Hope No More

A President who came to office one way has decided to pursue re-election in quite another. "Hope," "Change," and post-partisanship replaced by cynically scapegoating every ominous force imaginable -- the rich, Republicans, events.

In fairness, he cannot run on much else. As a would-be he could run on promise. As an incumbent he must run with a record -- a record that isn't very good. The economy is as bad as the one he inherited (more Americans are out of work), he has expanded government beyond Constitutional limits and most American's comfort zones, our debt has increased exponentially and our credit decreased inversely, and we are slowly but steadily retreating from the world.

This or any president cannot win with popular focus fixed on such a record.

And so he tries to deflect the spotlight, redirecting it towards those nefarious Republicans and plutocrats who are the true culprits, the authentic masters of our present misery.

Not him. Not Barack Obama. Not the One.

Our chief executive, in other words, plans to win this election at the lead of an angry mob of sorts.

"Change we can believe in" gives way to "To the lanterns!"

Herman Cain

The problem with Herman Cain is that Republicans cannot do anything more than make an educated guess about him.  He is entirely likable, understands the need to dramatically reduce the federal government's footprint, and is a happy warrior akin to the Party's patron saint, Ronald Reagan.

But he struggles with specification.  He has failed to go in depth defending "9-9-9" or refuting the substantive concerns raised about it, nor has he given much indication that he has thought out his positions on other relevant issues like foreign policy or the judiciary.

Of less reassurance is the fact that he is just now beginning to assemble something approximating a campaign structure.  Heretofore it has been entirely ad hoc.

Going into an election we cannot afford to lose, Mr. Cain asks Republicans to make a large leap of faith.

Iowa & New Hampshire

The current presidential nomination process of both parties has justly received criticism for the dispositive roll it gives to the small, idiosyncratic states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

To be fair though, if you are going to have such an intensely flawed and unrepresentative system there is at least the minor consolation that the two states given such absurd preference are fairly distinct from each other ideologically.

On the Republican side, the rural social conservatism of Iowa is balanced in short-order by the individualistic, libertarian-conservatism of New Hampshire. The Midwest is countered by the Northeast, which is then countered by the South in South Carolina.

There are better ways to do it (a string of regional primaries perhaps), but the system does have some Madisonian logic undergirding it.

OWS

The naked, in-your-face sense of entitlement of the OWS protestors is of a certain kind with the recent rioters in London and the indignant hordes in the streets of Athens.

These are the children of the welfare state; a generation conditioned by state largesse to neither expect nor desire being masters of their own fate. It is to the state to provision for them, and it is upon the state to make some kind of restitution when they do not enjoy the standard they feel is their right. Thus the demand for the federal government to take actions such as taxing wealth to a greater degree or to forgive all student debt.

It is, in many respects, the reverse of JFK's inaugural exhortation: not what you can do, but what society is supposed to do for you.

The Charmed Campaign of Mitt Romney

National polls of Republican voters now place Herman Cain either dead even or slightly ahead of putative frontrunner Mitt Romney.

So continues Romney's charmed candidacy.

Cain's sudden and soaring ascension from fringe to front means one thing: the scrutiny the other contenders began to direct towards him in the last debate will increase exponentially in the next.

Not by Romney, mind you.  He has no political need right now to so much as cast a sidelong glance towards Cain, at least not when all the other would-be nominees have every need to do so.  It is Cain who now occupies the space the rest of them seek: tribune of the conservative movement and principle challenger to the establishment's favorite, Romney.  Unless and until they are able to assume the ground Cain now treads upon, they have no plausible path to the nomination.  Their political lives depend upon them attacking Cain and taking the support among movement conservatives he presently enjoys.

Romney could not ask for more.  As has been the case throughout this campaign, movement conservatives continue to attack each other and splinter that constituency.  His new nearest competitor Cain -- as with Perry before him and Bachmann before him -- will now face the preponderance of that scrutiny (the charge that his 9% national sales tax will provide the government a new avenue to raise taxes in the future has the potential to be especially damning).

To Romney's triple benefit he continues to enjoy a reprieve from heavy scrutiny, he is saved from having to dirty his hands attacking his nearest competitor and, in turn, his nearest competitor will be forced to spend his time defending himself instead of going after him and his heresies, principally "Romneycare."

It is as if the field is going out of its way to clear a clean and even path for Romney to the nomination.

With enemies like these, who needs friends?

The President's Mess

At issue three years into Obama's presidency -- and as he begins his campaign to extend it -- is not whether he inherited this or any "mess," but whether he has done anything useful to remedy it.

