One of the ironies of this campaign year is the number of free-spending rich Republican candidates who are pouring the golden parachutes they earned when exiting (often nonvoluntarily) the private sector to rant against public spending.

We're seeing a particularly rich example of this dichotomy in Calfornia, where Meg Whitman, who is promising to squeeze public expenditures and lay off many thousands of state workers, is showing just how lavish a campaign apparatus you can buy with around $150 million.

Here's is Calbuzz's summary of a chart of Team Whitman helpfully offered by Jerry Brown's campaign:

Counting people up, across and over (which sometimes puts people in more than one sector of the Invasion of Normandy graphic) we find eight people in scheduling and advance, 10 staff and consultants in policy, 16 in coalitions, 16 in field operations, 27 in fund-raising and finance and 24 in communications, including eight in the research group.

"In the green box marked 'Miscellaneous Campaign Staff,' there are an additional four staffers who have made more than $100,000 from Whitman, and we have no idea what they're doing," Brown's research director told Calbuzz.

Brown campaign manager Steve Glazer likens Whitman's campaign to a massive aircraft carrier that is stalled in the middle of the ocean, floating listlessly, unable to gain momentum despite spending millions and millions and millions on TV and radio advertising, internet communications, mail, telephone banks, fundraising, event planning and execution - you name it, USS eMeg has paid for it.

Whether that's an accurate portrayal of a campaign operation with no equal in the history of California is still uncertain. This we know: No governor's office we're aware of ever had such a massive org chart, unless you count all the agencies and departments that are part of an administration and the CHP protective detail.

Also, no one in a governor's office ever made this kind of money: strategist Mike Murphy's Bonaparte Productions, $861,474; adviser Henry Gomez, $769,216; campaign manager Jilian Hasner, $667,552; adviser Jeff Randle, $572,949; security director John Endert, $261,682; communications director Tucker Bounds, $293,349; press secretary Sarah Pompei, $154,872; yadayadayada. That's not even all the big-tick items and it's only up to the most recent financial reporting period.

The grand irony is that anti-government campaigns like Whitman's are like big dinner bells for the political class, offering lots of jobs at unusually high pay in the pursuit, we are told, of tight-fisted austerity. Even if eMeg loses, Republican political operatives will remember her campaign fondly for many years as a wonderful interval when no political attack was too unconscionable and no expense too high.

If she wins, California public employees could have a hard time. But it's more than a psychic flash to guess that Whitman's political operations, whether it's on the public payroll or supported by what's left of her vast fortune, won't suffer from lack of financial support.

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Jim Gerstein, executive director of Democracy Corps, has a post up at Politico, vaporizing the GOP meme that President Obama and Democrats are losing support of Jewish voters.

Gerstein begins by pointing out that conservatives tried to peddle this meme in 2000 and 2004 and 2008 with less than impressive outcomes: Al Gore got 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, John Kerry received 74 percent and Obama was supported by 78 percent of Jewish voters, despite an extensive Republican propaganda efforts.

As for the November 2nd midterms, Gerstein says,

Now, with midterm elections approaching, the voices proclaiming Jewish revolt are in full force. This time, they say Democrats will lose Jewish support because Obama is unduly pressuring Israel. As usual, these arguments are based on arbitrary quotes from the leaders of lobbying organizations or someone's Aunt Esther. It ignores the actual data reflecting the opinions of rank-and-file American Jews.

The starting point for separating anecdote from fact is to understand that Israel is not a voting priority for American Jews. In surveys that my firm has conducted for J Street in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, only 8 percent to 10 percent of Jews cite Israel as one of the top two issues determining their vote. In other words, an overwhelming 90 percent of Jews don't consider Israel as one of their top two issues.

For Jews, Israel is a threshold issue rather than a high priority. That is, candidates must demonstrate they are "good enough" on Israel. However, once they pass this threshold -- as Obama, Kerry and Bill Clinton did -- Jewish voters move on to consider issues that actually affect their daily lives, just like other voters.

