A new Cato Book Forum Wednesday May 14th at Noon:

Featuring the author, Steven Teles, University of Maryland and Yale University Law School, with comments from Roger Pilon, Cato Institute and Hon. David McIntosh, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, former Member of Congress (R-IN), Federalist Society Co-Founder.

Starting in the 1970s, conservatives learned that electoral victory did not easily convert into a reversal of important liberal accomplishments, especially in the law. As a result, conservatives’ mobilizing efforts increasingly turned to law schools, professional networks, public interest groups, and the judiciary—areas traditionally controlled by liberals. Drawing from previously unavailable internal documents, as well as interviews with key figures, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement examines this sometimes fitful, and still only partially successful, conservative (and libertarian) challenge to liberal domination of the law. Steven Teles explores how this mobilization was shaped by the legal profession and the difficulties in matching strategic opportunities with effective organizational responses. He explains how foundations and other groups promoting conservative ideas built a network designed to dislodge legal liberalism from American elite institutions. And he portrays the reality, not of a grand strategy masterfully pursued, but of individuals and political entrepreneurs learning from trial and error. The book provides an unprecedented look at the inner life of one of the most striking developments in American public affairs over the last several decades.

I’ve been waiting for my old con law prof to take a political stand I could really get behind, and he finally has. Barack Obama is the only one of the presidential candidates to take a firm stand against this shamefully populist gas tax holiday. Good for you, Prof!

Now, I’m not normally a big tax guy. Taxes generally expand the government’s coffers, enabling the state to do more of the stuff I don’t think it should be doing, and lots of taxes (e.g., capital gains taxes, Sen. Obama) create terrible, wealth-destructive incentives. But not all taxes are created equal. Activities that impose costs that are not borne by the people engaging in the activities – negative externalities, to use economic jargon – may be appropriately taxed. Gasoline consumption, which creates all sorts of negative spillovers, is one of those activities.

A friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for a while came over the other night. I laughed when I realized he’d traded his ridiculous monster truck (he’s a city boy who definitely doesn’t need that much vehicle) for a sensible Honda Civic. “What’s up with the ride?” I asked. “Gas prices,” he replied.

What good greenie (as Hillary is trying to portray herself) or economically astute policymaker (as McCain is trying to portray himself) could think this is a bad thing?

• James Pethokoukis at US News reports on interviews with chief economic advisers Austan Goolsbee and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
• Brian Leiter is pleased to point out a study showing that while both groups are in the top 3, Philosophy majors outperform Economics majors on the LSAT.  Leiter also gets in a playful dig, noting that the study “corresponds exactly to the natural intellectual hierarchy evident throughout the legal academy.” Ouch. Hmmm. We’ll see Brian’s study and raise him this one suggesting that economics, unlike some other high performing undergraduate majors, actually translates beyond LSAT performance into higher earnings.
• The Federal Trade Commission has announced its First Annual Microeconomics Conference
• Gary Becker on why the airlines are so bad
• Quantifying the Colbert Bump (HT: Tyler Cowen)

Not as an economist of course! There is no doubt that Goolsbee is one of the world’s premier economists. But another brilliant economist, Jagdish Bhagwati, argues that voters should (HT: Mankiw) favor Barack Obama’s free trade credentials over Hillary Clinton’s based, at least partially, on Austan Goolsbee’s credentials as an advocate of free trade and as an economist. This argument begs a number of interesting questions: how important are economic advisers anyway? More specifically, is Bhagwati right that free traders should feel more comfortable with Obama than Clinton because of the formers choice of advisers? And how much weight should we assign this choice relative to say, voting patterns?

As a general matter, I think it is perfectly appropriate to give credit to the principal for the quality of the agents he or she is able to attract. And I’m tempted by the notion that an economist could actually constrain some of the protectionist rhetoric coming from a few of the candidates these days from amounting to policy. In fact, I was more optimistic about Goolsbee’s potential free trade influence on Obama several months ago. But I’m starting to doubt that there is any reason to be optimistic with statements like this out of the Obama camp (or this one) which suggest to me that Goolsbee has not had significant influence (though I may be wrong about that):

It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart.

