Posted inPolitics: National

What to expect in the McCain administration (my friends)

I hope you noticed the different receptions given to John McCain and Barack Obama at  the Associated Press earlier this week. The supposed liberal, Obama-loving media offered McCain a love-fest, complete with his favorite donut with sprinkles and no follow-ups to some of his bizarre or controversial answers to questions. When Obama appeared, AP director Billy Dean Singleton, who has destroyed some of America’s best newspapers, asked the Illinois senator if he would favor shifting troops to Afghanistan to fight "Obama bin Laden." I am not making this up.

One of the biggest challenges to Democrats this year is that the mainstream media simply won’t report fairly on McCain, much less go after him the way it did when Obama made the "bitter" comment. Combined with Democrat self-destruction, the ignorance of much of the electorate, and the way Republicans steal close elections, I think McCain has a very good chance of winning the White House.

So based on McCain’s record in Arizona, his policy statements and temperment, let’s imagine the next four years.

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Posted inPhoenix

Poor little rich Scottsdale

Some readers have asked me to comment on the latest dysfunction in Scottsdale, including the forced departure of City Manager Jan Dolan. I will, but with more than mixed feelings.

First, I went to high school in Scottsdale when it was a sweet small city and hadn’t been completely changed by money, transience, political extremism and the urban problems (without urban solutions) that plague all of Phoenix. Among its virtues was a small-town merchant class that was genuinely invested in a place of manageable size (Roosevelt to McDonald). My Scottsdale is gone forever, but the small city that it was in the 1970s nurtured much good in my young life.

Second, Scottsdale’s future is already baked in the cake. The thugs that want to recall the mayor for allegedly even thinking about light rail need not worry. They have "won." What you’ve got is what you’ve got, and the world will intrude. Of course their agenda is always more power and intimidation than accomplishing anything.

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John F. Long, a builder of modern Phoenix, dies at 87
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

John F. Long, a builder of modern Phoenix, dies at 87

John_F_LongIt is a sign of the cluelessness of the children hired by the Arizona Republic that its headline online says, “Valley philanthropist John F. Long dies at 87.” It’s a little like saying “Former cowboy actor Ronald Reagan dies.” Fortunately the obituary is in the hands of one of the few graybeards that haven’t been run out by “the information center,” Chuck Kelly.

John F. Long was a towering figure among the giants who built Phoenix from a small farm town into the nation’s fifth largest city. With Maryvale, he not only brought affordable, pleasant suburbia to post-war Phoenix, he paved the way for thousands of ex-GIs to own their homes. He was an innovator of national consequence, but unlike some who followed him in Phoenix development, he stayed close to his roots. He was a civic steward, city councilman, a man who loved to tend his burros in retirement and whose life was rich in stories and lore. And yes, he was also a philanthropist.

Long’s life also paralleled the rise and decline of the post-war automobile suburb.

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Posted inUncategorized

Stagflation may be the least of our worries

Stagflation is the worry of the moment. Talk about a ’70s flashback. The term refers to the combination of high inflation, high unemployment and weak growth — trends that weren’t supposed to go together. As Robert Samuelson has pointed out, the current troubles likely won’t be a repeat of the disco age, unless the Fed overreacts. Recessions are natural economic phenomena and sometimes trying to avoid them can make the eventual reckoning worse.

But we shouldn’t stop thinking there. As long as the popular conversation is on stagflation and the 1970s, it’s a chance to follow those themes to some provocative and disturbing questions.

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Posted inUncategorized

Apportioning blame for miserable cities

Forbes has published its first list of "miserable cities." Like all such magazine lists, it’s fairly arbitrary, somewhat silly and, in the case of Forbes, informed by its ideology. Thus, "high" tax rates help make a place "miserable." The deferred infrastructure, education, healthcare, environmental and social costs of such low-tax sprawlbergs as Las Vegas and Phoenix are not included.

If those places are so great for business, why do "miserable cities" like New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia remain capitals of commerce, culture and talent? I’m waiting for Wall Street, rather than some bottom-feeder related to the housing industry, to move to Phoenix.

No matter. There are some things to be learned in the misery list.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The strange media romance with John McCain

Breaking up is hard to do, particularly with a lover you’ve idealized to the point of pathology. So what if the reality is as jarring, even dangerous, odds with the ideal? So it is with the mainsteam media and John McCain.

We were treated to this once again in the Sunday New York Times. A front page story described how this "maverick," "insurgent," "one of the most disruptive figures in his party" and "rebel" is now trying to be a standard-bearer who can unite his party. There was mention of his "volcanic" blowups, but in an admiring way.

On the op-ed page, Nicholas Kristof writes, "Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions,
there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes
despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering."

Such is the scary fog of McCain worship that envelops even smart people writing for the best newspaper in America. The reality is quite different.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

Ground zero in the illegal immigration nightmare

For the second time in two weeks, the New York Times has produced major stories on Phoenix and illegal immigration (read the stories here and here). It’s about time the nation took notice of Phoenix’s second largest industry (after house building): people smuggling. Many of the immigrants that staff the chicken plants of North Carolina and the meat-packing plants of the upper plains states came through Phoenix.

