of women with Bill on the stump,

And is Trump really Teflon?  The real questions are this: which of the two will win more of their bases, and which of the two will attract more new voters?  Romney and Obama each won a very high percentage of their party's voters, but Romney failed to bring in many new voters.  Trump is having a hard time right now with his base (and Hillary faces issues with Bernie supporters), but it is Trump that brings more new voters to the table.  This may be THE election where an intelligent VP pick actually helps with one of those two issues.

Well, enough for today. The first purple iris of the season is blooming (my Mom's favorite) and I have work to do.
Stay faithful my friends, to the ideals Americans affirm, and fight for the solutions that make them real.

Kurt

Will this election break all the rules?

As each party approaches the final, full and complete nomination of their respective candidates, the discussion turns to the general election.  You have seen the electoral maps- mostly blue and some red, and a few states still in play.  But those maps are based on history, on the way voters in past elections have voted and are expected to vote this fall.

Why do the pundits, who have missed the story this election cycle, continue to focus on the past?  What are seeing is the problem with history. We never conclude it is changing in the middle of that change.  In other words, Bernie Sanders tapped into a feeling that the media missed because the media had its blinders on. The media dismissed Trump because they considered him a fool a clown, a character, instead of a serious challenger to both the Republican status quo.  They are not capable of thinking outside of the box  because the box is all they have known and they are essentially cowards to history.  They risk being dismissed themselves as unserious journalists if they write about events that do not fit a template of the past.

But this election may be different.  Did anyone truly think that the 1856 election signaled the end of the Whig Party, and the rise of the Republican that would dominate American politics for until 1932?
Did the nomination of Reagan foretell a new ethos of limited government, of the kind of ethos that Goldwater, dismissed as a kook, espoused in 1964?

Beware of the media tropes.  They are usually behind the curve.  Trump is being told to run a traditional campaign- to follow the traditions.  To get in line.  He is not likely to do that.  He knows by now that he has been able to bring many new voters to his cause.  Despite the wide opposition to him inside the Republican Party, and 16 opponents, he has earned more votes than any previous nominee in history.  That must mean that there are either an awful lot of Republicans who weren't voting for traditional candidates before, or that he has wide cross-over appeal.

Hillary and Bill (we should join them for this election, since they will be working as a team) also kow what works.  Hillary will talk policy, gin up her base, try to look and sound presidential, and have her multitude of surrogates and PACs do her dirty work.  This is how the Clinton's have run every election they won; this is how they will run this one.

The problem for Hillary is that this may be one of those cycles where, like the media, the experts and advisers miss the changes occurring before their eyes. Why didn't any of Trumps "gaffes" in the primary doom him? Why can a candidate with historical negatives remain competitive in almost every current poll. Is it just possible that voters may indeed not care if they like the candidate, that they have grown tired of electing candidates they like that do not accomplish anything?  Is is possible that their dislike of Trump, for example, is not about policy but is about personality, and that this cycle, personality doesnt much matter because the voters have seen that personality doesn't win arguments or put more money in their paychecks?

Keep your eye on the shifting media, as they get results they do not think possible and try to explain them.  It is not racism, it is not xenophobia, it is not gender bias that motivates MOST voters. The media focus on these issues hides the single  most important issue in nearly every election (absent a major foreign policy event)., and that is the economy.  Who do the voters think more capable of improving jobs, of improving wages, of making more families better off, and which approach to they think works best? That is the issue on which the election will be fought, and it will be fought, not on a national, but on a state by state (and partially regional) level.  The candidate who wins that argument wins the election. Hillary has lost West Virginia, probably Kentucky and hurt herself in Southern Ohio due to her honest (but improvident) comments about killing coal jobs.

Pay attention and read local papers online- the NY Times, LA Times and USA Today are not the only papers that do good reporting

Kurt

on a personal note

This weekend, May 7 would have been my Mom's 95th birthday.. I got up and did the kind of work she loved, mowing, planting 500 trees and shrubs along the Missouri River. I had the wonderful experience, thanks to the kindness of a member of the campaign class, of planting several packets of California poppies in the evergreen thicket at the end of the yards as heavy thunder clashed above me in the clouds.

