Why Is He Running? Just BeKaus

California's next Senator Mickey Kaus gets some attention from Deborah Soloman of the NY Times Magazine:

Questions For Mickey Kaus

The Blogging of the Candidate

By DEBORAH SOLOMON<

After years of sitting in a room in Southern California writing a blog for Slate magazine, you’re planning to challenge Senator Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary in California in June. What led you to get into politics? 

I’ve been a blogger since 1999, and it hasn’t done the job. In California, the Democratic Party is worse than it was when I started. The only thing left is the interest groups. It used to be a functioning party independent of labor, and now that has atrophied.

Mickey's Manifesto was presented at The Huffington Post over the weekend (Briefly, he will be going after liberal sacred cows like a Hindu on a bender.  Well, he phrases it differently...).  Why is he declaring there and not Slate?  We get a clue:

Now that you’re running, can you continue to write for Slate, which is owned by The Washington Post and may not want to be issuing paychecks to political candidates? 

I’m certainly going to blog during the campaign. The question is whether it’s for Slate or whether it’s not for Slate.

Dems who find Obama insufficiently cerebral will flock to Mickey's banner.

Comments

[hit and run]

More importantly...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PORCHLIGHT!

We were the same age there for a few weeks. I guess that'll be true for a few weeks every year.

[Clarice]

Happy birthday,porchlight!

[Jane]

Go Porch! Have a great Day!

You were an ides of March baby. Cool

[Jack is Back!]

Matt Damon is going to blame the failure of the Green Zone on the Tea Parties.

[Clarice]

Contentions:
"One More Thing
ABE GREENWALD - 03.15.2010 - 12:25 PM
Those of you lucky enough to have found yourselves on the White House’s propaganda e-mail list have, of late, been subject to something called the “Health Reform by the Numbers” campaign. Each e-mail in the campaign features a number and a bunch of associated facts intended “to raise awareness about why we just can’t wait any longer for health insurance reform.” Needless to say, the whole effort is as scolding and tone-deaf as everything else the president has cooked up since calling some Massachusetts police officers stupid for doing their jobs.

Today’s number is one:

1 — in every six dollars in the U.S. economy is spent on health care today.

If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system.

You get the idea.

Well, here’s a factoid regarding the No. 1 that I find a bit more persuasive. The World Health Organization ranks the United States’ health-care system as No. 1 in responsiveness. That really screams, “overhaul now!” huh?

We can certainly kiss our top position goodbye if socialized medicine comes to pass. Just look around at the wait times and patient lotteries of the systems that we’ll be emulating.

It’s actually kind of funny that the White House doesn’t include this statistic in today’s e-mail. After all, with this crowd American predominance is itself the greatest offence."

[pagar]

"I'm sure there's a death panels joke in there somewhere."

It doesn't appear to be a joke.

Look for death panels in any thing the Democrats propose.

" We might well end up with the educational equivalent of “death panels.”

The federal takeover of student loans will end all college education except for federal approved political correct students, IMO.

[narciso]

Happy birthday, Porchlight

[Sue]

Happy birthday Porchlight.

[centralcal]

Porchlight: Hope you have a very happy birthday and year ahead!

[narciso]

This link from Doug Ross, gives you the gist of it

[Danube of Thought]

This is McConnell's key point:

The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form. As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), a bill containing the “exact text” must be approved by one house; the other house must approve “precisely the same text.”

It seems to me the Dems are taking a terrible risk of having the law struck down if they proceed this way, and I don't see why doing so really gets them anywhere.

[Pofarmer]

It seems to me the Dems are taking a terrible risk of having the law struck down if they proceed this way, and I don't see why doing so really gets them anywhere.

Are they playing checkers in a chess match, or is there a pony in their somewhere for them? How long would it take it to get through the courts to SCOTUS?

[Danube of Thought]

"If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system."

This seems to be universally accepted as something bad. I'm not so sure. As Andrew Briggs points out in the current National Review, as living standards improve the marginal value of healthcare rises relative to that of other goods and services. We become more willing to spend money to live healthier and longer with the stuff we have rather than acquire more stuff and be less healthy.

It's also true that technology continues to make procedures available that, while expensive, simply weren't available in the past. Louis XIV could build Versailles, but he couldn't afford to get an MRI because it wasn't available.

[narciso]

It takes an exceedingly long time for the courts to deal with these issues, but they will have laid a marker. Look at McCain/
Feingold the last example of the astroturfing
of public support, and the manufactured backlash against just reversed part of it with Citizen's United.

[Porchlight]

Thanks, guys. It is a total non-event birthday, the last one having been a large round number after which birthdays become rather less interesting. Let's just say that Presidnet GHWB, Scott Brown, and I now have something in common, at least for the next year. :)

But, it is spring in Texas, and spring break, and I get a whole week off from getting my daughter up for school every morning. That alone is worth celebrating!

[Jane]

I'm trying to figure out what you all have in common. Am I dense or what?

[Ann]

Happy Birthday, Porchlight!!!

Jane, the answer is 41. :)

[Elliott]

Happy birthday, Porchlight! I didn't know Scott Brown jumped out of aeroplanes to celebrate birthdays.

[Jim Ryan]

Jane, I can never get those, either.

[hit and run]

Porchlight's Day by Day debut gives her something in common with Scott Brown.

Pretty sure GHWB can't be counted in that group.

And that's a good thing.

[hit and run]

Porchlight's Day by Day debut gives her something in common with Scott Brown.

Pretty sure GHWB can't be counted in that group.

And that's a good thing.

[pagar]

Happy Birthday, Porchlight!

[Ignatz]

--Jane, the answer is 41. :)--

I thought it meant you were 85 and had posed nude.
But not necessarily at the same time.

[maryrose]

Happy birthday Porchlight, I always enjoy your posts.I love the idea of not having to get up early and get the kids off to school-my kids are older- now it's getting them up for work.

[Jane]

George Bush is 41? Who would have thunk it!

[SWarren]

Ignatz,
The Slaughterhouse Rule. LOL great juxtaposition of the House Slaughter Rule.

[glasater]

Happy Birthday Porchlight!!

I will be forever grateful for your recommendation of the writer Josephine Tey and the fact we share an interest in CP Snow:-)

[Frau Gesundheit]

Quelle horreur! The French are having problems with their health care. I hope I have outsmarted the WSJ and the LUN works.

[Frau Gesundheit]

Happy Geburtstag, Porch. As we like to sing in our house, "Put another wrinkle on your birthday suit!" May your future birthdays be many and healthful.

[daddy]

"If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system."

A decent response would be "If we do pass this HealthCare monstrosity, in 30 years 1 out of every ______ dollars will be tied up in the Federal Government."

Personally I don't know what that number is, but its probably going to be 1 dollar out of every 1.10 cents. And the 10 cents is going to be worth virtually nothing.

[caro]

Have a great day,Porch!
Have you chosen names yet?

[caro]

The federal takeover of student loans will end all college education except for federal approved political correct students, IMO.

I agree with what you are saying,Pagar.But I wonder if at age 18 my now liberal kids would be penalized for my politics.

[Diane]

Mickey Kaus appears in a pretty candid podcast interview over at Ricochet: http://ricochet.com

So far, he's just about my favorite Democrat. Not that that's saying a whole lot.