Principles of American Democracy Assignments

Econ/Govt Enrichment –

Books
The Last Hurrah – Edwin O’Connor

O'Connor's 1956 account of big-city politics, inspired by the career of longtime Boston Mayor James M. Curley, portrays its Irish-American political boss as a demagogue and a rogue who nonetheless deeply understands his constituents. The book was later made into a John Ford film staring Spencer Tracy.

Game Change – John Heileman and Mark Halperin

Even before the book was out, its juiciest bits were everywhere: Sarah Palin was serene when chosen for V.P. because it was “God’s plan.” Hillary didn’t know if she could control Bill (duh). Elizabeth Edwards was a shrew, not a saint. Overall, the men from the campaign garner less attention in these anecdote wars than the women and tend to come off better—but only just: Obama, the authors note, can be conceited and windy; McCain was disengaged to the point of recklessness; and John Edwards is a cheating, egotistical blowhard. But, hey, that’s politics, and it’s obvious that authors Heilemann (New York Magazine) and Halperin (Time) worked their sources well—all 200 of them.

Some (including the sources themselves) will have trouble with the book’s use of quotes (or lack thereof). The interviews, according to the authors, were conducted “on deep background,” and dialogue was “reconstructed extensively” and with “extreme care.” Sometimes the source of a quote is clear, as when the book gets inside someone’s head, but not always. Many of the book’s events were covered heavily at the time (Hillary’s presumed juggernaut; Michelle Obama’s initial hostility to her husband’s candidacy), but some of what this volume delivers is totally behind-the-scenes and genuinely jaw-dropping, including the revelation that senators ostensibly for Clinton (New York’s Chuck Schumer) pushed hard for Obama. Another? The McCain camp found Sarah Palin by doing computer searches of female Republican officeholders.

A sometimes superficial but intensely readable account of a landmark campaign (librarians take note: the exceedingly flimsy binding may reflect the publisher’s haste to rush the book to press)


The Big Short – Michael Lewis

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower--and middle--class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely--really unlikely--heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

Too Big To Fail – Andrew Sorkin

New York Times columnist Sorkin delivers a blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy.

House of Cards – William Cohen

At the beginning of March 2008, the monetary fabric of Bear Stearns, one of the world’s oldest and largest investment banks, began unraveling. After ten days, the bank no longer existed, its assets sold under duress to rival JPMorgan Chase. The effects would be felt nationwide, as the country suddenly found itself in the grip of the worst financial mess since the Great Depression. William Cohan exposes the corporate arrogance, power struggles, and deadly combination of greed and inattention, which led to the collapse of not only Bear Stearns but the very foundations of Wall Street.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – Lawrence G. McDonald

What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.

McDonald reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.

We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.

The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. It was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.

A Little History of the World – E.H. Gombrich

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and "Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fur junge Leser" was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in twenty-five languages across the world. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colourful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties.The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.

Globalization and Its Discontents (2003) – Joseph Stiglitz

Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations.

Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book.

The High Beta Rich – Robert Frank

Frank says modern wealth is a far more volatile substance than is commonly believed.

“Richistan” (2007), Frank’s previous book, wittily described the key differences between the new generation of super wealthy and the merely rich, and charted the emerging tensions between them. Now he describes how the financial crash decimated some of these fortunes and created lucrative opportunities for others, such as Ken Cage, a repo man who targets private jets and yachts, and has never had it so good.

Mr Frank tells some epic tales of financial collapse. In the Palm Beach mansion built by Tim and Edra Blixseth, he notices the now nearly fishless 100-gallon (38-litre) aquarium in the centre of the living room, and asks Edra where the coral had gone. “It got repossessed.” The household staff of 110 had been fired, and the couple’s relationship fell apart as banks that had once been greedy to lend demanded their money back. The key to their fortune was a ski resort for billionaires called the Yellowstone Club, with runs such as Learjet Glades and EBITDA, (“earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation” for those who don’t know). Turned out it was all downhill from Learjet Glades.

The extreme volatility of modern wealth now finds vast fortunes gone in half a generation. Mr Frank calls this volatility “high beta,” borrowing from financial investor lingo for a stock that tends to outperform the market when the market rises, and falls further when it drops.

