Tipped Employees

Driving around town last evening, I found a lone Emmer protester. His signed said “Emmer wants waitresses to earn $2.00 an hour”

I wish I had a camera with me, the scene and the sign were equally pathetic.

Once, a long time ago, I remember going to an awesome steakhouse in Denver, CO. If you wore a tie, they cut it off and pinned it to the wall. There was a giant slide. And they had live music every night we went.

It was a lot of fun, and I never remember a bad night (and we went many times).

The wait staff were especially memorable. Always friendly. Always fun.

And they earned $0.00 an hour.  It was tips-only. And it worked just fine.

I do not understand the liberal dismay with tips. Somewhere in the Marxist collective consciousness, tips must represent the seed of capitalism (a guess).

To me, tips represent the social nature of economics. “We had fun, great service, here’s five bucks, thanks a lot.”  People working for tips get along with other people. And how often do you find someone who is anti-social and leaves good tips? I rarely have, but I don’t have any studies to cite to prove it.

Tips make friends.

But maybe I’m wrong.

Of course, the guy holding the anti-Emmer sign? He was standing alone.

Rep. Collin Peterson, Jerk?

“Twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down. That’s why I don’t do town meetings.”

–Rep. Collin Peterson, MN 7th District

Minnesota GOP Chairman Tony Sutton replies:

“Collin Peterson must immediately apologize for the outrageous and offensive comments he made about his own constituents. By stating that ‘twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down’ and that’s ‘why I don’t do town meetings,’ Peterson revealed just how out of touch and disconnected he has become in Washington. Given his liberal voting record, the real reason Peterson doesn’t hold town hall meetings is because he is afraid to face the residents of his district.”

Let’s seperate some issues here;

1) Do 9-11 “truthers” (conspiracy theorists) deserve to be shunned, ridiculed and avoided.

My attitude, having debated these people several times, is yes, they deserve shunning and ridicule. More importantly, almost all the falsifiable claims made by these conspiracy theorists have been proven wrong. (Popular Mechanics did a great job with this.)

2) Is Collin Peterson wrong about the number (25%) and is Sutton right about his interpretation? (Is it 25% of his district or just 25% of those who attend townhall meetings or is it 25% of Democrats in his district?)

To me, it sounds like Peterson is talking about Democrats or the people who attend townhalls. But, even if he’s talking about the entire district, there is some support for his assertion. The Wikipedia article on the subject cites several different polls (none too recent) suggesting 36% of the American population believes the U.S. either participated in 9-11 or covered up foreknowledge of the event. Up to 16% of the population believe explosives were used to take down the World Trade Towers.

So, halfway between 16 and 36 is 26. Not a bad estimate, even adjusting for the conservatism of the district. (And, living in the district, I can tell you there are “truthers” out there.)

Peterson has some justification for his estimate.

3) Is it right for Peterson to avoid spending time talking to conspiracy theorists?

It’s Peterson’s choice to either represent the district with his industry or his judgment (borrowing from an Edmund Burke quote here). It’s up to the district to vote his methods up or down. Personally, I can’t knock Peterson for avoiding conspiracy theorists.

4) Is Peterson really disconnected from the district?

Debatable. Since his re-election campaigns are uncompetitive, he doesn’t spend a lot of time or resources on grassroots organizing. Not doing townhalls makes him look more aloof. However, I’ve generally found his office responsive to requests. Since Peterson is a Democrat representing a district that McCain won (With 50% of the vote; Peterson won with 72+% of the vote), let’s assume he does connect in some way to the district.

5) Is Sutton doing the right thing?

Is Sutton defending the conspiracy theorists in his press release? Is Sutton denying these crazies even exist? Why would Sutton choose this particular quote to pick a fight with Peterson? Peterson comes out on top by admitting 9-11 truthers are nuts, disruptive and should be ignored. Peterson gets points for being pragmatic and honest. Sutton could easily have taken a different route here by using Peterson’s statement to attack these nuts (who are generally on the left) and portray Democrats in a negative light.

Two thumbs down Tony.

