David Brooks

Earlier this week, I encouraged the use of a more sophisticated approach to education policy: a set of principles to pitch beyond vouchers and "school choice." Today, David Brooks tells the story of New York City charter schools operated by the the Harlem Children's Zone:

"[A study from Harvard economists Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie] found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.

"Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students."

Fryer was so impressed that he said, "The results changed his my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes," and argued it was the "equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. Why was there so much success? These schools focused on the human elements of a school: (1) strengthening and empowering students, and (2) strengthening accountability for teachers.

"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

"They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life."

And remember, President Obama was all about charter schools in his address to Congress:

"We'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools."

The Harlem Children's Zone is a model for other areas to follow because it puts into practice some of the principles that I've talked about before: (1) More money does not equal better results. (2) The goal should be to move every child forward instead of "leaving no child behind." (3) Schools are more able focus on kids' strengths, not weaknesses, when local control is restored. (4) It should be easy to recruit the best teachers, and it should be easy to fire bad teachers.

First Christopher Buckley...

...then David Brooks...

...then Jim Cramer...

...then his approval rating went under 60% in the RCP average...

...then Maureen Dowd...

...then Evan Bayh...

...then Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson.

All this in the last three days.

Looks like the Obama backlash is FINALLY upon us.

What the hell took you people so long?

As is readily apparent, many so-called "conservative" pundits like George Will http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/george-will-empty-suit-behind-the-bow-tie. Peggy Noonan http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=438 and David Brooks http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10830202 decided that rather than offer even tepid support to the McCain-Palin ticket, it would be way more fun to fire off a weekly columm attacking them and their campaign as incompetent.

Now John McCain and Sarah Palin are a big boy and a big girl and probably couldn;t give a rat's tukkus that some writers dissed them. And they can look to the political environment and their own campaigns to explain a 6 point loss.  Friendly fire didn't cost them that many votes.

But the elite pundits ought now to consider that while fragging Mac and Sarah for their alleged deficiencies, they inflicted a lot of collateral damage on the rest of the Republican party. Let's assume that some moderately substantial number of right-of-center voters were sufficiently moved by the media blitz of disgrunted conservative writers to stay home.

Well, George, Peggy & David, Senator Merkley sends his regards  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/11/06/2008-11-06_oregon_race_for_us_senate_called_for_jef.html

Congressman Kratovil also says thanks http://wjz.com/local/andy.harris.frank.2.861518.html

Congressman Perriero also will probably say thanks too  http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-11-07-0207.html

and we're still waiting to see if Senator Begich http://www.aksuperstation.com/news/local/34276439.html, Senator Franken http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/10/Franken_within_204_votes_of_Coleman/UPI-19251226343255/, Senator Martin  http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2008/11/11/senate_chambliss_martin.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13 or Congressman Brown http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1383995.html will also be sending warm regards

You see, when you decide to go shiv the top of the ticket, the entire party suffers when voters decide not to bother to vote.  And did it go unnoticed that Republican turnout was down this year.  http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/07/republican_turnout_declined.html

Notice how few liberals before the election---even those who were die-hard Hillary people---publicly dissed Barack Obama. That's because. hey ---they actually think winning elections sorta matters.

And it matters a whole lot for people out there in Senate and Congressional races downballot. I'm not sure what any of these people (save Ted Stevens) did to deserve this, but as I pointed out, fragmentation grenades are rather inexact weapons.

At some point a bill will pass that will be horrendously repugnant to any thoughtful Republican. It will pass by one vote---because one of these people wasn't there to stop it.

I look forward to the very erudite apology from the salon set "conservatives" then--hardly--they'll still be blaming the Republican rank and file as if we are the problem.   

* UPDATE @ 4:35 PM EST * - The Mainstream Media Infects Obama Campaign with Virus

Catriona makes a great comment below: McCain is making strategic decisions while Obama can only make tactical shifts. As I point out in a reply to Catriona, one reason why the Obama campaign might be making so many tactical shifts is their over-reliance on getting favorable coverage from the MSM.

