Elizabeth Warren Caught in Affirmative Action Game

Cambridge is a city of 105,162 diverse people. On the last census 244 residents reported as American Indian and Alaska Native. One of those Native Americans was outed by Hillary Chabot at the Boston Herald last Friday when she reported that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren had been touted as a minority in the hiring statistics at Harvard Law School.

And why would that be controversial? It raises all sorts of questions. Was she an affirmative action hire who might have been less qualified than other candidates? Was she lying or exaggerating on her resume? Did Harvard hire a white woman who they could count as minority to help make the statistics look better? Did Harvard use her as a shield against criticism of its hiring policies? Where does the politically correct story end and the real Elizabeth Warren begin?

We can expect that Elizabeth Warren is working now on putting together the story of the heritage of her maternal grandparents having Cherokee and Delaware blood, while the Monday morning discounters of family lore say they've researched back to her great-grandparents without finding anything but lily-white blood. I guess that leaves her as a sort of affirmative action half-breed, accepted neither by the tribe nor by whites:



Christopher Child, a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, puts Warren in good company:

"Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama claim to have Native American heritage, but we were never able to find evidence of that, and in both cases we traced their ancestry fairly thoroughly."

Why would high-ranking Democrats make such claims? Among the American left, minority heritage confers an aristotratic status, and there is no higher status than Native American. As the original inhabitants of the continent they have the prior claim to dispossession, trumping even enslavement of African-Americans. Never mind that Southern tribes, like Elizabeth Warren's Cherokee, came to own slaves.

For example, when affirmative action quota queen Lani Guinier (Jewish-African-American) was granted tenure at Harvard Law School in 1998, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper was quick to snark that Elizabeth Warren had been the first woman with a minority background to be so tenured.

Update: The Herald reports that the Warren campaign has dug up an ancestor, Elizabeth's great-great-great-grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith, who was listed as Cherokee on her marriage certificate. That makes Elizabeth at best 1/32 Cherokee. Margery Eagan counts coup:

"I just can’t shake the ridiculous image of you, Liz — a blue-eyed blonde almost as pasty white as me — letting yourself be described as a minority professor, a Native American, for years."

Intrade Predicts a 62% Chance of Continued Divided Government

The question about divided government, as we go into the 2012 election, is simply this: What is wrong with the status quo? If you like divided government, where neither political party can advance legislation without support from the other and have to either work together or do without, these are the best of times.

The Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives. The Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, but not the 60 vote supermajority needed to advance non-budget measures without some Republican acquiescence. President Obama stands by with his pen, ready to either sign or veto.

Barack Obama has had to exercise his veto only twice, December 30, 2009 and October 7, 2010, during the Pelosi-Reid Congress. That Congress was a nightmare for divided government fans, as the Democrats had the Presidency, majorities in both House and Senate, and, for a brief while, 60 filibuster-proof votes in the Senate.

Even George W. Bush did not have that. Following his reelection in 2004, he had only 55 Republican votes in the Senate. Bill Clinton had 57 Senate votes after his 1992 election. Jimmy Carter had 61 Senate seats after his 1976 election, but that dropped to 58 after the 1978 election. And in those days, as in the 1960s, there were enough conservative Southern Democrats in the Senate to stop their liberal colleagues if they could get Republican support for that.

The filibuster-proof advantage Democrats held for about 200 days from July 2009 when Al Franken’s Senate election was confirmed by the Minnesota Supreme Court until January 2010 when Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts was really unprecedented in the post-Word-War II period. Let’s hope we don’t see that again anytime soon.

So what are the chances of getting a continuation of the status quo? If you go over to the Intrade website, they’ll quote you odds.

Odds	President	Senate	House
27.00%	Obama	Democratic	Republican
23.00%	Romney	Republican	Republican
17.50%	Obama	Republican	Republican
15.00%	Obama	Democratic	Democratic
8.90%	Romney	Democratic	Republican
7.90%	Obama	Republican	Democratic
3.90%	Romney	Republican	Democratic
2.70%	Romney	Democratic	Democratic
1.50%	Other?	Other?	Other?

The odds of a Republican sweep are 23% and a Democratic sweep only 15%. That leaves a 62% chance of divided government. The most likely of nine scenarios would see Obama retain the White House, Democrats retain the Senate, and Republicans retain the House - the odds of that are quoted at 27%.

How good are these predictions? Intrade claims they are pretty good, but there has to be at least 7.4% fluff because the odds of all outcomes add up to 107.4%. And as they say, if you are willing to play for a long shot, anything could still happen.

