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OWS is losing public support, [correction: polling numbers ungarbled 16/XI] to 33 for-45 opposed from 35F-36O a month ago. The project is suffering from a variety of problems mostly related to the lack of focus and leadership that appeared to its adherents as a virtue when it began. This doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have happened, [...]
Archive for the ‘Politics and Leadership’ Category
November 16th, 2011
November 9th, 2011
In the wake of the good political news last night, especially from Ohio, let us pause and consider these questions from Charlie Pierce over at Esquire (penned before the results were in). Because at the end of the day, they are the ones that matter. And if we can’t answer them, then anything that happened yesterday [...]
November 7th, 2011
I read Charles Clotfelter’s very thoughtful, data-rich, book about college sports (mostly football, of course) this weekend. It has a whole chapter reflecting on the extraordinary manifestations of fan loyalty to this or that team, including lifetime allegiance beginning not just as an undergrad but at birth and imbued by family, and some confusion between [...]
November 6th, 2011
Category: Politics and Leadership
Steven Benen at our sister site Washington Monthly, picks up Paul Krugman‘s question about why conservative politicians are not damaged by scandals that would destroy liberal pols. Virtually all of comments on Benen’s post seem to accept the premise of teflon-plated conservatives. We can all think of a David Vitter or two to support that [...]
November 2nd, 2011
Category: Politics and Leadership
How to engage OWS Protesters in practical politics: They should help people register to vote.
October 28th, 2011
As is well known, the California legislature is slashing state support for higher education, forcing us to raise tuition again and again. One response at Cal has been a consulting project from Bain and Co., called Operational Excellence (perhaps because the words quality and excellence hardly occur in any of their product, which is about [...]
October 27th, 2011
Matthew Yglesias offers some gracious words about my review of Paul Starr’s book on health care reform. But he professes “worry that Pollack’s take on this falls into the progressive reformer trap of underplaying the centrality of tax policy disagreements to current American politics.”
October 26th, 2011
Let’s put it plainly. The demands of Occupy Wall Street are both valid and popular. The people occupying Wall Street are total flakes. The second fact in no way discredits the first. The people in Zuccotti Park aren’t the best people to carry forth their message—but they don’t need to be. They’ve already catalyzed others to do the job.
September 25th, 2011
Category: Britain, Politics and Leadership
Graeme Archer escapes the Westminster bubble and is surprised to observe the level of contempt among the Liberal Democratic base for its party leaders. As they watched the party conference on television: I eventually put a name to the murmuring that greeted Nick Clegg’s every reappearance: it’s the sound you get when you mix the [...]
