Daily Archives: 3 September 2014

What Does Europe Owe Ukraine?

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The crisis in Eastern Europe…is now entering its 10th month. What began with the collapse of an association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine can now be called a war.

Emphasis added.

All Ukraine wanted was to be free. Free from Russia; free to chart its own course; free to begin to escape its own history of governmental corruption; free to align itself with, learn from the association, and perhaps to prosper in its freedom. The EU implied, with that agreed association, that it would help Ukraine work toward those goals, using that association and EU’s vasty trade market.

When the collapse of the agreement occurred, the Ukrainian people tossed the mendacious government that had collapsed it—and those people—in favor of returning to the Russian sphere; in retaliation against the Ukrainians’ making their wishes, their demands, their very sovereignty over government known, Russia invaded Ukraine. First, the Russians occupied Crimea and then partitioned Ukraine, incorporating Crimea into itself. Then the Russians invaded eastern Ukraine, initially by supplying arms and ammunition to Russian “separatists” already present in the region, then by supplying Russian soldiers “on holiday,” and now openly, driving a Russian held corridor through southern Ukraine stretching along Ukraine’s erstwhile Sea of Azov coast from Russia to Crimea.

What is Europe doing about this? They’re talking. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin 25-35 times, to engage in idle chit-chat. The EU has applied pinprick “economic sanctions.” They do not supply arms and ammunition. The openly say they will not supply troops—which Ukraine already has said they do not want, but still….

What is the value of Europe’s agreements when they dishonor the implications of an association agreement? Even the one that was signed by the government which the Ukrainian people put in place a couple short months ago?

Wave Election

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There are wave elections, and there are wave elections. In 1894, for instance, the Republicans gained 130 seats in the House out of a total of 357 seats up for election. In 1932, the Democrats gained 97 seats out of 435. In 2010, the Republicans picked up 63 seats.

But all politics is local.

In Alabama’s 2nd District, for instance, the Republican won by 5,000 votes out of 216,000 cast in 2010, a margin of 2%. In Texas’ 23rd District, the Republican won by 7,000 votes out of 151,000 cast, and in the 27th District, the Republican won by 700 votes out of 105,000. In South Dakota, the Republican won by 7,000 votes out of 319,000. In Minnesota’s 8th District, the Republican won by 4,000 out of 277,000 cast.

So it went throughout the country, and so it went in all the wave elections. Waves occur from the aggregation of local politics, local elections, and a very large number of those local elections are not blowouts at all (though many are; some elections look like the losing candidate was just taking up space on the ballot).

In the coming 2014 mid-terms, the races in both the House and the Senate are similarly extremely tight, especially in the so-called battleground States. Indeed, even in wave elections, potsful of seats are locked up tight by the incumbent. See, for instance, the map presented here, showing gains and holds from the 2010 wave.

If the 2014 close races all break the Republicans’ way in the Senate, they could pick up 12 of the 6 seats they need to take control. If those races go the Democrats’ way, though, so would the wave go their way: they’d have 67 seats (counting the Independent and the Socialist who caucus with the Democrats) instead of their current 55.

Local politics.