I’m going to put forth a thesis that will likely be controversial in this environment. I think if McCain loses Nov 4th that Sarah Palin’s political career is pretty much over.

You can’t just “try try again”
Losing VP candidates have a bad track record of getting another shot at the Whitehouse. Here’s a list of the VP candidates from the losing ticket of the last 8 presidential elections:

1976 Dole
1980 Mondale
1984 Ferraro
1988 Bentsen
1992 Quayle
1996 Kemp
2000 Lieberman
2004 Edwards

Of those 8 only Dole and Mondale managed to come back from their VP loses and make a presidential run, and both of those were spectacularly unsuccessful. Edwards tried to get the nod for 2008 but came in a distant third, against two unconventional candidates. Neither political party tends to be very gracious towards their losing candidates. On the contrary in the inevitable finger pointing to follow the candidate themselves almost always gets a good heaping share of the blame.

And let’s be honest, for the GOP, if McCain fails to seal the deal the finger pointing is likely to be more nasty than usual. McCain and Palin are from very different parts of the party, and those parts have been a bit ill at ease in recent years. Both factions are going to want to defelct blame from themselves, and the easiest way will be to blame the other faction. There are reports that the internal McCain campaign is already seeing divisions as the Palin backers and McCain backers try to make the other side the primary target (with the assumption of a loss). Examples here.

Now the conservatives may well win any finger pointing arguments in the aftermath, but future GOP tickets are still going to need the moderates and it is unlikely that they’ll choose someone who will be a polarizing figure, which Palin already is given the reactions to her from Kathleen Parker, George Will, and Christopher Buckley among other moderates.

So not only do failed Veep candidates rarely get second chances but Palin is likely to be a central figure in the potential fallout, which can only further make a come back tour improbable.

Burning the bridge to nowhere
Another aspect is the question of what Palin will do after Nov 4th. Her time in Alaska has been contentious and looks to be more so. She rose to power through infighting in the state GOP against the establishment (also GOP) figures. While I think that was ultimately a good thing it certainly made her enemies.

Case in point- the Troopergate scandal has been broadly bipartisan in it’s digging into the Governor. Now it may be fair to say that that’s just because both parties have the torches and pitchforks broken out to go after Palin, but regardless of how justified or unjustified it may be, Palin will be returning to a state that is far from unified behind her.

Her support from Alaska republicans has slipped a bit but so far is still strong. It might survive a failed veep run and the troopergate fall out but it also might not. I wonder how much her political fortunes in Alaska depend on Stevens and Young getting drummed out of service. Maybe Achance can comment on this but it seems to me like them going would be distinctly good for her and them staying would be very bad.

If Palin were able to return to Alaska and serve out her current term, and possibly more, successfully then that certainly would help future ambitions. Dole returned to the Senate after 1976 (I’m still not sure how or why Mondale ended up on the dem ticket in 1984, maybe it was a sacrifice play given Reagan’s popularity).

I think its an open question at this point how much success Palin will have when the republican legislation leaders are the ones leading the troopergate investigation.

I might be wrong here. I’m not from Alaska, I’m not privy to a first row seat. If Achance says I’m completely wrong then I’m wrong.

The honeymoon’s over
Palin’s favorability ratings were initially very good, but they’ve declined since her spectacular role out. Maybe that’s not her fault but caused by poor decisions on the part of the campaign, or media bias, or bitter partisan attacks, or whatever. The fact remains in every poll I’ve seen her favorability ratings have dropped pretty substantially since early September. Here’s an example going as far back as mid September.

In some she has negative ratings (i.e. unfavorable above favorable). Those may be outliers but pretty clearly the bloom is off the rose and the novelty value of Palin’s pick is gone. That’s a bump she’ll never get again, she’ll have to fight for any future gains against the now established image of her.

Her One shot
It’s not impossible for Palin to get another shot at the Whitehouse, but it seems very unlikely. Under the circumstances I think it is very likely that this is it, her one shot. Given that it suggests that Jindal was very smart not to risk it under similar circumstances.

(as a side note, I also suspect that Hillary fought as hard as she did in part because this was her one shot too, and she’s basically consigned to being a senator from here on out).

Reasons that make sense to me:

1) experience/history. I strongly believe that America is at a delicate point right now. I’ll spare you the reasons why because most on this blog will disagree with what exactly is wrong and why. Suffice it to say I think we need a very competent president to steer us through the next period. Unlike most of you I believe that Obama could be competent, the problem for me is I don’t know he is.

Along with that is the issue of history. By that I mean the reason it matters for a person to be on the national stage for some time is that you get a sense of how they operate, what they will do, how they will react. Bill Clinton was a governor for 10 years before he ran for office. We had ample opportunity to see that he had a thing for women. We could evaluate whether that really mattered to us. To me it didn’t, and I was happy to vote for him. When the Lewinsky thing came up I was neither surprised nor did I really care. I had cause to know the man’s break points and the idea of a president failing by getting nookie didn’t matter to me.