Gerstein concedes that there will likely be a decline in Jewish support for Democratic candidates this year, proportional to the decline of support from other constituencies. Republicans will try to exaggerate the significance of the decline, but politically-alert voters won't buy it. In terms of the latest poll numbers, Gerstein explains:

Currently, the Jewish vote is where we would expect it. Gallup reported in June that Democrats are getting 62 percent of the Jewish vote (which rises to 69 percent when allocating undecided voters). Last week, Gallup reported that Obama's job approval with Jews remained 13 points above the national electorate, a margin that has remained consistent throughout his presidency...

As Gerstein concludes, "Clearly, Democrats' political challenges are not with American Jews."

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There's an interesting discussion going on in the political e-zines about the relative influence of 'messaging' and the economy in formulating Democratic strategy. Messaging gurus Drew Westen and George Lakoff have recently posted intriguing and sometimes conflicting arguments about Democratic messaging strategy, while both agree on it's central importance. Brendan Nyhan, on the other hand has made a well-documented case that "structural factors," particularly the economy, trump messaging and tactical choices in affecting election outcomes.

Lakoff's Alternet article, "The Dems Need to Speak to Progressive Values, or Else Lose Badly Come November," is a hybrid piggy-back/critique of Drew Westen's recent Huffpo article on Democratic midterm strategy.

After (rightly) praising Westen's article as "outstanding," Lakoff explains,

I agree fully with everything he says. But ...

Westen's piece is incomplete in crucial ways. His piece can be read as saying that this election is about kitchen table economics (right) and only kitchen table economics (wrong).

This election is about more than just jobs, and mortgages, and adequate health care. All politics is moral. All political leaders say to do what they propose because it is right. No political leaders say to do what they say because it is wrong. Morality is behind everything in politics -- and progressives and conservatives have different moral systems.

Lakoff believes it's important to understand the moral bearings of Republicans in formulating a sound strategy:

In the conservative moral system, the highest value is preserving and extending the moral system itself. That is why they keep saying no to Obama's proposals, even voting against their own ideas when Obama accepts them. To give Obama any victory at all would be a blow to their moral system. Their moral system requires non-co-operation. That is a major thing the Obama administration has not understood.

Lakoff joins with many progressives who have said there was never any chance that the Republicans were sincere about bipartisanship and President Obama should accept that as a reality. On HCR, Lakoff adds, "The Obama administration made a policy case, not a moral case..."

I'm sure Lakoff is right that a strong moral case can often excite voters in a favorable way. And just about any progressive policy can be advocated as right and just. But there is danger for candidates in coming off as a high-horse moralist.

One of Lakoff's more perceptive insights has to do with the center of the political spectrum:

Westen's discussion of "the center" and of populism in general, misses what is crucial in this election. There is no one "center." Instead, a considerable number of Americans (perhaps as many as 15 to 20 percent) are conservative in some respects and progressive in other respects. They have both moral systems and apply them to different issues -- in all kinds of ways. You can be conservative on economics and progressive on social issues, or conservative on foreign policy and progressive on domestic issues, and so on -- in all sorts of combinations.

I think this is important. Just as the term "Independent" is misinterpreted to suggest those who identify themselves as such have a predictable political ideology, those who are often self-identified as "Centrists" or "Moderates" do indeed often embrace liberal AND conservative views on various issues -- which makes it close to impossible to formulate a coherent issue-focused strategy to win their votes.

Political ideology is often complex. At the Beck rally the other day, for example, I noticed that his first mention of Martin Luther King, Jr. in his opening speech got a substantial and sincere-sounding applause, presumably from many wingnuts. What's up with that? Perhaps MLK's integrity and humility transcend differences on issues. Or maybe it's just his icon status got some respect from the less unhinged members of Beck's audiences.

Lakoff argues further that "the swing voters are really swing thinkers." He emphasizes the importance of appealing to them by "framing all issues in terms of your values. Avoid their language, even in arguing against them...It just activates their arguments in the brains of listeners."

