Monthly Archives: April 2013

Mark Sanford

Posted on April 2, 2013 | 1 comment

Mark Sanford

I’m dramatically less interested in Mark Sanford than I was 4 years ago.  Remember, back then Sanford was an up and coming republican star.  Two term governor of a southern red state.  In my mind, he was on the short list of the top contenders for the 2012 ballot.

The came Argentina and the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford rightly was banished from American politic and finished his term in disgrace.  Many, me included, thought that his career was over.

Well, not yet:

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has won his House primary runoff, setting up a high-profile special election against businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D), the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.

Sanford led attorney Curtis Bostic (R) by 57 to 43 percent as of 8:40 p.m., with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press has called the race.

The win is the latest step in Sanford’s rehabilitation after an extramarital affair derailed his political career in 2009 — but his biggest test lies ahead in the Republican-leaning district.

Since he has mounted his comeback, Sanford is 2 for 2.  He “won” the first runoff but failed to obtain the 50% he needed to avoid the second runoff.  And he won this one going away.

The first PPP polling shows the race a toss-up:

PPP’s first look at the special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District finds a toss up race. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch leads Republican Mark Sanford 47-45 and ties Curtis Bostic at 43.

This is a Republican leaning district and Barack Obama’s approval rating in it is only 41% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. But Democrats are far more unified than the Republicans are. Busch is winning 87-89% of the Democratic vote while Sanford (76%) and Bostic (72%) are both earning less than 80% of the GOP vote. Busch is also up by 16-18 points with independent voters.

…

Focusing in on the potential race between Busch and Sanford it’s surprisingly close for one simple reason- voters like Busch and they continue to strongly dislike Sanford. 45% of voters see Busch favorably to only 31% with a negative opinion. On the other hand Sanford is still stuck with a 34% favorability rating and 58% of voters seeing him in a negative light.

I’m betting that right now, Sanford is experiencing his lowest polling numbers of the election.  He’s a veteran of 5 winning elections and is unlikely to make an unforced error.  Further, every single skeleton has likely been exposed.  I’m guessing that he wins relatively easily.

What this means in the larger picture however, is kinda ho-hum.  The seat was republican and, as I mentioned, will probably stay republican.  Both senators are republican and are unlikely to turn blue anytime soon.  He’ll probably never hold the governor’s mansion again, so I don’t see much upside for him outside of his house seat.

Then again……

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Obamacare and Cost Savings

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

health care

Remember when proponents of Obamacare told us that government run health care models were better than private ones because they wouldn’t have to spend money on things like profit?

Or marketing?

So far California has received $910 million in federal grants to launch its new health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

The California exchange, “Covered California,” has so far awarded a $183 million contract to Accenture to build the website, enrollment, and eligibility system and another $174 million to operate the exchange for four years.

The state will also spend $250 million on a two-year marketing campaign.

Two hundred fifty million on marketing.

Not to mention the $143 million extra to start the thing:

Privately funded Esurance began its multi-product national web business in 1998 with an initial $5.5 million round of venture fund investment in 1999 and a second round of $34 million a few months later.

I’m not sure that we’ll ever be able to fix this thing we call Obamacare.  But it sure is gonna cost us if we don’t.

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Light Rail

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 4 comments

high-speed-rail

Trains are cool.  And fast trains are fastly cool.

I live nearly 15 miles from my office.  And I would love to be able to take a train, preferably a fast one, to the office each day.  However, there are some constraints  on even an imaginary train.

  1. I have to take my kids to school.  So, even if I can take the train to work, I have to drive to school.
  2. My kids would appreciate it if I picked them up.
  3. Sometimes, more when they were younger, I have to go to school to get them because they are hurt or sick.
  4. Now that they are older, they need to go to places like dance, karate, soccer and basketball after school.
  5. I have to go to places like lunch, the grocery store and Wal-mart during the day.

All of this is a not so obvious way of saying that unless the train stopped at my door, my kid’s school, the grocery and each of our events, I can’t use it.  None of the things in my life are close enough that I can afford to give up the car.

My wife was born in Brooklyn.  And I love to visit.  Everything is so close to the house that you can go for days, weeks I suspect, without having to go further than 6 blocks.  Within just 2 are more than 20 places to eat, a movie theater, grocery and drug stores.  Everything.

But here, in Raleigh, and most place sin America, things that people need and want are spread all over the place.  And because of that, trains, being static once built, are of very limited use to a very limited population of people.

And saying that makes me happy:

“The commuter rail plan and the light rail plan just don’t make sense to me,” said John Pucher, a professor in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is a visiting professor this semester at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the Department of City and Regional Planning.

Pucher has more than 40 years of experience in transportation planning. He supports alternative modes of transportation, but he said planners often underestimate cost and overestimate ridership projections.

“It’s just so difficult in this very decentralized, very sprawled metropolitan area,” he said.

I wish I could take a train to work.  Maybe in 12 years after the kids are in college and I have fewer variable trips, I can.  In fact, when I was single and living in Seattle, I often had thoughts of moving to Bainbridge Island and commuting by ferry.  I could arrange to work from home in the morning, miss the massive morning commute, take the boat across and be in the office by 10.  Same thing on the way home.

But right now, the way that we have built our cities, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze on this light rail.  The money just doesn’t make sense.

But what does?

A better option for Wake County would be a “bus rapid transit system,” he said. The system essentially allows buses to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes on area highways, which he said is more efficient, flexible and cost-effective than rail systems.

Indeed.

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