He has not; quite the contrary, in fact.  Unemployment has rested comfortably at 9% for months, worse than the rate he inherited and greater than the ceiling he promised his "stimulus" would provide.  Neither is there much hope for a turnaround, with quarterly growth standing at a mere pittance of what any meaningful recovery should entail.

Much of the fault for this lies at the feet of the President -- or at least at the feet of the policies his administration has pursued and adopted.

This is so for the simple reason that the economy would be in better shape had President Obama walked into the Oval Office in January '09 and done absolutely nothing; no stimulus, no cap and trade, no Obamacare, nothing.  Instead the sum effect of these and other pursuits has been to load a recessionary economy with more debt, more regulation, more costs on employment and now, if he gets his way, more taxation.

Unsurprisingly, the state of the economy has failed to improve. Arguably, it has only become worse.

That is not your predecessor's fault, Mr. President.  It is your own.

Walking Backwards

President Obama's policies have not revived the economy for the same reason that you cannot move forward by walking backwards.

Romney’s Sword

Gov. Romney's single term in Massachusetts is a sword he will either be able to wield against his opponents (Rick Perry) or one that will be wielded against him.

If he can leverage the issue in his favor, that quadrennial will be a time when he made as good as he possibly could to instill conservative governance in perhaps the single-most hostile environment for conservatism.

Gov. Perry will spin it a different way, contending that Gov. Romney was not making good so much as accommodating himself to the predominant liberal ethos. That, he will add, is the last thing we need from someone going to Washington at a time when the republic is in dire need of inherent institutional reform.

No significant conservative achievement from Gov. Romney's time in Massachusetts comes to mind, so if he tries to emphasize that as an issue he will be playing right into Gov. Perry's hands. Any mention of Massachusetts is only an invitation to mention Romneycare, perhaps the single largest obstacle to Gov. Romney winning the nomination.

Gov. Romney's strongest card is his tenure in the private sector, the means by which he can say that he has experience turning around failing businesses (and the Salt Lake Olympics) that he will apply towards turning the federal government around. A business, bottom-line approach towards government is music to many conservative voters' ears, so that is the note he should play on his political violin.

Progressive Taxation

It is one thing to say, as most progressives do, that the wealthy should pay an increased proportion of income in taxes.

The problem most Americans have with this, wealthy or not, is that such a progressive taxation scheme entails the always revenue-hungry federal government deciding who is wealthy and who is not.

To most, this is an entirely discomfiting notion, and it should be.

Qadaffi's Impending Fall

If Qadaffi and his regime are indeed about to collapse, we will be exchanging a bastard we know for bastards we don't. It is dubious whether Libya can do worse, but it is uncertain (at best) whether they can do much better.

RE: ‘Corporations are People’

Mitt Romney arguing as he did that "corporations are people too" is as true as it is politically tone-deaf. The best argument against over-taxation of corporate America is not a kind of sympathetic declaration you'd expect to hear from Barney the Dinosaur – I seriously doubt "corporations are people too" will make the hearts of that many Americans bleed.

This is a bread-and-butter issue and should be presented as such. The dispositive argument is that whatever taxes you levy on corporations, they are not the ones that will ultimately pay them: individual Americans will. A greater tax burden will cause businesses to cover that cost by passing it on to the consumer in the prices they charge for their goods and services. Higher corporate taxes mean one thing and one thing only: higher prices on American consumers. Taxing corporate American only hurts Middle-America.

If Governor Romney wants to marshal public opinion against taxing corporations more than we do already (as he should), he should make this simple point, emphasizing that taxing corporate America more only makes corporate America the federal government's tax collector.

35 Yard-line Abomination

The most obnoxious aspect of the NFL's decision to move kickoffs from the thirty to the thirty-five yard-line is that, not only is it logically conflicting, but it fails to reach the natural conclusion of that logic.

The Competition Committee enacted this alteration to "improve" player safety. By moving the kicker five yards closer to the opponent's endzone, scintillating touchbacks will increase exponentially. Fewer kickoff returns means fewer returners being targeted for annihilation by coverage teams, who are usually comprised of back-end-of-the-roster types looking to earn their way up the depth chart through dogged pursuit and earth-shaking hits.