For those of you who wonder about those things,I  am fine, getting much done and missing my classes and my students.  Keep the faith that all things may come around again someday, but until then, read on, and continue to engage with your friends and neighbors about the important issues we all face.

Kurt

Things that we know, we know, and so on

What nearly everyone thought impossible has come true. Donald Trunp will be the Republican nominee for President.   Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are still fighting, but absent some DOJ action, she will be the Democratic nominee.

And the primary election quickly turns to the general election, which is very different than the season we are in.  The uncertainty of this season is adding anxiety to the respective campaigns.  Paul  Ryan, Speaker of the House and former VP candidate, tells us he is not yet ready to support Trump, likely because Ryan believes in certain budgetary principles that Trump has so far not adopted.  Former Presidents Bush I and II refuse to get involved. Yet, those same establishment Republicans tells Trump it is his duty to bring the party together.

What we may see this fall is a broadening, rearranging and realignment of the political table unlike any in modern history.  Trump may be able to pick up Sanders supporters, and Clinton may pick up establishment Republicans unable to support Trump. What's more, there may be millions of voters voting for the first time, or swapping party allegiances.

So, right now,  what we will see is each side using a blitz of ads to define the opposing candidate even before the convention.  Trump likely will have to shift from self-funding to the use of PACS and Hillary will excoriate him for that, despite the fact that she has collected more money from them than any candidate in history.

What will the issues be is far from certain.  But it is safe to say that events as much as issues will determine the outcome of the election. Watch as they unfold and consider how  the candidates respond to them, to unexpeccted crises and events, and if in so doing they can claim this experience is what the voters want.

What will this week tell us?

Good Sunday afternoon Class,

What will this week tell us?  With the Indiana primary Tuesday, Cruz is banking on a strong showing (meaning that he must finish ahead of Trump), in order to stave off his winning the delegates before the convention to claim the nomination.  If Trump wins Indiana, there is really almost no chance, barring a major upset in California (where Cruz is not positioned to do all that well), of anyone stopping Trump.  So, almost six weeks since our last class, so much has changed, but even more has stayed the same.

Bernie Sanders just will not go away, but the wins he does achieve do not amount to enough to win him the nomination. Hillary Clinton has shifted her rhetoric to the general election, but it remains to be seen what  will happen to the Sanders' supporters if she does. 

Behind the scenes and now in open view, the Republican party trends closer and closer to a crack up. Despite the genial rhetoric about coming together, it is hard to see how either the Trump or Cruz forces team up.  The establishment Republicans are themselves divided, uncertain whether a Trump win over  Clinton would, in the long run, be good for them or the party. 

A little history matters, and we can reflect on the 1968 Democratic convention and the 1976 Republican convention to see what might happen to each party, not so much in the short term, but long term.

In 1968, of course, LBJ left the race open to any number of nominees. The assassination of RFK made the choice even  more problematic.  We should remember that in many respects, with the exception of the Vietnam problem, LBJ and HHH were still popular among the establishment. Their challengers were from outside the inner circle.  In the end, the party crashed at Chicago and only when HHH rejected his own role in the  Vietnam policy did the party come together behind him.

In 1976, Reagan was the outsider, challenging Pres Ford, another insider for the nomination. He lost in a bitter struggle, and was considered anathema by many ,blamed for Ford's loss. But in a short four years after each of these fights, the parties had changed dramatically, and had to a large degree adopted the views and reforms of the outsiders.  (With dramatically different results).

One might argue that in the nature of most change, it happens slowly, especially when the forces of change face entrenched power.  This year, will Sanders get what he wants (once he decides what that is)? Will Trump become of besmirch the establishment? Is Cruz conservatism the future of the Rep party or but the ethers of a dying past? 

While this election is important in its own right, one wonders if the most significant effect might not be yet visible on the horizon.  This is one of the values of looking at history from a longer term viewpoint.   Keep your eye on not only the returns, but on how the losers take their respective defeats.

Kurt

The end...

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But is is, perhaps, the end of the end of the beginning." Winston Churchill, to the House of Commons, after a series of defeats in Europe and the Pacific, finally announcing the defeat of Rommel's army in Egypt.