The growing financialisation of wealth, more of which than ever is invested in volatile financial markets, has made it easier for fortunes to grow and shrink so fast.

In the booms of each of the past three decades, the incomes of the richest 1% of American families have risen by more than that of the population as a whole, and in the busts that followed, the incomes of the top 1% shrunk further, and by more each time. In 2007-08, the top 1% suffered a decline in income of over 8%, compared with 2% for the overall population. True, these occasional hits have not stopped the top 1% grabbing an increasing share of the economic pie; they now earn 20% of America’s total income, double the figure in the late 1970s.

They also pay over 38% of all federal income taxes collected. But relying more heavily on the rich to pay the government’s bills, given the growing volatility of wealth, is a high-beta strategy that could leave governments facing serious shortages of money just when they need it most.

From the Economist, October 2011

The World Is Flat – Thomas Friedman

Great changes are taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before--creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place.

Friedman shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive" (Robert Wright, Slate) and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; how governments and societies can, and must, adapt; and why terrorists want to stand in the way. An essential on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

The Bottom Billion – Paul Collier

In his universally acclaimed and award-winning book, Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards.

A struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders--and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations.

What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions. Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In “The Bottom Billion,” he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.
The Third Industrial Revolution – Jeremy Rifkin

The Industrial Revolution, powered by oil and other fossil fuels, is spiraling into a dangerous endgame. The price of gas and food are climbing, unemployment remains high, the housing market has tanked, consumer and government debt is soaring, and the recovery is slowing. Facing the prospect of a second collapse of the global economy, humanity is desperate for a sustainable economic game plan to take us into the future.

Here, Jeremy Rifkin explores how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create a powerful “Third Industrial Revolution.” He asks us to imagine hundreds of millions of people producing their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories, and sharing it with each other in an “energy internet,” just like we now create and share information online.

The Making of the President 1960 – Theodore White

Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance – Kevin Starr

Rise To Globalism – Stephen Ambrose

The Selling of a Politician, and the Ads Almost Broadcast
By Jeremy W. Peters, NYTimes, March 22, 2012, Thursday

Modern campaigns are often scientifically plotted operations that leave little to chance. Nowhere is this more obvious than with advertising, which is carefully fashioned from polling, focus groups and demographic research.

But sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry. Consider the story of Ben Stein, George W. Bush and the commercial that never aired.

Late in the summer of 2000, Mr. Bush’s campaign strategists saw their position in the polls improving and got a little cocky. They arranged for Mr. Stein, a comedian and former speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon, to reprise his breakout role as the economics teacher in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for a commercial mocking Al Gore.

“Who said he and Tipper were the models for ‘Love Story’?” Mr. Stein asked his “students,” repeating one of several tales about Mr. Gore that helped stoke his reputation as a serial embellisher. “Who said he created the Internet? Anyone? Anyone?”

The commercials, which were never released, were cut and ready to be broadcast. But then Mr. Gore started to surge in national polls. The Bush campaign killed the ads, fearful that the timing was wrong.

“The campaign had lost its confident footing,” said Mark McKinnon, who directed Mr. Bush’s advertising efforts in 2000 and 2004. A risky ad that could backfire, he said, was the last thing most Bush strategists wanted. “Maybe they were right,” he said. “After all, we won. But as the creative guy, it killed me.”

Every presidential campaign has commercials that are relegated to the dustbin before they are broadcast. Sometimes, after a second look, the message seems not quite right. Other times, new developments can intervene, forcing a shift in political tactics. And occasionally, the boss just says no.

Mr. Gore’s senior strategists vetoed a mock music video titled “The Ballad of George W. Bush.” The campaign had been having difficulty gaining traction in the South, so it decided to try a country song lampooning Mr. Bush as a privileged loafer.

Mark Putnam, who worked on Mr. Gore’s ads at the time, wrote the lyrics. “Life is pretty easy when your dad’s the man/Beats working for a livin’, it’s the George Bush plan,” went one verse. The campaign signed off and production began.

Filming it was an enormous undertaking for a political ad. Twenty cast and crew members, including Martin Delray and the Tennessee Rockers, 20 vehicles and a camel were gathered at a Texas ranch. The video was edited and ready to go on the air. Then some on Mr. Gore’s team got cold feet.

