The Reagan Library Debate: Round One of the Two-Man Race (Advancing a Free Society) September 12, 2011

Political debates rarely live up to their name, much less their hype. It is especially difficult to have any sort of debate when the stage is crowded with multiple candidates, each trying to get in a memorable sound bite or talking point.

But the Republican candidates almost had a debate Wednesday night, as most of them shrank into the background and the two leading contenders, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, squared off. Rick Perry was surprisingly good in his first debate and, even more surprising, he seemed to make Mitt Romney better.

The entire Republican race to date has been an audition to see who would emerge as the second semi-finalist alongside Mitt Romney. Although Michele Bachmann had a brief try-out in that role following her strong finish in the Iowa straw poll, no one really thought she had the staying power to end up there. But Rick Perry, whose appeal appears to be broad and strong, seems likely from day one to make it to the final round with Romney.

As a front-runner in his first debate, it was clear Perry would be a target of the moderators and the other candidates, and he seemed ready for it. The key is that he kept his composure and his smile, shrugged off multiple attacks, and held his ground. He responded to the gang attack with humor, noting he was the “piñata,” and quickly got into a jab and punch with Romney over who had created more jobs as governor. He stood by his rhetoric that Social Security was a “ponzi scheme”—questionable on the substance, but strong on style—and gave as well as he took.

Romney, finally facing a formidable opponent, really seemed to rise to the occasion. Rather than steer the middle of the road with bland responses as he has done most of the year, Romney attacked Perry’s record as governor and was spirited in the defense of his own. You don’t understand Massachusetts, he said. We don’t have oil wells and no state income tax. And he was a gentleman when Perry acknowledged he might have handled a matter better with the Texas legislature, noting that we had all made mistakes, had done things we might do differently.

This is rapidly becoming a two-man race, and a potentially interesting one at that. Romney has the experience of running before and a huge head start in fundraising. His strength—the economy—matches what voters say is their biggest concern. I have a friend who says Romney’s best campaign speech would simply mention jobs and his ability to understand and create them about every third sentence. But his conservative credentials are subject to attack and somehow he seems to impress voters as running for chief operating officer more than president.

Perry is the candidate with, as they say these days, strong positives but also strong negatives. In a political party with so many different kinds of conservatives (social, fiscal, constitutional, religious), Perry seems to be conservative across the board. And though it will be attacked, still his record in Texas speaks well to the big issue of the day: the economy. His problem—which was not helped in this debate—is he doesn’t yet seem to get the difference between running for office in Texas and nationally. His rhetoric and ideas (social security as a ponzi scheme, should Texas secede from the Union, a governor leading a huge Christian prayer rally) often fit Texas more than they do the greater diversity of the country. He clearly needs some help outgrowing his parochialism, without seeming to be reinventing himself or flip-flopping (as Romney is often accused of doing).

So, they’re off, these two interesting, contrasting candidates, Perry and Romney. Soon enough, the other candidates will fall to the wayside, and we may end up with a compelling two-man race to the Republican nomination next summer.

Read the entire piece on Advancing a Free Society here: http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2011/09/12/round-one/

FCC Takes a Small Step into the Information Age (Advancing a Free Society) August 28, 2011

In announcing recently that the Fairness Doctrine would soon be removed from the books, the FCC took one small step into the information age. Unfortunately there is still plenty of media regulation that is stuck in the industrial age and in serious need of rethinking.

A major problem with government regulation of business is that it is based upon markets as they exist at the time regulations are imposed. In the case of radio, this body of law has largely been the Radio Act of 1927, the Communications Act of 1934, and the Fairness Doctrine adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1949. The nature of the problem becomes clear when you recognize that there were fewer than 3000 radio stations in 1949 compared with some 14,000 today.

The Fairness Doctrine has required radio stations to air opposing points of view. So, for example, if a radio host or guest favored a particular policy, the station was obligated to air a message against. Perhaps this made more sense when a geographic market had few stations, but today every point of view under the sun finds its way into the thousands of media outlets available, so the market itself provides plenty of protection for minority views. Really, the only question should be why it took government regulators so long to catch up to market realities.

But while we celebrate this small step, we must acknowledge that government has so far to go to square up government policy with market realities of the media age. Take the equal time rule, which is a kind of companion to the Fairness Doctrine requiring that, if one candidate for office appears, other candidates must be given equal time. This rule is also anachronistic and has been so swallowed up in exceptions as to be meaningless. If Donald Trump were to run for president, for example, his appearances on “The Apprentice” might require equal time for other candidates, unless the show was on cable television, which is a meaningless distinction these days. If a candidate sits down for a few minutes with Letterman or Leno, another exception for “news/interviews” ridiculously comes into play. Isn’t it time for “equal time” to go the way of the Fairness Doctrine?

And, while we’re at it, how about government subsidies and funding for public broadcasting? Again, these may have made sense when there were only 3 or 4 television networks, but if there is a need for their programs today, shouldn’t they have to compete for funding and air time with everyone else? I find little justification for a near-bankrupt government to spend money on television and radio programs when we live in a 24-7 media cycle.

So one cheer for the FCC. But I’ll hold off on three cheers until more work is done to align government policy toward media with the market realities of the media age.

Read the piece on Advancing a Free Society here: http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2011/08/28/fairness-doctrine/

California: A Season of Reform? (Advancing a Free Society) August 26, 2011

Until the California economy (and tax revenues) begins to recover, a window of opportunity remains open for fiscal and governance reforms in the state. Slow, quietly, such reforms have begun, first with the enactment of redistricting reform and then the open primary. This week the California Assembly has before it SB 14, which calls for performance-based budgeting, and SB 15, which requires a multi-year budget.