Of course, one I suppose one can interpret the evidence in a more negative light. Perhaps without Goolsbee, Obama’s anti-trade rhetoric would be much worse. Perhaps the primary value of a prominent free trade advisor for a candidate with an anti-trade record and platform is to provide some assurance against extreme protectionism. But I don’t think that is Bhagwati’s argument. As an aside, I also believe most of the buzz about the link between behavioral economics and Obama’s economic policies is largely a mischaracterization.

I’m certain that economic advisers like Goolsbee, Mankiw, and other economists in simimlar roles provide significant and valuable services to their candidates. There is also little doubt that economic advisers can play a valuable role in helping to form sound economic policy once a candidate is in office. I don’t want to be misunderstood as saying that economic advisers in general, or Goolsbee in particular, are not valuable. What I am saying is that I don’t think Bhagwati’s argument that we should consider high quality economic advisers as a free trade credential is persuasive. In the case of Goolsbee-Obama, I find the link particularly weak given the strong protectionist talk from Obama in recent weeks. Though I hope I’m wrong, I’m significantly discounting the possibility that Goolsbee is exhibiting much of a constraining effect on Obama or that his presence should be relevant to the free trade credentials of the candidates.

Voting records, as opposed to speeches and selection of advisers, are a bit more informative. Luke Froeb, who is another excellent economist supporting a candidate (Luke is an Economic Policy Adviser for the McCain campaign), reports that McCain voted against trade barriers 88% of the time as opposed to Obama’s 36% and Clinton’s 31%.

A few months ago I commented on the absurdity of the Feingold-Kyl amendment to the judicial pay raise bill, which appeared to be a thinly veiled attempt to target the George Mason Law and Economics Center and a few others. The absurdity with which I was particularly interested at the time was the fact that events sponsored by the bar association and state governments were exempted and so, because of the high demand for these programs, the likely impact of the amendment on the total number of these programs would be trivial. Rather, I thought it fairly transparent that the intended impact of the bill was not to reduce judicial access to these programs but to favor certain providers over others. There is also the notion that somehow judges are becoming wealthy as a result of these programs or that the programs do not generate social good — but I digress. Back to the update.

John Fund summarizes the state of affairs as they stood on December 17, 2007 quite thoroughly here. For those who need a reminder about the contents of the amendment, Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed sums up the bill as it currently stands (and provides a link to the actual text):

First, it would prohibit [judges] from accepting any sort of gift, income or even travel reimbursement from programs designed to educate federal or state judges, except for programs sponsored by a bar association, a judicial association, or a government. (Programs at public universities are exempted from the exemption, and so are barred, as are private colleges.) Feingold’s amendment would also limit to $2,000 the amount that a judge or justice could receive in income or reimbursement from any “single trip or event” sponsored by any entity but a bar or judicial association or a federal, state or local government. Again, public colleges, like private ones, would be subject to the limit, and a judge would have a maximum annual limit of $20,000 in such reimbursements.

As Lederman notes in his column, things have changed. First, the amendment appears to be losing its political legs. The article notes that Senator Kyl, previously a named sponsor, has “vowed to oppose the entire judges’ pay bill if the Feingold amendment stays attached to it.” Next, the American Law Deans Association, led by Northwestern Law Dean David Van Zandt, is speaking out against the amendment in the form of a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Judical Conference of the United States has also unsurprisingly chimed in against the amendment. I have no idea what political bargain might be struck with respect to the judicial pay raise bill and the Feingold amendment, but I do hope that for the sake of law schools public and private that the amendment will soon disappear and it looks like things are happily moving that direction.

Lederman’s column includes a quote from my colleague and George Mason Law and Economics Center Executive Director Frank Buckley explaining that the LEC “is by no means ideological” and that expressing disappointment that “a highly academic program, which has a list of donors and supporters from all over the political spectrum, gets singled out.” For anyone skeptical of Buckley’s description of LEC program content, please go check out the programs at LEC for yourselves. They really do speak for themselves. But allow me to allow Buckley to speak for them (from his comment on a VC post in 2006, but still pertinent to the discussion):

Does it matter that the Mason lecturers are the leading scholars anywhere, that its readings are posted on its web site, that no one has or could have a problem with them, that people like Larry Kramer, Gordon Wood, John Searle, David Bromwich, Jasper Griffin, Joe Ellis, Cass Sunstein and Marcia Angell lecture for it, that without Mason lecturers the NYRB would have trouble publishing, that lecturers are asked to stay away from hot button topics, that global warming, environmental issues, asbestosis, abortion, tobacco, etc. are simply not mentioned in Mason programs, that no judge has ever complained of the content of the programs or lectures? Does it matter that the programs are academically intensive, that there are no entertainment or hospitality events? Does it matter that judges such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg have praised our programs? And does it matter that Mason programs this year are on subjects as varied as Renaissance Humanism, David Hume, Abraham Lincoln, and the principles of microeconomics? Because if none of that matters, the complaints can be made only by bitter ideologues blinded by an ignorance of or animus against the life of the mind.