Setting aside the issue of whether the reduced risk of injury is worth drastically detracting from the game of football, this move fails to realize its own logic. If you are going to enact a rule that aims to take away kick returns why not do just that and take away kick returns? As it stands now, kickoffs will be pointless plays that will achieve nothing but an inevitable result: the offense starting their drive from the twenty. It's a charade that allows the Shield to continue its obnoxious practice of commercial break, followed by kickoff, followed by commercial break.

This failure to reach a logical endpoint only ends up confounding all logic -- indeed human reason altogether. By removing kickoff returns without removing kickoffs, the coverage team will be made to run down the field for a full-speed collision with the blocking team for no reason.

That's right: a "player safety" rule is going to make players run into other players – an obvious injury risk – only to watch the returner take a knee six or seven yards deep in the endzone. So concerned is the NFL with the physical well-being of its players that it is now asking them to risk injury for no reason whatsoever.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Roger Goddell's NFL.

Iowa

It is a curious system whereby the one who would be president of the United States must first campaign to be the mayor of Des Moines.

Unemployment

Liberals preoccupation with extending and extending unemployment is really the least they can do -- the only consolation they can offer to the millions of Americans out of work and unable to find any. It is, after all, their prescribed policies of spending, taxing and regulating that has preserved the current economic climate of stagnant growth and job creation.

Any plausible standard of decency dictates that a federal government that prevents the citizens it serves from finding work must make some kind of restitution.

Of course, to make that restitution it must take from the pockets of those with jobs...

What -- and with what -- restitution is to be made to them?

Immigration?

At a time when growth is stagnant, unemployment is  high, and every level of government is insolvent; the president is trying to resurrect the dead horse that is comprehensive immigration reform? He's really drawing attention to ANOTHER task the federal government is failing to perform and, what's more, inexplicably trying to persuade the polity to set that fact aside and add even more burdens to an overwhelmed and desperately over-stretched state?

Game 25: Bedard, Finally

Erik Bedard garners his first win in about two years and looks efficient for the first time...well, ever.  7 innings, 89 pitches.  Not 5 innings, 101 pitches.  Amazing.

What's more, instead of the litany of fly balls that he has been getting so far (half of which seem to have flown over the fence), he had a 52.4 GB%.

Bedard threw strikes early and often.  Bedard got outs early and often.

How much of this was Bedard and how much was the Tigers' lineup being surprisingly aggressive towards Bedard is an open question.  After the 4th inning (up until which Tigers batters had swung and put the ball in play within the first two pitches in a majority of their at-bats) they seemed to notice that they weren't following the tried-true-strategy of allowing Bedard to slowly asphyxiate himself and they started taking more pitches.

By then it was too late.  Bedard had made it through Four with a stunningly low pitch count and was within the first groove we've seen from him in quite some time.

* Miguel Olivo is really stinging the ball.  His LD% is above his career average so far and at long last he is finding holes in the infield and gaps in the outfield.  There is hope yet that he will elevate the Mariners offensive standards at catcher back to mediocrity.

Swept in TEX

The M's were simply out-classed. In each of the three ballgames they managed to come back from early deficits (the first and third the fruits of poor fielding) only to come up short late.

The pattern was evident. When the M's would get a runner or two on base they would do just enough to get one of those runners home. When the Rangers were in the same situation they would put the ball in the gap and drive home two or three. They are an elite offense with ability to turn any base-runner or two into a big inning – a competency the Mariners simply do not have.

Couple that with elite fielding and most days the M's are not going to be able to do more than simply stay competitive with the Rangers.

Fortunately, we do not see them again for another month.

For his part, Felix was much the same today as he was in his first start. Lack of command in the first two innings (3 bases on balls) plus Wilson's foibles at second led to elevated pitch-counts early on. After that though, he was able to buckle down and make it through another five innings while giving up only one run.

Pineda Tonight & Going Forward

What we saw from Pineda tonight is what we can reasonably expect to see from him for the next few months.

Right-handed batters are not an issue. His plus fastball and slider coupled with the command he has of them are more than enough to keep them off balance. Texas right-handed batters managed just two hits in fifteen at bats (.133). Ian Kinsler's lead-off at bat in the first (fastball up and in followed by a slider away; weak groundball to short) and Adrian Beltre's swinging strikeout in the fourth (slider low and away) are microcosms of the hell Pineda is to righties.

Pineda's problem in the spring was lefties, allowing them to hit .292 as opposed to the .179 right-handers batted.

That problem manifested itself again tonight. The three lefties in Texas' lineup went 3-7 (.429), with the largely pedestrian Mitch Moreland managing two hits (including an RBI triple) and Josh Hamilton leading off a two-run sixth with a double.

