Election Methods

How should we choose our Commander-in-Chief, known to those of us outside the military as our President? I know a lot of people with a lot of ideas, so here we go.

Some people want to get rid of the electoral college in favor of a popular vote. That's lunacy, in my opinion. It is rare when the electoral votes do not favor the popular vote-- the numbers are meant to work that way. (Remember, the founders of this nation actually believed in integrity and knew some math, unlike our current crop of rich pricks and blood sucking lawyers.) The only times a problem can happen are when electoral districts have their populations out of whack. We don't need to replace the system, we need to re-work it for a society that moves faster than our census plus congress. Doing the census on a year right after a presidential election, rather than the year of one, would put the redistricting time in a better spot for preventing problems.

Some people I know have completely different voting schemes.

One friend of mine wants to let everyone vote in all parties' primaries. In other words, anyone can vote in the spring, and when they vote they select their choice for Democrat, for Republican, and for any other party that wants to be in the game. Top choice in all gets the convention delegates.

Another few people, including ProLPconserve here, have suggested versions where individual parties run more than one candidate, maybe their top two. That's a neat idea. My favorite way to go with it would be that the electors choose from among the top three, which in a two-party system would cause more imbalance between the congress and the administration. Hey, maybe we could make this a Republic after all!

I know at least one person who approves of a certain weighted voting scheme. In this method, the person chooses their first and second choice. The first gets two points, the second gets one point. The candidate with the most points wins. Who can guess what this person's worst subject in school was?

Johnny has an idea for a vote of no confidence. He explained it in an earlier comment--

Add a vote of "no confidence." This way people could make it clear that they actually want to vote for one candidate as opposed to against another. Also, we know if people actually like the third party candidate or just hate the other two. Additionally, if the vote of no confidence is greater than the other two candidates, then we have a new election without either candidate.

In a similar vein comes my personal favorite. I know one person who, to better reflect the way people actually make their choice, strongly supports that everyone gets to give their vote a sign, plus to vote for someone or minus to vote against someone. People could then vote either for a candidate or against a candidate, but not both. The only caveat is that the winner needs to get a positive number in the end. What if there is no positive number? For one thing, it would show how sad and sorry our ruling class is. Just to keep things moving, we could let the highest scorer into office with more limited powers for a half term (doing things like having congress select their cabinet and removing certain rights of the office). Other ideas bandied about at the bar have included rock-paper-scissors, light saber duels, skeet shootin', and Beirut.

So, what did I miss? Do you have any other ideas?

Is That a Real LIberal I See?

Nope, just Ralph Nader. Drat.

Um... Logic?

Hillary Clinton says

"It's about picking a president who relies not just on words, but on work, hard work, to get America back to work," Clinton said at a labor rally here. "Someone who's not just in the speeches business."

Okay, let's do some formal logic. I'm going to do this sloppily and not state my assumptions, but it's all valid.

Two Democratic candidates, assume we pick one. We have a disjunction! Let's call this disjunction Democrat = [Obama OR Clinton]. For now we need not care if it's an OR or an XOR, but really it is XOR because only one will win the nomination. Using disjunction Democrat, from not Obama we can deduce Clinton. (Look up modus tollendo ponens.)

Unfortunately, I think Hillary is falling flat on this one. Why? Because her way of saying "not Obama," which I quoted above, could also be saying "not Clinton." There's nothing invalid about taking the argument in that direction, however; we can still get a valid result. For both inclusive and exclusive OR, when both arguments are false the disjunction is also false. So Democrat is false. The "spring" disjunction Democrat is one argument of the "November" disjunction [McCain OR Democrat]. With Democrat false, McCain is true.

Valid conclusion-- Clinton wants us to vote for McCain.

Of course, now that we know it's valid, we need to know if it's sound. (I made two mistakes that can ruin the soundness. Have fun finding them!)

[Nate back to add: And people told me that a semester of logic in the philosophy department at college would never be good for anything! Ha! Second best electives I ever took, after Coaching Football.]

