By Jeff Smith, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET Our own contributing RP Jeff Smith recently appeared on The Brooklyn Politics Show to offer some advice to former New York State Senator Carl Kruger, who was recently sentenced to a hefty prison term for bribery.
From Sheepshead Bites:
Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars on a prison consultant before pleading guilty, former State Senator Carl Kruger could have just talked to someone who was in his shoes a couple of years ago.
Formerly incarcerated Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith appeared on The Brooklyn Politics Show to talk about his time in prison, and he offered a piece of advice to soon-to-be-sentenced Kruger.
“My main piece of advice for him would be to just go there and be positive and finds way he can help other inmates. There’s lots of ways you can help people and burnish your reputation in there so that you have an easier time and you can continue doing good,” said Smith. “I’m sure when he first got into public service, he did it probably for the right reason and then things got mixed up a little bit”…
Check out the interview – Smith is an entertaining speaker with insight into an experience few of us (hopefully) will share.
By Jeff Smith, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 at 4:30 PM ET  It does bring him closer to the nomination, due in no small part to his uncanny good fortune. Let’s review.
The woman who rose meteorically to take the Iowa straw poll collapsed upon the entrance of a governor who offered the veneer of tea party rhetoric as strident as hers, but had the backing of mega-donors from the state with more Republican money than any other outside California.
That governor, who was thought to be his leading conservative opponent, turned out to have spent about as much time preparing for the campaign as my students spend preparing for pop quizzes.
When the governor’s lack of preparation became obvious, he was replaced briefly as the national frontrunner by a former pizza executive who made the governor look like Thomas Jefferson.
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Jeff Smith: Is Romney the GOP Nominee?
By Jeff Smith, on Wed Feb 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET  $15T of debt, $1T+ annual deficits, and the co-frontrunner for the presidential nomination of the allegedly fiscally conservative party is advocating a moon colony. You really couldn’t make this up.
Call me zany, but I just don’t get Newt’s strategy of doing everything possible to feed into the caricature of him painted by his opponents. Fortunately he can pontificate about moon colonies while his Adelson-funded SuperPAC labors at the last minute to generate a ground game that his official campaign spent a year neglecting.
If I were him, I would be doing everything possible to come off like a solid, grounded, trustworthy person ready to roll up my sleeves and offer very specific policies to facilitate job growth. But then, I thought his campaign was over last June, so what do I know?
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Jeff Smith, on Mon Jan 30, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET Given the RP Debate two weeks ago on legalizing marijuana, Jeff Smith advises the RP Nation to check out an excellent piece from this week’s The New Yorker: “Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America”
A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.
That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. Time stops. A note of attenuated panic, of watchful paranoia—anxiety and boredom and fear mixed into a kind of enveloping fog, covering the guards as much as the guarded. “Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard, / Some of us are prisoners, some of us are guards,” Dylan sings, and while it isn’t strictly true—just ask the prisoners—it contains a truth: the guards are doing time, too. As a smart man once wrote after being locked up, the thing about jail is that there are bars on the windows and they won’t let you out. This simple truth governs all the others. What prisoners try to convey to the free is how the presence of time as something being done to you, instead of something you do things with, alters the mind at every moment. For American prisoners, huge numbers of whom are serving sentences much longer than those given for similar crimes anywhere else in the civilized world—Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment—time becomes in every sense this thing you serve.
Click here to read the full article, “Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America”
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Wed Jan 25, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET Romney should be calling all of his bundlers and soliciting money into Santorum’s campaign to make sure Santorum stays alive. Otherwise Newt may well win Florida and then all bets are off.
In 2002, a few well-informed individuals supporting the re-election campaign of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) understood that he probably couldn’t get to 50 percent against John Thune and that he’d probably attracted as many indies as possible, but that Libertarian Kurt Evans could potentially draw an extra point or two from Thune’s right flank. A few of these aforementioned individuals apparently organized a last minute effort to boost Evans, who ended up garnering 2,500 votes as Johnson edged Thune by 520 votes.
The dynamics are slightly different in a primary but the principles are the same. Santorum’s approximately 10 percent in Florida/nationally are essentially off-limits to Mitt in a contested primary, unless somebody like Huntsman is the sole alternative. To win Florida, Mitt must prevent the conservative bloc, currently split between Newt and Santorum, from coalescing behind Newt. So Mitt must keep Santorum in the race. The best way to do that is money. And Mitt (and his homies from the real streets of America) have nothing if not mad benjamins.
