So, considering Veeps for 08...

In an earlier post, I railed against the whole idea of needing a Vice President anywho. Still, the system is what it is, and the two designated drivers for the main parties - McCain and Obama - are in the midst of their respective vetting processes. Rumor has it McCain is selecting soon (although the rumor itself may have been scuttlebutt to keep McCain in the news while Obama's doing his overseas lovefest).

Anyway. Who do I think should be selected as running mates for McCain and Obama? Democrats first, since my earlier posts on Presidential candidates went GOP first...

For Obama, for starters all I can say is... No Hillary. Period. For the Love of God No.

A majority of voters just made it clear, they don't want her. Or her husband. ANYWHERE NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE. Again.

And do you even want someone like her on your ticket? She's gonna want to make input. She's gonna want to put HER people in charge of things. She's gonna end up backstabbing you in some form or another simply because she'll have to. It's in her nature. You can tell. It's like that story of a woman in the desert rescuing a snake and then the snake biting her: "But I saved you" says the woman. "I know," says the snake. "I'm still a snake."

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way. Where else to look then?

The names I see the most (that are still in consideration) are Kathleen Sebelius, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Sam Nunn, and Bill Richardson. Of these, Nunn has the best resume and comes from a key Southern state: he's also been retired for some time and could be too old. Biden has a solid resume, but like I said during the primary evaluation the guy's flatter than drywall. Dodd has come on lately as a champion of civil rights against the unwarranted surveillance and telecom amnesty that the Bush people had been pushing the past year: his big knock is that he's knee-deep in lobbyist connections to Countrywide. Richardson's resume looks good, and he can solidify the Hispanic vote especially in the Southwest. Sebelius' name comes up as a possible caveat to feminists still dedicated to Hillary: she has Hillary's political skills without any of the baggage and ego that Hillary brings with her.

Dark horse names that come up, the real out-of-left-field stuff, are Chuck Hagel (who's Republican: the only things going for him are his anti-Iraq War and anti-stupid stances), Gov. Brian Schweitzer (a populist Dem, but he comes from a small-population state and is more of a rookie on the national stage than Obama), and mah fellow Gator Bob Graham (who would guarantee a Florida win for Obama, but has been retired for a good while and has an annoying habit of writing out detailed diaries... even an honest administration would be wary of a guy like that).

I'm putting my money on Sebelius: she's enough of a populist - and popular - figure to win over most of the undecideds among the Dems and liberal-leaning Indys. She would give at least the more moderate feminists still enraged over the shoddy treatment of Hillary during the primaries a graceful way to support Obama. And she may come from a smallish state (Kansas) but her brand of politics should attract voters across the whole Great Plains region (even down into Texas). Richardson may look good as a possible Veep, but Sebelius brings a little more to the table.

Okay, now to look at what McCain has to look at: Why is Mitt Romney standing here...?

If Hillary is a bane to Obama, Romney is the same for McCain. Ye Gods, the Republicans already had a shot at accepting Romney... and they REJECTED HIM OUTRIGHT. Huckabee ran a more successful campaign than he did, and with less money wasted.

Romney's still here because the party insiders still think Romney's a viable candidate 4 years down the road (McCain is expected, if he wins, to be a one-termer: nobody sees him running in 2012), and they want his resume burnished as best as possible. There are still people who think he's 'conservative' even though a majority of Republican voters didn't see that. Not to mention the fact his Mormon faith is still a sticking point for conservative evangelicals that make up the noisiest faction of the GOP.

That said, Huckabee would make more sense as a possible Veep... except that the OTHER noisy wing in the Republicans - the anti-tax crazies - aren't thrilled with him. There's a question if the Huckster and McCain get along well. And Huckabee has some baggage of his own...

The next set of names I hear are mostly Governors: Crist, Jindal and Pawlenty. Crist is popular among Republican Floridians (although some of his actions - Amendment One cough - is starting to catch up with him), but that popularity seems to end at the state border. The spectacle of Crist suddenly dropping his single lifestyle by getting engaged justkinda smacks of desperation to be more marketable to the social conservatives. Pawlenty is a major figure among GOP governors and his state is hosting the convention this year, and he tries to present himself as a big-time tax-cutter. The thing is, he's going to have to explain all the failures of funding road and bridge repair that led to people dying on the I-35 bridge. Jindal's name comes up because he's one of the few bright electoral successes the Republicans have had since 2006: winning the governorship of Louisiana (which conveniently shifted more Republican once all the poor Democrats got shipped out of New Orleans). His biggest knock is that he's 37: younger than Obama and even less experienced at being on the national stage. It would weaken McCain's arguments about Obama being inexperienced. It would look too much like a gimmick pick, rather than a pick based on performance/merit.

Past that, another name that comes up is Joe Lieberman. Okay. First off, while Lieberman has been incredibly friendly to the Republicans the past 8 years, his deal is that he's supposed to be the 'serious Democrat': the one guy the Republicans can point to and say "See? Not everybody hates Bush or the Iraqi occupation or the neocon foreign policy debacles." He's supposed to be on the Democrats' side of the aisle: the moment he takes the VP nomination from McCain is the same moment Harry Reid will be forced to kick Lieberman off the committees Holy Joe is chairing, and put someone less friendly to Bush in a serious investigatory role. It will actually diminish Lieberman's value and just make him yet another Angry Old Neocon.

Of the remaining possibilities... I admit, I was high on Sanford, the guy from South Carolina. Then he went and had a brainfart on national television that pretty much killed his reputation everywhere. Haley Barbour's name is solid among the Republicans, but his lobbyist history and the current scandals involving the apportionment of hurricane relief will draw the wrong type of attention. Governor Purdue (GA) is the next possible choice but lacks national recognition and there's no guarantee he would secure that state. Another possibility is John Huntsman out of Utah, but he's got the same problem Mitt has (Mormon) with the added problem that outside of Utah he's not going to improve McCain's electoral chances (Utah is so conservative it's the only sure state McCain has outside of Arizona). Grabbing any of his fellow Senators could cause repercussions with the fact that nearly every polling expert (including within the GOP) are predicting heavy losses for the party: if McCain should win, he'll be taking one more Senator without seniority/clout out of a branch of government that will be very low in membership and would be in dire need of leadership.

This doesn't leave McCain honestly with too many choices. Add to that the fact some Republicans see this as a failed election cycle anyway and would avoid accepting an offer, preferring instead to wait it out for 2012 (you don't hear from Kemp or Quayle anymore, do you? And outside of his anti-tax stances Kemp was/is utterly acceptable). Right now, all I see are Crist, Huckabee, or Jindal. If McCain takes Romney, he's doomed for certain. Everything else is a serious risk. Right now the smart money is on Crist being the pick.