Update:

Peterson Apologizes

“If anyone was offended by my off-handed comment, I sincerely apologize — I certainly wasn’t trying to make fun of anyone,” Peterson said in a statement Tuesday.

He said he was referring to constituents who have “called me and talked to me” about alternate explanations of 9/11 and others who try to “hijack” public forums.

Because of this concern, Peterson has kept his several town hall meetings a year focused on specific topics like health care, agriculture or the economy.

Peterson gets a thumbs down for apologizing and saying he didn’t want to make fun of anyone.

Why not, if you’re making fun of fringe characters?

I think Peterson causes more problems with his response than with his initial statement. So, Sutton gets his thumbs down revoked.

No thumbs up for anybody though, this is just ugly politics.

From the Notebook

-Read John Sandford’s “Wicked Prey.” Typical Sandford, very good. There were some problems, the book takes place during the RNC in St. Paul and I’m not sure how historically accurate some of the background story really is (well, it is fiction after all). I can say that there is no such thing as “street money” (I’m the kind of guy who would get money like that, if it existed. I’m also the kind of guy who would lie about getting that kind of money, if I got it). My other complaints are probably even more nit-picky. Probably based on Sandford’s allegiance to the DFL. Still worth reading.

-Ever since Southpark convinced me “Family Guy” sucked, I stopped watching. It’s been great.

-Old news, but was I the only guy disappointed with the possible survival of Jack Bauer in the season finale of “24”?

-Mitch Berg has lost more posts than I’ve written. Not sure why that bothers me.

-I like Aaron Gleeman, but he sometimes does things which drive me nuts. He writes:

Through two months the Twins have scored 261 runs and allowed 254 runs, which would typically lead to being something like 27-25 instead of 25-27, but their run totals are skewed somewhat by the 20-1 thrashing they gave the White Sox on May 21. If the final score of that blowout win was 10-1 rather than 20-1 the Twins would’ve been out-scored 254 to 251 to more closely match their 25-27 record. Turn the 20-1 into 10-1 and the Twins would rank ninth among AL teams in both run scoring and run prevention.

Why just remove 10 runs? Why not five, twelve or eight? I understand what Aaron is saying, a statistical outlier skews the results away from what one would expect. So, just remove the outliers. You do this and you get 241 RS for the Twins versus 253 runs allowed. Thus the losing record. More nitpicking on my part, I know. But massaging numbers Ad Hoc...Come’on.

-Mathews, Aaron, Adcock: the #2, 3 and 4 hitters for the Milwauke Braves in 1959. So Gardy, how is putting a crappy hitter in the #2 spot “Traditional” baseball?

-Two four-page papers, one ten page paper, a wedding and the Twins Autograph Party are going to keep me pretty busy the next couple of weeks (not to mention the other assignments I’m probably forgetting about).  Expect light to partly-light posting.

There is Nothing New Under the Sun

Things look bleak for the GOP. The media is whoring themselves to blissful schadenfreude by hyping heated discussions between high profile Republicans. Liberals are riding high after consecutive electoral victories. The left dominates the news cycle and the chips on the shoulders of local Democrat Party minions keep outed conservatives rhetorically busy.

Poll numbers show declining GOP registrations and party ID. Arlen Specter plays politics and scores points with the media by leaving the GOP. Barack Obama patronizes dissenters with glittering generalities and empty rhetoric. Moderates are leaving the GOP in droves. Millions are switching parties. Maybe this really is the end of conservatism.

Amusing stuff. Desultory, but fun.

All this has happened before, as I’ve mentioned.  Some Examples:

50th Democrat State Legislator Switches to GOP; Georgia Rep., County Officials Join Republican Party
U.S. Newswire | January 4, 1996 |

WASHINGTON– Georgia State Rep. Ronnie Culbreth today became the 50th Democrat state legislator to switch to the Republican party since Bill Clinton was elected. Republicans have achieved a net gain of 572 state legislative seats across the country through party switches, special elections and regularly scheduled elections during that period.

…

Democrats Fleeing to G.O.P. Remake Political Landscape
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE; Ney York Times
Published: Saturday, October 7, 1995

She is the 43d state legislator and the 137th Democratic officeholder in the country to switch to the Republican Party since Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992.