It might seem crazy but it’s perfectly legal and it’s what Romney’s people should be quietly communicating to their most sophisticated (and cynical) bundlers.
And hell, we’re in the post-Citizens United age, so one of those bundlers – if his creative juices are flowing – could just decide to start his own PAC and just start running positive ads for Santorum in Florida to boost Santorum’s #s there. Eliminate the middleman(ager) – that’s the Bain way, right?
In sum, to borrow some Bain-style jargon: for Romney, in the absence of a very unlikely Santorum surge, the marginal benefit of an extra dollar spent boosting
Santorum is higher than another dollar spent attacking Newt or another dollar spent trying to boost Romney.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Jeff Smith, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET Jeff Smith‘s First Response
[The RP’s Provocation; Jason Atkinson’s Rebuttal #1; The RP’s First Defense: Jason Atkinson’s First Response; Artur Davis’ Rebuttal #2; The RP’s Second Defense; Artur Davis’ First Response; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #3; Jeff Smith’s Rebuttal #4; The RP’s Third Defense; Artur Davis’ Second Response]
Some interesting points from Jonathan and Artur, and some fancy philosophy as well.
And I grant Artur’s point – having represented some of the nation’s poorest and violent census tracts I agree that people just want the dealers off the streets.
And when our nation has the political will to make that happen instead of spending a trillion dollars in the Middle East this past decade, then I’m prepared to entertain arguments about reforming the criminal justice system.
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The RPs Debate Legalizing Marijuana: Jeff Smith Responds
By Jeff Smith, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET Jeff Smith: Rebuttal #4
[The RP’s Provocation; Jason Atkinson’s Rebuttal #1; The RP’s First Defense: Jason Atkinson’s First Response; Artur Davis’ Rebuttal #2; The RP’s Second Defense; Artur Davis’ First Response; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #3]
I think drug legalization is a little like campaign finance reform, or Lay’s potato chips: You can’t do it halfway (or, you can’t eat just one).
That’s why I think Jonathan’s wrong. We shouldn’t legalize marijuana. We should decriminalize all drugs. Prohibition has accomplished a few things. It has driven up the price of drugs dramatically given the risks that market players take every day. It has increased the potency of drugs and made them more dangerous than they would be if legal and regulated; every year thousands die from taking drugs that are laced with toxic substances. It has helped lead to the imprisonment of a generation of mostly minority young males, many of whom have substantial talents and aptitude for capitalism (and took advantage of their skills in the only thriving industry in their neighborhoods). And of course, because of the outsized profits available to those willing to risk their liberty and indeed, their life, prohibition helped give rise to an epidemic of violence that plagued inner cities for decades and has to a lesser extent hit rural America via meth.
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The RPs Debate Marijuana Legalization: Jeff Smith Rebuts
By Jeff Smith, on Fri Jan 13, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET Given the tenuousness of Democratic control of the U.S. Senate, I imagine more than a few people in Washington are hoping former Sen. Bob Kerrey will run for the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson. As both local andnational sources are reporting, Kerrey is seriously exploring the bid – and Republicans are taking his possible entrance just as seriously. Operatives of both parties seem to agree that he may be the only Democrat who could hold the seat. I hope that he makes the race. But I don’t think he will.
First, some politicos call Kerrey a serial floater. They refer to his frequent Hamlet routine, in which he contemplates but ultimately declines to run for various offices: in 2000 for president, in 2005 for New York City mayor, and in2008 for the last open U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska.
 Second, after a decade in the private sector, I doubt Kerrey is excited by the prospect of a year of retail campaigning. He was famously aloof in his 1992 presidential campaign, which reinforced the regrettable nickname “Cosmic Bob.” As a former aide to ex-presidential candidate Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., I traveled with Kerrey briefly in western Iowa in late 1999 as he helped campaign for Bradley before the caucuses. During a break between events, an advance man suggested that Kerrey shake hands in a small-town square; Kerrey suggested bowling instead. While I appreciated his quirky charisma, obvious intelligence, and willingness to speak hard truths, I found him miscast for the practice of politics. Accounts of his time in the Senate suggest a similar distaste for schmoozing.
