This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
The concept of momentum is bandied about during the post-season as a way for the media to explain and analyze the post-season developments and individual post-season series. Momentum is used as a default explanation for why any given team is winning any given series. When announcers cannot explain outcomes any other way, or want to infuse drama into an otherwise one-sided series, they can talk about momentum, shifting momentum, deflating momentum and other clichés.
The current Georgian paradoxes are not altogether unusual. There are other countries that have been modernized by soft authoritarian regimes, or that have financed economic progress on borrowed money and faced the consequences when those debts have come due. Perhaps recognizing the unexceptionalism of Georgia can be useful for policy makers. This might allow policy makers to see Georgia as a country more concerned with modernization than democracy, and to recognize the potential seriousness of a looming debt crisis, which is scheduled to coincide with a sharp decline in American assistance, and how this could have a potentially destabilizing impact. This might be a better foundation for a sound Georgian policy than increasingly vague rhetoric, particularly from Washington, about democracy and territorial integrity.
Since 2009, Obama has become a president who seems to have lost this understanding of the American people which helped make his candidacy possible. Instead of offering hope, he has offered mediocre legislation and bristled when the import of this legislation has been challenged. It is strange that a candidate who was able to read voters so well has become a president who seems to think citizens simply want legislation. Voters don't care about legislation; they care about outcomes. If the outcomes are not good, a president must offer understanding and demonstrate that he understands the worries, concerns and troubles of the American people. As president, Obama has been unable to do this.
Like most winning formulas, the Giants approach is not fully replicable. Any strategy that begins with developing five top notch pitchers and an all-star quality catcher all within a few years of each other will be tough to follow, but most good teams are able to develop a core of top talent. That is more or less what defines a good team. The Giants strength lay in recognizing this was their moment and developing a good strategy to augment their core talent.
The election results, however, may have an effect on American foreign policy, but this will probably not be as significant as some might think. The new Republican members of congress will focus likely continue to focus their attention on domestic issues. Moreover, many of these people have very little experience on foreign policy and know very little about it. Of course, this is true regarding domestic policy as well, but lack of experience and knowledge tends to be more of a barrier in the making of foreign policy.
It is tempting, for people on both sides of the aisle, to see this election as a paradigm shift or a new development in American politics, but there is also much about this election that is not new at all and that fits neatly into patterns that have characterized our political history for at least a few decades. Every midterm election for more than half a century the president's party has lost seats in congress; the only exceptions were 1998 and 2002. This is a natural part of politics that occurs even when presidents are viewed relatively successful, even during periods of peace and prosperity.
The Giants have won the World Series bringing the championship to San Francisco for the first time ever! When Buster Posey caught the third strike on Nelson Cruz, a journey which began with my mother dropping off me, my brother and our friend Charles, who back then was known as Tony, on the corner of Clay and Van Ness in San Francisco sometime in the mid 1970s, ended in a hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia more than 30 years later. Those spring and summer mornings, my mother would give each of us seven dollars-three for a ticket in the upper reserved section of old Candlestick Park, the remainder was for bus fare and food. When the bus driver was in a good mood and only charged fifty cents for the ballpark express, there was plenty left over for hot dogs, soda, popcorn and ice cream, but if the driver charged two dollars or more, it made for a hungry day at the ‘Stick.
Having a better sense of who represents the party's base is important for strategist and for the party once it is in office. In 2008, for example, the only groups who voted for Obama by a margin of 2-1 or better, a good measure of a true demographic base, were African Americans (95%), Latinos (67%), voters under 29 years old (66%), Jews (78%), gays and lesbians (70%). Interestingly, union members only voted 60% for Obama, meaning that among white union members it was probably closer to 50%.
Bochy may not be the best Giants manager ever, but managers like player have career peaks and valleys; and Bochy is hitting his stride at the exactly right time. In general, Bochy seems less given to platitudes about chemistry, sticking with what has worked and the like than many managers. When Lincecum didn’t have it in the eighth inning of game six, Bochy took him out. Pablo Sandoval is a fan favorite who was a starter most of the season, but he has lost his starting job during the World Series. A clearly inferior, although well paid and experienced veteran like Aaron Rowand also is on the bench. Bochy, at least this post-season, seems driven by a strategy of getting the best players he can on the field for every inning of every game. It isn’t chemistry, but it just might work.
The most overlooked story of the game is that while neither Lee nor Lincecum had their best stuff, Lincecum pitched a tough 5.2 innings and kept his team in the game, while Lee did not. Lincecum appeared to be unraveling in the first inning, but got it together and settled down enough. It turns out that the long haired pot smoker was able to bear down and tough it out better than the deer hunter from Arkansas.