*Disclosure: As I’ve noted previously when discussing this topic, I have received summer research money from the LEC in the past.

In yesterday’s Super Tuesday primaries, Hillary Clinton won the two largest contests–California and New York–but the delegate count was close to even (perhaps Clinton even finished slightly behind) because Barack Obama won more states, albeit smaller ones.

The Clinton campaign argues that Clinton’s victories in larger, delegate-rich states suggest that she would be a more viable candidate than Obama in the general election. But does that conclusion really follow?

I don’t see why. States that are heavily Democratic, whether large or small, are very likely to vote for whoever is running on the Democratic ticket in November. The candidate who gives Democrats the best hopes of winning in the general election is the one who will do better among moderates, independents, and Republicans. So the fact that Clinton won in heavily Democratic states such as New York and California does not seem to be a very meaningful statistic for assessing whether she or Obama would do better in the general election. To the contrary, the candidates’ relative performance in more politically balanced or conservative states (regardless of size) would seem like a better indicator of general electability, especially in such states where independents and Republicans are permitted to participate in the Democratic primary. Judging by that measure, Obama is the candidate who seems more likely to do better in the general election.

To be sure, the campaign is far from over and much can still happen to influence voter opinion in the remaining primary contests and in the general election. My goal here is simply to debunk some spin by the Clinton campaign that seems to be based on an erroneous statistical inference.

I want to respond to some of the comments on my blog regarding whether part of the ideological difference between liberals and conservatives can be explained by their differing estimations of the elasticity of various curves.

First, Thom reminds us of Posner’s idea that the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals think that people are selfless but stupid whereas conservatives think that people selfish but smart. This idea is closely related to the one I proposed. For, if people are selfish but smart, then when the price of something rises, they will take note, seek out substitutes, and adjust their behavior accordingly—and hence the demand curve will be elastic. On the other hand, if people are selfless but stupid, when the price of something rises, either they will not notice or else they will be insufficiently self-interested to substitute other products; either way, they pay the higher price, and so the demand curve will be inelastic. Posner’s account, if true, thus plausibly explains why liberals and conservatives would systematically disagree about elasticities.

Second, the liberal-conservative divide over whether a requirement to show identification will discourage many people from voting may well be independent of questions of the elasticity of demand for voting. For example, suppose that, as liberals seem to think, the demand curve here is highly elastic (e.g., say elasticity of 2.0), but that, as the conservatives seem to think, the increase in cost to voters will actually be quite small, say .01%. Then the law requiring voters to show identification would reduce voter turnout by only .02%, i.e., one voter in 5,000. A conservative could then say that this was a reasonable price for us as a society to pay in order to deter vote fraud. I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but it would seem to make sense to lose one legitimate vote in 5,000 in order to preempt, say, one fraudulent vote in 4,000. Even if the percentage of fraudulent votes was less than the percentage of votes lost through the identification system, the gain from people being more confident in the system might make checking identification worthwhile. The defining difference between liberals and conservatives here may thus relate not to elasticities but to the perceived increase in the cost of voting on a percent basis.

Lest anyone be scandalized by the idea that it could be worthwhile to let some legitimate votes be lost, let’s remember that any system at the polling place that limits who can vote, including the present vote, deters some people from voting. It’s only a question of how many lost votes we think acceptable in this context.

Third, I agree with the many readers who said that any explanation of the difference between liberals and conservatives in terms of disagreements about elasticities is partial at best. It explains nothing, for example, about differing attitudes concerning, say, abortion. Differences on life issues, I think, go to differences on fundamental meta-ethical premises. Here, conservatives tend to think that morality is, in some sense, based on a human nature that is shared by all members of the biological species homo sapiens. Since human fetuses or embryos are members of that species as much as anyone else is, they are generally entitled to the same moral protections as anyone else. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to think that morality is, in some sense, based not on human nature per se but on the human capacity for, say, higher mental functions. Hence, members of the human species that are incapable of such functions (e.g., the very young, the severely disabled, etc.) are not generally entitled to the same moral protections that healthy adult human beings are. If some account along these lines is right, then the philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives run very deep indeed.