Michael Graham makes this point clear in a recently posted op-ed in the Boston Herald:

"I have one piece of advice for the struggling Obama campaign: Fire MSNBC. They’re killing your campaign ..."

"The national media are dominated by enthusiastic Obama supporters desperate to see Obama the Enlightened win the White House, heal our souls, reset our thermostats and shut down the Fox News Channel. And that’s precisely how their coverage of Palin comes across: desperate ..."

"The media has thrown every imaginable charge at Palin, from banning books to cheating her way to the much-coveted title of Miss Wasilla ..."

"The harder the media work to elect Obama, the lower his poll numbers go."

Urgent message to the MSM: please keep on doing what you're doing!

--------------------

After the convention, and a wedding I attended right afterwards, I have fully recovered, getting a good 12 hours of sleep last night.

Speaking of recoveries, I'm just as happy as Patrick that the Palin pick has energized the base and has given the McCain campaign a significant boost. But like Sean, I'm still cautious about national polls, and that state polls should be paid attention to. And I'm still doubtful about whether or not this revitalization at the top of the ticket will help downticket, but Reid Wilson and Kyle Trygstad at RealClearPolitics give some hope of a few pickups for us.

While McCain's post-convention bounce was stronger than Obama's, the question is whether or not some of this bounce will have staying power for the next 56 days. Soren notes the 20-point shift in McCain's favor with white women, as well as the independents starting to break for him. But it's not the polls or the major media events that have happened over this past summer that make me optimistic. What makes me confident is the fact that Obama has kept tinkering around with his message without making any significant structural changes his campaign; on the other hand, McCain has made significant structural changes to his campaign when they were necessary, during the primary and right before the convention. Put simply, Obama tries to keep his campaign afloat with "software updates" while McCain has shown the willingness to make "hardware upgrades" to sustain his campaign.

David Brooks wrote a column today about the "education of the McCain" about how John McCain's campaign has become conventional. The old McCain acted like this:

This sort of behavior has been part of McCain’s long-running rebellion against the stupidity of modern partisanship. In a thousand ways, he has tried to preserve some sense of self-respect in a sea of pandering pomposity. He’s done it through self-mockery, by talking endlessly about his own embarrassing lapses and by keeping up a running patter on the absurdity all around.

The new McCain is:

The man who lampooned the Message of the Week is now relentlessly on message (as observers of his fine performance at Saddleback Church can attest). The man who hopes to inspire a new generation of Americans now attacks Obama daily. It is the only way he can get the networks to pay attention. [...]

As the McCain’s campaign has become more conventional, his political prospects have soared. Both he and Obama had visions of upending the system. Maybe in office, one of them will still be able to do that. But at least on the campaign trail, the system is winning.

I, for one, believe that the system is poisonous, and I agree with John Weaver that John McCain is better than the system. But let's be clear, who has done this. The media has done this. First, as Brooks points out, their love affair with the process itself forced McCain's hand:

McCain started his general-election campaign in poverty-stricken areas of the South and Midwest. He went through towns where most Republicans fear to tread and said things most wouldn’t say. It didn’t work. The poverty tour got very little coverage on the network news. McCain and his advisers realized the only way they could get TV attention was by talking about the subject that interested reporters most: Barack Obama.

The country could have had a debate about ideas. The media wouldn't cover it. The country could have had a debate about what was really going on in the country. The media was not interested.

McCain offered the townhall. There could have been authenticity. The American people could have had access to the candidate. Only a couple of people in the media who have real respect for the process like David Broder called on Obama to accept. McCain tried and failed:

McCain started with grand ideas about breaking the mold of modern politics. He and Obama would tour the country together doing joint town meetings. He would pick a postpartisan running mate, like Joe Lieberman. He would make a dramatic promise, like vowing to serve for only one totally nonpolitical term. So far it hasn’t worked. Obama vetoed the town meeting idea. The issue is not closed, but G.O.P. leaders are resisting a cross-party pick like Lieberman.