The point where McCain lost me

Edit from seven years later:

whatever image this was, it's lost.

I will fit something else here to pass the time.

This is another moment where McCain burned a bridge: where he told Letterman he had to race back to DC for a budget crisis, only for Dave to find out that McCain actually went to the news studio to sit in for another interview.  People don't like to get blown off like that, Senator...

Yet Another Bailout

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?

This weekend came with news that the government is looking to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two vastly unregulated and uncontrolled mortgagors that got hit hard by the collapsing housing bubble of the 2000s. How much is it going to cost the CEOs who got their golden parachutes? Not much. How much is it going to cost us the taxpayers to buy off the debt and rebuild these institutions? Take your paycheck and multiply it by 50. Now repeat that for the next 20 years.

And there's also the massive bank failure of IndyMac, which is no longer a major financial institution but now the newest chain of empty corner buildings. Taxpayers have to pay the bills there too.

This after the government assisted in a buyout of Bear Stearns, which benefited the upper financial elites but cost us taxpayers more than a pretty penny.

And there's still a lot of subprime mortgage mess which Atrios rightly proclaims is the Big Sh-tpile.

Why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep letting these financial institutions ramp up the greed and corruption until they choke on their own disasters, only to have US, the people who got ripped off in the process, to pay the damn bills? They get us coming and going.

I'll tell you why. Because these financial fat cats buy off the politicians on both sides of the aisle - Republicans and Democrats both - to do nothing until it's too late. Freaking legalized bribery.

The one good thing out of all this? The economy is going to collapse so far that we'll finally have that revolution we've been waiting for since the 1910s.

Just to let the Republicans know...

...it's not looking too good out here in the Real World.

• My parents - I'd mentioned them before - are not too enthusiastic about the election this year. They grumbled over one dinner gathering that it looks like the Democrats are gonna win this November. And they are not huge fans of Democrats. And they tend to overlook the foibles of Republicans. And even they know, it's gonna suck this year to be a Republican.
• At the 4th of July gathering in Clearwater this past weekend, I spotted three people in Obama t-shirts. Just to let you know the t-shirt demographics: White. Elderly (60 plus). And while I admit just having 3 people out of oh 700 or so isn't too big a deal... well... I did not see a single McCain t-shirt. Clearwater/North Pinellas County is reasonably a safe GOP voting area. You'd think there'd be at least ONE person able to spend the $20 to buy a McCain shirt.
  
• At the place where I work - the library - we have voter registration cards. People can use them to change their voter info. I've had two people in the last two days come in asking for the forms. And both guys openly announced, without encouragement, they were changing their voter status and quitting the Republicans. The second guy today said "Never again." This is Gus Bilirakis district, and it was his dad's district before him. It's been solidly Republican since even before Reagan. And these guys are openly disparaging the party. Nobody's forcing them to, they just are.

Just little anecdotes. Separately, they're not much to get excited about. But put them together, I see a trend. Much like the trend this past year of the Republicans losing special elections in various congressional districts, culminating in that major upset in the Mississippi 1st district.

Brief overview of this year's major SCOTUS rulings

This month sees the conclusion of the Supreme Court's docket of the 2007-08 term (known as Volume 554... how did that number come to be by the by, if there's only been about 216 years or so of rulings?). Here's some of the highlights:

1) District of Columbia v. Heller - one of the last ones issued, and boy it's a bigg'un. The ruling directly involved the most contentious amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment. There's been arguments over comma placement for over a century, and now we know exactly what the rules of grammar are. Oh wait, actually the fighting was over whether or not the amendment granted citizens the right to own firearms (AK-47s for EVERYBODY!) or if the amendment allowed firearms under state-regulated militias (Gun Control! No Uzi For You!).
Heller goes with the right to own firearms, specifically handguns, under the common law right of self-defense. The ruling specifically ended an attempt by the District to ban handguns altogether from the district, and also struck down similar laws in other cities/states. However, do note that Heller doesn't grant free and easy ownership of every possible firearm: The Court decision "should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." This does mean government can impose gun ownership restrictions where a need for public safety is obvious: preventing felons from owning guns means common sense stuff like background checks remain on the books. The Court also allowed for separate considerations for firearms, leaving handguns allowable for self-defense while putting machine guns (and other 'offense-type' weapons) on a more restricted level.
The immediate implication is that gun ownership as a right is now defined and (relatively) unshakable: it'll take another SCOTUS ruling to undo it, and the Court rarely overturns itself (it only does so over obviously stupid moves, such as Dred Scott or Plessy or Betts v Brady). Scalia's ruling doesn't have any holes to it, so overturning it would take tons of political will. Heller didn't completely close the door on the argument, so we can see more cases on gun rights heading to the courts. The political implication is that the pro-gun politicians and the Republican Party (with it's pro-gun stance) won a big victory... and possibly lost the coming election, as it means the GOP can't use the boogeyman argument of "OOOO the Democrats are gonna take your guns from ye" to keep the NRA crowd interested.

2) Kennedy v Louisiana - the case involved the Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. Specifically, that it was cruel to apply the death penalty to child rapists.
Talk about a third rail. This one touched child rape AND the death penalty. The immediate reaction to the court's ruling - that Louisiana's law was unconstitutional - was swift and condemning. C'mon, we're talking about punishing child rapists! These are the guys who have a special Hell waiting for them. How else could you argue against them getting the electric chair?
By pointing out what the Court pointed out: that the law was unbalanced in punishing only one set of rapists, and by applying a punishment (death) reserved for capital cases (murder). The only way for a law imposing the death penalty on child rapists could be upheld was if they applied the death penalty to all rapists across the board. That noise you just heard was all the guys with the date rape pills gasping in horror. So then the question becomes: does the crime of rape deserve the punishment of death? Personally, I'm all for it. Not because the death penalty would act as a deterrent (it never does), but because it would remove a dangerous portion of the population from threatening innocent lives (rapists tend to leave multiple victims in their wake, and there's little evidence that rapists can be 'cured' of their... habits). But...giving the fact that some rape cases are not cut and dried or easy to prove guilt... the problems we have now of applying the death penalty in cases where the perp turns out to be innocent would get worse.

3) Exxon Shipping v Baker - basically the case where Exxon weaseled their way out of paying a $2.5 billion fine for the Valdez oil spill disaster. They now have to pay a $500 million fine instead. Considering they can make that much money in a day, without even trying, doesn't make it much of a penalty... The case does have potential impact on future lawsuits with punitive damages involved: the ruling that punitive damages be one-on-one to compensatory damages could crimp any attempt at punishing corporate criminal behavior.

