OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2016
Trump is running as Trump. Surprise!
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Mayor Kujala lirts
with self-dealing
T
he public’s business should be done in public. And our
elected leaders should be open and transparent about poten-
tial or actual conlicts of interest.
That is the best guidance
But during the June 14 exec-
for public bodies, such as city utive session, whose topic was
councils and school boards, the Eighth Street Dam, Kujala
and our elected oficials.
contributed to the discussion.
Oregon statute recognizes
The powerful Nygaard fam-
an elected body’s occasional ily and the Kujala family have
need to have private conversa- aligned their interests against
tions. It is called executive ses- removal of the Eighth Street
sion. Statute lays out the topics Dam.
that qualify for executive ses-
The Columbia River
sion. Those include real estate Estuary Study Taskforce and
transactions, personnel matters the Skipanon Water Control
and others. The media may District favor the dam’s
attend such sessions, but not removal. Reported Derrick
report what was said.
DePledge: “The water district,
State law also instructs which owns the dam, consid-
elected leaders to publicly dis- ers the aging structure a haz-
close potential or actual conlicts ard and of no use for lood
of interest before participating in control. CREST has sought to
debates or taking action.
use federal Bonneville Power
Mayor Mark Kujala skirted Administration money to help
that instruction by participat- the water district remove the
ing in an executive session at dam and improve ish pas-
a City Commission meeting sage and water quality on the
last Tuesday night. The topic Skipanon River.”
was the Eighth Street Dam,
In his self-dealing, Mayor
in which Kujala and his fam- Kujala is ignoring the larger
ily have a conlict of interest. good. By doing that, Kujala
Kujala has acknowledged this deines himself not as the
conlict, and he has recused town’s leader, but as yet
himself from debate and votes another lobbyist for his and the
on the topic.
Nygaards’ private interests.
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
ASHINGTON — When
in his 1964 GOP accep-
tance speech Barry Goldwater
declared that “extremism in the
defense of liberty is no vice,”
a reporter sitting near journal-
ist/historian Theodore White
famously exclaimed: “My
God, he’s going to run as Barry
Goldwater!”
W
Six weeks into Donald Trump’s
general
election
campaign,
Republicans are discovering that
he indeed intends to run as Donald
Trump.
He has boasted that he could
turn “presidential” — respectful,
respectable, reticent, reserved bor-
dering on boring — at will. Appar-
ently, he can’t.
GOP leaders who fell in line
behind Trump after he clinched the
nomination expected, or at least
hoped, that he would prove mal-
leable, willing to adjust his more
extreme positions and tactics to suit
a broader electorate.
Two problems. First, impulse
control: Trump says what he actu-
ally feels, whatever comes into his
head at any moment. Second, a cer-
tain logic: Trump won the primaries
Sinatra-style, his way — against
the odds, the experts and the con-
ventional rules. So why change
now? “You win the pennant,”
Trump explained, “and now you’re
in the World Series — you gonna
change?”
Hence his response to the
Orlando terror attack. Events like
these generally beneit the chal-
lenger politically because any mis-
fortune that befalls the nation gets
attributed, fairly or not, directly or
indirectly, to the incumbent party
(e.g., the 2008 inancial collapse).
And Hillary Clinton is running as
the quasi-incumbent.
The textbook response for the
challenger, therefore, is to offer
sympathy, give a general state-
ment or two about the failure of the
incumbent’s national security pol-
icy, then step back to let the result-
ing national fear and loathing,
ampliied by the media, take effect.
Instead, Trump made himself the
(political) story. First, he offered
himself unseemly congratulations
for his prescience about terrorism.
(He’d predicted more would be
coming. What a visionary.) Then he
went beyond blaming the president
for lack of will or wisdom in ight-
ing terrorism, and darkly implied
AP Photo/Eric Gay
A demonstrator holds a sign during a rally to protest Republican pres-
idential candidate Donald Trump as he attends a private fundraising
event Friday in San Antonio.
presidential
sympathy
he carries the inestimable
for the enemy. “There’s
advantage of the gravitas
something going on,” he
automatically conferred
charged. He then reiter-
by 7 1/2 years of incum-
ated his ban on Muslim
bency. Moreover, he now
immigration.
enjoys an unusually high
Why? Because that’s
approval rating of around
what Trump does. And
53 percent. Trump’s latest
because it worked before.
favorability is 29 percent
It was after last Decem-
(Washington Post-ABC
ber’s San Bernardino
News).
