Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Obama After Massachusetts →

Scott Brown's victory was a major victory for the Republican Party as it demonstrated that they are, at least for now, a political factor again, but in some respects it was less significant for the Democratic President and his party. The Obama administration, and his party, was in trouble before this special election given the ongoing economic problems, growing discontent with Obama's policies from, predictably, the right and, less predictably, the left, and a compromise on health care that only further angered these groups. The election in Massachusetts was additional evidence of a trend that was already strong, rather than a turning point of some kind.

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International Responses to the Earthquake in Haiti

International assistance following a natural disaster of this sort is not new. Many of the same actors provided support to the victims of the Tsunami in 2004. It may, however, become more common in the next decades. Unusual weather events will likely be one of the first impacts of climate change which will be felt. Although the event in Haiti was an earthquake with no likely connection to climate change, the general pattern of a devastating natural disaster occurring in a country that has already had more than its share of misfortune which will both cause immediate tragedy and perhaps set that country’s development back years may become more common.

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The Paradox of Historically Great Pitchers in a Hitter's Era

While the last fifteen years have not been a great period for pitching in general, it has been a surprisingly good period for a small handful of individual pitchers. The quartet of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez, was able to post extraordinary numbers during this period despite the increase in offense. Several other pitchers such as Zack Greinke in 2009, Mark Prior in 2003 and Kevin Brown in 1996 had one or more great seasons in this period as well.

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Limbaugh, Robertson and Trevino on Haiti →

Recent comments by Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson and now US Senate candidate from California Chuck Devore's communication director regarding assistance to Haiti are so hateful, misguided, myopic and, in the case or Robertson, downright strange, that they obscure the question of what they are trying to accomplish by making these comments. Robertson's comments are extraordinarily insensitive, focusing not on the suffering and desperation of the innocent victims of the Haitian people, but on a belief that the earthquake was a form of supernatural intervention as Satan himself has finally extracted his deathly fee for help in liberating Haiti from France.

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The Red Sox and Phillies Strike Back

In recent days the Red Sox and Phillies have improved their chances of stopping the Yankees from defending their championship. The Phillies came within two wins of winning the World Series in 2009 and by adding Roy Halladay, while losing Cliff Lee, have made the top of their rotation stronger. John Lackey gives the Red Sox one of the best and deepest rotations in baseball, while the signing of Mark Cameron helps offset the almost certain loss of Jason Bay; and Marco Scutaro will be a big upgrade at shortstop. Dumping Mike Lowell will also help the team. It seems likely that the Red Sox are not quite done yet this off-season and may add another corner infield bat. Other teams, notably the Seattle Mariners have made some big moves, in the Mariners case the acquisition of Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins, that may allow them to emerge as a strong contender in 2010.

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Democracy, Primaries and Party Leadership →

Harold Ford Jr.'s interest in running for the senate seat from New York currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand has been met by discouragement from the Democratic political leadership in New York and Washington. Ford is, in many respects, not a great candidate for that seat. His record on abortion rights and marriage equality is not likely to be well received by a New York primary electorate. His roots in the state are not deep, as he only moved here following a narrow defeat for a U.S. Senate seat from his home state in Tennessee in 2006, although there is some precedent of electing people from out of state to the Senate in New York. Should Ford decide to run, Senator Gillibrand's substantial initial fundraising edge would give her an additional advantage.

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Five New Foreign Policy Challenges for the New Decade

During the next ten years, the U.S. will confront a broad range of policy challenges. Some will likely be largely unchanged over the course of the decade. Others, like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the fight against terrorism will probably remain important issues but will change and evolve during the decade. There are some issues, however, which seem somewhat remote today, but which may dominate headlines by the year 2020. We cannot, of course, know for certain what these issues are, but the five issues below all may become very important by 2020.

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The Strange Case of Will Clark

Sometimes players who would be expected to be borderline candidates get elected, such as Dawson this year or Jim Rice last year, but sometimes similar candidates get little consideration at all. One example of this type of player is Will Clark who got less than 5% of the vote the first time he appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot and was dropped from future ballots. Will Clark’s story is well known. He had a few great years with the Giants before moving to the AL where his career took a downturn, but had one last great run in 2000, the last season of his career as a late season pickup by the Cardinals where he filled in for the injured Mark McGwire down the stretch run.

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Five Foreign Policy Issues That Will Be With Us for Another Decade

When this decade, which is now only a few days old ends, we will almost certainly be confronting foreign policy challenges that are hard to foresee right now. In January of 2000 few would have foreseen that a terrorist attack on the U.S. would so radically reorient and drive our foreign policy for most of the decade or that we would spend most of the decade embroiled in a seemingly endless war in Iraq. However, it is likely that some of the foreign policy issues confronting the U.S. now will not go away and will remain confounding problems throughout the decade. Some issues such as the problem of combating terrorism or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will remain, but may take very different forms over the course of the decade. These five are likely to remain substantially unchanged over the next ten years.