4) Boumediene v Bush - the Habeus case. The ruling basically ruled unconstitutional a Military Commissions Act (MCA) that had been put in place during the War on Terror to keep suspected 'unlawful combatants' aka 'people we label terrorists' detained indefinitely without even charging them with any crime. It didn't free them: it meant they could now challenge their detention in court. But don't be surprised if the Bush admin keeps finding new ways to keep these guys detained without ever answering any call to present their case.
Boumediene deserves attention because the ruling cheesed off a lot of far right neocons who feared it will free a bunch of "dangerous and irredeemable" terrorists... almost half of whom have been proven even by our own government to be innocent (because we grabbed the wrong guys, or because we had people turning over their rivals in local tribal arguments for the reward bounties). Because we'd denied them Habeus they couldn't prove a damn thing, and have been held (and based on a lot of solid reports also have been tortured) over the past 6 years. And still the neocons are horrified... and are swearing they'll amend the Constitution itself to restrict and limit Habeus rights. Yup. They're threatening the one key legal right in the whole of Anglo-American law since the Magna Carta. Which begs the question: whose side are the neocons really on...?

Do we really need a Vice President?

With the primary cycle finished, the next phase of the prolonged Year of Election struggle to Teh White House is the selection of a co-campaigner by the two major nominees. We now await McCain and Obama to select their running mates to serve as their Vice President.

Originally, the Vice President was meant to be the runner-up, the second-most popular guy in school kinda booby prize. But this was before the Founders realized that we would form parties similar to the British electoral system, and well before they realized the Electoral College voting system could get screwed up without defining who was up for President and who was up for Veep.

Before this election cycle, I never really gave the Vice President selection process any deep thought. It was just one guy running for President selecting a backup guy to team with him and 'balance the ticket', in terms of party ideology and regional representation (President and Vice President, by law, cannot come from the same state, which is why Dick Cheney pretends he's from Wyoming). But this election cycle, after the last eight years, I'm seriously looking at how the VP process is working out. And I'm seriously arguing that, as of right now, we don't need a Vice President anymore.

Okay, we all know the duties of the Vice President are to 1) wait around for the President to resign or kick the bucket so the Veep can take over, 2) cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate if need be, and 3) protect the spacetime continuum. But the real purpose of the Vice President evolved from the political need of retaining party unity. Parties have their factions, and even with a majority faction getting their Dawg to the nomination for Prez the minority faction(s) need a bone tossed their way lest they bolt the party and vote elsewhere. Hence, Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart) balancing with Garfield (Half-Breed reformer), Teddy Roosevelt (Progressive) balancing out McKinley (pro-business), Walter Mondale (pro-labor) balancing with Jimmy Carter (pro-house building). But the flip-side problem to this was that the Vice President candidate couldn't outshine the Presidential candidate, meaning real colorless or real clueless types got dragged into the equations. Or that sometimes a Veep got added to a ticket that honestly couldn't stand the guy and ended up shipping him off to the wastelands (or worse, to foreign dignitaries' funerals), meaning the VP wasn't really part of any administration.

Historically, Vice Presidents meant so little outside of ticket balance. Few Presidents involved them in any ongoing projects within their administrations. A lot of that was because of the rise of the Cabinet: the Constitution allowed for 'advisors' to the President and from that arose the various Secretaries of departments such as State (foreign affairs), War (duh), Navy (sailing to war), Treasury (money!), Attorney General (lawsuits), and additional offices as the needs progressed. VPs were not included in that setup since their duties to the Senate could interfere, but also because early on the Presidents didn't want to hear from their Veeps that often. As a result, Vice Presidents did little. The office was pretty much where political careers went to die. Teddy Roosevelt once sent a noisy chandelier to his VP's office so it would keep him awake. The only times they ever mattered were when Presidents died. And even then, most of them found themselves alienated by their own parties because their ideologies conflicted with whatever majority remained in power (SEE John Tyler and Andrew Johnson). Few Vice Presidents distinguished themselves until Roosevelt did in the 1900s, and that was by sheer force of will on his part.

The Twentieth Century was pretty much when Vice Presidents became more important, or at least more noticeable. A lot of it had to do with the U.S.'s growing international role, especially regarding wartime. Legend had it Truman was added to the ticket in 1944 because FDR's frail health threatened to allow his then-VP Henry Wallace to perhaps succeed him and party leaders feared his pro-communist leanings. Post-WWII world politics quickly formed a new Cold War, and now all of a sudden who the Vice President was meant a lot more. The need to quickly establish a chain of succession in the face of nuclear attack meant the Vice President got invited to a few more meetings at the Oval Office than before. It also led to the 25th Amendment, which codified the Presidential succession, made the VP slot more important than ever before. Subsequent Vice Presidential candidates now had to appear qualified to lead this nation in case of catastrophe.

You'd think with everything I'd just pointed out in the last paragraph that I've just disproved my own argument against having a Vice President anymore. Well, the thing is, I've got to set up the opposing argument so I can knock it down. :-) You see, while in theory it's necessary to qualify the Vice President to be fit for office, in practice it's been more headache than anything else.

For example, the first true administration that had to deal with the 25th Amendment was Nixon's in 1968. That had Spiro Agnew as his Vice President. His qualification for the office was that he wasn't Nelson Rockefeller. His replacement was Gerald Ford in 1973, and his qualification was that he wasn't Richard Nixon. It wasn't until Mondale under Carter's administration that a VP had an office at the White House, and under Reagan Bush the Elder found things to do (although not many people would testify much about that). But otherwise those two did okay as Veeps that could, if called upon, to step up to the plate and lead.

And then Bush nominated Dan Quayle to be his Veep in 1988. I'm sorry, but... There's a Bloom County strip where they try to force Bill the Cat to sweat, and they shout "President Quayle!" at him, and of course the damn cat sweats his ass off. That's the best way I can describe this to you. Actually, there's a better way I can describe this: just take one look at George W. Bush's entire administration and picture Quayle instead of Dubya sitting there in the Oval Office. I still think Clinton won out in 1992 because he could point to his choice Al Gore and say "I chose smarter." Well, that and the fact that the anti-tax crowd abandoned Bush the Elder, but still...

