A fight is brewing in Pennsylvania as some Republicans indicate that they wish to transform the way the state allocates its electoral votes for the presidency. The President of the United States is not elected by the national popular vote, but rather by the popular vote in each of the 50 states--if one candidate in Ohio gets 55% of the popular vote in Ohio, that candidate receives Ohio's electoral votes. To win the presidency, one needs to win at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes; these votes are divvied between the states based on congressional representation, plus three for the District of Columbia. The Electoral College is designed to support federalism by forcing candidates to campaign across a broad spectrum among the states and also maintains for us a relatively stable and fraud-free system, especially compared to other nations. Yes, there is occasionally a fluke when the popular vote and the electoral votes do not match up--the 2000 Election an example of this--but these are rare, and not a reason to discount the entire system.

Paul Ryan on the Constitution, speaking at Hillsdale.  Serious, good, Long. Worth reading.

While the fall of the mad dog of Libya is indeed welcome, the intervention of the West into these affairs can have several unfortunate results. President Obama's degradation of the Constitution and the capitulation of Congress to the breaking down of the separation of powers notwithstanding, there are real and practical problems that will arise within the international system that can be very bad. Chief among them is the emboldening of Iran's determination to pursue nuclear power, emboldened by the back-and-forth foreign policy (and general lack of grand strategy) exhibited by the West.

Robinson's note below, and the fact that we are moving toward Constitution Day--reminds me to bring to your attention the latest Letter from an Ohio Farmer, appropriately entitled, Congress and the Constitution. It makes the case that Congress is at the very heart of our experiment in constitutional self-government.  You should subscribe to the Farmer's Letters, if you haven't already done so.

Ronald Pestritto, a professor at that other school and for the MAHG program, spoke yesterday before the Congressional Constitution Caucus here on Capitol Hill. Speaking on the rise of the administrative state, progressive attacks on the Constitution, and how to defend against them, he started by lamenting the fact that Congress even needed a caucus dedicated to looking at and defending the Constitution. The good talk was followed by a good question-and-answer session, focusing much on the role of the courts in today's world. He reiterated concern by others that people are pinning their hopes on the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare, rather than Congress or the White House-- while he'd love to see the healthcare boondoggle shut down, Pestritto cautioned that the very fact that we are looking to the courts to be the heavyweight and support the Constitution is part of the problem. The professor hit the nail in the head towards the end of the session: "Most of politics today is a fight between the two unelected branches of government: the courts and the bureaucracy." The rebirth of constitutional seriousness is needed, and Congress needs to once more be filled by partisans of the Constitution. Good to remember this Constitution Day.

Reihan Salam has been writing lengthy and thoughtful posts that are skeptical of Gov. Perry's record and chances of winning an election against President Obama. I'm less down on Perry at this point.  I think it is possible that he will prove to be shrewder and better able to appeal to persuadables than people think.  Or maybe not.  Salam is surely right that Republicans need to be more careful about tailoring their messages to the sensibilities and priorities of voters that are open to voting for Republicans but who have not fully bought into a conservative narrative.  

One way to do that is for Republicans to distance themselves from the Ryan budget without offering any specific entitlement reforms.  But just ducking the issue of crafting a sustainable budget isn't good enough to meet the moment.  Who cares if Republicans hold office as the US spins into a Greece-like fiscal crisis?  Well, some Republican office holders might care, but what is in it for the rest of us?  So Republicans, if they are to be serious and prudent, need to thread the needle of offering a policy program that will lead to a sustainable federal budget consistent with economic growth and a political strategy (which includes policy formation) that will allow them to win over enough voters to win enough elections to implement and institutionalize that program.  Not easy.   

I opened the teach-yourself manual and it pointed me--after pages on fingers and their numbers, wrist placement, and posture and such--to middle C and then some other notes.  I touched it and it made a sound, a good sound.  I liked it, even though it filled me both with wonder and terror.  Certainly this is not yet rhythm and melody, but move we will. So I brought her home about two weeks ago and she fit at an inside wall, under Ben's portrait, with a couple of porcelain Hungarian peasants, drunk, on her top, next to gifted flowers.  So I am pushing along, maybe an hour a day, and getting to know her, Evelyn, or Evie (because all good things have to have names).  She is a console, not young, but in fine condition, a lovely thing actually, with simple and elegant lines, darker complexion. Simply beautiful, even graceful, and all her movements are primitive poetry, music, something like the soul's primary speech.  She does not complicate anything.  She sounds very good, seems to like me making noise, the only thing I am capable of yet.  Eventually it will become moody food, maybe even poetry, that may push folks to dance.  I'll work on it.  She is a great good and a fine pleasure. 

When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, hope and a sense of upward mobility filled the people of Russia, finally freed from the central economic planning and political oppression under the Soviet Union. They could get jobs, raise children, and live in peace and happiness, they felt. Now, Putin is set to retake control of the presidency from his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, and the mood of the nation could not be more opposed to what it was when he first came to power, as the Economist describe in this study of a sickening Russia. The Russian people are emigrating, or at least planning to or want to, and taking their money with them. The first to want to get out are entrepreneurs, followed closely by students, fleeing the oppression of a nation whose politics is so rotten that dissenters are thrown in jail or forbidden from travel, and where investors are hesitant to put money into new businesses--if a rival is friends with the local government, you could be jailed and your assets seized. In Putin's Russia, nostalgia for the Soviet Union is now coming equipped with some similarity to the circumstances of Soviet rule.

