Internet Commentator

Or maybe not..

Thinking again about the notion, mentioned below, that a Kerry victory would be seen as a vote "for" bigger government, it occurs to me that an opposite conclusion may also be drawn, and further that the opposite conclusion may be more tenable. The thinking behind the first notion is that, for all the drunken sailor spending indulged by Bush, there remains a resilient impression abroad that he is ideologically opposed to big government. The perception of Bush is that he is "right wing" and the unexamined assumption is that his "right wing-ness" includes a commitment to scale back spending. Thus, Kerry campaigns against "tax cuts for the rich" and for expanding Medicare. If he wins, the argument goes, he receives a mandate for bigger government.

However, the counter-argument, on further examination, is more plausible. This suggests that Bush, while retaining his (bogus) small government credentials, would have significantly more room to expand government further, and would have the benefit of a undivided government. Kerry, on the other hand, will be pressured to tack to the centre. His perception as a tax-and-spend-"liberal" would make it impossible for him to slip "under the radar" the type of massive increases in government enacted by his opponent.

One Reason to vote for Bush

Virginia Postrel identifies three questions which form the "Referendum on Bush" she suggests the election has become. Question three raises the worry that one effect of Kerry's election will be to validate a "soak the rich" tax policy:

3) Is Bush too friendly to corporations and rich people? Contrary to what you might think from reading some libertarian-leaning bloggers, John Kerry is not running against George Bush's extravagant new Medicare entitlement or his expansive domestic spending. He is running against "tax cuts for the rich" and prescription drugs without price controls. Voting for "Not Bush" means voting for "not enough domestic spending" and "not enough taxes on the rich

Small government advocates are right to favour the gridlock which would accompany a Kerry presidency but shouldn't ignore the economic populism of the Kerry Edwards campaign. A simpler lower tax code is vital for a liberal dynamic economy and a small government. Higher progressive taxes aimed at the "rich" - which will end up meaning people significantly less wealthy than both candidates - cut right against this. I would also note that a victory for Kerry, given the free run he has granted his protectionist running mate on trade, will be seen as a vote "against" free trade. It remains to be seen whether Republican control of the other branches of government will act as a sufficient restraint on such economically incompetent populism.

Not so Schmibertarian this time

Ok, like the last time, it's another case of a "Liberal*" telling Libertarians what they should do. But, Matthew Yglesias displays significantly more intellectual honesty than the wonky twigs in setting out the reasons why Libertarians ought to vote for the Libertarian candidate, crackpot though he is:

Under the circumstances, it's no wonder the GOP feels free to take the libertarian vote for granted -- it doesn't appear to exist. This may be because libertarians are, in fact, only a miniscule proportion of the population who just happen to be disproportionately represented in the Beltway policy community and the academy. Alternatively, it may be because the libertarian love of the cynical, anti-political pose prevents them from engaging in any sort of constructive political action. I continue to think that the best way for libertarians to advance the small-government cause over the long haul would be to try and convince the GOP leadership that the "miniscule proportion" theory is wrong by voting for Michael Badnarik

Of course, any Libertarian - and it looks like Yglesias has convinced Will Wilkinson - tempted to follow this recommendation ought to be satisfied that a Kerry victory would not be significantly worse, from a limited government point of view, than Bush's reelection. This shouldn't be too hard to do.

* Contemporary oxymoronic usage, naturally.

Even more reasons to vote for Kerry

Great post by Stuart Benjamin on why "limited government types" ought to favour Kerry's election. Firstly on Bush's small government credentials:

A few [..] commentators have listed Bush's tax cuts as the one bright spot for libertarians/conservatives/limited-government types, but tax cuts without spending cuts (or, as it turns out, with massive spending increases) aren't small government - they're big government combined with borrowing.