The thing that has really turned me against the whole idea of there being a Vice President has been Dick Cheney's role in the Dubya administration. To be honest, has any previous Veep have this kind of control inside of a President's administration before? Worse, Cheney has used his position to hide his activities behind the President's aegis. For a time, he even argued that the Vice President's unique position of serving between the White House (as VP) and Congress (as Senate President) meant he didn't have to answer to either branch: Cheney only backed down when Congress called his bluff and threatened to de-fund his office. And even now, he still refuses to answer to anyone regarding his role in various scandals (refusal to disclose meetings with energy business leaders, the Plame incident, Torture memos, his ties to businesses involved with the Iraqi occupation, stuff like that). Under normal circumstances, his ass would have been impeached years ago. Or if Dubya had any balls ('cause if it was me, and I had an underling saying he didn't answer to anybody... I'd have called that idiot before me and said "Dude. You answer to me. You're fired."), or a sense of being his own man, he'd have reined that Dick in.

When Cheney pulled that "Vice President as a Fourth Branch" BS, I seriously wondered "do we need that job anymore?" And the more I thought about it, the more I realize we really don't need a Vice President anymore.

For one thing, the 25th amendment that established a chain of succession to the Presidency now allows others to fill the role of successor (House Speaker, Senate Pro Tempore, then the Cabinet Secretaries). You can take the VP out of that equation and nothing major would be wrong: the House Speaker may still be from an opposing party, but the Speaker is still a major elected official heading a majority party in the House so it's not as though a vastly unpopular person would take over in case of emergency. And also, if there were an attack that would have gotten both the President and the Speaker (usually at the State of the Union address), it would get the Vice President anyway since he's got to attend as well to represent the Senate. There will still be a designated survivor sitting somewhere safe and ready to go under the 25th.

As pointed out earlier, there wasn't a need for a Vice President for political input anyway: the President had the Cabinet Secretaries for that. The only reason VPs became more important during the 20th Century was due to the Cold War and the need for rapid response in the face of nuclear war with the Commies. But the fall of the Soviet Union, and the increasing odds that the major powers WON'T go to war (even war with China is unlikely, even over something like Taiwan isn't worth it), has lessened the role of the Veep as a Cold War Warrior-to-be.

The other thing Vice Presidents had as value were as ticket balancers for election campaigns. But let's face it, why bother? If someone won the nomination for the Presidency from his/her party, it was because a majority of party members liked their chances to win the office. If the minority faction, usually the more extreme elements of said party, have a problem with it they have nowhere really to go. Just look at the 1948 election: Truman's Democratic Party splintered into THREE factions that year, in the face of a relatively unified Republican campaign... and Truman still won, even with the Dixiecrats pulling Southern states away from him. You could blame the GOP for not running an effective campaign, but let's consider that the Dem factions were smaller in number and power than they thought they were. Truman was able to appeal to a broader base of voters than they could.

Another thing the extremist factions need to consider is that if they flee to a third party, much in the way Far Leftists fled to Nader for the 2000 election, it's not going to win you the White House, it may in fact hurt your original party's candidate instead and put into the Presidency a guy you would hate even more. To the Far Right people groaning about McCain, thinking you can flee to someone else come Convention time, and to the Clintonites groaning about Obama, thinking that your Holiest of Holies Hillary "deserved" the nomination, shut up. You go running elsewhere and you'll guarantee the other guy wins it.

So why even bother placating the extremists in either party with a Vice Presidency nomination? Answer: you don't need to. Your party has a candidate for President: NOW RUN! If I went to McCain and Obama and told them they didn't need to worry over a vetting process to select a running mate, and that they could run their own campaign for the Presidency without having to worry about the clueless hacks they'd otherwise put on their tickets, they'd both gladly run off to their next thousand-dollar dinner fund-raisers and never look back.

To be honest, the only sticking point about getting rid of the office of the Vice President is over the one true duty that office entails: the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Given the structure of the place (2 Senators per state) means an even count of Senators no matter what: the odds are there that ties can happen. However, there is a solution, albeit convoluted: get a Secretary from the Cabinet to serve as Senate President and perform the tie-breaking vote as needed. Given the role of the Senate in approving treaties, it makes sense the Cabinet position that could serve the role would be the Secretary of State. Other choices like Defense or Treasury are possible. In case of there being any conflict of interest, the Senate can nominate an alternate tie-breaker beforehand, such as during the nomination process of the President's incoming administration.

Viola. There's no more need for a Vice President to exist.

Doesn't it feel so much better? Like a breath of fresh air... ahhhh...

But of course nobody reads this blog and everything else I've tried to find online about other people arguing for the end of the Vice President's office can't be recovered. So that said, if I had control of the vetting process for both parties... who would I go for as VP on both tickets?

Stay tuned for the next post. This one's already too long.

Post-Primaries: Where I was right and wrong

Well, it's finally done. I've never seen a primary election cycle go this deep into the year, usually because it's all said and done by February with less than half the states having a say. So now I'd like to take a look back to what I thought about the candidates for both the Republicans and the Democrats, and whether or not I got any of it right.

I was right about declaring Huckabee a more successful dark horse candidate than Ron Paul: Huck actually won a few state primaries/caucuses whereas Paul got moral victories just by disrupting some of the last few voting turnouts after McCain had locked up the nomination. I was right about Giuliani's scandals hurting him as the primaries revved up, but even his dismal failures during the actual voting (only one time did he garner above 10 percent of a state's vote, and in half of the contests he polled below Paul) was a surprise. Rudy also managed a pretty poor campaign, focusing almost all his efforts on a handful of states (New Hampshire and Florida) and losing every one of them miserably. I was right about almost all of the third-tier guys dropping out pretty early (Ron Paul, like the mini-Rottweiler that he is, stayed in until the last one). I did think that Romney had more of a chance, though, thinking that he was the more palatable of the top choices available to the hardcore GOP constituency... which tells you I have no idea how the hardcore guys think. The Republican base took a few taste tests with the Romney brand and spat him back out. Amazingly, the guy whom the base didn't like much - McCain - was the eventual winner. It all depends on if a) the GOP Base finally woke up and realized they needed to back a guy whose reputation transcends the party and could bring the moderates and independents back, or if b) the GOP Base realized that for all the talk about being a maverick McCain was actually a hardcore conservative they could support.