Over the longer run, Lakoff advocates training "spokespeople all over the country in using such framing and avoiding mistakes." He concludes, "The Democrats cannot take their base for granted. Only moral leadership backed by actions and communicated effectively can excite the Obama base once more."

After giving Lakoff and Westen due credit for their interesting and useful insights, it seems prudent to give fair consideration to a different view, well-articulated by Brendan Nyhan in a recent link-rich post shared by Pollster.com and HuffPo regarding what he calls the "tactical fallacy" of messaging gurus and others. As Nyhan explains:

The problem is that any reasonable political tactic chosen by professionals will tend to resonate in favorable political environments and fall flat in unfavorable political environments (compare Bush in '02 to Bush '06, or Obama in '08 to Obama in '09-'10). But that doesn't mean the candidates are succeeding or failing because of the tactics they are using. While strategy certainly can matter on the margin in individual races, aggregate congressional and presidential election outcomes are largely driven by structural factors (the state of the economy, the number of seats held by the president's party, whether it's a midterm or presidential election year, etc.). Tactical success often is a reflection of those structural factors rather than an independent cause.

What advocates of the tactical view have failed to do is provide a viable counterfactual -- where is the example of the president whose messaging succeeded despite a similarly poor economy? TNR's John Judis has tried to argue that Reagan was more successful than Obama in 1981-1982...but as I have pointed out...the 1982 election results do not suggest Republicans significantly overperformed and Reagan's approval ratings (both on the economy and overall) were extremely similar to Obama's at the same point in their presidencies.

The reality is that Obama's current standing -- and the rush to blame it on tactical failures -- could be predicted months ago based on structural factors. His approval ratings largely reflect a poor economy. Similarly, Democrats were likely to suffer significant losses in the House no matter what due to the number of seats they currently hold and the fact that it is a midterm election. Nonetheless, expect the tactics-are-everything crowd to be saying "I told you so" on November 3.*

* Bonus prediction: If the economy rebounds before 2012, the media will rediscover the tactical genius of Obama and David Axelrod.

A sobering notion. Maybe the messaging strategies of Westen and Lakoff have very limited value in a tanking economy, and might work better in an economy that is at least moderately hopeful. If Nyhan is right, the Democrats' best strategy for the 2010 midterms may be to target a few pivotal campaigns and spread campaign resources less broadly.

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A couple of days ago I noted that CBS was the only news company that went to the trouble of hiring a professional aerial photo analysis company to estimate the size of the Beckapallosa last weekend and that the estimate CBS received was that only 87,000 people (plus or minus 9,000) had actually attended.

Even ignoring the estimates of the Beck rally's own organizers and participants, (which were based upon a combination of divine revelation and a handy, unlimited supply of zeros) 87,000 did seem a awfully low number just based on eyeballing the main long distance crowd photos in the press and comparing them with previous demonstrations. But, on the other hand, the photo company's methodology was the absolutely accepted standard for doing this kind of estimation and several different specialists used the aerial photos to provide independent estimates which were then consolidated into the final figure. I speculated that the explanation might lie in how densely packed the crowd was, which could not be judged in long distance photos, but without additional background information from the photo analysis company the discussion was at a dead end.

Well, the company has now released more information about the estimating procedure - including 400 aerial photos - and it appears that the 87,000 number is indeed very solidly grounded. You can read the details here but the bottom line is that the analysis followed the accepted procedures for this kind of analysis and the company has made their raw data public. From a scientific standpoint, their work is on solid ground.

But the really fascinating fact in the new information is this: this same company was used to estimate the number of people who attended the Obama inauguration. Their estimate at the time -- 800,000 -- was attacked by many Obama-boosters as far too low but was embraced by the right as the scientific gold standard.

And here's the critical thing. The company used precisely - precisely -- the same methodology to estimate the size of the Beck rally that they used to estimate the size of the inaugural crowd. So even if one wants to question the exact accuracy or precision of their photo analysis methods, they will still produce an extremely good relative comparison between the attendance at the two events.