And Then There Was One

See here.

Since I dont know how to make a beeter looking link, I just pasted the one above. Sorry.


Anyways, I saw this article this morning while perusing the web as usual. Looks like Walmart is expanding its already overly large retail empire.

Stop. I just realized that there are so many things wrong with that statement - like "retail". Walmart can no longer be called a true retail store as it has expanded into pharmacology, Optometry, financial provision, beautification, and grocery.

What makes Walmart think it can take on the health care provider role ? Oh that's right - the $420M a year average they bring in annually.

Let's see...They move in to small markets and the prices eventuallyalways win out over mom and pop shops, They now have a controlling interest in almost every aspect of retail because very few large box competetors can compete with the buying power they have, the endless finacial resources they seem to have albeit provided by commerce from the American Public, and lastly they stand pretty much alone. Gosh that sounds so familiar. What's the word I'm looking for....oh yeah, MONOPOLY!

Scarily, I am drawn to the movie Demolition Man (Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stalone) where Stalone gets asked to dinner at "All Things Taco Bell". I can see it now...little white lab coats, large round yellow smiling faces, "Welcome to walmart, you wont just drop your pants over our prices anymore!"

[Nate: edited link]

The Way We Vote

How do we vote? Okay, okay. We pull a lever, fill in a bubble, punch a hole, touch a screen... but how do we pick where to pull, fill, punch, or touch?

A few years ago, early in 2004 in fact, a church friend of mine was definitely hoping for Pat Toomey to win over Arlen Specter in the PA Republican primary for senate. My friend said something that nearly infuriated me at the time-- "Specter is good with the economics issues and things like that, but I want Toomey to win because of the social issues. That's all that matters to me." Specter wasn't standing up saying that we need to constitutionally define marriage, make abortion a felony, and make sure that we get back to Jesus, so my friend didn't like him. I thought this was silly. Surely there are more important things? Why was my friend being "dumb Christian" and not realizing that there is so much more to government than social issues?

Fast forward two years to the next senate race, and I wanted Casey to wipe out Santorum. Why? I could live with Santorum, even with the whole treat the woman who randomly moves her head like she's fully functioning thing. But the man absolutely pissed me off. Why? He submitted a poorly written bill to basically silence National Weather Service scientists.

Did anyone just hear an operator saying "Kettle-- Pot, line 9"? Could I really be so shallow? Sure, I might vote with about ten issues in mind compared to my friend's three or four, but did I really put a man out to the curb because his bill that got nowhere broke my camel's back? My response-- Yes, and I have leftover campaign buttons to prove it.

So, I'm asking for the sake of discussion-- why do we choose the issues that we choose? We can't understand all the matters of a functioning world, how all of them fit together, and how any one person will react when facing the things we don't understand. We can and do make rational choices at the polls, but the way that perfectly rational people focus on different matters and come to make different votes tells me that our choices are rational only within what little bits we do think about and understand. So how do we pick those things that do affect our vote? Why do we choose those? Do we ignore or reject the things we do not consider? Is our choice affected primarily by our concept-- or lack of concept-- in what government does? Are we making our choices implicitly to drive government towards our ideal of what it should be exclusively, or only towards what we think it should be on the issues we select? Are we in it for ourselves, and for what we can get? Are we talking about the good of the country even though we're in it for ourselves?

I doubt you can speak for everyone (welcome an endowed chair in Political Science to any of you who can), so I guess you'll need to answer for yourself. Heck, if you can even answer for yourself then you're a step ahead of me. As much mildly conservative but mainly centrist trash talking as I do, I don't know why I do it.

Potomac is back?

Looks like a dead heat right now between McCain and Huckabee in VA (17% reporting). That's good news for McCain, in that he's not clearly losing.