As for the Democratic ticket... At one point it did become what I expected it to be: a three-way race between Clinton, Edwards and Obama. I knew that the candidates with the bigger and better resumes (Biden, Dodd, Richardson) didn't stand a chance as they lacked the one thing successful candidates have to bring to the table: charisma. I was right, and in all ways disappointed, that Edwards' media coverage was almost nonexistent, other than to mock him for $400 haircuts and for campaigning on an End Poverty platform while living in a big house (so if only poor people can campaign on ending poverty, can we therefore make it law that only poor people should run for office then? HMMM?!). And so it came down to Clinton v. Obama. Part of me dreaded a successful Clinton nomination, all because I feared how desperate and arrogant and vicious she could get about the acquisition and use of power... and as Obama kept scoring more points and securing more delegates, as Obama proved to be a better campaigner, you saw Hillary get worse, more desperate. My God, she had a sit-down with Scaife! SCAIFE! The one guy on the planet who made her life so fricking miserable during the 90s and she was actually sitting right next to him at a meeting working to earn his endorsement (which she GOT!). And Hillary's biggest fan got to be Rush Limbaugh! LIMBAUGH! And at no point did it ever occur to her or her handlers that the Far Right Noise Machine was so eager for her to win the nomination was so they could have a convenient target to aim at the next four years so they could keep their book deals going. (insert Facepalm) It was Hillary's determination that made this primary season so prolonged, where in previous years the race was done by February. It proved an exception to one of the reasons I'd been giving that a One-Day Primary was needed to give all states a say in the candidates, so thanks a lot Hillary! Grrrrr...

In the beginning I had hoped for a McCain/Edwards contest above all. Still getting McCain, and getting Obama instead. And I don't think I'm the only one who notices this plays out like the last season of the West Wing with Vinick v. Santos...

Obsidian Wings and reforming the primaries

Back on June 2nd, the Obsidian Wings site posted a thread to debate the merits of reforming the convoluted party primary system that made the 2008 Election an excuse for taking Bayer aspirin for the rest of our lives.

I went and posted my views on the matter, pretty much restating the stuff I've said here.

Nice thing is, I did get a response. There were also a few responses arguing against a national primary day. Then the whole thing devolved into hairsplitting over whether or not "One Man One Vote" was feasible in any election. I think. At least it never got to the point where Godwin had to be invoked. :)

What just happened the night of June 3rd 2008

I'm reminded of a moment I saw in 1994's Ken Burns PBS series Baseball, when they focused on the arrival of Jackie Robinson. I looked about online for a quote, and came up with a Google Books entry from the book Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports and the American Dream written/edited by Joseph Dorinson. It's in Chapter 9, Mah Nishtanah, by Henry Foner, who remembered watching Robinson come to Ebbets Field to play an exhibition game near about Passover in 1947. That Passover, as the youngest son in the family, it was left to Henry to invoke the four questions (fir kashes) that are asked of the holiday. He asked the first one, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" But before his father could answer, Henry provided his own answer, "Because today, a black man is playing major league baseball."

After 260 plus years, starting in 1619 with a Dutch ship reaching Jamestown with 19 indentured Africans and ending in 1865 with the fall of the Confederacy and an end to slavery, and after 100 years of Jim Crow, segregation, and lynch mobs, and after 40 plus years of fighting over affirmative action and entrenched racism we still find today in pockets of our nation, today is different from all other days. Because today, a black man is an official candidate for the office of President of the United States and unofficial Leader of the Free World.

Depending on how the election turns out, the night of November 4 2008 promises to be an even bigger moment than today.

Aftermath of Florida Amendment 1: We're not even seeing the worst of it yet

So far, the only response I've gotten on this blog has been my post about the Florida Amendment One proposal at the beginning of this year. Mainly, I was against it, as it 1) it wasn't going to be the answer to people's problems with their homes not selling and their mortgages getting tighter; and 2) it wasn't going to solve the revenue problems the state was facing, simply because by cutting back on the taxes that generate the revenue Florida statewide services (schools, libraries, police, fire emergency, child care, road care, health care, all care) needed it was going to cut services at the worst possible time.

The amendment happened because politicians fell in love with tax-cutting. Tax cutting made them look like they were being fiscally responsible. Tax cutting made them popular with people who kept thinking "Oh, I don't wanna pay taxes, why worry about road repairs and law enforcement and fire/emergency response times?" And because if they didn't keep pursuing tax cuts bullies like the Club For Growth Greed were going to hound them out of office.

But the problem is, tax cuts can only go so far: we're at the point now where the state can't generate any more revenue. And Florida, which relies on tourist sales taxation, millage taxation, and very little else for state revenue, is still facing a year of fewer homes owned and fewer tourists traveling (notice the cost of gas recently?). And the Florida state budget is starting to reflect the last few years of decreasing revenue.

We now have in the news that school districts are facing severe cuts to where they are laying off teachers and closing schools. Teachers that are remaining are facing a 2 percent salary cut in some districts: they are already one of the lowest-paid employees in the public sector anywhere, in a state that's routinely at the bottom of the list when it comes to education spending. Counties are looking at 15 percent cuts across the board at various service offices, with the sheriff's looking at 10 percent cuts. And do you want to know the worst part about all this?

We're not seeing the worst of it yet.

The whole nation is, let's admit it, in a recession: jobs are down, the dollar is weak and shrinking on the global market, oil and food (!!!) prices are going up on a global scale, you name it. What will happen is that more and more people are going to demand more and more help from one of the cornerstones of society, the one stable force in an unstable world. The government. BUT THERE WILL BE NO GOVERNMENT TO HELP THEM. The money's drying up, gone, we're losing it just as people are going to be needing government services to get food on their tables, to deal with health care, for city and suburban infrastructure, help to find jobs, help to keep their kids in schools and off the streets, pretty much help that they expect from an institution that's supposed to promote the general welfare of the people.

This is what constant tax cutting gets you: a government unable to help when it's needed most. We didn't need tax cuts: WE NEEDED FAIR TAXES. And we're still waiting for that.

Gregg Easterbrook: Constitutional genius?

Not only am I a political obsessive, I'm also a football obsessive. I check the sports sites such as ESPN every so often, and every Tuesday keep an eye out for Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ weekly rantings.

This week, he's working on the insanity and imbalances of the draft, but he also goes off on tangents and talks about other topics, sometimes politics. Halfway through his article for April 22nd, he goes off on the insanities of the Presidential campaign, and makes a pair of suggestions that once I read them made absolute perfect sense.

He points out how Presidential campaigners during the primary tend to be sitting elected officials (such as the current three survivors, McCain Obama and Clinton), who divide their time between campaigning and performing their elected duties. Easterbrook notes how they can't really campaign and work as Senators at the same time, and so suggests that in order to run for the office of Presidency you have to resign your current job and focus full-time on the campaign.

This makes truckloads of sense. Rather than stretching yourself thin juggling twenty things at once, you can now focus on just the campaign and juggle five things instead. Also, a resign-to-run law is honest, as you no longer get an income for a job you're not really doing (note the occasional dust-up in the press about who's absent during floor votes). Lemme quote from Easterbrook here:

States including Arizona, Florida and Georgia have in recent years passed "resign to run" laws that require an office-holder seeking higher office to resign from his or her present position. The time has come for a resign-to-run law at the federal level. Membership in the U.S. Congress should not be treated as a lifetime entitlement that pays whether you perform your sworn responsibilities or not. In 2007, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, then in the Democratic field, actually moved to Iowa and lived in the state -- yet was still taking his taxpayer-funded salary for serving the people of Connecticut, a job he was making no pretense of performing. It may be nonsense that the current political reality requires a year of round-the-clock campaigning to win a party's nomination, but taxpayers should not subsidize this nonsense.

