Matt Yglesias

Beck Capture

Dave Weigel had an interesting post this morning about the problems a political movement runs into when it lets itself be led by charlatan media personalities:

The Democrats are in worse political shape than they were a year ago because unemployment is at 9.8 percent, the war in Afghanistan has grown less popular, and the bailouts of struggling banks are seen as wastes of money that haven’t worked. Republicans benefit when they talk about this stuff. But Beck and the others don’t let them talk about this stuff. For the past few months, they have moved the discussion onto fantasy terrain, accusing the president of reaching for dictatorial powers and surrounding himself with “radicals” who want to destroy capitalism. [...]

And remember, one of the huge political mistakes of 2005 was the Republican decision to do a full-court press on an issue that had come from conservative activists and pundits: the fate of Terri Schiavo.

You can see some of this at work in the very interesting GQR report on “The Very Separate World of Conservative Republicans”. Basically they contrast the worldview of self-identified conservative Republicans with that of Obama-skeptical people who don’t self-identify in this way. To cast the distinction in broad terms, the Obama-skeptics worry that Obama is failing—that his efforts to create jobs aren’t working, that his reforms of the health care system won’t improve access to quality care, etc.—whereas the conservative Republicans worry that he’ll succeed. They believe, à la Beck, that the Obama administration is pursuing a secret agenda aimed at the deliberate destruction of the United States. Focusing on this rather outlandish claim makes it difficult to get in touch with the more banal worries of the marginal voter.

The overarching problem, I think, is that while it may be tactically helpful to have allies in the media who’ll lie about your enemies, it’s a big problem when you start believing too many of the lies. Beck and others on the right have, for example, convinced a lot of people that Cass Sunstein is a dangerous wild-eyed in a way that will make it difficult for the Obama administration to elevate him to any higher positions. Given that Sunstein is, in fact, actually pretty conservative for a Democrat and also a plausible Supreme Court justice this campaign has been, objectively speaking, a victory for the left.

Smearing Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein is a brilliant progressive lawyer whose views on regulation are, if anything, somewhat more conservative than those of most Democrats. He’s friendly to cost-benefit analysis, and a proponent of the idea that public policy should try to “nudge” people as an alternative to more heavy-handed intervention. Barack Obama has nominated him to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where that’s what he’ll be working on.

Naturally, elements on the right have embarked on a dishonest smear campaign. Julian Sanchez has the details.

More On Sunstein

Cass Sunstein, the new OIRA chief, hasn’t always been a blogospheric favorite because he’s generally taken a soft line on a lot of Bush-era abuse of power issues. But of course that’s well outside the scope of OIRA’s ambit. And as this very interesting blog post argues, his recent work in the area of behavior economics suggests a real interest in bringing a new theoretical framework to the government’s regulatory work — one that’s informed by rigorous economic analysis but not slavishly adherent to free market dogma.

Meanwhile, an interesting subplot here is that Sunstein’s wife is Samantha Power. Ever since she left the Obama campaign as a result of “monstergate,” I’ve gotten sporadic inquiries from people as to her status vis-à-vis a potential Obama administration. My understanding of the situation has long been that she wasn’t seeking a formal job and every indication we’ve thus far seen from the transition is that she won’t have one. But one can still provide advice on issues without being a formal adviser, and her husband’s appointment suggests she’ll probably be moving to Washington.

Cass Sunstein to OIR

More appointments:

The president-elect is expected to name [Cass] Sunstein—his friend and informal adviser—to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a transition official said late Wednesday.

A low-profile position in the current administration, the job is likely to be a higher-wattage one after Obama takes office this month.

Sunstein seems like an unusually high-wattage person for this somewhat obscure job, further reenforcing the extent to which Obama is assembling a real team of all-stars where you have a bunch of people in secondary positions who would have enough stature to take on higher-profile jobs. OIR itself is a sub-part of the Office of Management and Budget and even though nobody’s ever heart of it, it has rather sweeping influence across the whole ambit of regulatory activities. Since there’s talk of doing a big overhaul of financial regulations that will be an obvious focus, but there’s lots and lots of regulating happening all over the place.