It is probably the most politically polarizing World Series in history as one team’s most famous fan and former owner is former President is George W. Bush while the other team plays in the country’s most left of center major city and has long been probably the most progressive franchise in the game. The “Let Timmy Smoke” signs and t-shirts, referring to Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum’s marijuana bust would fit in as about as well at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington as prominent Republican politicians would at AT&T Park, or anywhere else in San Francisco. Somehow this is fitting for the first World Series that, should it go to six or seven games, will be the first to be concluded after Election Day.
As the election approaches there is growing reason to believe that the Tea Party is neither distinct from, or even a part of, the Republican Party. Instead the two have, to a large extent, become the same. Some within the Republican Party may differ in style and presentation from Tea Party Republicans, but that is where the distinction ends. Few Republicans have spoken out about rhetorical excesses of the Tea Party, and when they have, they have turned their attention to individual actions or gaffes -- Rich Iott's Nazi outfits and the like -- rather than to positions or views on major issues. Even the most bizarre claims that have gotten good traction in the Tea Party movement, such as those asserting that President Obama is not a citizen, have rarely been soundly refuted by others in the Republican Party.
Believing that multi-culturalism has failed in your society, even if you are the chancellor, is not a policy prescription, it is a complaint. It may be a widespread complaint, but it is little more than that. Multi-culturalism is not an “approach” to use Merkel’s word, nor is it some kind of experiment created by well-meaning liberals, it is simply part of the reality of today’s Europe, and much of the world. The tone of Merkel’s complaint may have overshadowed that at least one part of her observation, that Germany has not handled this new reality well, is probably true.
Nominating a more conservative candidate because she or he is the more electable Democrat is sometimes necessary, but nominating more conservative Democrats who can't win anyway is pointless. This is not just an abstract point, because candidates like Blanche Lincoln, even if she were to win, often stand in the way of successfully passing legislation once they are elected. Therefore, if they are not more electable in November, there is very little strategic reason to nominate these types of candidates in primaries.
The Phillies, even after a tough first game loss, are probably still the favorites in the NLCS, but the Giants should not be counted out. The Giants chances rest not on an anything can happen in a short series kind of optimism or solely upon their excellent starting pitching, but primarily on a match-up of skills that may make the Giants uniquely positioned to beat the Phillies.
Being the party of voter anger has proven to be a surprisingly effective short term political strategy, but it is a terrible governing strategy. What was left of the more thoughtful, if still conservative, leadership of the Republican Party after the Bush years has been completely defeated in the almost two years since Obama took office. The checks on the party's fringes are no longer there, so people who like to dress up as Nazis, advocate abolishing all public education, want to end Social Security and believe that any economic policy to the left of Ayn Rand is synonymous with Stalinism have emerged as the new face of the Republican Party.
It is difficult to open a newspaper or peruse the internet without reading about America’s declining power around the globe. These stories which never really go away but seem to have increased in the last few years almost invariably focus on America’s reduced economic power as well as the rise of other powerful countries or blocks, most prominently China, but also India, Russia, Brazil and even Europe.
The Yankees limped into the post-season playing poorly during September and losing a division which they had led for much of the second half, but looked like a very different team during their first round sweep of the Minnesota Twins. A major part of their post-season success has been that Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte, at least in the first round, exceeded most expectations and put many doubts to rest.The two pitchers turned in very strong outings during the Yankees sweep of the Twins. If they continue to pitch like this during the next two rounds, the Yankees will be very tough to beat.
Tim Lincecum is not only a great pitcher, but he is the kind of player that makes baseball such a great game. In a sport where even in this alleged year of the pitcher, big sluggers and big power pitchers still dominate the game, the 5’11” and skinny Giants star stands out even more. He is a throwback, not in the sense of poorly shaven white player who plays sometimes too aggressively, but to an era when players, and particularly pitchers, did not always look or act like jocks. With his long hair, west coast attitude, drug bust and mellow demeanor, Lincecum feels like a player from the 1970s or early 1980s, albeit one with some of the nastiest pitches on the planet.
The war in Afghanistan has now gone on for nine full years with no clear end, other than a self-imposed summer 2011 deadline from which the administration has been back pedaling almost since it was set, in sight. Similarly, the end-again-of combat operations in Iraq has left 50,000 American troops there with no clear indication of when they will come home. Ironically, a president whose campaign was initially made possible by substantial support from the anti-war movement, will be responsible not for ending the two wars that he inherited, but for institutionalizing them.