As a back-up proposal, Easterbrook suggested that Congress goes back to a per diem salary: get paid for the days you show up to work. Given that Congress has been and will always be prone to paid vacation leaves up the wazoo, and given that members of Congress have a habit of not showing up half the time anyway, why pay them for the days they're not clocking in? Forcing a per diem salary encourages they show up and do their jobs and be held accountable. I love that idea.

Yo, Easterbrook, dude, why aren't you writing for the Washington Post or New York Times? Oh, right. They don't hire columnists who make sense.

New amendment proposal for hackers and virus spreaders

My home computer is on the fritz. Somehow, something got into my System32 folder and 'changed' the shell32, user32, and system32.dll files, as well as the ntsofldr (?sp?).exe file.

As such, I cannot log in to anything requiring ID and password. Other Internet pages, anything with PHP to them, I can't open well.

As such, I now have a wonderful new amendment proposal for those who create viruses, spyware and adware, worms, trojans, and any other form of computer malware:

• Death to all f-ckers who mess with my computer.

Kill 'em. Kill all hackers. You have no redeeming social value, you bastards. Your viruses create chaos, havoc, they ruin people's lives, innocent people, some of you steal identities, and you steal money, and for what? To indulge yourselves at others' expenses. Screw you. You die for this. Die painfully.

You may notice I'm in a bit of a mood.

Plugging a book moment, brought to you by:

Glenn Greenwald, who is offering up his new work, Great American Hypocrites, on Amazon.com now.

Why Mark Twain is still the greatest smartass ever

I must admit, I never knew Mark Twain wrote something like this, until a library patron came up and asked for a copy: an essay titled On the Decay of the Art of Lying. I found this via the Project Gutenberg website.

This was something he wrote for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford back in... hm gotta find the year. Anyway, his opening paragraph alone should put the Ann Coulters and J-Pods of the world to shame:

Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption,--no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, a Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this Club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become me to criticize you, gentlemen, who are nearly all my elders--and my superiors, in this thing--and so, if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than of fault-finding; indeed if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere received the attention, encouragement, and conscientious practice and development which this Club has devoted to it, I should not need to utter this lament, or shed a single tear. I do not say this to flatter: I say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition. [It had been my intention, at this point, to mention names and give illustrative specimens, but indications observable about me admonished me to beware of particulars and confine myself to generalities.]

A bit wordy, true, but I found it so hard to find a spot to paraphrase or edit down, as each word literally drips with sarcasm, truth (ironic uses of truth will abound regarding this), and best of all wit.

Above all, the value of Twain's essay was how Twain 'praises' the art of lying, all to highlight in Truth the sad little horror that everyone lies. The question then becomes ending the 'lazy' and 'faulty' practices of lying, those lies that do harm (the injurious lie, which to Twain was as harmful as the brutal truth), and in Twain's words that

...the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather. Then--But am I but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I cannot instruct this club.

I personally, stated elsewhere, prefer that we not live in a world built on lies, that I would like to see punishments inflicted on those in office who would lie. I am, however, not a fool. I know the underlying fact that people lie, that everyone does. I do too. My great objection to lying is the thing I agree with most in Twain's essay: that there are lies and then there are injurious lies, lies that do harm, and it is those lies I would like ended. Twain, of course, was not a hypocrite (well, actually he was, but he was honest about it) and so could not argue against lying at all. The brilliance of his work here is that he highlights the aspects of lying, the causes and its usefulness, and makes the proper distinctions between the 'soft' or positive lie and the 'harsh' injurious lie. The kind of injurious lies, in fact, we keep getting from the Bush administration (about 9/11, about Iraq, about torture, about wiretapping, about cronyism and incompetence and... and about nearly every thing they do).

As someone who yearns to achieve the status of Recognized Smartass, I bow to the infinite jest and wisdom of the true Master, Mark Twain, who emphasized the Smart as well as the Ass. Huzzah, sir, huzzah.

Spitzer, Vitter, Democrats, Republicans, Hypocrites All

The issue here is hypocrisy.

As I write this, sick at home, the news channels are all atwitter over New York Gov. Spitzer's pending resignation, following reports of his patronizing a high-class call-girl operation. This is a noteworthy event on several points: 1) Spitzer is a well-known public official from a large state; 2) Spitzer's earlier career as a hard-nosed prosecutor made him a figure of "reform and ethics", which is now laughable; 3) Because the Republicans are utterly gleeful at the sight of a high-ranking Democrat finally nailed in a sex scandal after years of their own getting caught with their pants down; 4) Sex sells.

To be honest, there are no heroes here, and perhaps a few victims (above all Spitzer's wife... for the love of God, will we ever see one day a wife getting medieval on their cheating bastard husband? They just stand there in the glare of the cameras and just let the whole world see the humiliation on their faces). The columnists and the bloggers are all bringing up issues of discussion (why is prostitution illegal? why can't we stop it? what the hell costs $4,000 per hour anyway?), most of them barely even relevant to the moment on hand (who cares how this affects Hillary's campaign? Unless her own cheating bastard husband used the same call girl operation...). The issue most obvious, and the most relevant, is the hypocrisy of it all.

I have no sympathy for Eliot Spitzer. None. His hypocrisy is that he spent years working as a prosecutor, even handling prostitution cases much like the one he's facing now. The evidence, the money involved, his own discussions requesting particular models... this is not entrapment, or a trick. If it were he'd be fighting it. He had to have known that what he was doing was illegal. And he did it anyway. His hypocrisy stems from what has to be a belief in his own moral superiority, his own arrogance, his own belief that he and he alone would never get caught. Join the club, Spitz.

On the same point, I have no desire to side myself with those in the Republican party that had been screaming for Spitzer's resignation, like the state GOP demands that he resign office or face impeachment. These Republican leaders are the same ones who routinely ignored their fellow party members' indiscretions (Mark Foley text messaging, anyone? Can we get some more pictures of Larry Craig's bathroom stall in that Minneapolis airport?), and are still ignoring the indiscretions of Senator David Vitter, a Republican who got caught soliciting a call-girl service in much the same way Spitzer did. Compounding the issue with Vitter is that he was one of the more vocal speakers against Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal for Slick Willie's sexual indiscretions. Anyone noticing the circular/spiral pattern starting to form here...? As for the Republicans, I can't be the only one who wants to stand in front of them and denounce their openly forgiving Vitter for sins they've openly accused Clinton and now Spitzer of doing.