Let's list a few potential game changers:

• Peace between Israel and a new Palestinian State
• War between Israel and Iran
• Joe Biden dumped in favor of Hillary Clinton for VP
• Supreme Court decisions on Obamacare and Arizona's illegal alien law
• A return of Occupy Wall Street encampments or street protests
• Race riots following a George Zimmerman acquittal or plea bargain
• Major changes to unemployment rates or gas prices
• European financial crisis
• Terrorist attack on the U.S.
• Major disaster, such as hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami

It does seem, however, that independent voters here in Massachusetts who do not want to put their trust fully in one party or the other have several voting strategies:

(1) Vote Republican in House races where the Republican Party fields a credible candidate, as a return of Nancy Pelosi to the House Speakership can't be risked.

(2) Vote for Scott Brown against the ultra-partisan Democrat Elizabeth Warren who has shown no aptitude for compromise or bipartisanship and very little for constituent service.

(3) Vote for Barack Obama if it appears Republicans will hold the House and take the Senate unless Mitt Romney convinces that he can down the crazy right-wing of his party.

(4) Vote for Mitt Romney if it appears Democrats will hold the Senate and retake the House unless Barack Obama can convince he can lead rather than be dictated to by his crazy left-wing.

Independents who favor national health care reform face a tough choice, especially if parts of Obamacare are declared unconstitutional. Do you vote for Mitt Romney, who might be able to salvage something out of the mess Congress made in 2010? Or do you vote for Barack Obama, who doesn't seem to have any policy yet on what to do next, other than to hold the line on Obamacare?

Independents who favor a balance of spending cuts and tax increases to bring the runaway deficits under control also face a tough choice. Will Democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, even though they have had two previous occasions to do that and blinked? Will Republicans, assuming they retain at least one House, agree to any tax increases if Barack Obama is reelected? Or do we need Mitt Romney to broker the grand bargain on spending and taxes that Barack Obama has so far been unable to get?

Finally, who has got the best jobs plan? That's the big issue and both sides have a lot to prove.

How a Rising Tide May Sink Barack Obama

Today, April 25, 2012 could just as easily have been April 25, 2007, at least as far as the U.S. stock market is concerned. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 13,090.72 today, five years ago it closed at 13,089.89. That's an annualized return of 0.001268%, or zero if you prefer to deal in round numbers.

Of course, zero sounds boring and the last five years in the stock market have been anything but that. It's not a pretty picture:

The picture is even more dramatic when you look back at the last ten years:

Or the last forty years:

The problem for the Democrats is twofold. The first is that they want to talk about much better things are now, even though unemployment remains high, but that only works if they start telling the story at the bottom in March 2009. In many people's minds the story starts at the top, in 2007, when the Pelosi-Reid Congress took office on a promise of bringing home troops and getting budget deficits under control, it's hard to make the Democratic Party the hero of that story.

The second problem is deeper. A fundamental tenet of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Democratic Party for the last six years has been that Americans would be happier with a little less overall if what we have was more evenly distributed. From curbing climate change to health care to wage levels to regulation to the Occupy movement, that tenet underlies everything the Democratic Party has come to stand for under the Pelosi-Reid-Obama leadership. An appeal to equality always resonates in the American mind, but now America has had five years to find out for itself that less is not more, that less does not ennoble the spirit, that less does not make America a better, fairer place.

I will say for myself that I believe the Bush administration bungled the Iraq war, bungled the evacuation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, ran up way too much debt, and bungled their oversight responsibility in the lead up to the September 2008 financial system collapse. I looked at the fall 2008 losses in my 401(k) account, and took a solemn oath I wouldn't vote for another reckless Republican until I got that money back. But the Pelosi-Reid Congress shares that responsibility too.

If Barack Obama's Presidency remains anchored to Pelosi-Reid, a rising tide will swamp his boat. And, if the Dow crosses the 14,000 mark this summer or fall, I will be released from my vow.

Romney Runs the Score up the Eastern Seaboard

Mitt Romney has begun to run up the score with big wins on Tuesday, April 24 in states that could have voted to rebuke him if there were any real resistance to his becoming the Republican nominee.