We’ve been following presidential statements on antitrust here at TOTM — mostly through press releases to the AAI (e.g. our analysis of statements from Obama and Edwards).  I’ve been largely disappointed at the lack of attention to antitrust thus far from the candidates, with virtually no statements at all from the Republican side and only a few from the Dems.  This Reuters story (HT: Antitrust Review) offers a little bit of information from the perspective of antitrust practitioners on the predicted policies from various candidates.  Noticeably, there was nothing directly from the candidates’ camps.

The themes of the story are fairly predictable: (1) Edwards is the only “progressive” who would offer more than incremental change, (2) Clinton and Obama would offer roughly the same antitrust policy which, we are told, would be more active than the current administration without any specifics (see our critical discussion of the “more is better” view of antitrust here, here and here), and (3) its really hard to predict what any of the Republicans would do.  The Edwards and Obama statements are consistent with the characterizations in (1) and (2).  And (3) is certainly fair given the lack of attention to antitrust issues (at least publicly) from the conservative candidates.  

There was at least one excerpt from the story that raised my eyebrows.  Here it is:

Clinton and Obama likely hold similar views on enforcing anti-monopoly statutes, opposing price-fixing and other competition issues, according to several lawyers.  Obama’s time teaching law at the University of Chicago, where pro-market emphasis is strong, would affect his antitrust views, Sharp said.  But Hamilton Loeb of Paul, Hastings LLP disagreed, saying Obama had studied law at Harvard Law School, where “the prevalent antitrust theory was more moderate.”

Geoff, Thom or Keith will likely have a more insider perspective on this than I, but I am very skeptical about the assertion that Obama teaching at the University of Chicago would likely to lead to pro-market or “Chicago School” antitrust views.  Or for that matter, that Chicago economics is still a dominant component of the law and economics at University of Chicago (though there is still plently of law and economics there).  Here are a few reasons why I’m skeptical about the claim about Obama.  First, the connection between where you teach and your views on substantive areas outside your expertise seems fairly weak to me.  Second, is the University of Chicago Law School still associated with views of the “Chicago School” of antitrust analysis?  Was it in the 90’s when Obama taught there?   Third, Obama’s statements on Walmart and his reported but questionable association with behavioral economics don’t appear to betray any pro-market bias.  Fourth, a look at Obama’s own published statements about antitrust don’t reveal any Chicago School influence.  I might be willing to buy that Obama might be influenced by his antitrust teachers at Harvard.  But I’d need some more evidence or a mores specific statement from the Obama camp about the details of an Obama antitrust regime.

But to be clear, Obama is one of the only candidates to issue something on the issue and should be congratulated.  Where are the statements on antitrust from the rest of the candidates?  I understand that there are plenty of other important issues to go around this election cycle.  I don’t pretend that the average voter is as interested in antitrust as I am.  But it is my view that U.S. antitrust policy, and its role in the global antitrust environment, is more important than ever.  But do any of the Republican candidates think antitrust is an important enough issue to release a statement with some details?  Does anybody associated with any of the candidates know of statements on antitrust by the candidates that I’ve missed?

David Leonhardt wrote the following in a column last week in the NY Times:

The easiest way to describe Senator Clinton’s philosophy is to say that she believes in the promise of narrowly tailored government policies, like focused tax cuts. She has more faith that government can do what it sets out to do, which is a traditionally liberal view. Yet she also subscribes to the conservative idea that people respond rationally to financial incentives.

Senator Obama’s ideas, on the other hand, draw heavily on behavioral economics, a left-leaning academic movement that has challenged traditional neoclassical economics over the last few decades. Behavioral economists consider an abiding faith in rationality to be wishful thinking. To Mr. Obama, a simpler program — one less likely to confuse people — is often a smarter program.

Two things bother me about this particular passage despite the fact that I found the column pretty interesting. The first is that I’m not sure this accurately characterizes Hillary Clinton’s view on markets, i.e. that she “subscribes to the conservative idea that people respond rationally to financial incentives” as a general matter. But this post is about the second thing that bothers me about the column.