What we are seeing here are levels of hypocrisy piled upon layers of desperation, two political parties that have essentially become mirror images of each other right down to the constant need to spin and lie and excuse their way out of disasters, the constant need to protect their own even when the lawbreakers are so clearly in the wrong, the constant refusal to recognize issues in the real world in lieu of ideological talking points, the constant push to win win win at all costs. We are now faced with a political world in perpetual Damage Control Mode, where every action and statement is going to come back around to bite everyone's ass.

Is there any solution to this? Well for one thing, and I think I've suggested this amendment idea before:

• Lying is not protected speech.
• Any elected official, or staffer, or public servant found to have made false or misleading statements in any way shall be suspended from duty without pay pending full investigation. If found guilty by the law, that person is to be removed from duty and barred for life from holding any office or civil service position and also barred from any job that may have direct dealings with any level of government.
• And I would like to add to this amendment this idea: Hypocrisy is now a felony. Punishable by however Congress sets the law, but personally I'd like to see tar and feathering make a comeback.

If you're worried about this amendment causing a chilling effect, well you're right it does cause a chilling effect: IT'S GONNA STOP PEOPLE FROM LYING. The amendment allows for someone to defend their statements, and the best defense is the TRUTH. If what they said is the truth, they don't get punished. THE ONLY ONES WHO SHOULD GET PUNISHED BY THIS LAW ARE THE LIARS. And for those screaming "Free speech!" or "slippery slope" let me just note that you are essentially defending a right for a person to lie, to bear false witness, to basically go against the truth that should really be protected. Are you also saying that people should lie in court? After all, we have laws for Perjury, for Obstruction, and for making False Statements (even though SOME Presidents also ignore that as well, to their shame). It's just we should apply such enforcement to the political world, to ensure that the citizenry are properly and correctly informed. And if you're worried about forcing politicians and their staffers to tell the truth might compromise National Security, relax. There's an easy out: JUST SAY NO COMMENT. It's still truthful, after all.

One last thing to say. It might surprise people to note that lying (outside of paid advertising of products) is not only currently protected but is some ways encouraged and nurtured. This is the political world we've built, where lying is the coin of the realm, and reality is basically ignored to the suffering of all. That's what I'm watching as Spitzer resigns, as the media elites bicker and crow according to their ideologies, and as the world keeps getting worse. Welcome to 2008, where it turns out Orwell was an optimist.

Florida vote... take 2

Every time I try to get out the vote... they keep pulling me back in! Hey, it's either that or quoting from Pacino's Scarface. Which would you prefer? Scarface??? Oh, okay: Rule number two, don't get high on your own supply.

Actually, this is a post about reports that Democrats want to get the two states they punished for improper primary timing - Michigan and Florida - to recast their votes. The primary slugfest between She Who Must Be Obeyed and the Boy King of Destiny is looking to go down to the last wire, and legally even though both Michigan and Florida voted anyway their delegates can't participate in the convention.

Hillary, who won both states (rather underhandedly in Michigan too), is petitioning to get those states re-admitted as is. Head of the DNC Howard Dean passed judgment on that yesterday making re-voting the only viable solution (there are other solutions, but most of them are questionable and confrontational).

Should the states re-vote? Part of me wants the voters of these states to be able to have representation within their party, as it wasn't entirely their fault their state governments tried to move up their primaries in order to be more relevant to the election cycle. This is what happens when you have states voting in stages, and the earlier states have a greater say in who stays in the race. The other part of me worries about the do-over aspect of this, that voters with buyers' remorse the first time around will switch around and we'll end up with a different result than before, and if Hillary suffers because of it (as she won the first time around) I am certain that she will unleash her flying demon monkey horde on us to wreak vengeance across the land.

Not that I'm biased or anything.

I'm for the re-vote plan, as long as 1) the vote is only for the Democrats, as the Republican party still allowed some delegates from Florida and Michigan to represent and as the Republicans have settled the issue on who won (a clone of Dick Cheney... John McCain), and as long as 2) all the names on the original ballot get listed. If people still want to vote for Edwards, even though he's dropped out, they should. If the ballot shifts to reflect only Clinton and Obama, people can argue that the re-vote isn't exactly the same and will gripe/moan/bitch/unleash freaking flying monkeys over it.

In the meantime, there is one great grand solution to this whole mess that would work if only the parties were compelled by law to do it (because they won't do it otherwise): HAVE ALL THE PRIMARIES ON THE SAME DAY, AND HAVE THE PRIMARIES COUNT THEIR VOTES THE SAME WAY! Sheesh! Christ on a Harley! (headthump noises)

Best. Proclamation. Evah!

Just as a back story, over the past year the state of Georgia has suffered a massive drought. It got so bad that the governor Sonny Purdue called for a Rain Prayer to bring about divine intervention. The drought was a combination of things, between the lack of rain and because the state of Georgia had sold too much water rights to the equally parched state of Florida (doh!). As a result, Georgia started talking about re-opening claims of land and river rights along the border with Tennessee in order to build a massive pipeline to Atlanta, both a massive boondoggle and also a slight affront to the rights and sovereignty of the folks of Tennessee.

The city of Chattanooga, which resides right on the border, was going to be hugely affected by that land grab attempt. So in response, the Mayor of Chattanooga issued a proclamation:

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, it has come to pass that the heavens are shut up and a drought of Biblical proportions has been visited upon the Southern United States, and

WHEREAS, the parched and dry conditions have weighed heavily upon the State of Georgia and sorely afflicted those who inhabit the Great City of Atlanta, and

WHEREAS, the leaders of Georgia have assembled like the Children of Israel in the desert, grumbled among themselves and have begun to cast longing eyes toward the north, coveting their neighbor’s assets, and

WHEREAS, the lack of water has led some misguided souls to seek more potent refreshment or for other reasons has resulted in irrational and outrageous actions seeking to move a long established and peaceful boundary, and

WHEREAS, it is deemed better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and better to offer a cool, wet kiss of friendship rather than face a hot and angry legislator gone mad from thirst, and

Whereas, it is feared that if today they come for our river, tomorrow they might come for our Jack Daniels or George Dickel,

NOW THEREFORE, In the interest of brotherly love, peace, friendship, mutual prosperity, citywide self promotion, political grandstanding and all that

I Ron Littlefield, Mayor of the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee,

Do hereby Proclaim that Wednesday, February 27, 2008 shall be known as

“Give Our Georgia Friends a Drink Day”

Mayor Littlefield just earned my vote for the President of the United States. We can't spare the man: he snarks!