Third, he could lose. Nebraska has reddened quite a bit since his last race in 1994. Back then, Nebraska had a Democratic governor and two Democratic U.S. senators; now, Nelson is the last elected Democratic statewide officeholder (and likely would’ve lost in ’12, which was why he bowed out). And surely, his having spent his last decade heading one of the nation’s most liberal universities — located in the lefty bastion of Greenwich Village — would take a little explaining to culturally conservative Nebraska voters. Attempting a comeback in such a risky race, after an unblemished career record of wins, may seem unappealing.
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Jeff Smith: Democrats Can’t Count on Kerry
By RP Staff, on Wed Jan 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET We’ve got some good news to share regarding our site’s most popular writer, contributing RP Jeff Smith, from St. Louis Today:
Since leaving federal prison, former Missouri State Sen. Jeff Smith has carved out a new life in New York, teaching politics and offering commentary on the election season.
And now, more than two years after the charges that torpedoed his own career in office, Smith is officially free from the federal government’s tether.
A U.S. District Court judge in St. Louis this week ordered an early end to Smith’s post-prison probation…
Smith, now a professor at the New School in Manhattan, has not been shy about discussing his time in prison — in fact, his writing on his incarceration has drawn attention because of its frankness.
His legacy has also not been forgotten in Jefferson City, where his term ended abruptly after he plead guilty to federal conspiracy charges.
In his address on Wednesday to begin the legislative session, House Speaker Steve Tilley, a Republican who visited Smith in his Kentucky prison, highlighted Smith’s experience as a reminder to legislators to make time for those that matter most.
“Focus your time on the people who love you for who you are,” Tilley said, “and not what title you have attained.”
By RP Staff, on Tue Jan 10, 2012 at 4:00 PM ET OK, folks, round two of the 2012 GOP presidential primary, which means round two of the fearless predictions of our recovering politicians.
Last week, our RPs boldly made their Iowa caucus prognostications, and with the exception of RP staffer Zack Adams (who predicted the correct finish of the top 6 candidates) and Artur Davis (the only contributing RP to predict the correct order of the top 3), well…let’s say they are lucky to get a second chance. But this web site is all about second acts, right?
And we ask you to join them in the comments section as well. No fun prizes, but instant fame and glory to the reader who is the closest.
So, here goes the New Hampshire experiment:
The RP: Romney 39; Paul 19; Huntsman 17; Santorum 12; Gingrich 11; Roemer 1; Perry less than 1%. Ron Paul let me down — big time — last week, but I still have confidence that the independents will keep him in a solid second place. And I predict that the media darling, John Huntsman, will underperform. And my big surprise: Buddy Roemer ekes out 6th place from under Rick Perry’s nose. Oh, yeah, and Mitt Romney wins big. Yawn.
Paul Hodes (contributing RP and former New Hampshire Congressman): Here goes from the Granite State…Romney 34; Huntsman 19; Paul 18; Gingrich 14; Santorum 12; Perry 3
Zac Byer (RP Staff): 1st – Mitt Romney (32%); 2nd – Ron Paul (19%); 3rd – Jon Huntsman (15%). [Click here to read his Zac’s full report from Manchester, New Hampshire.]
Jason Grill: 1. Romney (Needs at least 35% or a 10 point win); 2. Huntsman (The candidate with the best chance to beat President Obama in the general); 3. Paul (Another third place finish, but still relevant); 4. Gingrich (Edges out Rick, but Tick…Tick…Tick…SC is next. Boom); 5. Santorum (No Iowa magic tonight); 6. Perry (Already hunkered down in SC for his last stand)
Greg Harris: Romney – 35; Huntsman – 21; Santorum – 16; Paul – 13; Gingrich – 11; Perry – 4
Steve Schulman: With apologies to Frank Sinatra…Mitt Romney – If he can’t win it here, he can’t win it anywhere…Ron Paul – He’ll do it his way…Jon Huntsman – Strangers in the night…Rick Santorum – Please don’t talk about him when he’s gone…Newt Gingrich – Fly him to the moon, let him play among the stars…Rick Perry – Ain’t that a kick in the head…And too bad Michele Bachmann dropped out … that lady is a tramp!
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The RPs Predict the New Hampshire Primary
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The Award-Winning Documentary about Jeff’s Early Career (2006):
The Recent New Republic Article About Jeff (2011):
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