Political historians cannot recall when so many elected officials at all levels of government, from local constable to the United States Senate, have abandoned a single party in such a short time.

“This is probably the greatest one-way exodus we’ve ever seen,” said John Morgan, a Republican consultant and political demographer.

Some say the Republican party is too far to the right. The truth is, Republican moderates no longer hold elected office. Moderates have taken the brunt of the electoral losses. Swing districts that elect moderates have decided on Democrat moderates.  Poof, no more moderate leadership in the GOP.

Eventually those districts will swing the other way, or new districts will become competitive.  Moderates will return.  I hope it’s not a 40 year hiatus like when the House of Representatives stayed in the hands of the Democrats, but Republicans still won enough elections to keep the Senate and presidency competitive.

A two party system is a competitive system.  Plurality voting results in 2 (or more) competitive parties. Single party takeovers are the products of revolutions.

Competition exists even in areas which first appear hopeless. In New York City Democrats enjoy at least a 3:1 registration advantage. Yet a Republican was elected mayor of New York. And re-elected. And his successor was a Republican (for a time).  Single party rule corrupts and free elections provide the cure.

Eventually good candidates will seek opportunities for elected office in swing districts (or conservative districts with Democrat officeholders like Colin Peterson). And they’ll win. Until then, the GOP should still engage the public and our opponents with ideas, solutions and alternatives to the political homogeneities of Democrat super-majority rule.

Turning on each other is the last thing Republicans should do. It’s a waste of time. Focus groups, triangulation and other pollster tricks can wait too. Attacking bad ideas? Pointing out policy flaws? Presenting liberty maximizing alternatives? Sign me up.

From the Notebook

-Still working on the last touches of the updated Burger Tour, it should be ready to go sometime next week. Five joints were booted off the tour and replaced and there’s the inclusion of a long essay about how I evaluate burger joints.

-Also, I’m now in the middle of working on the Christmas Gift Guides, as usual the first episodes will appear sometime around Thanksgiving. I don’t know how many I do, it depends on how busy I get between work, the MBA program and the MN Senate Recount

-Ah yes, the recount in Senate…It’s starts tomorrow and I’ll be among the many volunteers across the state observing the process on behalf of the Coleman campaign. I’m doing the morning shift, done by 1pm, then off to the library for a few hours before I have to get to work. Home just in time to catch a few hours of sleep. I hope it doesn’t go one for very long.

-About the recount, I probably need to correct myself a bit after this post. My point was not we couldn’t accurately count ballots, my point was that the true will of those people voting on election day couldn’t be determined with any significant accuracy. My comments about the margin of error of the optical scanners is actually moot. I forgot errors should be expected to be distributed somewhat normally in what is in essence a binomial distribution of votes. While a shift of up to 70 votes would not be unusual, a shift in 200 votes would be completely unexpected.

-Don’t expect me to talk about Obama very much for the next few months. At this point, I’m going to give the president elect the benefit of doubt when it comes to his appointments and general administrative direction. I’m not interested in praising or criticizing before he’s actually done anything. Matter of fact, I probably don’t care to discuss politics at all until we’re into the 2010 election cycle, which should be about this time next year. Unless I see policies which are direct attacks against personal freedom (gun registration or mass property confiscation) I see a healthy amount of apathy in my life for sometime.

-This raises the question of the future of GOP. Well, just wait a bit everyone. The direction of the GOP on a strategic level should be a topic of discussion but not a serious one for quite some time. The issues of the day, the events in the newsand the activities of our opposition will mostly decide the way we direct the party in 2010 and beyond. It’s out of our hands. Fill in knowledge gaps, obviously, brush up on political technology and start thinking about 2010, but don’t knock yourselves out. In other words, relax.

-One of the tactical changes the GOP does need to think about is leadership changes. In most democracies the leaders of losing parties resign. This is healthy and something I would like to see, a turnover in leadership. (This doesn’t mean we throw the leaders overboard, think of it like taking combat leaders off the front line, they don’t suddenly leave the military, they are just reassigned to other areas. It’s an organizational necessity).