Charles
massacre that Trump irst
It’s no accident that
Krauthammer
called for a Muslim ban.
Trump’s poll numbers
It earned him lots of
are sliding. A month
Trump
opprobrium from GOP
ago, when crowned as
leaders and lots of sup-
presumptive nominee,
made
port from GOP voters.
he jumped into a virtual
He shot up in the polls,
with Clinton. The
himself tie
never to descend until
polls now have him los-
he clinched. So why not
ing by an average of six
the
do it again?
points, with some show-
Because the general (political) ing a nine- and 12-point
election is a different
deicit (Reuters/Ipsos
story.
game. Trump assumes
and Bloomberg).
that the Republican
This may turn out to
electorate is representative of the be temporary, but it is a clear relec-
national electorate. It’s not. Take tion of Trump’s disastrous gen-
the Muslim ban. Sixty-eight percent eral election kickoff. His two-week
of GOP voters support it. Only 38 expedition into racism in attack-
percent of Democrats do. And there ing the Indiana-born “Mexican”
are approximately 7 million more judge. His dabbling in conspiracy,
Democrats in the country. (Indepen- from Ted Cruz’s father’s supposed
dents are split 51-40 in favor.)
involvement in the Kennedy assas-
The other major example of sination to Vince Foster’s (“very
doing what’s always worked is ishy”) suicide. All of which sug-
the ad hominem attack on big-dog gests, and cements, the image of a
opponents. It worked in the prima- man who shoots from the hip and
ries. Trump went after one leading is prone to both wild theories and
challenger after another, knocking extreme policies.
them out sequentially.
Reagan biographer Lou Can-
Hillary Clinton is a lousy cam- non thinks that the Goldwater anec-
paigner but her machine is ininitely dote is apocryphal. How could any-
larger and more skilled than any of one (even a journalist) have thought
Trump’s 16 GOP competitors. More that Goldwater, who later admitted
riskily, Trump is now going toe-to- he always knew he would lose, was
toe with a sitting president.
going to run as anything but his vin-
Barack Obama is no Jeb Bush. tage, hard-core self?
He’s not low energy. He’s a skilled
Same for Trump. Give him
campaigner who clearly despises points for authenticity. Take away
Trump and relishes the ight. And for electability.
Carbon choices are World’s fear, loathing and Brexit
climate choices
T
W
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
hile many economists
and energy regulators
remain convinced that the
best approach to controlling
greenhouse gases is to tax car-
bon emissions, it nevertheless
is good to see that Oregon is
continuing to closely examine
an alternative approach: an
economy-wide carbon cap-
and-trade system in partner-
ship with other governments
around North America.
Under cap-and-trade, agen-
cies assign individual carbon
emitters a “cap” based on emis-
sions history and future targets.
Emitters can then use, buy and
sell their rights to produce car-
bon dioxide pollution. By pro-
viding a monetary incentive to
emit less — either to preserve
emission rights to use or sell
for a proit or to avoid having
to buy those rights from some-
one else — advocates believe
CO2 will cease to be so eas-
ily discharged into the atmo-
sphere, where it becomes
everyone’s problem.
Detractors of cap-and-trade
believe it is needlessly compli-
cated, essentially creating a new
proit center for corporations
that will require an unwieldy
private/public bureaucracy to
maintain. In contrast, a direct
tax could be crafted to specif-
ically discourage emissions,
with the revenues going to off-
set impacts on needy residents,
to conduct research and for
other purposes.
These are, however, early
days in what will surely be a
long process of iguring out
how best to wean industrial
society off its addiction to fos-
sil fuels, a dependency that per-
mits carbon dioxide to warp our
climate. Just this year, CO2 lev-
els are stuck above 400 parts
per million in the atmosphere,
after starting out at 280 ppm
before the industrial era. Levels
will continue going up, possi-
bly for decades. We probably
will need to explore an array
of regulatory and technological
solutions before we arrive at a
satisfactory set of answers.
Climatewire, a publica-
tion of Environment & Energy
Publishing (www.eenews.net),
recently reported a helpful
summary of Oregon’s cap-and-
trade steps. Read it at www.
tinyurl.com/OR-cap-and-trade.