The second issue is that I’m not convinced that Obama’s policies have much to do with a behavioral economics-based platform. Leonhardt raises Obama’s savings plan (opt-out 401(k)’s), broad based tax cuts for the middle class, and opposition to a health care “mandate” as examples of policies informed by behavioral economics. I understand the the connection between the 401k default policy and behavioral economics. But the second two examples don’t strike me as have much do with with the insights of behavioral economics per se. The link between tax cuts and the lessons of behavioral economics, in this context, is tenuous at best. And as Ezra Klein notes while taking the position that he doesn’t see much behavioral economics in Obama’s positions either, one might suspect that a health care mandate would be more in line with the teachings of behavioral economics rather than Obama’s plan.

It is important to remember that the promise of the field of behavioral economics is to identify systematic and predictable deviations from individiual rationality in economic environments. Whether or not this young and growing field in economics lives up to this promise in a manner that translates into sensible legal reforms has yet to be seen as a general matter. I’ve written here that I am unconvinced that behavioral economics has lived up to this promise in the field of consumer contracts where the tools of neoclassical economics generates greater explanatory power.

The point is that the mere assertion of individual irrationality is not a case for behavioral economics, nor any sort of “libertarian paternalism.” For starters, a serious proponent of such interventions must be able to demonstrate the “errors” must be systematic, predictable, and convincingly documented empirically (and in real markets). Then, and only then, does it make sense to seriously discuss the costs (including the long-term dynamic costs emphasized by Klick and Mitchell) and benefits of potentially paternalistic interventions. Indeed, a part of the classical argument for libertarianism is a presumption not that individuals do not make mistakes (there are surely costs associated with being right “all” of the time), but that individuals making their own decisions leads to better outcomes in the long run. Regardless, merely asserting deviations from the rational actor model and calling for government regulation on the behalf of individuals who do not know what is best for them has little do to with behavioral economics or “New Paternalism.” It’s just good old-fashioned paternalism.

I admit that this last paragraph has little to do with Obama’s policies directly.  Its not meant to be a critique.  I have no doubt that there is serious intellectual content to many of Obama’s economic policies — both Austan Goolsbee and David Cutler are very well respected economists.  But I think it is worth pointing out when terms like “behavioral economics” and “libertarian paternalism” are thrown around willy-nilly.  The same approach is often taken in the law review literature where it is relatively common to see  articles purporting to take a paternalistic approach informed by behavioral economics which fail to even attempt to satisfy the threshold discussed above.  Here, I’m also not convinced that Leonhardt is correct that the roots of Obama’s economic policies lie in behavioral economics.

Well, obviously, not, of course, but he sure sounds like a thoughtless hack once in a while.

In a cafeteria near my office on the Microsoft campus, there is a sign near the door.  It’s a testament to something or other that I have no recollection at all what the sign is actually about.  But it shows a sepia-tone picture of a bridge being built from both sides of some body of water.  The traverse is almost complete, except that the the two sides don’t quite line up.  Oops.  In big letters above the picture is a quote from Einstein.  It says, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”  I’ve never read a word of Deepak Chopra, but this is about what I imagine he or others like him would sound like.  Trite.  Persuasive to the relatively thoughtless.  And, well, idiotic.

But perhaps precisely because of its triteness and persuasiveness, this sort of thinking underlies an unfortunate amount of policy analysis and actual policy implementation.  Much to our detriment. 

Here’s the problem:  The statement doesn’t account for decision-making in uncertainty.  It doesn’t acknowledge that trade-offs are inherent in any planning.  It presumes that errors or bad results were caused by defective decision-making.  It doesn’t account for ex ante optimizing.  It thus fetishizes ex post consequences without considering that the very “best” level of thinking might still lead ex post to “bad” results. 

This defect is inherent in so much that is so awful in politics and government.  Enron went bankrupt?  Corporate governance is out of control! Pass Sarbanes-Oxley, quick!  Microsoft has a dominant position in the browser market?  The free market has failed!  Regulate the crap out of ‘em!  Neoclassical economics doesn’t have a perfect explanation for why college students hoard coffee mugs?  Send in the behavioralists!  It’s all about positional goods!  Or availability cascades!  Or something!