-Watched the movie “Faith of my Fathers” which was a film based on the John McCain memoirs of the same name. It’s a good film, not great. It focuses on McCain’s years in the Hanoi Hilton, which make it difficult to watch at times.

From the Notebook

-Stephen Colbert’s interview with Sierra Club jefe Carl Pope had me rolling on the floor laughing. The best part is at the end, there’s a puppet involved. Just watch it.

-Re: McCain’s supposed “Flip” on offshore drilling, think of this issue a different way:

You’re at a store and see a shirt you like but at $80 you’re gonna pass. A few weeks later there’s a sale and you decide to buy the shirt for $30. Hypocrisy? Flip Flop? Philosophic inconsistency?

Of course not. Something significant changed. In this case it was the price. It could have instead been a shift in need. The same goes for our oil resources. An increase in the price of oil has created a need to drill wherever possible to alleviate some of the pressures being put on middle Americans until technology is developed to get us off oil. McCain’s shift on the issue of oil makes sense. I’m thankful he’s willing to re-evaluate his positions.

-John McCain looks set to announce his VP choice within the next week or two. I hope it’s Sarah Palin. The old-fashioned paradigm for choosing a VP candidate, by picking someone from a certain state or area in order to help win or choosing someone who would bring together fighting segments of the party, is no longer efficacious. A VP candidate needs to complement the top of the ticket. Governor Palin is everything McCain is not. While I’d personally prefer Huckabee as VP, Palin should provide a youthful spark McCain needs. McCain is getting hammered on his age and dryness while the media is fawning over an attractive but vacuous sophist. Palin helps take the edge off and should produce consistent positive media coverage until election day. (Via Mr.D.)

-While I’m the political junkie’s political junkie, I don’t care much for this period of a campaign. The most important events are happening behind the scenes as local campaigns get organized and money is raised. It’s really impossible to tell if the infrastructure being created right now will be effective or not. The vast majority of people aren’t paying attention to the day in and day out news about the campaigns and they won’t until three or four weeks until election day. You have to be skeptical with the polls during this period too, for the above reason. Not a lot of important news will be heading our way, and as such I find it hard to do the daily blogging grind. As always, I write when the spririt moves me, but the spirit is normally at the driving range this time of year. If the posting seems light to you, well, get over it.

The Coming GOP Purge

A Cure for Some of Our Ills

There has been, is and will be a lot of talk about what the GOP needs to do to win over voters in 2008. All such scribblings and conversations are erroneous and vain. There is very little the GOP can do to win back the confidence of voters. Sure, politics is local and good candidates combined with good campaigns can find victory in bad electoral years.

On the whole, however, the GOP is just not going to win. For one thing, all the talk about what the GOP needs to do to win the hearts and minds of voters will be impossible to implement. The GOP is out of power. So, when you hear a politician say the GOP needs to become the party of fiscal responsibility, the proper response is to laugh.

Right now, the GOP is responsible for very little. They’re in the minority. At the moment we still have the presidency but on the whole the Democrats are the ones playing offense. The opportunity for the Republicans to show the voters they’re interested in fiscal responsibility has passed. We had the chance, we blew it. There’s no reason for the people to give the Republicans another go after they had a working majority in every branch of government.

There are few things the out of power party can do to convince voters of meaningful action. One of the best is a purge. Let’s be frank, if George Bush was a prime minister in Britain he would have been forced to resign years ago. In the system we have now, it’s about impossible to remove entrenched leadership.

This isn’t to say it can’t be done. State party chairs, national leaders, elected leaders, all need to step down. (Gosh, it would also help a lot to get rid of Bush, a lot.) For elected leaders it’s not so important they retire than they simply fade away from the spotlight. The voters need to see the party they put out power (or the party they want to put out of power) is making significant, meaningful and public changes to personnel and message.

I’m not suggesting the GOP surrender its conservatism, just its leadership and message. Conservatism works because it yields to tradition and history (normally in ways that work). But it does take new applications to keep conservatism meaningful. Ronald Reagan wanted to cut taxes, deregulate and defeat communism. Now, taxes, communism and regulation aren’t on the minds of voters. Deal with it.