On a personal note, without renouncing my longstanding support for Hillary, I'd like to add that I won't be too upset if Barack Obama (let the "B.O." puns begin!) is the Democratic nominee. Or next president. Even if he has bitten off way more idealism than he can chew.

what's a McCain, after all?

Everyone knows that liberals are baby-killing tax-raising gun-hating flag-burning global-warming Satanist evolutionist atheist surrender monkeys, and that John McCain also has a thing for bananas. QED, right?

But now that W has come out and said McCain's one of us conservatives, heck yeah, you might be asking yourself: What exactly is a conservative? And do I want to be one?

If you look at the records of Reagan and W. Bush (who, it should be pointed out, was the original second coming of Reagan), Republican conservatism consists of war against {Communism | terrorism}, tax cuts, limitless defense spending, and a strong record of lip service to all things morally conservative. (Also space shuttle explosions, spending time on the ranch, and the pulling down of walls and/or statues in foreign countries [Whoops! My bad. Berlin '89 was during BushOne. But Reagan called for it to be torn down.]. Certain persons with nationwide radio shows in the early afternoon are circulating the idea that Republicans also are really the party of small government. Wouldn't that be nice?)

I don't see anything in those legacies that McCain is opposed to. Has anyone else got a definition of conservatism that excludes McCain, but is still capable of containing the Republican party? Or are conservative Republicans gone the way of the dodo?

Grand Ole' State of Chaos

Last night Huckabee was on Stephen Colbert show and was asked why he thought he would win the primary in Texas. His reply..."Becasue I know barbeque!" My kind of guy. I think I'll vote for him! More red meat on every plate, more steak in every sandwich, and because my true ideal canidate isn't running...Chaka Kahn.

Why Is James Dobson...

my poster boy for American Christian political stupidity? Let me count the ways! Oh, wait, time is finite. Let me give you just a few, then.

Background information-- what Dobson says about politics, most evangelical Christians take seriously. He, along with the late Jerry Falwell, are two of the major reasons why Christian kids my age think that good Christians are Republicans. That's all you need to know.

My current issues? This article has one or two. (And this might be a good reference.)

Dobson released a statement Tuesday that criticized McCain for his support of embryonic stem cell research, his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and for his temper and use of foul language.

Okay, Mr. Dobson. Which current US president got caught using the s-word? Or had his little pal saying nasty things? Are you going to come around to me saying "That's unfair! He didn't do that before I wanted him to be President"? Or maybe your only trouble is that McCain dropped an f-bomb? He's not the first Republican to do such a thing, you know? Of course none of that matters. Why? Because if we can get the people who don't like the word "crap" for its filth to know that McCain says dirtier things, we can add shock factor to an otherwise decent (even though I don't agree with it) list. They aren't going to question the sensibility of making this assessment, but they will be distracted from what could be (even though I don't agree with them) genuine arguments about other things on the list. This is common among conservative evangelicals. Cue the global warming denial explanations that end with "It's all New Age anyway" and watch how they fall back on that last bit when you question any of their scientific points.

Tally 1--- Dobson is hypocritical, inconsistent, or both.
Tally 2--- Dobson puts the petty with the important.

Can we get another quote from that Yahoo article?

He said if McCain were the nominee, he would not cast a ballot for president for the first time in his life.

Dobson had left open the possibility that he would vote for either Romney or Huckabee, but endorsed neither.

Um, yeah.... Okay, I have some problems. First, what about this? And didn't the man himself write this (complete with its false dilemma)? Dobson told a whole lot of people that he'd go third party, but now he's backing out. What? He can't do what he said? Don't make promises you can't keep, brother. You didn't promise? Don't imply things you don't mean, brother. Second, what about Huckabee saying "Some people need to switch to decaf and realize, folks, we may not get all of our battles just like we want, but there's a larger context in which this has to be fought." Why would you even consider voting for someone who says something so... thoughtful? Because he says he respects gays or something? Dobson's zeal blinds him from reality. This time he's missing "Something is better than nothing." Next time it could be "America has changed in the past 200 years." People follow him anyway.

