One component of the Frank stimulus-rejection econometric analysis dissects Mr. Sanford’s use, while a Congressman, of a futon for sleeping in his office. Another, more mathematical, dissects Sanford’s use of the long-recognized 8 percent figure for long-term historical-average stock market return (as if it weren’t so) against the recent two-year downturn, writing sarcastically “that’s why the Dow stands well above 20,000 today”. Gauge for yourself how much insight the reader gains, from such use of the op-ed-page column-inches, into the actual merits (or not) of Keynesian deficit OPM spending economic stimulus strategy, which is never, in all 23 column-inches, once specifically addressed. Conversely, William Henry Harrison’s use of a non-existent log cabin as a Presidential campaign device is. There are actual historical and economic grounds for adult pro-and-con discussion of the once-widely-accepted Keynesian thesis, not much except cheap shot benefit for references to theoretical 19th century skinned-alive tree-trunk housing. Albert Hunt didn’t use his column-inches in such manner, while Thomas Frank does; therefore I conclude that, in L-land, there’s been a change in approved debate, discussion, and op-ed-writing tactics. Predictably, it was a WSJ LttE-writer who sent in (11-12 April issue) a cogent description of “tactics which play well in the quick-hit, scorn-filled arena that is the 21st century ideological Left”.

These tactics came relatively late to the op-ed pages of the Journal, but they’ve long been standard practice at Town Meetings and public hearings in Vermont, I can testify from personal experience, and at similar events in Massachusetts and Oregon, based on witness reports from those States. Recently (17 April) some L’s in Brattleboro shut down a federal NRC hearing by throwing compost, the L-method of addressing questions of nuclear physics and quantitative regulatory oversight. These tactics are used because they work: there’s nothing like the physical or verbal ad hominem attack to deter a non-supporter from attending future events, nothing like the phony manufactured statistic or regulation to silence the opposition; hours later, when a bit of research has revealed the falsehood, it’s far too late for it to matter. Such tactics have become a part of the expected atmosphere primarily in school budget or bonding discussions, which explains why there’s such widespread non-L support for Australian ballot, but I’ve also seen them used at discussions of subjects ranging from farm-field disposal of municipal sludge to traffic burdens from proposed development projects. I haven’t seen them used in sprawl-vs-smarth-growth discussions, because I haven’t yet seen the subject presented in such venues; but I have seen them in speaker presentations, the stand-up verbal equivalent of the sit-to-read op-ed. Like Mr. Frank, the speakers could have done better had they so wished, because, just as with the Keynesian argument or school spending, there’s a vast body of historical fact and documented statistics with which they’re familiar and which might be used to support a rational argument for or against “sprawl”. Instead, speakers like former NJ Governor Christine Whitman equate suburban sprawl to global communism in level-of-threat terms.

The real-info resource includes a couple of failed experiments in New Town construction in the US: Reston, VA, and Columbia, MD, which were supposed to be truly independent new cities but ended up as Washington and Baltimore suburbs; or the New Town developments outside London and Stockholm, which pretty much succeeded, complete with inter-urban green belts, all descended from Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City theorizations, variously described (remarkably) as both sprawl and smart-growth schemes. There’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s no-urban-center-very decentralized Broadacre City proposal, pre-planned but never built, and new intensely-centered-not-much-sprawl Edge Cities like Tyson’s Corner, VA, built but never pre-planned. Applying rational analysis to these models would be more useful than calling anti-smart-growth theorists all sorts of names. Or maybe not; after all, it shuts ‘em up and drives ‘em out. That’s how real winners win, I s’pose.