So, as the saying goes, "just do the math". The Glen Beck rally, whatever its exact absolute size, turns out to have been just 11% of the size of the inaugural crowd.

It is obviously a pointless task to try and argue about this with the Beck-o-philes themselves. They will undoubtedly discover the dark hand of ACORN, SIEU "thugs", nuns overly influenced by John Paul II and probably Woodrow Wilson and Mahatma Gandhi in intimidating the photo analysis company into distorting its data.

But a solid, empirically based estimate of the attendance at the rally is indeed important for Democrats because it provides a measure of the organizational and mobilization capabilities of the FOX news/Freedomworks/Americans for Prosperity conservative machine. The 87,000 people they bussed in or provided parking arrangements for at last weeks' rally was actually very close in size to the attendance at the 9/12 rally last year. It suggests that, despite an entire year of continual and increasingly monstrous progressive outrages against the very fabric of human decency and civilized life, their ability to mobilize their base has not dramatically grown.

Except, of course, in one place - in the lyrical expanses of conservative press releases, where the mundane constraints of empirical data are effortlessly transcended by the miracles of faith-based crowd estimation - the delightful realm where, as in Neverland, Oz and old Disney flicks, "just wishing makes it so".

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In analyses of the current political climate, an awful lot of stock has been placed in the so-called "enthusiasm gap" between Republicans and Democrats. Sometimes this "gap" is based on polling that actually asks voters about their level of enthusiasm towards voting this year. The problem with such measurements, of course, is that "very enthusiastic" voters don't get an extra vote; the key variable is willingness to vote, not the degree of passion with which a vote is cast.

More often than not, though, the "enthusiasm gap" has become synonymous with the more meaningful idea that Republicans will have a turnout advantage in November. And while this probability is frequently identified with a relative level of unhappiness among Democrats for the Obama administration and/or congressional Democrats, it cannot be repeated too often that midterm turnout is invariably higher among older and whiter voters. And it just so happens that the Democratic support base as of 2008 was unusually correlated with the youth and diversity of voters.

That's true today as well. Looking at Gallup's latest presidential job approval tracking poll, Obama's positive ratings remain inversely correlated with age, and thus with the proclivity to vote in midterms, ranging from 56% among 18-29 year-olds; to 38% among over-65s. His approval rating among nonwhite voters, another traditionally underperforming demographic group in midterms, is 65% (among African-Americans, it's 90%).

Meanwhile, 78% of Democrats and 73% of self-identified "liberals" approve of the President's job performance. These are not optimal numbers, but nor do they suggest a deep malaise. At this point in his presidency, 70% of Democrats approved of Bill Clinton's job performance, and he went on to win re-election handily. And since it's de rigour to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter these days, it's worth noting the 52% job approval rating among Democrats for Jimmy Carter at this point in his presidency (Carter's Democratic approval rating eventually bottomed out in the autumn of 1979 at 40%).

None of this provides any Democratic comfort for the midterms themselves, but it should be reasonably clear that structural factors account for much of the "enthusiasm gap." And the minute the 2012 presidential cycle begins, the same factors will create a much more positive environment for Obama, even if you don't consider the unimpressive Republican presidential field.

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Lisa Mascaro of the L.A. Times Washington, D.C. Bureau has a wake up call for women political activists and all voters who believe more women are needed in congress. Madcaro's article, "Women in Washington, Your Seats Are at Risk," lends veracity to the recent Democratic slogan, "You put it in 'D' to go forward and 'R' for reverse." As Mascaro explains:

...With this fall's midterm elections, the number of women serving in Congress could drop for the first time in a generation -- a twist on a political season many had dubbed "the year of the woman."

If large numbers of Democratic incumbents lose in November, as expected, many women could be replaced by men. Female candidates tend to do better in Democratic years, and 2010 is shaping up as a successful year for Republicans.