Tally 3--- Dobson pushes the bounds of honesty in Jesus' name.
Tally 4--- Dobson is willing to lead real sheeples into real shambles over unreal ideals.



Okay, I think I'll shut up now. Fat chance I'll ever see the day when Christian leaders in America can talk politics and not make me and their religion (or relationship, as some without dictionaries would prefer) look stupid by association. Jesus, please save us all.

Articles Articles Everywhere...for those with too much time to spare

Irrational hatred of Hillary from the left and the right, here.

Video of Colter's support of Hillary as opposed to McCain, here.

Bit of a critique of Obama being more of a campaign about Obama and change than a campaign about any actual goals, ideals or plans, here.

Finally, goodbye Romney!

McCain v. Clinton

Sorry I missed this party last night. Things have been pretty crazy and hectic and I've not even had time to read all of the posts yet, but yesterday I was speaking with an Obama supporter. Before I continue, I'll make it known that I'm a Gravel supporter. After him, I kinda liked Biden. Last primary season, I favoured Gephardt and ended up voting against Bush. The election prior, I voted Nader. I'm not good at picking winners.

Anyway, back to my point. I was speaking with an Obama fan. I don't much have any strong feelings yet between Obama, Clinton and McCain. Of the democrats, I want to favour Clinton more because she's always being bashed and everyone is throwing their support to Obama, including John Kerry who didn't even back his own former VP candidate. I could go on with a list, but you get the point. Everyone is throwing their support behind Obama, which is making Hillary seem like an underdog, and I like underdogs. I also enjoy Bill flying off the handle.

Back to the point, the Obama fan seems to think that Obama has a better chance than Clinton against the Republican, likely McCain, because people passionately hate Hillary and will come out just to vote against her. I thought that sounded like it made sense. Then, I read this.

Still, McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Rodham Clinton over him.

This makes it seem that as much as conservatives may passionately hate Hillary, they may hate McCain even more, giving the Democrats a chance either way.

Not an earthshattering thought or anything that special, just a rebuttal to someone else who hasn't ever posted here, but I figure it's a thought that may be crossing some people's mind and I just wanted to share the other side. Hopefully I'll have something more thought provoking next time.

Shut Up, Suck It Up, and Deal With It

This commentary reflects some of my sentiment about McCain.

Why is he disliked? My dislikes are the whole thing about the war being a Good Thing and the cuddling of wacko fundamentalist Christians like Bob Jones and Co. Sadly, Fox News and the republican pundits, especially the Christian ones, just can't get past "He's a liberal nut!" But of course they don't know what that word liberal means, other than "not going to cut our taxes like George W. and not as pious as Kirk Cameron." Yeah, because the definition of true conservatism is supply side tax cuts, where the government apparently gets its most income by charging no taxes at all, and whether or not someone believes that the Bible is our nation's one true rule of law.

Sigh. Somebody smack my parents generation before we're all screwed. Oh, wait, too late.

Where It Stands

So far, nobody wants to say much about California. Peter is off to sleep, and I need to go shopping. I might be back later. Or not. We'll see. For now, here's the count, including every delegate that anyone has gotten.

Democrat
Clinton 466
Dodd 4
Edwards 41
Obama 411
Richardson 5

Republican
Giuliani 1
Huckabee 138
Hunter 1
McCain 469
Paul 9
Romney 168

A Word From Sajak

He says it all himself. (Pity I didn't find that few days ago before it was outdated.)

Delegate Counts

I'm more interested in delegates than states, but I think that's because I like the numbers that matter more than the numbers that people pay attention to. Okay, that and it takes longer to sort out than a few exit polls and some returns. I haven't found a decent graphic for this on any websites (anyone got one), but I do have recent numbers form PBS.