The candidates may be feeling something like this.  As of this morning, almost everyone has concluded that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be the respective nominees.  The voters have not yet decided that, and they still get to decide the party nominee.

A larger question posed to both parties has risen up.  What is the purpose of the primaries, that is, do the voters get to decide (purely popular elections) or do the parties and their many moving  parts, get to decide?  Trump has called out the party rules as corrupt (despite the fact that he is winning proportionately more delegates than actual votes), and many on the Democratic side have wondered about the superdelegates. In addition, each state has different rules, which makes the entire process seem oddly out of pace with the electorate.

The history shows us that parties are voluntary organizations, to  which people belong, and that each organization has the right to establish its own rules.The primary voters are not necessarily even party members, Crossover voters in open primaries permit individual voters, who may or may not even consider themselves party members to vote.

Look at two of the candidates.  Donald Trump declares himself a Republican and leads the race, despite his very checkered past supporting Democrats and opposing Republicans.  Bernie Sanders was not elected to the US Senate as a Democrat. But there is no test in either party rules that prohibits any person from declaring themselves to be and then transforming into that which is.

The parties have created this system because so many voters reject party affiliation.  And it's those voters, the independents, the  first time voters, the people who reject party labels, that the parties need to win elections.

One might ask which candidate is best positioned to win those voters this fall? It is likely that both bases of both parties will be ginned up and ready to fight; but is there a candidate that can attract independent and unaligned voters to their cause?  To their side?

This week's primaries will not give any candidate the majority they need to win, but they will push us closer to the end of the beginning. But fear not, this campaign is nowhere near a conclusion, and there is much more to come.

As we await the results of the NY primary, the media is still searching for a lasting narrative. This week, I have heard the following:
1. Bernie is gaining nationally, and if he comes within single digits, NY will be a huge win.
2. Bernie cannot win the general election, although he polls higher regarding voter trust than any candidate in the field.
3. When was the last time Trump said something offensive;  that is proof that his campaign is changing.
4. Cruz has no chance in NY, but in a week, he looks to win most of the midwestern and western primaries.
5. What is Kasich still doing in the race; Kasich in the race keeps both Trump and Cruz from winning.
6. Reince Priebus should resign.
7. Debbbie Wasserrman-Schultz should resign,

The campaign no one expected still surprises, and it looks like at least one, and perhaps  both campaigns might go to their respective conventions undecided. That would be unprecedented in modern history.   At that point, the party leaders, with various motives, both laudatory and reprehensible, might try to turn the conventions their way.

If Trump wins NY big, (count actual delegates won, not percentages), it will make it very hard for the leaders to fight his candidacy. If he gets close to the magic number, you will see party leaders grow quiet, content to hold their nose and save their own seats.

If the Clinton-Sanders fight continues, the party will be  much tougher to unite after it picks a nominee.  Make no mistake, the divide between Clinton supporters and the ardent supporters of Sanders have two very different visions for America. And the divide between McConnell Republicans and Trump-adherents is as wide (at least on its face) as the Grand Canyon.

California looms large- consider the ability of any candidate to bring in truly new voters and if their enthusiasm is either lasting or contagious.

This is quite a lot of fun, don't you think?

The campaign becomes harsher.

Hello from Nebraska.

Last night's Democratic debate showed that it is  just the Republicans feeling the pressure to do well in next week's New York primary. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders fought over Wall Street, tax return, Wall Street speeches, foreign policy and everything in between.  The polls are all over the place: Nationally they are tied. In New York, Clinton still appears to be up by low double digits. In the expectation game, if Sanders keeps it close, or wins, the campaign will go on. New York is not a game changer, no matter what the pundits say.  Even if Sanders wins, (that would be a big blow to her campaign going forward only if the superdelegates become less confident), the odds are high that Hillary will be the nominee.

But the debate is changing. Hillary had resisted supporting a $15 national minimum wage, changed her position last night.  The Democratic candidates now are on record of supporting a very high minimum wage.  That cannot be undone in the general election. In that regard, Sanders' campaign is defining the debate. On the other hand, Hillary appears the most competent candidate when talking about foreign affairs. But even there, Sanders has made his argument: do as I say, not as I did calls into question her judgment on Iraq and Libya.

