Hot on the heels of Andrew Cuomo’s long anticipated announcement of his run for NY Governor comes news that Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy will sit on the bottom of the ticket.

I get that this is potentially a great personal opportunity for Duffy.  It puts him for the first time on a statewide stage.  And given Cuomo’s likely fall victory, it also gives him a shot at succeeding to the big chair when and if Cuomo’s big scandal hits, or failing that, an eventual run for Governor himself someday.  But I have trouble with all the local news claims that this will be good for Rochester or good for upstate for Duffy to have the governor’s ear.  Historically, the Lt. Governor is one of the most invisible people in the state.  Maybe they have a behind the scenes influence we never see, but at any given time, I’ll bet most citizens couldn’t even name their #2 guy.

Locally, Duffy has been a popular mayor.  And love him or hate him, he’s shown the courage to take on some big issues like proposing the takeover of the city school district.  I’m personally still on the fence over that one, but politically, it was a risk to propose it and fight for it, and I do respect that.  Although now that Duffy is focusing on his career, that issue will be pretty much dead in the water.

I can understand that Duffy has eventual ambitions to be Governor.  But it’s not clear to me that being Lt. Governor is a productive step in that direction.  He might better leave his mark by finishing his reforms in Rochester, and then heading to statewide office as a successful mayor.  It seems he might get as much if not more visibility that way than by lurking in the Capitol for four to eight years.  And Rochester might benefit more that way as well.

The only one who seems to be getting a clear advantage here is Cuomo who has an effective name and useful partner to run a campaign with.

Bristol Palin is now officially on the speaker’s circuit where she will command between $15k-$30k for an appearance.  This is a pittance compared to her mom Sarah, but is pretty decent butter and egg money for a girl who’s only claim to fame was getting knocked up at an inopportune moment for her family.

With no apparent sense of irony, she’s advertised as being available to speak at “conferences, fundraisers, special events and holidays, as well as women’s, youth, abstinence and “pro-life” programs.”  In fairness, perhaps she’s a great speaker.  But you’ll pardon me if I have a heavy suspicion that her major attraction is that she’s a name known in the press.  After all, the world is unfortunately not short of young people who’ve made a lousy decision or two and are now struggling to get their lives together.  But most of those kids don’t have national notoriety or a millionaire mom  to fall back on.

It’s been an interesting week for Dr. Rand Paul, the new Republican candidate for Kentucky senator.  The son of popular Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul, Tea Party candidate Rand is refreshingly ideological, even if it is making his opponents do victory fist pumps and his allies run for cover.

First the facts.  Paul was asked this week by Rachel Maddow if he supported the 1964 Civil Right Act.  He was asked because an earlier newspaper interview he had given suggested that perhaps he didn’t.  This was not “gotcha” journalism.  He was already on record here.  While Paul went out of his way to decry racism in any form and stated he supported most of the Civil Rights Act, he was clear that he believed that while government should not provide any public funding to any organization practicing discrimination, that he believed independent business should have maintained the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.  He said he personally wouldn’t patronize such places, but felt they shouldn’t be illegal.  He has since clarified that because he agreed with so much of the bill, that he likely would have voted for it anyway.  It is also worth noting that he has never claimed he would work to repeal the Act, as some media reports have claimed.

Fresh on the heels of this can of worms he opened on himself, he announced that BP was being unfairly treated by the Obama administration.  His position is that the government should stay out of the oil spill mess in the Gulf.  This is simply an industrial accident.  BP said they’d clean it all up.  Stuff happens.  Get over it.

In the wake of these statements, the GOP is trying desperately to get Paul at arms length.  They do not want to be aligned with allowing businesses to bring back segregated lunch counters, and they are desperately trying to position the oil spill as Obama’s Katrina based on the opinion that he’s failed to do enough.  Meanwhile, they do not want to lose the support of the Tea Party, which still seems to be standing behind Paul.  Quite a pickle.

I have to admit a certain admiration for Rand Paul.  Not that I think his positions are sane, but he is being very true to the implications of the Libertarian ideology.  He’s not trying to twist or spin his position for political advantage, or just say what people want to hear.  He’s simply laying it on the line.  At least in that regard, he may be the most refreshing politician I’ve encountered in some time.

The other thing I like about this is he is practicing, to some degree, what I’ve advocated for in previous columns.  Specifically, back testing your ideological positions to see what would be different if the government was being run by your espoused policies back in the day.  I think this is especially illustrative when applied to the anti-government Libertarian Tea Party movement.  Were this the historical philosophy of government we would not have Social Security, Civil Rights, public education, or Medicare.  You’d be able to walk on Lake Erie by now,the Chicago River would still be aflame, and the air in Los Angeles would be toxic.

The point here being that extreme positions are seldom useful.  Government isn’t inherently evil, nor are taxes, the individual desire to succeed, free market enterprise, or regulation.  It’s a balancing act.  The sweet spot is in the middle.  The irony is that most Tea Party advocates are pining for the good old days of the 50s and 60s.  A time of economic growth, prosperity, the rise of the American Middle Class.  Heady days to be sure.  But they were also a time of comparatively high taxes, lots of regulation, and lots of government investment in our collective future.

The Tea Partiers are right, there is significant dysfunction in our government.  They are right that change is needed.  But are they advocating in the right direction?  Do any of us want to live in the world Rand Paul envisions?

I don’t.

It’s said that all things are good in moderation.  It turns out that’s even true with capitalism.  I’ve written a lot lately about the need for regulation to contain the natural desire of business to abuse consumers and workers when competition and worker mobility are inadequate.  But this is yet another way in which capitalism has its limits, and government intervention is needed.

The short story is that there is a looming anti-venom shortage.  Specifically, the antidote to coral snake venom is going out of production.  Pfizer has produced the anti-venom for 40 years, but it turns out the coral snake, while terribly deadly, just doesn’t bite all that many people.  The expense of manufacturing the small amount of medicine required in the country is cost prohibitive.  From a business perspective, the correct decision is to stop making coral snake anti-venom.  There’s no money in it.

Yet that would be little comfort if my son were to be bitten by a coral snake.  He could die, or in the  best case spend weeks in intensive care on a ventilator, all for want of a simple medicine that is not profitable for anyone to make.

This is exactly the sort of situation where the government needs to provide subsidies to keep this medicine in production for the greater good of the people.  This is not a huge issue.  It’s not big dollars.  It’s not thousands of people.  But for the 100 or so people bitten each year and their families, it’s pretty damned important.

There are simply very few positions that make sense as an absolute doctrine.  Add capitalism to the list (again).