This industry has caused a low-intensity war to be fought on the streets of Phoenix and its suburbs for several years, recently leading to the gunning down of a police officer. Of the millions who have gone through the city, many have settled. A third of the city is officially Hispanic, but the real numbers are probably far larger and many are illegal. Meanwhile, the Anglo population, whether from the Midwest or from Arizona, has increasingly rebelled against the influx. Arizona has passed some of the most draconian laws against illegals, and the state is full of anti-Hispanic sentiment, much of expressed in the most thuggish manner (check out any blog or story comment on the Arizona Republic if you doubt me).

But the situation is complex and contradictory. It’s not rocket science. It’s much, much more complicated.

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Posted inPolitics: National

The problem with the Clintons

In a different world, with different Clintons — the idealized ones, not the real ones — Hill and Bill might have given more serious thought to their current endeavor. If she’s elected, her husband would not only be the first first gentleman, but a former president carrying the influence and power of that position.

George Washington was painfully aware that everything he did set a precedent, so he endeavored to set them with care and character. Bill Clinton set off in his usual fashion, the smartest man in the room, too smart for his own good. The Southern intellectual who forgot the redneck’s last words: "Hey, y’all, watch this!" With the Clintonian combination of recklessness and carelessness, he alone may have cost his wife the nomination by alienating so many in the South Carolina primary.

The Founders of this Republic frowned on anything smacking of the dynastic. And even when sons have followed fathers — twice — it hasn’t worked out well. Not for nothing did George H.W. Bush jokingly call his son "Quincy." The Clintons propose something far closer to real dynasty. He will be there, like his wife before him, as buy-one-get-two co-president. And, as usual, they seemed to be unaware of the magnitude of their ambition, and the care with which it needed to be presented to the nation.

Yet this may be one of the lesser problems with Hillary Clinton.

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Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix in search of ‘big city cred’

At the risk of being cruel…

I missed the Feb 4th article in the Arizona Republic headlined "Getting some Big City cred." It starts off, "A
major golf tournament, a celebrity-studded auto auction and, most
important, the Super Bowl — these are the markings of a destination
metropolis.
Yet on the list of America’s
Greatest Big Cities, Phoenix lags in the sorts of physical, cultural
and historical amenities that distinguish the most memorable
destinations."

Then it offers suggestions, some whimsical, some apparently serious, about how Phoenix could get, er, "cred": a signature skyscraper, a signature enchilada, a San Antonio-style riverwalk, more gridlock.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The recession this time

Another recession, and for many Americans the post-2001 recovery and expansion felt like one long tough slog. It would have felt worse had they been living within their means, but liar-loan mortgages, bottomless credit cards and cheap stuff from China allowed them to think they were rolling in the good times, just like the hedge-fund managers and CEOs.

Another recession, and it won’t be like 2001, when a fraud-driven bubble burst, or 1991, when the savings-and-loan scandal sank the economy. It will have fraud, bursting bubbles and unsustainable finance, to be sure. But it may be far worse than anything we have experienced since 1982, maybe longer.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Lies, damned lies, and withdrawal from Iraq

It’s easy to beat up John McCain for wanting to stay the bloody course in Iraq, indeed that America might have troops there for next 100 years. McCain’s strategy won’t be merely more of the same. It will be a push way down the slippery slope. But there’s much wishful thinking and dissembling on the part of the Democrats, too.

If Iraq really were another Vietnam, withdrawal would be without serious geopolitical consequences. Yet we shouldn’t forget the moral consequences of our withdrawal, with millions of South Vietnamese facing a brutal takeover and thousands who worked for us facing far worse. Hmong tribesmen who supported the CIA’s secret war in Laos are still on the run, abandoned by the superpower that so cavalierly used them. We should have gotten out. We shouldn’t forget that the cost was high.

But Iraq is not Vietnam, a fact that should be remembered every time a Democrat drives home from an anti-war rally in his SUV.

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Posted inUncategorized

Seattle’s mental gridlock over transportation

Angst and debate are allowed in Seattle. Unlike Phoenix, there’s little boosterism here (the city’s success is obvious), no pressure to just shut up and buy a house (with one of America’s best-educated populations, people are informed and involved), and the love and concern people have for Seattle is genuine (as opposed to, ‘at least it’s hot and sunny’).

Transportation angst is one of the big local sports, and yet not much gets done. Voters recently voted down a big package of roads and transit. And rightly so: it would have increased emissions by adding roads, as well as installed light rail in the wrong places. Plus, it would have taken 20 or more years to complete. Even the Sierra Club opposed it.

Still, any new measures will be long in coming, and I sensed some fundamental disconnects in the debate. Most of them go back to my basic premise that the next 30 years will be radically different from the past 30 years.

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Posted inUncategorized

Wishful-thinking stimulus

There’s a great deal of silliness and sophistry about the economy at this dangerous moment, but why should it be different from anything else in American life?

Washington debates a “stimulus” package of tax cuts and newspapers write headlines to tell “average readers” (whatever the hell that means) that the feds will put hundreds of dollars in their pockets. Wall Street does a dead-cat bounce and commentators who were darkly warning of recession are now talking about a miraculous comeback. In the New York Times, the normally sensible David Leonhardt was saddled with a headline that emblemized the silliness: “Worries That the Good Times Were Mostly a Mirage.”

In reality, the economy risks finally tipping over from a series of imbalances and forces long in the making. The Fed is very limited in its ability to right the ship. And any “stimulus” risks making things worse, aside from extending unemployment benefits, which is somehow anathema to “conservatives.”

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