Decisions on these matters
will have a pervasive impact
on citizens and society. It is
worthwhile for all of us to try to
understand our options and par-
ticipate in deciding what to do.
here are still 4 1/2 months
to go before the presidential
election. But there’s a vote next
week that could matter as much
for the world’s future as what
happens here: Britain’s referen-
dum on whether to stay in the
European Union.
Unfortunately, this vote is a
choice between bad and worse —
and the question is which is which.
Not to be coy: I would vote Remain.
I’d do it in full awareness that the EU
is deeply dysfunctional and shows few
signs of reforming. But British exit —
Brexit — would probably make things
worse, not just for Britain, but for
Europe as a whole.
The straight economics is clear:
Brexit would make Britain poorer. It
wouldn’t necessarily lead to a trade
war, but it would deinitely hurt British
trade with the rest of Europe, reducing
productivity and incomes. My rough
calculations, which are in line with
other estimates, suggest that Britain
would end up about 2 percent poorer
than it would otherwise be, essentially
forever. That’s a big hit.
There’s also a harder to quantify
risk that Brexit would undermine the
City of London — Britain’s counter-
part of Wall Street — which is a big
source of exports and income. So the
costs could be substantially bigger.
What about warnings that a Leave
vote would provoke a inancial cri-
sis? That’s a fear too far. Britain isn’t
Greece: It has its own currency and
borrows in that currency, so it’s not
at risk of a run that creates monetary
chaos. In recent weeks the odds of a
Leave vote have clearly risen, but Brit-
ish interest rates have gone down,
not up, tracking the global decline in
yields.
Still, as an economic matter Brexit
looks like a bad idea.
True, some Brexit advocates claim
tion greatly outweigh these
that leaving the EU would
free Britain to do wonderful
costs. But that’s a hard argu-
things — to deregulate and
ment to make to a public
unleash the magic of mar-
frustrated by cuts in public
kets, leading to explosive
services — especially when
growth. Sorry, but that’s just
the credibility of pro-EU
voodoo wrapped in a Union
experts is so low.
Jack; it’s the same free-mar-
For that is the most
ket fantasy that has always
frustrating thing about the
and everywhere proved
EU: Nobody ever seems
delusional.
to acknowledge or learn
Paul
No, the economic case is
from mistakes. If there’s
Krugman
as solid as such cases
any soul-searching
ever get. Why, then,
in Brussels or Berlin
This vote
my downbeat tone
about Europe’s terri-
about Remain?
economic perfor-
is a choice ble
Part of the answer
mance since 2008, it’s
is that the impacts
very hard to ind. And
between
of Brexit would be
I feel some sympathy
bad and
uneven: London and
with Britons who just
southeast
England
don’t want to be tied
worse —
would be hit hard, but
to a system that offers
Brexit would prob-
so little accountability,
and the
ably mean a weaker
even if leaving is eco-
pound, which might
nomically costly.
question
actually help some of
The question, how-
is which is ever, is whether a Brit-
the old manufacturing
regions of the north.
ish vote to leave would
which.
More important,
make anything better.
however, is the sad
It could serve as a sal-
reality of the EU that Britain might utary shock that inally jolts European
leave.
elites out of their complacency and
The so-called European project leads to reform. But I fear that it would
began more than 60 years ago, and for actually make things worse. The EU’s
many years it was a tremendous force failures have produced a frightening
for good. It didn’t only promote trade rise in reactionary, racist nationalism
and help economic growth; it was also — but Brexit would, all too probably,
a bulwark of peace and democracy in a empower those forces even more, both
continent with a terrible history.
in Britain and all across the Continent.
But today’s EU is the land of the
Obviously I could be wrong about
euro, a major mistake compounded by these political consequences. But it’s
Germany’s insistence on turning the also possible that my despair over
crisis the single currency wrought into European reform is exaggerated.
a morality play of sins (by other peo- And here’s the thing: As Oxford’s
ple, of course) that must be paid for Simon Wren-Lewis points out, Brit-
with crippling budget cuts. Britain had ain will still have the option to leave
the good sense to keep its pound, but the EU someday if it votes Remain
it’s not insulated from other problems now, but Leave will be effectively
of European overreach, notably the irreversible. You have to be really,
establishment of free migration with- really sure that Europe is unixable
out a shared government.
to support Brexit.
You can argue that the problems
So I’d vote Remain. There would
caused by, say, Romanians using the be no joy in that vote. But a choice
National Health Service are exagger- must be made, and that’s where I’d
ated, and that the beneits of immigra- come down.