Most antitrust enforcement–most regulation, full stop–has this post hoc ergo propter hoc sort of character.  Analysis of decisions requires analysis of institutions.  It requires an understanding of the economics of information and of uncertainty.  And most of all it requires a sense of humility.  Unfortunately, post hoc rationalization seems to be extremely persuasive with your average voter and I’ve never heard of a humble politician.

Ah, well.  Another year begins, and an election year, at that.  The news and the blogs will be full of calls for reform, calls to “do something,” assignments of blame, examples of alleged market evils, and examples of post hoc rationalization.  There will be a deficit of sensible institutional analysis and restraint.  It should be quite fun, actually.

 UPDATE:  John Tierney seems to have had a similar concern.

Gail Heriot (Right Coast) and John Fund discuss the Feingold-Kyl amendment to the pending bill which would give federal judges a long-awaited payraise amidst concerns that pay levels were to low to attract and retain a high quality judiciary. The FK amendment, as explained by Fund, “would bar any federal judge from accepting more than $1,500 in food, lodging or other reimbursement for any travel event not sponsored by a government, and more than $5,000 in a year.” The FK amendment appears to be related to the “junk ethics” movement which raises its head from time to time to throw charges at institutions like the George Mason Law and Economics Center, FREE, and others.

These educational programs have been adequately defended here and elsewhere in the past. However, it is worth emphasizing a point that both Heriot and Fund recognize but the FK amendment’s supporters apparently fail to understand: it is not very likely that the FK amendment will result in fewer educational programs for judges in the medium to long run. It is true, as Heriot notes in particular, that one obvious implication of the FK amendment’s funding limitations is that private schools (especially smaller ones) will suffer and no longer be able to attract judges to these programs. While it is no solace for the disfavored private schools, the amendments produce the greatest benefits for smaller public schools that would not be likely to attract federal judges in the absence of these programs. My guess would be that the net effect of the amendment is trivial (again, not much solace to the disfavored private schools) as growth in the number of new programs and expansion of existing programs at public schools offset the reduction in competition from private schools. There appears a healthy demand for the services provided by these programs and no shortage of high quality public law schools with the resources to produce them. One should not be surprised by a subsequent increase in the number of new state programs as well as expansion of existing programs to satisfy demand. I wonder if that is what Feingold & Kyl had in mind?

*Disclosure: I have in the past received summer research money from the George Mason Law & Economics Center.

Geoff doesn’t vote. Neither do many of my economist friends. In fact, they laugh at me for voting. But I do. The joke will be on them if I’m the tiebreaker, wont it? Anyway, in the search for some shortcuts this presidential election season, I decided to try the Selectsmart 2008 President Selector Quiz (HT: Prof Bainbridge). The Selector tells me that I should be deciding between McCain, Thompson, a guy who isn’t running, and a comedian who also isn’t running. The complete results are below the fold for your entertainment.

(more…)

Jesse Jackson has come out against the Sirius / XM Merger …

Ok, that’s not really true.  In actuality, I don’t generally vote.  But if I did vote, I think the time is right to be a one issue voter on the issue of antitrust policy.  Seems like everyone has a view on the topic these days.  And on that one issue alone, Hilary Clinton resoundingly and conclusively loses my vote:

Senators Kohl, Biden, and Clinton introduced a bill that would prohibit manufacturers and retailers from contracting on price:

The Discount Pricing Consumer Protection Act (s 2261) will … simply add one sentence to Section 1 of the Sherman Act–the basic provision addressing combinations in restraint of trade–a statement that any agreement with a retailer, wholesaler or distributor setting a price below which a product or service cannot be sold violates the law. No balancing or protracted legal proceedings will be necessary. Should a manufacturer enter into such an agreement it will unquestionably violate antitrust law.

Thanks, Luke, for bringing this to our attention.  Of course I already knew I would be staying far, far away from John Edwards on this score, as well.  Yep, and Obama, too. 

I wouldn’t want to read too much into this, but these positions on antitrust issues are likely indicative of the candidates’ real views on markets and government’s relationship to them.  And they tend to suggest that the leading (well, in Edwards’ case, trailing) Democratic candidates are generally highly skeptical (at best) of free markets and believers in the government as the protector of “fair markets” and other Wonderful Things like children and puppies.  But then I guess we already knew that about the Democrats.  And, unfortunately, the Republicans, too, for that matter.

So on my one issue, who’s the best candidate?