Women now hold 90 seats in Congress: 69 are Democrats and 21 are Republicans. After the November election, Congress could end up with as many as 10 fewer female members, prognosticators now say, the first backslide in the uninterrupted march of women to Washington since 1978.

An unfavorable reversal of a three decades trend is a sobering thought for advocates of women's political empowerment. And it's not as if Republicans have much interest in making up the slack on their side of the aisle, as Mascaro reports:

In fact, just four women are among the GOP's 46 "Young Guns," as the party calls its frontline challengers who are considered future leaders.

So much for the "Mama Grizzlies" hype. The Republican Party remains a bastion of male dominance and if they win big in November, the GOP will further diminish the political empowerment of women in Washington.

All of which should serve as a rallying cry for all activists who believe America would be well-served by more women office-holders to (a.) contribute to the DSCC, DCCC and Democratic candidates and (b.) redouble campaign activism on their behalf.

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The political websites are all abuzz about the latest Gallup generic ballot poll, which indicates an all time midterm GOP advantage of 10 percent. If that wasn't downer enough for you, here's a couple of nut graphs Harry Enten's Pollster.com post, "Underestimating the Likely Gallup Voter Edge:

...As noted, a 10% Republican lead on Gallup's generic ballot is unprecedented, and it will likely get worse once Gallup switches over to a likely voter model. Congressmen and political analysts alike have mentioned that Republicans could possibly do 4% better on a likely voter model. Upon further examination, however, I think it could be worse for Democrats. Why? History.

Gallup has a relatively famous likely voter model that has been in place since 1950. Therefore, we can compare past differences in the generic ballot between registered and likely voter models to give us an idea of how different they will be this year...

Entern then crunches data from final Gallup midterm polls since 1994, comparing rv and lv figures, along with "enthusiasm gap" data, and offers two observations:

First, Republicans have for the past four midterms always done better on the final Gallup likely voter poll than registered voter poll by at least 4%. This deviation is to be expected as midterm electorates tend to be older and whiter than presidential year ones.

Second, the gap between the likely and registered models benefited Republicans greatest in years where they had large leads in enthusiasm. In both 1994 and 2002 (where Republicans held at least a 8%+ edge in Gallup's final measure of enthusiasm), the Republicans margin was 7% and 11% higher respectively on the likely voter model. In 1998 and 2002 when Democrats had a lead in enthusiasm, they "only" picked up 5% and 4%. The Republicans edge on net enthusiasm was 28% a month ago, which means that voters this year are even more enthusiastic than in 1994 or 2002....

OK, that's bad. Worse, Enten concludes:

...I believe that it is quite possible that at least on the final Gallup generic ballot (prior ones may differ) the Republican margin on the likely voter model could be 5-10% greater than on the registered voter model.

Polling data for numerous individual races lends cred to the national polls, including Gallup. True, Gallup has had some issues on occasion with accusations of GOP bias. But now that most of the polls have turned quite sour for Dems, it's hard to deny that Republicans have opened up a big lead in numerous races, whether or not Gallup overstates the GOP lead by a few points.

While there is little encouragement for Dems in recent polling numbers, at least it does appear that Democrats are getting together a decent ground game for the midterms. That doesn't mean the Republicans won't match or top it. And not to lard too much lipstick on the pig, but I'm also encouraged that Dems are targeting seniors -- the "older and whiter" voters Enten cites above. As Chris Cilliza explains in his 'The Fix' post, "Can Social Security save Democrats this fall?" at WaPo:

Democrats, faced with a worsening national political climate and daunting historical midterm election trends, are turning to Social Security as an issue where they believe they can score political points and set the stakes of what a Republican-controlled Congress would look like.

At least a half-dozen Democratic House candidates as well as several Democratic Senators in tight re-election races have featured claims that the GOP wants to either privatize or eliminate the retirement plan entirely in new television ads, and party strategists promise there are far more commercials to come.

