Chaffee, Daily Show, and Wrap Up

Well I had no idea what I'd write for "wrap up", but tonight (12/11) on the Daily Show (I'd link to a clip but it just aired, maybe later if I can find it) Lincoln Chaffee was interviewed by John Stewart. He started out by blaming sorting for why there are only three moderate Republicans in the Senate (which all eat lunch together every Wednesday by the way). Interestingly enough is his claim that the Senate majority is not held together by any punishment system, for instance reducing any pork projects, but rather a rally around the President push (coat-tails). Perhaps Bush should thank Democrats-or rather Van Buren for inventing parties and a coat-tail system. What was really striking was that Chaffee admitted to finding various ways to "inoculate" himself from Bush and conservative Republicans, including publically stating that he didn't vote for Bush in order to convince the Rhode Island electorate that he was moderate enough for them to vote for him (which still didn't work). He later couldn't come up with anything Congress should be proud of in the last five years. (Why he stuck with the Republicans is beyond reason since he viewed them in such negative light.) What is telling is that his words and his situation seem to confirm a lot of what we have been studying throughout the semester. First off, sorting is responsible for some of the polarization occurring in Congress (yes, that's a duh!). Second, was his lament that the Republican Party has been overrun by conservatives. This plays into Frank’s research of how conservatives displaced moderate Republicans in Kansas. Finally, Chaffee was annoyed how primaries have been taken over by the extreme and force candidates to appear more conservative. The Chaffee interview was a great wrap up of the class, although I’m not sure Aldrich would approve of a rally around the President as a way of solving social choice and collective action problems (it got them tossed out as a majority). I will try to find the Daily Show link.

P.s. good cookies Alex

P.s.s. Oh, and for the blog in general: it would have been better if we would have had more structure on what was expected of us and when. I'm ambivalent about a term paper subsitute, It wouldn't have been bad, but probably another stress. Reading response papers would have been annoying! Try the blog again, but for the start give the students topics and a date in which the blog for the week would be due. (I think we collectively decided Sunday, or at least that's what it seemed.) As for the books, just the first one was bad. The Aldrich book will take students a bit longer to understand, but it was good and I'm keeping it as a future reference.