I don’t know Obama. I have no idea how he will behave with real power (the president of the US has essentially unilateral control of our nuclear weapons, that’s real power). I don’t know his stress points or temperment. Maybe he’s great but I don’t have the history to know for sure, and I really kind of need that before I vote for someone for president.

2) Chicago. Chicago is one of those places that is legendary for political corruption. Now I think you have to be clear that you are arguing a matter of percentages. What are the odds that Obama not only came up in such an area but did so with startling speed and at the same time he remained scruplous? Guilt by association is not okay, but realism in looking at an environment of institutionalized corruption and having that raise questions is another thing entirely.

3) The cult. Despite what many here think the Obama cult is not even a significant majority of the Dems. But, as with Ron Paul, it is an awfully vocal minority, and it is disturbing after the arguments that the right has become nothing but authoritarian cultists (whether you agree or not the argument exists and is common on the left) to see the same behavior on the left too.

4) The trifecta. I don’t think single party rule is a good thing. I think the right got the most feckless during its recent years of control of the presidency and both houses of congress. I have little hope the dems won’t do the same. Every indication right now is that the Dems will substantially improve majorities in both houses. That plus the presidency (and an essentially divided supreme court) is too much power, too little checks and balances, for me.

*Arguments that don’t work for me, at all: *

I won’t number and elaborate. Too many.

“Socialism.” Ayers. Odinga. Rezko. Non-citizen. Higher taxes. Universal health care. Wimp. Terrorist attack. Hamas/qaddafi/Iran/Kim Jong Il/Putin says “_“. Old Europe. Immigration. Abortion. Supreme Court Justices. Retreat from Iraq. Joe the Plumber. Anything Biden says. Anything at all to do with Sarah Palin. Too young. Cooked polls. ACORN. Che Gueverra posters. Anti-Israel. Pro-cuba. Anti-American. Original Intent. Second Amendment. Fairness Doctrine. “Hussein.”

And probably another few dozen that aren’t coming to mind.

Those arguments I find spectacularly ineffective and probably at least half of them make me actually want to vote for Obama. Now what works for me is in no way guaranteed to work for anyone else. For that matter doubtless some will look at the list and declare I’m trying to shy you away from the actual effective arguments. All I can do is give you accurate information, what you do with it, up to and including treating it as contrarian, is up to you.

Vaya con dios.

I’m also not christian. I don’t particularly like organized religion any more than political parties. Maybe less. I’m also not an atheist. I have my own private spiritual beliefs and I assume nobody else really cares what they are.

Actually what I am foremost of all is a physical scientist. I like numbers. I like data. I like evidence. I hate false assumptions and misrepresentations that lead analysis astray. That’s more my religion than anything.

Now if any f that convinces you not to listen to anything I say, feel free to move along and do something you find more rewarding.)*

While I highly doubt anyone here will agree with this diary, hopefully it will be a little bit of a break from the 24-7 focus on the upcoming election.

Their is an argument that taxes are a form of theft. Why is it theft? “Because the government is taking your money!”

Really, is it? Is it your money at all?

What can we say are the defining attributes of ownership? Possession of course. That is the capacity to keep the thing with you or vice versa. One possesses a wallet by virtue of being legally able to remove the wallet from anyone else’s vicinity. One possesses a house by being allowed to exclude others from it’s vicinity. Control is the next attribute of ownership. That is the ability to alter or determine what actions are taken with the object. One can paint a house one owns without permission. One can choose to open or close a wallet and to add or remove articles from it only as long as they own the wallet or have the owner’s permission. The last criteria is Disposal. The wallet’s owner may choose to throw the wallet away, throw it into a fire, or bury it in swampy ground. A house’s owner may choose to tear down the structure entirely or simply destroy elements of it (such as given walls).

What, then, of money?

In general you have a right of Possession. You can certainly carry your money with you as you like. This right however is limited when and where the state chooses. One example:

U.S. persons aged 18 or older may send to members of the remitter’s immediate family in Cuba or to a Cuban national in a third country “family” cash remittances of up to $300 per household in any consecutive three-month period, provided that no member of the household is a prohibited official of the Government of Cuba or a prohibited member of the Cuban Communist Party.

from here.

Similarly with the issue of Control, the government allows us in general to use our cash as we see fit but they also preclude the use in ways they deem unacceptable. Gambling bans are a simple example of an activity that is not illegal except when it involves the transfer of money.

Finally Disposal:

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

US treasury law

Of course one could argue that all of these are merely examples of government infringement on what we “own.” But this argument is false. The reason government can make these infringements is that they create the cash in the first place. We voluntarily accept the explicit contract involved when we accept US government bills (i.e. dollars) as a form of remuneration.

So we cannot really say that we own the money in our pocket, or the money in our bank account. Rather we are renting it in a peculiar way. It is and always was the government’s property to do with as they will. They have loaned it to us to use because it makes sense for them to. It binds us to them. But when and as they like they are perfectly within their rights to take it back.

Don’t like it? Then use a barter system.