Candidate # of delegates (# so far today)

Democrats:
Clinton 289 (40)
Obama 230 (63)

Republicans:
Huckabee 40 (24)
McCain 320 (227)
Paul 4 (0)
Romney 77 (0)

Nate Makes His Predictions

Looking at the results as they are now, this whole day will be one big clusterhump for every candidate. Nobody will really be too far ahead in either party.

The bright side, however, will be more political news and less Britney and Jamie Lynn.

[Editing to add-- let the CA fun begin]

local results are in!

Knoxville is (almost) all in: Almost 90,000 turned out to vote (including early voting), which is fewer than turn out six Saturdays every fall for UT football games, but still a sizable proportion of the 400,000+ that Wikipedia says live in the county. (Not sure how many registered voters there are.) It is, after all, just the primary.

Hillary won 49% of the Democratic vote; Barack 44%.
McCain: 34% Huck: 30% Romney: 22%, Ron Paul: 7%. Fred: 4%.

the democrats, to be fair and balanced

have, in a nod to coincidence, alphabetization, and typography, managed to produce this on the front page of the NY Times. Barak, on the left, is cleaning up the first half of the alphabet; while Hillary leads a vast right-side conspiracy. Looks like Obama wins California, for neatness' sake.

Updated....

Updated Republican Leaderboard--

McCain: CT, DE, IL, NJ, NY, OK

Huckabee: AL, AR, GA, MO, TN, WV

Romney: MA, MN, MT

Paul: SOL (I just had to post earlier when 0.5% of MN precincts were reported)

PGA Style

Republican Leaderboard--

McCain: AL, CT, DE, IL, MT, NJ, OK, TN

Huckabee: AR, GA, MO, WV

Romney: MA

Paul: MN

romney vs. huckabee

The BBC, NY Times, and Rush Limbaugh all agree that Mike Huckabee is now in the race solely to piss off Mitt Romney. I don't buy that argument. I think Huckabee is in the race because, at this point, he can't lose.

First off, Huckabee is cool. He plays bass. He stumps with Chuck Norris. He's from Arkansas--fat city--but has a diet plan that works, called "Get Off Your Fat Ass and Exercise." Personal responsibility is so retro, it's cool. He has the best slogans, bar none. "I Like Mike." Awesome.

Obviously, Huck, Baptist minister that he is, is cleaning up the evangelical / fundamentalist vote. But I can't say that he's "stealing" those votes from Romney. I think it doubtful that, pre-Huck, the Christian Right viewed a Mormon (and one intent on being fairly vague about his religious commitment, at that), as their torchbearing candidate. Especially when you throw in statements made by the Mitt of MA gov days on same-sex unions etc.

In sum, the argument that Romney is being blocked out by Huckabee only works if you take Mitt's word that he is, and has always been, a true social conservative. The person standing in Romney's way is, and has been, Romney himself.

Back to Huckabee: the man can't lose. He's young (or seems so), which means that as long as he can run a good campaign, he'll be around for another election. And, let's face it: he's winning actual states with actual delegates--if trends continue, he may be the second-place Republican by the end of the night. So he has a shot at winning, for real.

my candidate wishlist

While we wait for results to accrue, here's my policy wishlist for November:

THINGS I ABSOLUTELY WANT:

Foreign Policy: I think I'm basically with Obama on this one: let's negotiate with rogue states. Bush has done it with North Korea, and as best I can tell, it's working. I also like Obama's idea that the US can interface with other nations to help solve their problems, rather than just inflicting our domestic policy squabbles on them.

Environment: I'd like to see some candidate take the recommendations of the Copenhagen Consensus and turn it into their platform: Yes, global warming is a real issue, but it's not as bad as all that: instead of splurging however many trillion bucks to implement Kyoto, here's 100 billion dollars to fund (completely) global access to clean drinking water, HIV transmission prevention, and malaria. Once we've tackled problems we know we can solve, then let's worry about the temperature.

Cabinet Members: Go ahead and give some spoilers: who'll be SecState? of Defense? Major bonus points for bringing members of the opposite party on board your team AHEAD of the election. (Joe Lieberman doesn't count).

