Vice-presidential nominations

Sun Sep 7 14:07:03 PDT 2008

spoken like a true graduate of Yale Law School

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>> "David Bernstein" <DavidEBernstein at aol.com> 09/07/08 5:03 PM >>>
Didn't say it did.  It's more like, "going to Harvard Law is such a meager
qualification for being president that even running a small business would
be a better qualification."

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:pfink at albanylaw.edu] 
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 4:56 PM
To: DavidEBernstein at aol.com; hamilton02 at aol.com; VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu;
CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu; conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Vice-presidential nominations

ok so you have explained why going to Yale or Harvard doesn't prepare you
(perhaps even to think clearly -- but then I did not get a degree from Yale
or Harvard so maybe that is true -- the president of my graduate school
turned down the presidency of Yale saying "why would I want to go to an
eastern prep school)  BUT, you have not explained whyyou think running a
small business qualifies you to be president.

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>> "David Bernstein" <DavidEBernstein at aol.com> 09/07/08 4:39 PM >>>
Actually, it's precisely not a Federalist Society sort of comment, because
the Federalist Society, as one would expect from an elite, academically
oriented legal organization, is extremely elitist.  I was rather appalled at
how many leading conservative lawyer types attacked Harriett Miers because
she "only" went to SMU, 30+ years earlier (there were other good reasons to
oppose her, but not that one).

Going to Harvard Law gives you a leg up on making judicial
appointments--though Yale's Bill Clinton, as I recall, wanted to appoint
Mario Cuomo to the Supreme Court.

Beyond that, I don't see why going to Harvard Law adds to one's
qualifications to be president.  To be an associate at Cravath, yes, but
president?  

I went to Yale Law the same years Obama was at Harvard.  I couldn't help but
notice that despite their "book learning," few of my classmates had any
direct experience with running a small business, either personally or
through their parents, and I couldn't help but think that this helped lead
to the widely-held mentality that every social problem deserves a regulatory
solution, a mentality that wasn't exactly discouraged by most of the
faculty.  So yes, all things being equal, I'd prefer that Obama had spent
three years running "Obama Enterprises" than at Harvard Law School.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 2:52 PM
To: DavidEBernstein at aol.com; hamilton02 at aol.com; VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu;
CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu; conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Vice-presidential nominations

David:

I am trying to figure out if any successful small business owners became
president (I don't know about VP -- they are too obscure).  The only one I
can come up with is the successful tailor, Andrew Johnson, who was arguably
the worst president in history (I think 2nd worse after Buchanan, but smart
people can disagree about this).  I cannot imagine David, that you are
serious about this.  It is just sort of an off-the-cuff federalist society
sort of comment, but if you are serious, tell us why you want the person who
owns the local hardware store or shoe store to be president.  

Now maybe you mean a small business in sense of under $100 million a year in
revenue? 

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>> "David Bernstein" <DavidEBernstein at aol.com> 09/07/08 2:14 PM >>>

To respond to Marcy's question about education, I think that going to
Harvard Law School and doing well there shows that a candidate has native
intelligence, and is likely a hard-worker; beyond that, I don't see why it
has anything to do with being a good president. All things being equal, I'd
much rather have a president who successfully ran a small business.

I think Obama's educational experience was a great boon to his political
career, but has been a handicap to him as a presidential candidate.  If he
had gone to University of Idaho for college and law school, instead of
Columbia and Harvard, he would have been much more likely to understand well
in advance that his ties to the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, as
respectable as such individuals are in Hyde Park, would play extremely
poorly in middle America (and rightly so, IMHO). 

Consider that conservative lawyer and Obama Harvard Law classmate Brad
Berenson praised Obama as president of the Harvard Law Review because
"Whatever his politics, we felt he would give us a fair shake".  Are there
many places in America where mainstream conservatives like Berenson have to
worry about being treated fairly because of their politics, and where a
"boss" will get praise simply for not treating them like pariahs?

Then consider Obama's answer when asked at a debate about Ayers: 
"George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about. This is a guy who
lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know
and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not
somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who
engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow
reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George.

The fact is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most
conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who, during his
campaign, once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty
to those who carried out abortions."

So in Obama's mind, he's a centrist because he's as willing to be friends
with a law-abiding conservative Republican senator as with an unrepentant
leftist former domestic terrorist--just as he was a centrist at Harvard for
being fair to Berenson.  It is this attitude, a reflection of the political
culture of elite liberal east coast schools, and also reflected in Obama's
infamous "clinging to guns and religion" remark, that will be to blame if he
loses.

Is there a constitutional law point in here? Perhaps that the electoral
college puts candidates like Obama who have thrived in an ideological bubble
at a disadvantage, because to win you have to seem "mainstream" across a
very broad swath of the country.  There's a reason that every Democratic
ticket since 1948, until this year, has had at least one candidate from the
South.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of hamilton02 at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 1:35 PM
To: Volokh, Eugene; conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu;
CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Vice-presidential nominations

Eugene's response seems incomplete at least in the context of an academic
listserv. Surely the differences in their educational experiences count for
something -- both in terms of educational institutions and degrees?

Marci

Marci A. Hamilton
Paul R Verkuil Chair in Public Law
Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law
Yeshiva University
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>

Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 09:50:37 
To: <CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: Vice-presidential nominations

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