Cillizza spotlights an impressive video ad by Indiana Democrat Rep. Baron Hill, who blasts his Republican opponent, Todd Young, who called Social Security and Medicare "welfare programs." Cillizza cites several other Democratic House and Senate candidates who have launched similar ads, and he adds,

The strategy behind the Democratic attacks is simple. Older voters are deeply suspicious of any changes to the retirement program -- it's not an accident that Social Security is referred to as the "third rail of American politics" -- and they also happen to be the most reliable voters in lower turnout midterm elections.

According to exit polling from the 2006 midterms, nearly three in ten (29 percent) of voters were 60 and older; Democrats won that age group 50 percent to 48 percent.

Cillizza cautions that Social Security is a relatively low priority concern in voter rankings, well behind the economy. But with seniors, it's always a hot button issue. Not all Republicans have attacked Social Security quite so stupidly as has Todd Young, although Sharron Angle and others could give him a run for the booby prize.

Ironically, the Democratic outreach to seniors seeks to tap their conservative (as in 'cautious') perspective -- the wingnut campaign to eliminate Social Security is a radical idea, and few seniors would volunteer to be their guinea pigs. if Dems can gain an edge with seniors and turn out a larger than usual percentage of Latino and African American voters, and if the voter registration edge Dems now have translates into a better than average mid-term turnout, the much-trumpeted Republican takeover of congress will have to wait for another year.

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This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.

Ben Bernanke's "unusually uncertain" may be for our times what Alan Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" was to the late 1990s--a phrase that captures the dominant mood without providing much policy guidance.

As dissent continued to rise in the ranks of the usually united Federal Reserve Board, unusual uncertainty reigned supreme at the annual Jackson Hole meeting. While the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis that downturns induced by financial collapses differ significantly from traditional cyclical downturns was broadly accepted, there was no agreement on their generalization (based on a large number of historical cases) that public debt-to-GDP ratios above 90 percent necessarily slow economic growth. Indiana University economist Eric Leeper's call to focus more on fiscal challenges induced by demographic shifts was challenged by CBO director Doug Elmendorf (not exactly a fiscal dove himself): "Fiscal policy is intrinsically about distributional choices. ... There is no scientific basis for saying how large the government deficit should be--any more than what my level of savings should be."

As a non-economist and puzzled citizen, I find Elmendorf's statement astounding and disturbing. Is it really true that we can say nothing valid about the relationship between the size of deficits in specific circumstances and the level of economic activity? If so, what is the basis for supporting (or, for that matter, opposing) fiscal stimulus during downturns? To say that the issue is "distributional" means that fiscal policy affects how the pie is divided, not the size of the pie. If so, the conservative critique would seem to have some merit: A "stimulus package" simply takes away from some groups and gives to others--usually core members of the political majority. (This is not to say that the distributional consequences of fiscal policy--or any other policy--are matters about which we should be morally indifferent.)

What makes this episode so baffling is that, less than a month ago, the CBO published an Issue Brief (with Elmendorf's signature affixed) entitled "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis." The minimally alert reader will find the following on the first page:

Although deficits during or shortly after a recession generally hasten economic recovery, persistent deficits and continually mounting debt would have several negative economic consequences for the United States. ... A growing portion of people's savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that "crowding out" of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur.

A bit later on, but still on the first page, we read:

[A] growing level of federal debt would also increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government's ability to manage its budget, and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates.

I can't speak for anyone else, but to me these two quotations (and there are many others to the same effect) don't sound like "distributional" observations. They are, rather, predictions about the consequences of excessive debt accumulation for the performance of the economy as a whole. If so, what's the basis for Elmendorf's disagreement with Leeper?

I may be making too much out of quotations drawn from much more extensive discussions. Or my emphasis may be wrong. If Elmendorf's point is that fiscal policy can't be conducted with "scientific" precision, who would disagree? It involves complex judgments about quantities, timing, and the responses of key actions in specific situations that are bound to have some unique features. The challenge is to get the broad thrust of fiscal policy pushing in the right direction at the right time, which means assessing the shifting balance between risks and opportunities. That's what I took the CBO's July Issue Brief to be doing.