I've been too busy to post much these days, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, but I just had to share this article, perhaps the best thing I've ever read on the subject of education.  It explains precisely why a liberal arts education is so important, as well as why it is so difficult to get one these days.  My favorite quote is this:

Education is about finding out what form of work for you is close to being play--work you do so easily that it restores you as you go.

In a special congressional election to fill the seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner, citizens of New York's 9th congressional district--encompassing parts of Queens and Brooklyn--voted for businessman Bob Turner over Assemblyman David Weprin, electing a Republican for the first time in its history by a handed 54-46% of the vote. In a district with a large Jewish population and where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-1, the fact that Weprin, an Orthodox Jew and established member of the Democratic Party's NYC political machine, lost can at first seem surprising. While I do not think Republicans should get too hopeful over the victory--wedge issues like gay marriage and Israel were substantially more important in this race than they would be nationally, I think--it does indicate massive problems for Democrats in particular elections next year. The citizens of this district do not trust Democrat's leadership on the economy right now, and even voters who typically vote for Democrats they disagree with on major issues--Jews with Obama on Israel, for example--because they're good on everything else, are not buying into that "they're good on everything else" line anymore. Losing a district with a heavy Jewish and Catholic population may indicate that there could be damage to Democrats in their traditional strongholds--cities--and also hamper fundraising efforts.

Writing in the Claremont Review of Books, Mark Helprin argues that the central proposition of American foreign policy over the last decade is fundamentally flawed. Our belief that we are capable of transforming a single Islamic nation--or the entire Arab world--into friendly liberal democracies with respect for human rights and international security is dangerous and negligent of history, according to Helprin. I am inclined to agree with him. While men have a natural desire for freedom and are capable of self-government, it takes a long time for a nation to reach that point-- and the Islamic nations as a whole are not entirely ready for that. The "evangelical" foreign policy of the United States in the ten years following the September 11th attacks has been futile, and we are in just as much danger today as we were ten years ago.

"To succeed, a paradigm of "invade, reconstruct, and transform," requires the decisive defeat, disarmament, and political isolation of the enemy; the demoralization of its population; the destruction of its political ethos; and the presence, at the end of hostilities, of overwhelming force. In Iraq and Afghanistan none of these conditions was fulfilled, the opposite impression flowing mainly from our contacts predominantly with an expressive, Western-educated elite, and from our failure to understand that despite the universal desire for freedom, equity, safety, honor, and prosperity, the operational definitions of each of these objectives can vary so much as to render the quality of universality meaningless."

From Minding the Campus:

First-years are being pressured to sign a "Freshman Pledge" committing them to create a campus "where the exercise of kindness holds a place on a par with intellectual attainment" -- all in the name of "upholding the values of the College" including "inclusiveness and civility."

Why do universities think they are doing minorities a favor by these policies?  The Center for Equal Opportunity strikes again, this time against grotesque racial disparities the University of Wisconsin undergraduate and law school admissions process:

The odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1330-to-1 and 1494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.

For law school admissions, the racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance--but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.

CEO chairman Linda Chavez noted: "This is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years."

The studies can be downloaded on PDFs from the linked site.   UW's lame response here.

Samuel Gregg has a worthy note on Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture, offered five years ago today.

Here is a remarkable story of a man brightening people's lives with a seemingly unremarkable object. "Solar Demi" saw a problem, had an idea, and is now improving the lives of his neighbors. Now charities have teamed up to bring a Liter of Light to many people in similar situations. Good for them.

Michael Ramirez on the tenth anniversary of 9/11:

Sorry I've been away.  Browser issues.

The tough economy is going to have people looking for someone else for President.  Unless the economy takes an unanticipated sharp upward turn, Obama's only chance will be to win a negative victory.  It is possible he will do just that if the Republicans help him out. 

Rick Perry's strong record of job creation in Texas should put him in a strong position to take on Obama.  The problem is that Perry will need a convincing message on entitlement reform.  Putting aside the correctness of calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, rhetorical hostility to Social Security hurts the chances for reforming our largest social welfare programs.  Some kind of substantial (as in trillions and trillions over any given decade) federal-level role in funding and/or forced savings is going to persist whoever wins the next presidential election or the one after that.  The open question is what that federal role will look like.  Any right-leaning reform that leads to a sustainable system is going to involve huge cuts (somewhat in Social Security and more so in Medicare) and substantial restructuring (especially in Medicare and Medicaid.)  Even if these cuts and other changes are gradual and designed to minimize impacts on the most vulnerable, the changes are still going to sound scary.  They are going to sound even more scary when Democrats describe them.

As Maggie Gallagher pointed out, right-leaning reforms are more likely to be implemented and sustained by politicians who seek to reform those programs in a humane and responsible ways, rather than politicians who seem like enemies of any kind of Social Security and Medicare, and who seem poised to use the looming fiscal crisis to swoop in for the kill.