“I’ve always said if we could have swung 500 votes in the Florida Panhandle with this thing, Al Gore would be president of the United States,” Mr. Putnam said.

Tremendous amounts of research can go into making and refining political ads. Many campaigns show them to small audiences before they are broadcast, revising and tweaking language that people object to. Sometimes the testing is done in focus-group settings in which a moderator leads a discussion about what people found appealing or unappealing. Other times the testing is more anonymous, with voters given a dial that they flip back and forth to signal approval or disapproval as they watch.

Then the content of the ads is meticulously checked for accuracy. If a campaign is using man-on-the-street interviews with random voters, it will research the backgrounds of those voters. If there are red flags — which are hardly unheard of — the ad may have to be scrapped.

“Sometimes the facts don’t check out, or the person you filmed to do a spot had some issues in their past,” said Chris Mottola, who has created ads for the campaigns of Mr. Bush and John McCain. “Sometimes what you think is a good story turns out to be not such a good story.”

It is fairly routine for ads to get spiked in the research and fact-checking processes. But an ad can also be shelved after all that work is done and it is ready to go on the air.

The media team working for Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, had that experience when it created a series of ads attacking Mr. Kennedy’s challenger in 1994, Mitt Romney, who at the time was known primarily as a prominent Massachusetts businessman. One of the harshest spots, which does not sound all that different from what Mr. Romney’s opponents in the Republican presidential race are saying about him today, was never broadcast.

“Mitt Romney says he saved Bain & Company,” the announcer says. “But he didn’t tell you that on the day he took over, he had his predecessor fire hundreds of employees. Or that the way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout.”

The ad includes a point-by-point — if highly selective — recitation of events in the company’s past. A government loan, failed repayment, a $4 million Bain profit.

It concludes: “Mitt Romney, maybe he’s just against government when it helps working men and women.”

The spot was prepared as part of a series of negative commercials intended to raise Mr. Kennedy’s falling poll numbers. But the other ads had evidently done their job, and Mr. Kennedy regained his lead. His campaign decided the Bain ad was no longer necessary.

“It was going to run at the end” of the campaign, said Tad Devine, a Kennedy strategist and veteran Democratic consultant. “But we were like 18 points ahead, so we said: ‘Forget it. Close positive.’ ”

Debates inside campaigns about whether to go negative and how aggressively to do so have killed some ads deemed too harsh for the airwaves. During the 2008 campaign, Mr. McCain’s advisers debated attacking Barack Obama for his association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., the Chicago pastor who had uttered remarks hostile to America. Some thought such an attack on the first black nominee from a major party would be too racially charged.

But Fred Davis, a seasoned adman who has made commercials for Mr. Bush and many other leading Republicans, went ahead and produced a 30-second spot that used Mr. Wright’s infamous rant — “God damn America!” — juxtaposed with tales of Mr. McCain’s war heroism. Hoping to convince Mr. McCain that the commercial would present a clear contrast with Mr. Obama, Mr. Davis paid for the ad out of his own pocket.

“I kept pushing, but I didn’t get anywhere,” Mr. Davis said. “He said no way.”

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EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT:

A.) Find a political topic of interest by reviewing some political reporting by one of the major newspapers.

B.) Research the topic using newspaper stories that can be used as source material to support your discussion.
1. use five or more newspaper articles
2. use the NYTimes, the LATimes, the WSJ or the Washington Post.
3. Copy and print the five stories like I printed this one. Credit your sources by noting them in parentheses at the end of the sentence with the information in it.

Example:

Many presidential campaign staffs produced electronic media ads, usually negative, that never aired. (NYTimes, 3/22/12)

C.) Write an essay discussing your findings and title it appropriately.

D.) Turn in the essay. Staple the five printed news stories behind it.

Here are some possible essay topics based on this story taken from today’s NYTimes.:

1. Modern campaign advertising – methodology, examples, focus groups, etc.

2. Mark McKinnon and the bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004

3. The 1994 campaign of Mitt Romney versus Ted Kennedy

4. Republican strategist Fred Davis and the 2008 campaign of McCain vs Obama

E.) Make sure you use short paragraphs and short sentences in your essay. Also make sure you spellcheck. Don’t use words you don’t know and understand.

F,) Choose a topic you’ll enjoy writing about.