As a Republican and a fan of John McCain, I am very glad that McCain is learning these lessons. I am, however, sad for our country that an unconventional candidate who really understands how repulsive the process is can't run that campaign.

I had a few interesting comments when I posted Part I of the subject on Asian-American politics, or the lack thereof. Mike Warren succinctly pointed out that he is "cautious to want Republicans to start trying to appeal to identity groups like this, because it dilutes or negates the basic conservative message" while also pointing out the importance of communicating non-raced based principles to ethnic communities in America. Repack Rider was especially harsh in assuming that I had no experience within the Asian-American community; fortunately, Freedoms Truth came to my defense. Like I said last week:

"What I am about to opine on comes from a combination of life experience being raised by Korean immigrants, my limited experience of dealing with Asian communities around the nation, and maybe some bald assertions about what Asian-Americans care about."

This includes experiences that I have had as a first generation American-born citizen of Asian descent, developing friendships and relationships with people from many ethnic communities from around the nation from different socioeconomic situations, and academic study into the sociology of race. Does this mean from time to time I have to make a few assertions here and there to get a point across? Yes, but it does not mean those assertions come out of thin air. So instead of making ad hominem attacks on the observations that I make, please disagree with me if you have had an experience different from mine.

Part I of this post focused a lot on the importance of family and freedom to Asian-Americans. I want to take the time to really delve into the "freedom" part of the message we can send to this relatively politically inactive group. On Tuesday, David Brooks of the New York Times penned an op-ed from Chengdu, China, making some key observations on the differences between individualistic societies (like those of the West) and collectivist societies (like those in Asia). Brooks makes several important distinctions. (Read the stories that go with these contrasts.):

"This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world ... Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts ... Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationship."

"The individualistic countries tend to put rights and privacy first. People in these societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts."

The thrust of Brooks' column was to point out that collectivist societies seem to now be competing economically with individualistic societies with the emergence of China as an growing economic powerhouse, that "the ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream." While I can't expound on how Asians in Asia feel today about their new position in the world, the individualistic vs. collectivist mindsets might shed some light on the motivations of Asian-Americans, especially those who are naturalized citizens.

People ask me when they think grassroots conservatism will make a comeback. And now I have a simple answer for them: if David Brooks' ideas for the future of the Republican Party ever take hold at an elite level, the grassroots conservative backlash will be so ferocious to make the mid-'90s conservative takeover of the party at local level seem like a garden party by comparison. 

In his latest New York Times column, "The Coming Activist Age," Brooks predicts a coming burst of government interventionism in health care, energy, and the economy. Rather than presage an era of Democratic dominance, Brooks argues, Republicans may be well-suited to ride this wave by arguing for tempered, "patriotic" changes rather than the Democrats' radical changes. Historically, this is a model that has worked -- with Teddy Roosevelt, Benjamin Disraeli, and (unmentioned) Otto von Bismarck, conservative architect of the German welfare state.

The problem is that Brooks (and to a large degree, Bill Kristol) have been making this argument for the last decade or more. I remember when Kristol and Brooks first wrote that famous Weekly Standard piece on "national greatness conservatism" in 1997 (recapped in this WSJ op-ed) -- which argued, laugably, for large public momuments as a testament to a more patriotic, nationalist Leviathan. This argument too held up Teddy Roosevelt as a model for right-leaning government activism, and it manifested again in their enthusiasm for John McCain's TR-centric 2000 bid.

Rather than a nimble adaptation to recent Democratic victories, Brooks' latest appears to be simply recycled national greatness conservatism from the '90s.