Energy: Everyone is talking about renewable energy. Who's going to be the first to say, in so many budgetary words, 'Screw the Saudis--we'll come up with our own energy'? I'll lump all federal science funding in under this. Bonus points for including Nuclear AND Switchgrass. Major bonus points for telling Detroit to get on board with higher mpgs.

POSSIBLE ATTRACTIONS:

Hmm. Health Care. Social Security.

MEH:

Tax reform / Killing the IRS - great idea in theory, but no stinking chance of any consensus.

Abortion - great idea in theory, but -- oh, wait, wrong issue. Yeah, like anything anyone could even conceive of is ever going to bring James Dobson and Planned Parenthood together. Don't mess with the status quo.

Landing on Mars. Rovers are cheaper, and they don't fireball upon re-entry.

Hey, There's Voting Today

... let's put out the laundry now so that nobody notices.

So, How About Those Republicans?

I see Democratic exit poll numbers on Drudge Report, and everywhere else.

Honestly, for the past week I've been feeling like the Republican coverage is stuck in 2004 again, this time with the media wrong about the number of candidates. It's seemed like blah-blah-blah about Hillary and Barak and occasionally a passing mention that there are Republicans running in some primaries, too. Is this because the media is liberal (not realizing there are Republicans) or incompetent (not realizing there are Republicans)? Or do women and minorities just sell better than old white men?

I wish I could see what Fox News is saying. That might be the only way to sort it.

the ignorance of partisan politics: an anecdote

Before I left work this afternoon to go vote "libruhl" on the way home, several socially conservative Republicans (who may, with loathing in their hearts, grudgingly vote for a fiscally conservative Republican like McCain come November) let it be known that their Republican votes today canceled mine out.

Just so everyone's clear, Super Tuesday is a primary election to select candidates for [edit:the party nomination, who will then contest] the presidential election. And in Tennessee (like most states) you can't vote in both primaries (although you can vote in either, which to my mind is the way the whole country should be, so we don't force independents to re-register every other year if parties have shifted their convictions).

So I had to point out the obvious: "Unless you committed the unforgivable sin of voting Democratic, you did nothing of the sort."

Score One for the Baptists

Huckabee has won West Virginia. But what's up with WV, anyway? The Republicans there select delegates at both the convention and at the primaries, right? But does the person with the most delegates total get all of them, which makes the primaries moot? Or can the primary and convention delegates go to different people? I'm confused. Could someone who speaks Redneck, Appalachian, or Coal Miner explain it to me (or slap me up side the head for thinking that the WV Republicans have a primary, too)?

Just a reminder-- Huckabee isn't the only Baptist out there. When McCain wins, the Baptists win, too.

Spin the Delegate Bottle

This article was fascinating. It talks about the different ways to spin different outcomes today. Go forth and learn.

the yokels are restless

I missed out on early voting down here in this long-time-Republican corner of the South, which turns out to be a good thing, because we got mentioned in the Grey Lady. W00t! The article omitted that Greg "Lumpy" Lambert, he of pro-Rocket Launcher,-Assault-Rifle credentials, Actually Used his Concealed Weapon this last year when a killer on the run, decided, in a fit of criminal stupidity, to steal a car from his lot. (And then the next day he demonstrated his quick-draw skills for TV and pointed a loaded weapon at a cameraman in the process.) I realize I have probably mentioned this incident before in these pages, but I bring it up again because it's an episode that you can spin any way you want. [eg. NYTimes: "Politician's Gun Safety Record Under Investigation" vs. Fox News: "Responsible, Armed Citizen Wins Critical Battle in War on Terror". Or the local headline, which would be something thrilling like "Car Theft Averted."]

Having a national paper (unofficially) endorse those of a slightly less trigger-happy inclination ought to stir up more controversy.

Btw, anyone else up for a SuperTuesday blogathon akin to the one we did last election (Nov. 2006)?