Trump is riding a wave of New York home court advantage, but in this week's primary, it is how well Kasich and not Cruz does.  If Kasich can move closer to Trump, possibly holding him under 50%, then even without a win, he slowly transforms himself into the loser that the Republican party might actually turn to in a convention contest,

Cruz is looking ahead to other primaries, including California. I think that it will be California that determines the most important question in this primary season:  (no not who is the ultimate candidate), but instead, which direction will the two major parties head  A Cruz win in California will push the Republicans farther to the right, and a Sanders win  will push the Democrats to the left.

Watch for the issues that matter in California, Immigration,  taxes, social policy, character. What will matter to the California voters?  We all know that the issues across the nation play different in each state, with each state's voters deciding what matters to them.  In that respect what we are seeing in this primary season is that while the election for president is national, we are really seeing 50 plus separate elections, local elections, play out.

This is going to remain very, very interesting.

Another week, another Sanders win in Wyoming.  With that win, Sanders has won 8/9 of the last contests.  Yet in Wyoming, each candidate earned an equal number of delegates. In both parties, there is a growing feeling that the party system is ( or is being) rigged. The Democratic super delegates protect the establishment choice, and on the Republican side, Cruz has found a way to pick off a few delegates regardless of the primary results. And the likelihood of a contested convention in Cleveland  grows with each closer primary or Cruz victory.

New York looks like a big Trump win- if he does well he could take all the delegates. But if Kasich or Cruz do well ( or cut into Ttump's support to keep him below 50 %), then all bets are off.

Hillary should excel also. It's her adopted home, she served as its Senstor. But Bernie is drawing big crowds and the polls have narrowed.

Both side are playing this primary relatively safe. Not as much vitriol, but this week may change things.  Trump is realizing that politics is not business, and is ramping up staff to get organized for the primaries ahead and for a convention fight. As long as Bernie wins and stays competitive, and continues to outraise Hillary, he will be in the race.  And as this story unfolds, California looms very key. As we know, anything can happen in California and this season, Californians so long irrelevant in our recent national primaries, may finally play a major, even determinative role.

New York, New York.

Now that the damage to the Clinton and Trump campaigns has been done by the voters of Wisconsin, the new fight is in New York  Both of the frontrunners (in the sense now not of momentum, but of actually won delegates) should be at significant advantages. Hillary served as the state's senator and makes her home (and the home of her private server there) and Donald has built his buildings and his reputation (as a brash and braggart from the Bronx) in New York.

Cruz has traveled there, yesterday, to double down on his New York values comments.  The question is whether there are any conservative Republicans who are as conservative as Cruz, enough to accept that most of NY Republicans are more like Trump than Cruz. 

On the Dem side, however, something appears to be happening.  While Hillary is still a big favorite, it  is Sanders, once again, who gins up the support.  He is drawing huge crowds, and they are very enthusiastic.  He out fundraised Clinton by $15 million in March, and has won 7 out of the last 8 primary/caucus contests.  He has the big MO, and this might not be as much a coronation as a last, best chance to stop the Sanders rush. 

If Clinton loses NY, she is in serious trouble.
If Trump wins NY, not much else changes.

In a larger context, the problems both parties are facing come at their conventions.  The  battles between candidates and supporters are becoming much more divisive, sharp and wounding.  Who believes that if Trump loses at the convention, many of his supporters will vote for Ted Cruz, or John Kasich. Trump is nothing if not a poor loser and he is not likely to work to unify the party so he can, like Reagan in 1976, get his chance 4 years later.  Trump might toy with running again if he loses, but I doubt he has the stomach for that.

On the Dem side, Hillary and Sanders, who played nice for so long, are now calling each other Unqualified to be President.  That's like saying.. well, you're unqualified to be President.  You cannot support someone not qualified.  So,, the bridge between those camps is if not on fire, certainly soaked in gas.  The longer this goes on, the tougher it becomes.

And the parties are, can we be honest now, not very courageous.  They both might just accept the worst possible outcome and hope to squeak by with very flawed candidates to win, despite the likelihood that this election would be a divisive, angry, scurrilous mess. 

