Chelsea at IUS

I caught the last 15-20 minutes of Chelsea's visit to IUS...

(Click here for the C-J story by Dick Kaukas.)

She is very impressive-- eloquent, articulate, pleasant to listen to, etc. She has an attractive demeanor-- with a combination of competence, gentleness, and humility. She is probably "her mom's" best asset on the campaign trail-- and ironically, would be a more attractive candidate than "her mom". I didn't see her prepared remarks, but she ably and comfortably fielded questions.

As for her economic analysis (the subject of the talk), she was quite knowledgeable-- sharing intricate tidbits on the benefits of a wide range of policies. As for her political ability, she was adept at avoiding discussion of the costs of policy-- largely, by omission, and then when questioned, by deflecting.

A past student of mine, Andrew Homan, works for Bayh and is temporarily working for Clinton. When I said "hi" to him, he asked what I thought. I told him what I've blogged here-- and then remarked that she needed to read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson (a book we used in that class). He laughed, knowing it was true.

Hazlitt is excellent at pointing out our practical propensity and the political incentive to talk about the relatively obvious benefits of policy while downplaying or ignoring the relatively subtle costs. Not to pick on Chelsea-- because it happens all the time in politics, but her remarks were an excellent example of Hazlitt's Lesson.