Secondly, on how Kerry's election could improve things given that his political philosophy wouldn't appear to favour limited government:

A President Kerry is going to be dealing with a hostile Congress - and Tom Delay is not going to roll over. In other words, we are likely to get the same sort of gridlock that we had from 1995 to 2000, with no significant new spending and no significant new tax cuts - greater fiscal sanity and a smaller government

And lastly about the long term benefits for advocates of limited government which would follow from a Bush defeat:

If limited-government types vote for Bush and he is reelected, then the obvious conclusion for any savvy political strategist is that Republicans can take these voters for granted and thus ignore their interests

Constraints

I noted before that I was neutral between Bush and Kerry, I am profoundly underenthused by the election of either candidate but I don't concur with the alarmists who, displaying a curious confluence of opinion with hard left fantasists, imagine that a President Kerry would pursue a peace-nik, appeasement policy towards terrorism. Andrew Sullivan puts pretty well the line of thinking to which I have been leaning recently:

One reason to vote for Kerry this time is that, whatever his record, he will, as president, be forced by reality and by public opinion to be tough in this war. He has no other option. [...] Moreover, he would remove from the Europeans and others the Bush alibi for their relative absence in the war on terror.

Under the radar

Andrew Sullivan just doesn't get it:

I keep getting emails asserting that Kerry's mentioning of Mary Cheney is somehow offensive or gratuitous or a "low blow". Huh? Mary Cheney is out of the closet and a member, with her partner, of the vice-president's family. That's a public fact. No one's privacy is being invaded by mentioning this. When Kerry cites Bush's wife or daughters, no one says it's a "low blow." The double standards are entirely a function of people's lingering prejudice against gay people.

This misses the point about what precisely is objectionable in this case, and particularly in the case of John Edwards smarmily "congratulating" Dick Cheney on his daughter. By mentioning Mary Cheney, Kerry and Edwards obviously hope to point up the hypocrisy of the current administration's attitude towards gay marriage. But, this isn't the objectionable part. The "low blow" is so low it falls under Sullivan' radar (although he might have picked up on it had he more assiduously read Mickey Kaus) which is that the purpose of constant references to Cheney's lesbian daughter is to appeal to socially conservative homophobes to abandon Bush and Cheney.

More reasons to vote for Kerry

I haven't blogged much about the US election recently because I find myself curiously neutral between the two candidates. I really don't like Kerry at all and, during the Democrat primaries, found Mickey Kaus's analysis of his character faults persuasive. Yet although I reject the hysteria which surrounds those opposed to Bush I find it hard to muster up any enthusiasm for the president's brand of socially conservative, fiscally 'liberal'* Big Government masquerading as small government. Kaus himself, despite his Kerry-phobia, now endorses the Boston Brahmin. Abiola has previously made the very good case that the divided government and gridlock which would result from a Kerry victory would be a boon to any small government advocate. An interesting discussion in the comments to R.C. Dean's post at Samizdata offers two more good reasons to favour Kerry. Perry de Havilland suggests that a Bush defeat could precipitate a purge of the Big Government elements of the Republican party while Richard Easbey identifies the prophylactic effect that a Kerry victory would have on any nascent Hillary Clinton presidential campaign!

[* 'liberal' in the contemporary oxymoronic usage]

Nicely put II

Dick does a nice job of parlaying Michael McDowell (on the Mitchell brothers) in describing a putative Kerry White House:

Is it a case of the lesser of two evils replacing the evil of two lessers?

Comparative Advantage and Partisanship

William Sjostrom catches out that typically eloquent advocate for Free trade, Brad De Long, in his partisanship: deliberately ignoring John Edwards' passionate (and economically illiterate) denunciations of free trade.

Bush, Kerry, Partisanship and Intrinsicism

Who to believe on the debate last night? Peter thinks Bush won it. Abiola finds it hard to locate non-partisan assessments but is adamant that Kerry won it. Brad De Long declares that "Kerry is presidential; Bush isn't" and posts a list of polls which seem to support his conclusion. I didn't actually watch the debate but it seems to me that all of the above display an intrinsicist assumption: That the debate itself has intrinsic value and that winning the debate is some kind of end in itself. Yet, from the point of view of each candidate, the purpose of the debate is to seek votes, so that they can win the presidential election. It doesn't really matter, even if there is some widespread consensus that candidate A 'won the debate', if that candidates likelihood of election is not improved after that debate. A hollow 'victory' indeed. It takes an economist to deliver that elusive objective assessment: Tyler Cowen, by comparing trading futures for a Bush victory before and after the debate, declares that Bush won. It seems the smart money is still betting on a Bush victory and no less robustly than before.