Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) called a special session to try to tackle transportation funding issues in the State of Virginia. He failed. He failed to lead his divided party.

The General Assembly already has killed Kaine's proposal for a $1.1.billion tax increase to pay for roads and rail. It appears unlikely that the legislature will approve new statewide money for transportation, and the issue might not be brought up again until after the 2009 governor's race.

More.

 

It is offensive...at least to me.

Yes, the sign is a form of protest as well as an expression of grievance, albeit mis-placed grievance.

It is, I believe, however, more reflective of the author's bias than any bias of the people in the city in which the 'sign' resides. The fact the city has overwhelmingly approved measures to curb its illegal (emphasis on: "illegal") immigrant population has nothing to do with the author of the sign - except that the author believes such policies are racist.

You decide; read the article.

This week's Economist notes: Americans are increasingly forming like-minded clusters. Conservatives are choosing to live near other conservatives, and liberals near liberals.

Well, the foregoing makes sense. Why would I want to live in a neighborhood in which I would not fit in? Let me state it another, more direct way. Why would I want to live in a neighborhood that does not share my values?

So what does this have to do with the Commonwealth? Well, the following observation is included in the article and merits our attention.

Income is a poor predictor of party preference in America; cultural factors matter more. For Americans who move to a new city, the choice is often not between a posh neighbourhood and a run-down one, but between several different neighbourhoods that are economically similar but culturally distinct.

For example, someone who works in Washington, DC, but wants to live in a suburb can commute either from Maryland or northern Virginia. Both states have equally leafy streets and good schools. But Virginia has plenty of conservative neighbourhoods with megachurches and Bushites you've heard of living on your block. In the posh suburbs of Maryland, by contrast, Republicans are as rare as unkempt lawns and yard signs proclaim that war is not the answer but Barack Obama might be.

At a bookshop in Bethesda (one of those posh Maryland suburbs), Steven Balis, a retired lawyer with wild grey hair and a scruffy T-shirt, looks up from his New York Times. He says he is a Democrat because of "the absence of alternatives". He comes from a family of secular Jews who supported the New Deal. He holds "positive notions of what government actions can accomplish". Asked why he moved to Maryland rather than Virginia, he jokes that the far side of the river is "Confederate territory". Asked if he has hard-core social-conservative acquaintances, he answers simply: "No."

Yes, I live in Virginia - in a rural area of like-minded conservatives and right-of-center neighbors. It is, or rather was, "Confederate territory." I might complain about the Yankees on occasion - but it is more often about the NY Yankees than the Northern yankees. After all, I was educated at Robert E. Lee Elementary School where I learned about the "War of Northern Aggression."

Does this mean I am part of the political balkanization of America? I think not. Nevertheless that is the worry embodied in The Economist article. It is a false worry. The authors of the article are committing an error, giving credence to scholarly research - albeit sound research, that is not considering history. American politics has historically been balkanized, long before it knew of the Balkans.

The authors, I suspect, would have us all living merrily together under the guise of political diversity "hating each other cordially."

Source: Political segregation
The Big Sort
Jun 19th 2008
From The Economist print edition

There is an interesting article in The Economist about Senator Jim Webb extolling the pros and cons of the freshman senator as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate. On the con side the article states:

The main worry about Mr Webb, however, is that he is a genuine fire-breathing economic populist. He appears actually to believe the sort of stuff that Mr Obama only says during Democratic primaries. Since vice-presidents sometimes become presidents, this matters. American workers, says Mr Webb, "are at the mercy of cut-throat executives who are vastly overpaid, partly as a consequence of giving [the workers'] jobs away to other people." Illegal immigration and globalisation "threaten to dissipate" the American middle-class way of life. He predicts that, unless the government acts to restore "economic fairness", America "may well go the way of ancient Greece [or] greed-ridden Rome".

The article concludes, thankfully, with the following statement:

America may be horribly unequal, but it is not, as Mr Webb imagines, apocalyptically so. And judging by his book, Mr Webb has only a shaky understanding of the economic system he decries. He thinks South Korea is more productive than America, and that "most" investors are among the wealthiest 1% of Americans. (In fact, about half of Americans own shares.) He is worryingly hazy about how he would make America fairer. But his instincts are plainly hostile to the free flow of goods, investment and people across borders. Mr Obama, who has recently started to sound less protectionist on the campaign trail and has appointed a team of impeccably centrist economic advisers, can surely do a bit better.

Or, on second thought, not so thankfully; Mr. Webb would pose a very interesting candidacy for those of us who are right-of-center.

Source: The class warrior
Jun 19th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Let me see if I understand the following information.

Automobile sales are [down] or [up] from one year ago.

General Motors, down 17.7%
Ford Motor Co., down 27.9%
Chrysler LLC, down 35.9%
Toyota, down 21.4%
American Honda, up 01.1%
Nissan NA, down 17.7%
Hyundai, up 01.3%
Mazda, down 07.7%
Mitsubishi, down 42.4%
Volvo, down 27.0%
Volkswagen, down 02.1%
BMW, down 17.0%
Isuzu, down 46.2%
Source.

Consider the foregoing in light of the fact that automobile manufacturing accounts for nearly 10% of the GDP.

Add to the above:
Gasoline has risen 25% at the pump in the last year.
In 2006 the unemployment rate was 4.4%; today it is over 5.5%.
Consumer confidence was at a high of 107 in 2006; today is at 50.
In 2006 annual housing starts were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 2.3 million units; today it is at 1 million units.
In 2005 annual existing-home sales approached 7.5 million units; today it is at 4.9 million units.
Source

Now tell me: which political party controls Congress?

So says Dick Morris. But McCain has an uphill battle - to say the least.