We may well be in a Bernankean moment of unusual uncertainty, but there's no need to make it worse with superfluous uncertainty. Will the real Doug Elmendorf please stand up and clarify?

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President Obama's announcement last night that all U.S. combat troops have left Iraq, on schedule, didn't get much positive commentary. Many Republicans complained he didn't give credit to the man who once promised to "liberate" Iraq and turn it into a model of democracy, George W. Bush. Many Democrats complained that he didn't reminisce about the original decision to fight the war, or to stay in Iraq for years after formal military operations had largely ended. All sorts of observers wanted him to talk about Afghanistan, and how and when that conflict might finally end.

One center-left pundit, Mike Miller, seized the occasion to apologize for his own support for the Iraq War.

Personally, the only mea culpa I'm interested in, and the only gesture by the president that has any real value, involves a very simple lesson: don't make the same mistake again by launching a "war of choice" with no clear justification or any feasible strategy for real victory.. That would apply most particularly to the next war on the agenda of many Middle Eastern warkhawks, the war to prevent a nuclear Iran. We don't need it, can't afford it, and certainly haven't shown we can deal with the shattered country and region we'd soon have to deal with if we actually succeeded,

If the president gets that one right, then I really don't much care if he succeeds in becoming the definitive score-keeper for Iraq.

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The primary defeat of incumbent Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (confirmed by her concession yesterday) by former judge Joe Miller is generally being interpreted as another scalp for the Tea Party Movement in its assault on Republicans deemed too moderate on this or that key issue. But there's something going on a bit deeper, if you consider Alaska's exceptional dependence on the federal government and the past political track record of politicians like Murkowski's mentor, the late Ted Stevens, who aligned themselves with the anti-government GOP but emphasized their ability to "bring home the bacon" via appropriations.

In endorsing Miller on behalf of his Senate Conservatives Fund, Jim DeMint emphasized this dimension of Murkowski's defeat:

Joe Miller's victory should be a wake-up call to politicians who go to Washington to bring home the bacon. Voters are saying 'We're not willing to bankrupt the country to benefit ourselves.'

Now it wouldn't be quite right to accept DeMint's characterization of either Alaska voters' motivations or Miller's ideology at face value. After all, when Miller calls for abolishing the federal Department of Energy, he's appealing to the rather selfish desire of Alaskans to control their "own" energy resources--whose value is a lot higher than any federal earmark-- regardless of what it means nationally.

But it's true that there's an element of collective self-denial among those conservatives who are genuinely willing to take on federal spending categories that are popular among their constituents. Miller is just the latest of a number of Republican Senate candidates this year who have called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare. DeMint himself has long described these programs, along with public education, as having seduced middle-class Americans into socialist ways of thinking.

As Republican pols from Barry Goldwater to George W. Bush can tell you, going after Social Security and Medicare is really bad politics. And they've yet to come up with a gimmick, whether it's "partial privatization" or grandfathering existing beneficiaries, to make major changes in these programs popular (I seriously doubt the very latest gimmick, "voucherizing" Medicare, will do any better once people understand the idea). Indeed, Republicans notably engaged in their own form of "Medagoguery" by attacking health care reform as a threat to Medicare benefits.

Yet the sudden Tea Party-driven return to fiscal hawkery among Republicans, particularly if it's not accompanied by any willingness to consider tax increases or significant defense spending cuts, will drive the GOP again and again to "entitlement reform." In Senate candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle and now Joe Miller, we are seeing the return of a paleoconservative perspective in the GOP that embraces the destruction of the New Deal/Great Society era's most important accomplishments not just as a matter of fiscal necessity but as a moral imperative.

You can respect this point of view even if you abhor its practical implications. But there's little doubt it represents political folly of potentially massive dimensions. Certainly Democrats owe it to these brave conservatives to take them seriously in their desire to free middle-class seniors from the slavery of Social Security and Medicare, and draw as much attention to it as possible.

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