Today, David Brooks gave praise to Reihan Salam's and Ross Douthat's new book, Grand New Party, in an op-ed entited "The Sam's Club Agenda". (Two days ago, Patrick Ruffini posted and encouraged everybody to start reading and debating.) I plan on going to the Barnes & Noble across the street from where I work today to buy it.

While I haven't read the book yet, Brooks made an interesting observation on Salam and Douthat's vision: "This is not compassionate conservatism (which flattered the mind of the compassionate donor), it’s hard-work conservatism, which uses government to increase the odds that self-discipline and effort will pay off."

Bottom line up front: all politics still seems to be local. While the federal government is involved in a lot of bread-and-butter economic issues for the middle class, voters obvioulsy feel very removed from what goes on inside the Beltway; yet, a larger amonut of folks pay attention to local and state issues, partly because you are more likely to have a connection and conversation on a first name basis with your city councilman or state representative than you are with your senior U.S. senator. (An unrelated question: how has new media affected the mantra that all politics is local?)

Major league/professional sports teams have "farm team" systems where they can identify and train prospects. The best franchises in baseball have fully developed minor league system: Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, etc. The NBA only recently saw the usefulness of having a minor league system with the NBDL. Here's an observational question (and I look forward to responses/disagreements/debate on this): Do the Democrats today have a better "farm team" system than the Republicans? My answer would be yes, because not only have liberal/left-leaning organizations and the DNC have been involved in identifying and training politicians and aspiring politicians at the local and state level; they have supported these candidates using Web2.0 tools like ActBlue.

[I also bring this up in light of a report that was released by House Republicans responding to why they just lost some special Congressional elections. The report apparently states that: "None of the candidates nor their allies successfully established themselves and their local brand in contrast to the negative perception of the national GOP."]

Now the real question: What can the next Republican Party do to develop our "farm team" system? The point here is that a lot of the middle class economic issues are problems that can be solved with conservative principles and policies at the local and state level: property/sales/severance taxes, transparency in budgeting, taxpayer-backed bonds, and accountability in education. And while we on the right like delegating power to state and local leaders on legitimate state and local issues, I believe that any national center-right organization and the next Republican Party need to have much closer coordination with state parties, local leaders, and potential local leaders to both identify (in the long term) those who can move up within the system and to identify (in the short term) local issues that are important to the middle class.

If we're going to have a broader Republican Party, and if we buy into Salam and Douthat's vision, developing the Republican Minor League will be just as important, if not more important, than keeping the Republican Major League in line.

- MM

David Brook's excellent article The Two Obama's does an excellent job laying out how Senator Obama talks reform and inspiration, but plays old school politics as well as anyone out there...

"God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson..."

"...But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes..."

Brooks goes on to explain Obama's history of old school politics. That he is smart and calculating, and has laid out a path for himself that any old-school Chigago politician would be proud of...

"...Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted “present” nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck. Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck. Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck. Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck. And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

Full David Brook's article The Two Obama's

[Promoted - Kristen Soltis makes good points about something very important to the resurgence of the Right: criticisms and policies aren't enough - we need a to tell a compelling story about the future we envision - Jon Henke]

As Republicans, we are faced with the unfortunate reality that our ideas frequently lack the easy, fuzzy and warm narrative that Democrats can offer.  In his recent Doublethink Online piece, Conor Friedersdorf brings up the example of rent control - while liberal policies may actually make things worse for poor families, the pro-rent control narrative is easier to tell.

A talented reporter, given enough time and space, could craft a narrative that illustrates how rent control ultimately makes poor families worse off. His job is relatively difficult, however, for he can hardly write a pithy anecdotal lead about the hundred families that won’t occupy a non-existent apartment building because a foolish policy eliminated an unknown developer’s incentive to build it.

Unfortunately for us, in addition to the head start the left has in crafting an attractive story, the word "Republican" now has it's own set of drawbacks.  In his column today, David Brooks discusses research conducted by my firm, The Winston Group, about the impact of the Republican label on our policies.