In today’s American Spectator online, I ask what it would be like if coffee shops were run like public schools. The piece was inspired by (and references) a recent Seattle School Board meeting that went badly off the rails.

On Friday I picked my son up at Union Station. He came home for the weekend to go see Corteo with the family. He has only been at college for a few months. I miss his smile. I miss his questions. He and his girlfriend were so polite. They were being the adults while I was being the child. I just couldn’t help myself. I told them all about my new job, what I had done that day, what I had done the day before, my plans for the weeks to come.

On the way home in the car, Nathan said, “Hey, Mom. I’ve written a new poem.”

“Really?” I answered, realizing how selfish I’d been. “Let’s hear it.”

And I ask you

Speak to me of freedom? You know not what it means
but take its name and shackle those with whom you disagree
You wave a flag of righteousness; you bellow and you scream
That those who are not as you are they never should have been

Speak to me of god and tell me what he thinks
of bigotry and hatred for the love each person makes
A fellowship, a flock for which you try to build a wall
The blackest sheep is slaughtered as an offering to them all

Speak to me of love and tell me what it takes
to make a love and test it true, the arrow to be straight
One path is true one path is tried one path we will allow
Two people bound in heart and mind but cannot give a vow

Speak to me of law and tell me what is just
a chance for those with tyrant tendencies to run amok
A forum for the many to oppress a hapless few
Virginia is for lovers, but there’s no room here for you.

Nathan Revere (Nov. 2006).

Self-only coverage:

• Minimum deductible: $1,100
• Maximum HSA contribution: $2,850
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Family coverage:

• Minimum deductible: $2,200
• Maximum HSA contribution: $5,650
• Out-of-pocket maximum: $11,000

Thanks to Business Insurance for the info and HSA Insider for the pointer.

In my book, Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government, I argue that many voters no longer see the GOP as the party of small government. 

Now a new poll from the Club for Growth provides more quantitative backing to my narrative. It’s based on a survey taken in 15 congressional districts. Each of the districts was represented by an incumbent Republicans and each district was generally considered among the most competitive for the GOP this year. Neither were the Democratic or Republican candidates on the ballot in these districts suffering from a scandal that touched them directly.

Two damning results:

Q: “Now tell me whether you think the following phrase better describes the Republicans or the Democrats in Washington: “The Party of Big Government”

Republicans: 39.3%
Democrats: 27.9%
Both: 16.3%
Neither: 9.3%
Don’t know/​Refused: 7.4%

Q: Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: “The Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders that they used to oppose.”

Agree: 65.8%
Disagree: 26.4%
Don’t know/​Refused: 7.9%

Six Republicans in the Senate and 20 in the House were knocked off this election. In addition, eight open seats went to the Dems. (About 10 contests remain undecided.)

Were the the Republican losers economic conservatives or liberals?

My intern, Emmanuel Caudillo, compiled the scores calculated by National Journal for 2003 and 2004 on the economic conservative voting records of the ousted members. The scores are percentiles showing members relative to other members in the chambers. A score of 100 would indicate the most economically conservative voting record.

Here are the National Journal scores for the losers:

Conclusion: The great majority of losing Republicans were economic moderates or liberals. Few of the losers were above the 70th percentile in their votes on economic issues.

John Mueller’s new book is out; it’s called Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. In it he expands on the argument he outlined in Cato’s Regulation Magazine two years ago [.pdf], namely that that, while the terrorist threat is real, “it has been systematically and very substantially exaggerated.” (For more, see the recent Mueller-led debate in Cato Unbound.)

This could be a very important book, with important implications for the way we discuss the terrorist threat and the right policies to respond to it. For one thing, if Mueller is right, and I think he is, it’s well past time to repudiate the idea that respecting constitutional limits is going to get us all killed (for example, the hoary soundbite “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”).

Yet, strangely, not everyone appreciates Mueller’s good news. The first Amazon reader review of the book begins, “The problem with this book is its over-reliance on logic.…”

The Wall Street Journal published a great lead editorial this morning (subscription required) on the GOP House leadership’s losing campaign strategy of using immigration as a “wedge issue.” The strategy obviously failed.

As the Journal’s editorial staff observed:

Republicans on Tuesday managed both to lose their majority in Congress and alienate a fast-growing bloc of Latino swing voters. Other than that, the House GOP strategy of trying to save itself by bucking President Bush and using immigration as a wedge issue worked pretty well.

Republicans can’t say they weren’t warned. Like trade protectionism, the immigration issue is the fool’s gold of American politics. Voters like to sound off to pollsters about immigrants, yet they pull the lever with other matters foremost in mind. Elections seldom if ever turn on immigration, and the GOP restrictionist message so adored by talk radio, cable news and the nativist blogosphere once again failed to deliver the goods.

Such GOP anti-immigration crusaders as J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and John Hostettler of Indiana were tossed out of office by wide margins. Exit polls suggest that Republicans suffered a sizeable drop in support from Hispanic voters turned off by the harsh Republican rhetoric aimed at Hispanic immigrants. 

Of course, I call it a great editorial because it and this week’s election returns confirm my own warnings to Republicans about the dangers of running as the anti-immigration party (here and here).

Although the election results were not good news on free trade and other issues, the new Congress will probably be more open to the kind of real immigration reform the Cato Institute has been advocating.