This summer, several California organizations joined together to set the stage for additional reforms by convening the first statewide California Deliberative Poll. We brought together a scientific random sample of 412 Californians to spend a weekend deliberating over additional reforms that might help get the state moving again. The results of these deliberations were announced this week: http://www.nextca.org/.

Even though 70% of those participating questioned whether the California legislature was able to “get important things done,” after deliberation most felt that increasing the length of terms and even growing the size of the legislature would strengthen the legislative process. But they want the legislature to be held accountable to identify funding for new programs or tax cuts, establish a rainy day fund, and do performance-based budgeting.

In its 100^th anniversary year, the initiative process gets strong support, but California voters find these ballot measures confusing. They would like a citizen review board to clarify initiatives and want initiatives to identify sources of any needed funding. And voters clearly want devolution of both decision-making and money from Sacramento to local governments.

California Forward (on whose board I serve), Think Long (on whose board Hoover fellows Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz serve) and other groups plan to use these Deliberative Poll results to press for legislative changes and likely one or more ballot initiatives in November, 2012. It is possible that those who say California is ungovernable will be pleasantly surprised by several important reforms during this open window.

To see the article in Advancing a Free Society click here:  http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2011/08/26/ca-season-of-reform/

Californians brainstorm state’s political issues by Lenny Mendonca & David Davenport (San Francisco Chronicle) May 31, 2011

It’s hardly news that Californians are frustrated with politics as usual.  The   budget  is billions of dollars out of balance and invariably comes together late, with duct tape and deferral of the real problems. Sixty percent of Californians say the state is headed in the wrong direction.

But a large part of the problem is the disillusionment and lack of engagement by Californians themselves, who have a major stake but not much of a voice. Occasionally they rise up with ballot initiatives, but even those are largely dominated by special interests. How can ordinary Californians be engaged and heard on the state’s big problems?

Next month, 300 randomly selected Californians will have an opportunity to do just that – to deliberate and speak out on key issues of fiscal and political reform that could help move the state forward. Using principles of Athenian democracy, and tools of leading-edge technology, these ordinary Californians will spend the weekend of June 24-26 in Torrance (Los Angeles County) engaging in the first-ever California statewide deliberative poll. Both the process and the outcome promise to be significant.

A deliberative poll brings together a representative random sample of the state for a weekend of study, presentations and small-group discussions of key issues – in this case taxation, local control, the initiative process and legislative representation. They will consider a range of reforms and approaches to these questions of governance and fiscal policy that could form the basis for breaking the logjam in Sacramento and moving the state forward. It gives voice to the commonsense ideas of everyday Californians.

James Fishkin of Stanford University, creator of the deliberative poll and one of the leaders of the “What’s Next California” weekend, has carried out such projects on important and difficult topics all over the world. Consistently, policymakers are surprised by the sophisticated trade-offs and recommendations that result from citizen deliberation, and the people who participate and observe increase their levels of civic engagement long term.

This unique civic experiment will be filmed and edited into a documentary to be aired by PBS, so that every Californian has the opportunity to see not just what but also how their fellow citizens think as they work through tough issues with their peers. The results of the poll will show what proposals the public would support, and which ones it would not, if it had good information and really engaged the issues. In that way, the poll will provide a route to responsible advocacy, a path for possible reform proposals and ballot propositions in the future.

Prior reform efforts have either been based in Sacramento itself, or brought together distinguished panels that created interesting studies that by and large ended up on a shelf. This time, 300 Californians should spark a serious debate throughout California and enable a broad-based look at improving governance in our large and complex state.

Stay tuned, California. The people are about to speak!

Lenny Mendonca is a director of McKinsey & Co. David Davenport is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Together they represent the bipartisan leadership of What’s Next California. A multi-partisan group of organizers has come together to launch this project, including: California Forward, the New America Foundation, the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University, the Public Policy Institute of California, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute, the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, and California Common Cause. See www.nextca.org.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/29/INTQ1JL14K.DTL

This article appeared on page F – 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Why One National Curriculum Is Bad For America (www.k12innovation.com) May 6, 2011

Below is a statement signed by David Davenport and other educational and scholarly leaders:

Closing the Door on Innovation

International Law Needs to Man Up to Pirates (Advancing A Free Society) November 16, 2010

Two recent developments bring the problem of Somali pirates back into view. Last week, a federal court in Virginia began the first U.S. trial on piracy charges in over 100 years.  And this week, pirates finally released an older British couple who have been held in Somalia for over a year.

Why hasn’t international law been more effective in dealing with the problem of piracy?  Ironically, laws of universal jurisdiction—a core doctrine of international law—were largely developed to deal with piracy on the high seas centuries ago, yet in the 21^st century, we still have pirates. Why?

For one thing, nations have been afraid to take on the possible legal complications of trying pirates, so they have engaged in “catch and release.” Europeans fear possible human rights charges if they capture pirates, and also that the pirates might seek asylum. Legal technicalities are a problem—must the Somali pirates successfully board the ship or take control of it to be guilty of piracy? Collecting evidence and witnesses are a challenge, as is the diversity of national registry and ownership of ships and their cargo.

Money is always an issue—when ransoms are paid, piracy is encouraged.

Good for the U.S. for bringing these 5 pirates to trial, but there are many more out there. It’s time for international law to spend less time and energy on political agendas and man up to deal with a real and practical problem such as piracy.

To view the commentary:  http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2010/11/16/exclusive-international-law-needs-to-man-up-to-pirates/