Candidate	Delaware	Pennsylvania	New York	Connecticut	Rhode Island
Mitt Romney	56%	58%	63%	67%	63%
Rick Santorum	6%	18%	9%	7%	6%
Newt Gingrich	27%	10%	13%	10%	6%
Ron Paul	11%	13%	15%	13%	24%

Romney is closing in on the 1144 delegates to make it official, but looking at the primary schedule that will still take until at least May 22. The scoreboard:

# of delegates secured so far	NYT	WSJ	CNN	CBS	MSNBC	RCP
Mitt Romney	844	844	841	846	852	838
Rick Santorum	260	260	273	245	260	267
Newt Gingrich	137	137	141	129	138	141
Ron Paul	79	79	76	52	79	88
Jon Huntsman	1	1	0	2	0	0
Total	1321	1321	1331	1274	1329	1334
% of delegates secured so far
Mitt Romney	64%	64%	63%	66%	64%	63%
Rick Santorum	20%	20%	21%	19%	20%	20%
Newt Gingrich	10%	10%	11%	10%	10%	11%
Ron Paul	6%	6%	6%	4%	6%	7%
% of remaining needed to clinch:
Mitt Romney	31%	31%	32%	29%	31%	32%
Rick Santorum	92%	92%	91%	89%	92%	92%
Newt Gingrich	104%	104%	105%	100%	105%	105%
Ron Paul	110%	110%	112%	108%	111%	111%

Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still in the race but have now been mathematically eliminated on all scorecards. Their only theoretical path to victory is to win over Santorum delegates and prevent Romney from getting to 1144.

The delegate count for Santorum has actually fallen since he suspended his campaign two weeks ago. That's because while Rick Santorum appeared to win the Minnesota caucuses back on February 7, Ron Paul did a better job of lining up his people behind the scenes to get selected as delegates.

And the Acton Captain Said, "I Haven't a Man That's Afraid to Go"

From a historical marker at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts:

On the morning of April Nineteenth, 1775, while the British held this bridge, the Minute-Men and militia of Concord and neighboring towns gathered on the hill across the river. There the Concord adjutant, Joseph Hosner, demanded, 'Will you let them burn the town down?' There the Lincoln Captain, William Smith, offered to dislodge the British. The Acton Captain, Isaac Davis, said, 'I haven't a man that's afraid to go!' and the Concord Colonel, James Barrett, ordered the attack on the regulars. "The column was led by Major John Buttrick, marching from his own farm. His aide was Lt. Colonel John Robinson of Westford. The Minute-Men of Acton, Concord, Lincoln and Bedford followed. After them came the militia. At the British volley Isaac Davis fell. Buttrick cried, 'Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God's sake fire!' and himself fired first. The British fled; and here began the separation of two kindred nations, now happily long united in peace.

I first read this marker 10 years ago, in a visit to Concord in the spring of 2012 following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. That question, "Will you let them burn the town down?" seemed particularly pointed that spring.

The response attributed to the Acton Captain, Isaac Davis, really hit home. "I haven't a man that's afraid to go?" I imagine they were all afraid to go, and Isaac Davis no less than any of them, but they charged down that hill anyway.

It reminded me then and still reminds me of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who huddled at the back of the hijacked plane and held their own council of war. And passenger Todd Beamer's final words:

"Are you guys ready? Let's roll!"

It also reminds me of the famous words of Colonel George Taylor to his men pinned down behind an Omaha Beach seawall on D-Day:

"There are two kinds of people who are staying on this beach: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here."

Of course, the only way out was over the seawall and through the enemy fire. When it really comes down to it, that is often the only way forward.

Crack in the 99% Reveals Occupy is Weak Tea

Nicholas Lemann, writing for The New Yorker,

Because groups with wildly different perspectives dominate politics, the observation that ninety-nine per cent of Americans are being left behind economically isn't of much use politically. The ninety-nine per cent is too big a category to be an effective political force.

I used to subscribe to The New Yorker and had started noticing that their ads had become almost exclusively luxury products that I would never think of buying. I also noticed that every few months I was throwing the back issues into the recycling bin without ever having read them.

Still, it is amusing to see the Occupy conceit so handily dismissed:

Occupy Wall Street and its companion movements briefly spurred President Obama to become more populist in his rhetoric, but there’s no sign that Occupy is going to turn into the kind of political force that the Tea Party movement has been.

A little basic math of the type they do not deign to use in The New Yorker unless all the numbers are written out as words would have helped to spell it out. Here are the 2010 election composite results for the U.S. House of Representatives:

Results	Republicans	Democrats
Popular vote	44,593,666	38,854,459
Percentage	51.4%	44.8%

To put it in words, if Occupy were to peel off from the Republican tally all but the three million votes representing the so-called one percent, why wouldn't those fourty-one million people form their own new party rather than voting with the thirty-nine million Democrats?

More succinctly, what were Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren thinking? It's not just a small crack in the 99%, it's a chasm.

Boston Cop Admires Occupy Protester's Bandana

There was a lovefest of sorts on Boston Common Sunday as a Tea Party rally was met with masked counter-protesters from the Occupy movement.

Things got a little frisky.

The Boston Police Department is investigating. Personally, I think the good officer was smitten with the pink-wigged protester but was a little taken aback to find an adam's apple and no boobies.

Photos by Paul Weiskel, a junior at the University of Massachusetts Boston.