So, a summary. We need new leadership, fresh faces, new ideas (really, new applications of conservative values) in order to convince voters we’re making strides to meet their needs and demands. Even then, it might be 2010 or 2012 before the voters get the message.

From the Notebook

-To show everyone just how obsessed I am with the Christmas Gift Guides, I’m already working on the 2008 series. I’m starting to get to the point where all the funny ideas I had, have already been used. It’s getting more difficult to keep the Gift Guides fresh and funny, unexpected. The harder part is to keep from getting too weird as well. Just looking at my notes for this year, the series might even get a little more disturbing than normal.

-I’m still without internet at home and only internet I can access regularly is at my workplace or at Culvers. It’s frustrating but it is givinng me plenty of time to write posts in advance. With the scheduling tool provided by WordPress I only need to access the Internet once or twice a week but sometimes material gets a little thin, like it did earlier this week.

-With all the recent talk about the GOP and what can be done to save it this year (short answer, not much), it got me thinking about what I thought the ideal conservative representative would be. Well, my vision was clear. I think of conservatives as being back bench representatives who sit, smoke cigars, drink fine cognac and laugh at what is happening before them. They grab the floor whenever possible to delivering entertaining speeches about how whatever the House is trying to do won’t work because it fights human nature. Occasionally their votes matter. They’re not even the majority of whatever body they belong to. Maybe it’s too pessimistic a vision, but I rather like it.

-A project I’ve been thinking about for a long time but nobody ever seemed to think much of it was my idea for an online, hyperlinked US constitution. Every passage and every section would be hyperlinked to a directory of information on SCOTUS cases, legal historical notes and anything else relevant to allowing for research and analysis of the US Constitution. Personally, I think it would be a great resource. Maybe I’m wrong.

-I will be appearing on Dave Phipps’ Creative Department radio show on 1450 KNSI July 6th at noon. The Burger Tour book is the topic. I have implied oral consent to record and podcast the interview after the show appears so look for that in a couple of weeks.

-Another Weekly Twins Whatnot has appeared, with my contributions, available at the Bleacher Report.

Notes from the Convention Floor III

Continuing along the same lines as my previous posts, these are simply notes I was taking, they are raw with very little polish. Last post ended in the middle of a string of speeches and we’re going to continue from there.

Glen Menze, 7th congressional district candidate

-I like Menze, he did sign the FreedomWorks no-earmarks pledge (unlike Rep. Bachmann and Rep. Kline), but he’s going against Colin Peterson, who has won this district like 2343 times.
-A campaign against Peterson from an anti-war Republican (someone like a Ron Paul) would be an interesting race, as I don’t think Peterson has the best anti-war credentials. Menze didn’t talk about the war in Iraq at all in his speech so it’s possible his views on Iraq are different than the prevailing Republican attitude, I just don’t know (but I doubt it).
-The Ron Paul people probably should have also pushed their own candidates to run against longtime Democratic incumbents in districts like the 7th, but they didn’t. Having Congressional candidates (anti-war Republicans) running across the nation would have given them a lot of weight and momentum and allowed them to keep the conversation on Iraq moving until election day.
-As for Menze himself, he’s got more charisma than most accountants…
-He discussed why we need to run candidates against entrenched incumbents (it uses up opposition resources which could be used elsewhere) and he made a case as to why he thinks this is a winnable race (literally “hey, miracles can happen”).
-His focus was on the fiscal side of things (As Rep. Peterson is socially conservative)

Barb Davis White, Running against Keith Ellison (after the Jump)

Notes from the Convention Floor II

Okay, the following post represents about 1/3 of the notes I took while on the convention floor. While this isn’t too terribly interesting I still think there’s some value in publishing the details of the convention. I’ll be working through the other two-thirds of my notes Sunday and will post up my overall reactions to the convention Monday. Plenty more coming (even if it is all inconsequential)

I wanted to thank the construction workers outside my hotel room for working noisily until midnight and starting up again at 6am. That was great. (Why can’t people be good at their jobs when they’re not around me?)

Tim Pawlenty’s Speech (after the jump)