“If you view that as impossible, as I suspect many do, then a vote for Obama is more than justifiable on the grounds that he is less likely to abuse the massive powers that he will inherit; heck, if you believe he is sincere in his occasional comments… – Mark

Well, he is clearly not sincere since he flat reneged on an unequivocal statement to help Dodd and Feingold filibuster anything with Telecom immunity.

You are looking for a reason to support Obama? Here – let me help you:

Vote for Barack Obama because he is more likely to appoint Supreme Court judges that will declare unconstitutional the stuff THAT HE VOTES FOR.

Happy to help.

Simplistic, I know. But you have to be pretty simple to buy into conservative judicial philosophy. Either that, or a jerk like Rehnquist was and Scalia is.

Cross-posted at Donklephant. There are some interesting reactions and an entertaining back and forth in the comment thread. Check it out….

I’m pretty much in concurrence with the post itself. We shall see if Sullivan is as devoted to divided government as he has previously claimed, or it was just a conventient bit of rhetoric.

And BTW – Sully has no problem acknowledging this line of argument. As you may or may not know, Sully does not permit comments on his blog except for e-mail submissions that he selects to post, and he heavily moderates which blog trackbacks are permitted to be be displayed. You might take a look at this Sully post, and note which trackback has been approved.

I am also a long time reader of Sully. I expect him to surprise and endorse a vote for divided government again before Nov 4. That, or surrender once and for all any claim to being a conservative.

One man’s contempt is another man’s analysis.

Yeah, I have no clue what that’s supposed to mean. You’ve failed provide any counter to the npoint that you have mischaracterized Sully’s position for the sake of furthering your own thesis. I’ll assume that means you already knew, and don’t care.

“History is not law when the circumstances do not match the previous situation.” – JS

True. This is similar to the investment caveat “Past performance does not guarantee future results.” But it is a pretty darn good indicator in both investments and politics, and a much much better indicator than anything a politician says during a campaign. BTW – the statement that the current “circumstances do not match the previous situation” is simply a statement of unsubstantiated opinion. I think the curicumstances are close enough and we will indeed get identical results to the historical precedents.

McCain agrees with about 75-80% of Bush’s policies. – JS

True. And Obama agrees with about 50% of Bush’s policies. So there is maybe a 25% difference between them on the “Be Like Bush” scale. Also there is no evidence that Obama will offer any meaningful opposition to the worst impulses of his own party.

“Obama voted with his party more than 95 percent of the time during that period, while McCain was more independent, tallying party unity scores between 70 and 90 percent….
In 2007, Obama found himself in Bush’s camp on immigration policy; in a series of votes, Obama backed legislation, which failed, that would have provided a temporary guest worker program and new border security measures. Obama and Bush also were allied on legislation that raised the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over two years and provided $8.3-billion in small-business tax incentives. In 2006, as Obama was laying the foundation for his presidential bid, he supported the president’s position on key votes dealing with immigration policy and on making permanent 14 provisions in the “Patriot Act” antiterrorism law.

And now we can add NAFTA and FISA to the areas of agreement between Obama and Bush.

Finally, if you want an earlier example of major long-lasting reforms coming out of divided government, the Reagan tax reforms of 1981 and 1986 were with a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats. I just used the more recent Clinton example for the young’uns on this blog. And the statistic on divided government restraining the growth of spending compared to single party government holds up perfectly without exception going back 50 years.

Historical “fact” is not the be-all and end-all of factors to consider. Things change. If we cannot change to meet new facts and new situations then we are doomed to failure. Divided government can only be worshiped by those who desire that government accomplish nothing, mostly what passes for conservatives and libertarians nowadays.

Look at one of the reasons you cite for voting divided.

Divided government results in better and longer lasting legislation. Major reforms and structural changes (Reagan tax reform, Clinton welfare reform) that have a passed under a divided government are more likely to survive being undone by subsequent congressional action than major reforms passed by a unified single party government.

Notice that the most recent example you can find is 12 years old. Divided government under the current circumstances, where the division is not a true division because of the numbers in the Senate and the tactics of the Republicans mean that in truth nothing meaningful or useful gets done. The same criticism applies to your comment about oversight. History is not law when the circumstances do not match the previous situation.

anon,
The case for divided government does not depend on the individuals in each branch, the case for divided government is based on documented historical fact determined by political scientists, historians and economists.

Lee,
Its not my best argument for divided government. Just getting warmed up. However it may be my best argument for McCain. Actually it is my only one, so I’ll have to stick with it.

Interesting to note that of the four negative comments (so far), three are willing to risk overriding constitutional checks & balances and embrace massive concentration of power out of fear and loathing of George Bush. This is a similar dynamic to Republicans grabbing for extra-legal power and running on fear of terrorism. For those voters I’d Just like to make one point of clarification the “McCain = Bush” meme is campaign rhetoric and sloganeering. It is not literally true. George Bush will stop being President in six months regardless of who is elected. Hope that makes you feel better. It does for me.

Rather, I find that you are deliberately mischaracterizing his views. That’s contemptible.

Either that, or fishing for some traffic (i.e., hoping Sullivan might come across this post and feel compelled to link/respond).

Regardless, the virtues of divided government depend entirely on the individuals in each branch, and the executive is particularly important. To any sane person, one-party government (and no, the Democrats won’t have anywhere near a 60 vote majority) is temporarily preferable to four more years of Bush policies.

But I don’t recall him saying that the voting choice ought therefore to be restricted to the candidate of the minority party.

So I don’t find that he has been hoist by his petard at all. Rather, I find that you are deliberately mischaracterizing his views. That’s contemptible.

Situations dictate desired outcomes. Our situation is that 6 years of Republican abuse (and two subsequent years of a lame response from a Democrat house and split senate) has resulted in such a horrific mess that correcting it will require a concentration of power.

Anything less will result in decades of malaise. The pendulum has swung too far. It needs to be corrected.

If this is your best argument for McCain, please head back to the castle and fire up the quill for another try.