Federal Government Policy Issues

Discussion and information on selected policy issues concerning tax, foreign relations, energy and other significant policies. The intent is to provide data and analysis that will assist in determining the appropriateness of the policy. Any posts containing rants, personal attacks on officials or other posters or which do not concisely present a point of information will not be published.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

 

National Politics

Comments on national elections, candidates and election results.

Comments:
John McCain and mid-term elections

John McCain and Rudy Giulani were both very quick to announce their candidacy for President in the 2008 elections following the defeat of the Republicans in the mid-term election. Senator McCain ran for president in 2000 but did not have the support of the Republican Party at that time. I expect that both the Republican Party and the moderate Republican candidates, the later who do not have the solid support from the christian right that Mr. Bush has, wanted to see if a moderate candidate was electeable and the mid-terms indicated that a moderate candidate is electable.
 
Rumsfeld Resignation Timing

President Bush announced the resignation and replacement of Donald Rumsfeld the day after the mid-term elections. The president was obviously planning Rumsfeld's replacement prio to the mid-terms and both he and Karl Rove would have known that announcing the replacement prior to the election would have resulted in the Republicans doing much better in the mid-terms. Most likely, the announcement of Rumsfeld's replacement prior to the election would have resulted in the Republicans keeping the Senate.

So, why did the president wait until after the mid-terms to announce Rumsfeld's replacement? Let's consider what the landscape will look like in 2 years at the time of the next presidential election and consider the fact that the Executive Branch, i.e. the presidency, is arguably the most important and powerful of the 3 branches. In 2 years, the US will either have left Iraq in defeat or still be embroiled in Iraq with little prospect of success, the economy will probably have slowed as is indicated by current GDP projections and as a result of the business cycle, US National debt will have grown significantly and, even with a Republican Congress, no changes will have been made to immigration, tax or health policy. If the Republicans had kept the Senate, in 2 years time they would have been open to charges of having failed on all of the significant issues, had no one else to blame and would have faced the voters' anger in the presidential election. Now that the Democrats have taken Congress, in 2 years time they will share the voters' anger and possibly, if the Republicans handle it correctly, will be blamed for the failure to pass legislation addressing the major issues and for Iraq.

If I was Karl Rove, I would have wanted the Democrats to win Congress in the mid-term elections in order to better position the Republicans for the 2008 elections and would have delayed Rumsfeld's resignation until after the mid-terms to help the Democrats take Congress.
 
Libby Sentence Commutation

Libby was not charged with breaking the law but for perjury.
It is clear that the justification for commuting Libby's sentence - a pardon will probably follow in late 2008 - is that Libby was almost certainly following the orders of and protecting the Vice President.

It is a shame that so much money was spent on the special prosection's investigation and the resulting Libby trial only to have the results ignored.
 
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