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2009 Was Not the Senate's Finest Year →

The U.S. Senate is a very unusual political institution. Revered by members and the political class as the world's greatest deliberative body, it is the only legislative body in the U.S. that violates the principle of one person one vote and is based on the notion of unequal representation. Some states, such as North Dakota are awarded one senator for roughly every 320,000 residents, while larger states such as California get by with one senator for roughly every 18 million residents. This principle is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but similar principles of basing legislative bodies on representing polities rather than people have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in cases such asGray v. Sanders or Board of Estimate of New York City v. Morris.

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Your Team Not Going to the World Series Anytime Soon? Choose a Second Team

This situation, however, has been part of baseball for a long time as for most of the sport’s history there were teams that remained out of contention for decades. For example, the St. Louis Browns won exactly one pennant between during the 20th Century before they moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles in 1954. The Athletics were relatively moribund for the middle of the 20th Century failing to win a pennant between 1931 and 1972. The Senators/Twins franchise, the Phillies and others experienced similar periods of a quarter of a century or more without winning anything.

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Obama's Choices for 2010 →

After 2010, the Obama presidency, if history is any guide, will change substantially. It will become reactive, initiate few, if any, major pieces of legislation, and focus more on foreign policy where cooperation from congress is often less necessary. Even if he is reelected in 2012, the energy, Democratic majorities, appetite for change and political power of the president, which characterized 2009 will not be as great in the beginning of Obama's second term. After 2010, Obama's presidency will be about reaction and management not initiative and change.

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2009 Annus Horriblus or the Year We Stopped Digging

Obama’s first year in office, while far from a foreign policy failure, has not brought resolution to any of the major challenges facing the U.S. Wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq; peace remains more elusive than ever in the Middle East; Iran is still on the brink of developing nuclear weapons; significant parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union remain concerned about renewed Russian power in that region and the global economic downturn has raised the possibility of political instability in much of the world. This was the capstone year of a decade that has included the terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001, a conflict in Iraq that has lasted considerably longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II, plummeting U.S. popularity abroad, the stalling, or even reversal, of the spread of democracy, and rising military, political and economic threats to the U.S. from Teheran to Beijing and from Moscow to Caracas.

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Some More Baseball Awards for the End of the Decade

As the decade winds down, baseball fans can read about teams of the decade,top 100 players of the decade, all-star teams of the decade, the greatest moments of the decade and other measurements of the decade which just ended. Here are some other awards for the soon to be complete decade which have been overlooked.

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Are Baseball Games Too Slow?

The length of a baseball game, like most other things, is relative. On a beautiful summer day at the stadium, three hours seems too short for a ballgame. Four hours spent watching a game on television at home in the middle of the week seems like far too long. In general, watching your team lose always feels interminable, while a crisp three hitter by your team’s ace always seems to fly by too quickly.

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Copenhagen, Darfur and New Perceptions of China

Blame for the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to lead to a stronger agreement has, in many quarters, been assigned to China. A recent piece in The Guardian sums up this view very clearly. While it may not be entirely fair to blame this failure solely on China, and affluent countries including the U.S. and many in Europe are not, in the bigger picture, without blame for the climate change crisis, China clearly bears some of the responsibility for the relative failure in Copenhagen.

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Improving the Health Care Bill After It Passes Will Not Be Easy →

Nonetheless, it remains important to look at the bill itself rather than the debate and news stories surrounding its passage. The biggest reason health care reform is so urgent is because there are more than 40 million Americans without health care today. For these people, a serious injury or illness can result not just in not receiving timely and adequate health care, but in devastating financial burdens as well. People without health insurance, of course, always had the option of buying health insurance from a private insurance company, but telling somebody without a lot of money to spend thousands of dollars on health insurance was something of a "let them eat cake" solution to the problem. The uninsured tended to be unemployed or concentrated in low paying jobs and could scarcely afford this option.

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The Troubled U.S. Pakistan Relationship

Only two weeks after President Obama decided to expand the war in Afghanistan, their have been a several news stories describing how the U.S. alliance with Pakistan, a relationship without which success in Afghanistan is difficult to imagine, is frayed. Reports that Islamabad does not see eye-to-eye on the war with the U.S. are unfortunate, but reports that U.S. officials in Pakistan are facing obstacles and even harassment make the prospect of success in Afghanistan seem even more distant.

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Keeping the Wheels on the Obama Presidency →

The wheels have not yet come off the Obama presidency, but they could next year. The best way to prevent this from happening would be for Obama to reenergize his political base so that they can be help put pressure on uncooperative members of Congress and help work to minimize Democratic losses in November of 2010. This will require Obama to define a progressive position on almost any issue, be it marriage equality, Wall Street bonuses, health care or anything else, and aggressively pursue it.

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Obama and Charges of Elitism-Again →

It is, therefore, to be expected that the charge of elitism continues to dog President Obama and will likely to do so throughout his presidency. Apparently, Obama's education, belief in the import of education, his understated and often intellectual verbal style, his comfort in academic settings and his fluency on issues ranging from alternate energy to healthier eating make him suspect in the eyes of some. People like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and others who are seeking to build a party based on resentment and frustration are wise to exploit Obama's style and to suggest that it indicates he does not care about real Americans. This is an unavoidable part of politics and is certainly not a new Republican approach.

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