The problem, as has been oft-discussed, is inconsistent command of his changeup. Its potential is obvious (the strikeout of Josh Hamilton in the first), but until he develops the command of it he now enjoys with his other two pitches, lefties will cause him fits.

Accordingly, Mariners fans should prepare themselves for periods of dominance checkered by the kind of struggles we witnessed tonight.

Opening Day 2011

Felix was not dominating tonight – not in the overwhelming, I'm-just-plain-better-than-you manner that we are used to at least. Instead he was remorselessly effective; getting contact early in the count (after the first two innings, before which he averaged 5.14 pitches per batter faced, 3.18 after), allowing his defense to get outs, walking no one, not relying on pitch count-busting strike outs.

In exhibition was the superlative pitcher Felix has become: in his first start of the season, following a spring where he was deliberately given a diminished workload, he economized his approach in a manner that allowed him to pitch a complete game without going much above a hundred pitches against a team built to get on base. A month from now, when he is stretched out, he can pitch against the A's again and strike out ten in the dominating, perennial Cy-Young contending manner we are accustomed to.

Felix has matured to the point that he can basically choose how he wants to beat you.

Offensively, the six runs look nice but are qualified by a hot-potato A's defense that committed five errors.

With that said, they did the best with what they have, which is not much. Ichiro and Figgins wracked up their hits at the top of the order and everyone after them took pitches.

That's all they did – they took pitches.

As a result, Mariner batters earned a lot of walks and a lot of strike outs, many of them backward K's. (M's batters walked seven times, struck-out looking eight.) Both results compelled Cahill to run his pitch count up and give the ball away before he could complete five innings (105 pitches in 4.2 innings, 4.38 pitches per batter faced). After that the Mariners were able to exploit porous defense and A's middle relief. They won, in other words, by not swinging, flailing, failing and losing. They did not make outs, they got on base (.349 team OBP), put pressure on the Athletics, and earned some runs.

This might be the only approach offensively that has any hope of success this year. They may not be able to punch much themselves, but at the very least M's hitters can make their opponent's pitching and defense work harder than they would like to and (hopefully) buckle against the extra leverage.

The high-strain innings force the starter out and the soft-belly of Major League middle relief in. The extra base-runners that come with the bases-on-balls enervate the pitching even more and place more pressure on the defense. Couple that with some timely hitting here and there and you have the seeds of a team that will exact a degree of attrition on their opponents and thus be able to compete most nights. A team that approaches the game this way is a very obnoxious opponent for the usually superior teams they play.

At the very least this approach worked for one night and hope for a competitive, entertaining, near-.500 season lives on.

Notes:

• Miguel Olivo will probably never walk this season. He might not ever see a ball.
  
• Other than being superlative defensively, Brendan Ryan might be the perfect bottom-of-the-order hitter. Picking his punches and wreaking havoc when he gets on base, he will at least provide a level of pugnacity to the bottom three that Jack Wilson, Josh Wilson, Rob Johnson and whoever else we had there last year never provided.
  
• There was a swagger about Figgins tonight I do not remember seeing at any point last year.
  
• Dave Niehaus had been visibly and, as he was a broadcaster, audibly aging the past few seasons. But by-God was it unnatural to watch an entire game and not hear his voice. You are missed, Dave. My, oh my, are you missed.

DOMA

Revulsion to the cynicism of President Obama's announcement that his administration will not defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the federal courts is entirely appropriate. He is trying to have it both ways: registering approval with his base – the preponderance of which supports gay marriage – without alienating the majority of Americans who still oppose it.

(A man whose self-regard is such that he fancies himself on par with the Wisdom of Solomon has nonetheless elected to split the baby.)

Politics aside, there are constitutional concerns with DOMA that bring its validity into question – not that these played any role at all in the president's decision. These concerns are found in the Full Faith & Credit Clause of the US Constitution (Article IV, Section 1), which mandates that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."

At first glance, the legal import of DOMA runs directly counter to this, immunizing the states from having to recognize a gay marriage – something that is a public act, record, and judicial proceeding – legally created and recognized in another.

This is a credible argument at least – one to which there are certainly credible rebuttals.

If, for example, a state does not recognize the institution itself – marriage between individuals of the same sex – can the relevant constitutional text be understood to compel it to recognize and make provision for it in the same way it would have to a driver's license issued in another state, an institution which every single state in the Union makes provision for?

Without question there are other arguments beyond this – arguments that will be fleshed out and deployed in the inevitable legal challenges to come.