So, what happens now? 
The FBI investigation and interview of Hillary and her aides looms.  Trumps fraud trial over Trump University appears to be set for later summer.  And John Kasich thinks that a contested convention will be his chance for the delegates to come to their senses and pick him as their candidate, despite the fact that he has proven to be the least successful potential nominee among the three remaining. No wonder Paul Ryan wants none of this.

Read up, find more news, explore the unconventional, and see what might be happening in the states after New York, including California, which, finally, might actually have a significant role in this primary season after all.

Kurt

The Campaign Continues, liike a bad penny.

And you thought getting rid of me would be easy.

Actually, I just cannot get enough of this crazy campaign.  The events  appear to be colliding. Trump finally stepped in something that he can wipe off with  his comments about punishing a woman in the event abortion became illegal.  Now, it wasn't his answer that was so bad (although it was pretty uninformed), but he went to  Hardball Chris Matthews, a notoriously partisan commentator and let himself get caught up in an entirely unrealistic question.  That, coming after the charge against his campaign manager (by a very democratic prosecutor for grabbing a reporter) did not help.

Republicans began to face the music. Either it will be Trump, and his likely damage to the down ballot (loss of Senate, fight to control the House), or Ted Cruz, the Senator the Senate loves to hate.

And Kasich stays in specifically to get to the convention that he believes will decide that it will be he that he confused and angry electorate turns to.

On the Democratic side, Sanders just keeps winning primaries and caucuses, but cannot keep up with the superdelegates that Hillary has pocketed. Hillary wanted few debates, then more, now none.  The story just keeps getting better and better.

The problem for both leading candidates is this: Among Republicans, over 30% have said they will never vote for Trump if he is the nominee.  And among Sanders supporters, nearly 1 in 4 have taken the same position. This poses a major dilemma for each party. The issue will not simply be who can win, but who can unify the divisions in their own party.  Neither leading candidate offers much encouragement there.

One more thing this week as to the single-issue voters and the flashpoint of abortion/right to choose *depending on your take.  We know that today, under Roe v Wade and its legal progeny, the government cannot restrict a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester, and can do so in the second and third trimester if the state's interest in protecting the unborn fetus (or some other interest such as the current popular state approach being used-- protecting the woman's health by insuring that clinics are aligned with hospitals). But the issue that should be put to every candidate, the issue that the Supreme Court in Roe (years later) admittedly shut down public debate over is this:
At what point does the government have the right to deny a woman the option of abortion to protect the life of the child? (Roe recognized this, but never answered it.) Since the test adopted by the Court balanced those separate interests, what are the issues that weigh on that scale?

And would advances in medical technology, such as those that make the survival rate of babies born more prematurely than were available in 1973 when Roe was decided, play a role in that balancing test?  In other words, if you believe in a living  Constitution, one that adapts with the new social mores and technology, wouldn't you have to accept that when medical technology makes the survival of more prematurely born babies likely, that the state interest in regulating abortions take effect much earlier than the Court test in Roe permitted? 

Food for thought and your comments, as always with due respect for the views of each other, are welcomed.

From windy, sunny, and soon to be wet Nebraska, thank you for your attention.

Kurt

Why I wrote “Coining Corruption: The Making of the American Campaign Finance System?”

    I began writing Coining Corruption: The Making of the American Campaign Finance System in graduate school at the University of Virginia. Always concerned about American politics and the system, I came to the conclusion that money played an important, even instrumental role in getting the political message to voters. Money in politics is necessary for open deliberation, to enthuse voters, to win support for political views and positions. Yet, watching the congressional debates over BCRA, I came to the conclusion that neither the proponents nor opponents of campaign finance reform had a clear understanding of what kind of corruption they intended to attack. My book explores the history of the campaign finance system, and particularly how legislators, courts, parties and political activists defined, "coined" so to speak, the nature of political corruption from the beginnings of the modern system in 1876 to the present day.

    I intend to use this blog to engage readers, critics, reform proponents and opponents, and others interested in the conclusions that I have drawn from my research and writing. Democratic deliberation and debate, to be effective, demands that we engage different ideas on the open field of battle, that we share our views, and patiently listen and learn from others with whom we may differ. So, with the publication of Coining Corruption, let the debate, disagreement, and discussion begin. I can't wait.