archives

Salt Lake Tribune's lead editorial today:

In place of [the current] free-for-all, the reform plan would divide the states into four regions — East, South, Midwest and West. Utah would be in the West region. One regional primary would be scheduled in each of the months of March, April, May and June. A lottery would decide the order in 2012, then in subsequent presidential election years the order would rotate. For example, the region that goes first in 2012 would go last in 2016, etc.

Iowa and New Hampshire would be allowed to keep their traditional spots as the first caucus and primary. That would preserve the ability of candidates without much money or name recognition to prove themselves in these small states that rely on in-person politicking.

This system isn't flawless. It would give candidates from states in the first regional primary an early advantage, for example. But it would ensure that each region would have its say, and it would favor more efficient campaigns.

Good idea, but there's no reason to keep kowtowing to Iowa and New Hampshire. And I'd prefer about six regions rather than four.

Ezra Klein:

As a pure economic measure, [GDP] speaks only of growth, not of distribution. In an age where the top one percent take 21 percent of the country's annual income, three percent in growth does not mean that the wages of most workers went up, or the economic security of most Americans increased. It may just mean that some very rich people got a whole lot richer. This, in general, has been the story of the Bush economy.

But if GDP is an imperfect economic measure, it's a terrible measure of societal well-being. It has nothing to say about our health, our parks, our air, our families, our schools, our wars, our levels of civic trust, or just about anything else. [...] There's a tendency to pretend that we live in an economy, not a society, and the narrow focus on GDP as the only measurement that matters is a contributor to that myopia. But it's dumb. If your mother got a raise this year, your brother failed out of school, lead was discovered in your pipes, and your father suffered a heart attack, you wouldn't tell folks your family was doing great. But that's how GDP works.