The Cuba Question Part CXLVIII

Yesterday was a momentous time: Pakistan's election openly repudiated Musharraf; Wisconsin's primary openly repudiated Clinton (Jebus! She got creamed by double digits in a blue-collar state that she's supposed to win); Toshiba surrendered to Sony Blu-Ray; and Castro resigned from official duties as Cuba's President.

What's amazing is that all at once Castro's resignation, with obvious signs of old age and illness, both means so much and so little. Even though Musharraf's huge loss has more meaning, Castro dominated the news chatter all day: at the same time, Castro's departure from the main stage doesn't really, honestly, change a thing.

Castro may be leaving office, but he's kept in place a circle of political elites running Cuba that have no incentive or desire to reform their government. His own brother is technically in charge now, and while Raul is talking considerations of reform there's no sign he'll follow through on anything substantial.

The big reason why there won't be any change is because of us, the United States. Our stance on Cuba has not changed in 49 years, and at some points have even worsened, simply because of ideology and stubbornness. While we have legitimate grievances against Castro's communist (and post-Soviet authortarian) regime, we've never attempted genuine diplomacy and dialog. Instead we've forced embargoes, sanctions, denials, covert ops, basically every hardliner stance we could think of. We'd also tried invasion once. We'd also tried exploding cigars and Nair assaults on Castro's beard (I'm not kidding!).

The problem is that all our efforts are wasted: other countries do not observe the sanctions and embargoes, so Cuba stays afloat (barely) financially. Castro and his buddies, meanwhile, use our bullying ways to act defiant and manly, and they get to look good while they do it. And what's worse, we know it's working for them, and not for us.

But we can't change, can we? Even with all the expert advise, all the obvious clues, we can't change our behavior towards Cuba because no one in D.C. wants to upset 200,000 plus Cuban exiles sitting in South Florida... even though a growing number of them think the sanctions and embargoes need to go.

There's also the issue of all the land, property and businesses that Castro seized from the Cuban exile community. A lot of the older exiles who originally owned that stuff insist on getting them back. Unfortunately, it's not just Cuba owning those properties now, other nations have invested and bought them up, so the issue of ownership has gotten waaaaay more complicated. Even Castro's departure isn't going to fix that...

So, what will happen with Cuba? Not much is going to change, not right now. Our politicians will continue to demand political reform, and that Cuba hold open elections, etc. The Cuban leadership will mock, snerk, and insist on their sovereign right to laugh in our general direction.
The older Cuban exile community will continue to sulk; the younger community will head out to dance clubs. The Cubans at home will live with censorship, meager income, low standard of living and high standard health care.

Oh, and everyone is still waiting for the upcoming Batman film. That's about it.

Winners and Losers of Super Tuesday

Winner: John McCain. He jumped from a slight lead to a massive lead in the delegate counts. Between both parties, McCain is the one certain frontrunner. Momentum is his, the aura of inevitable victory is his. He is now bound to get more party support, more voters flocking to his banner. And the early math regarding the remaining states suggests he has smooth sailing from here on in. What really clinched his victory, nicely enough, was an early loss on the day: West Virginia. In that state, they hold a convention rather than a primary, and the first round of convention voting went 40 percent Romney, 31 percent Huckabee, 10 percent McCain, and laughable for Ron Paul. A supposed (rumor alert) quick round of phone calls later, and nearly all of McCain's votes went to Huckabee, giving him enough votes to beat Romney. As a calculated move, it was brilliant: it kept Romney, McCain's major rival, from winning a solidly conservative state that could have improved Mitt's "Conservative" appearance, while giving a real Conservative Huckabee a victory in a state that didn't have many delegates riding on it. No wonder it left Romney's people sputtering and screaming conspiracy: it hurt them more than it hurt McCain.

Loser: Mitt Romney. Yes, he won states. But he won the states he was expected to win (Utah, Mass., even Colorado). And he lost the states he needed (California, Cali, Hollywoodland, the Big One). What really hurt him was that he lost big in the solidly Red States, ahem, the big Southeast states. He didn't even place second in Alabama or Georgia or Tennessee. Having already lost South Carolina and Florida, Romney is not impressing anyone where the Republicans maintain their voting base. And this is despite nearly all of the major "conservative" pundits like Limbaugh and Coulter trying to prop Romney up (or to tear McCain down). There are a lot of GOP voters who aren't buying what Romney is selling.

Winner: The Democratic Party. Okay, the general election isn't even here yet. There's 5-6 more months to go before the convention. There's still two heavy-hitting candidates punching each other for the title belt in a fight that's gotten messy and could get worse. But the good news is that the voters are turning out in droves for the Democrats. If you look from state to state that had shared Primaries between the D and the R, there was double the turnout for the Dems than for the Reps. And the Republicans have more at stake than the Democrats: The Republicans still have 3 major choices to choose from (let's face it, Ron Paul is one step away from calling up Ross Perot about borrowing the Reform Party for a few months). You'd think with the Dems' choices down to two, there would be fewer voters taking a stake: You'd think with the Republicans still campaigning hard with three choices there'd be more voters wanting to have their say. But this is in conjunction with the census numbers of registered voters showing a 50-35 Democrat-to-Republican body count: there are simply now more registered Dems than Republicans. And the Democrats are more enthused with their choices: most voters don't have a problem with their opposite candidate winning (71 percent of Obama's will vote for Hillary if they must; 72 percent of Hillary's will voter for Obama if he wins). Compare that with the Republicans, who are splitting rather nastily between McCain and Romney and Huckabee.

Loser: Obama's Momentum. Statistically, it was a draw between Hillary and Obama last night. They mostly split the states down the middle, almost Solomon-like. Hillary could claim victory because she won more of the larger states (Cali, Mass) and got more delegates. And Obama could claim victory for winning in states he wasn't polling in two weeks earlier, as well as winning in states where Hillary's chances are not that good (the South outside of Arkansas and Florida). However, Obama did poorly in California, and worse yet did poorly in Massachusetts. The entire Kennedy clan was backing him, fer crissakes: when was the last time that state didn't answer fawningly to the Kennedys' whims? As for the Big Mo, Clinton still looks formidable, and while Obama's caught up to her in the polling numbers she still gathered more numbers to herself (taking more of Edwards' lost support than Obama has). Obama still has a major obstacle (or twelve) to overcome. It's now down to Ohio and Texas, and who can win those states...

Loser: The Kennedys and their home state. My God. Massachusetts voted for Clinton. What the hell is wrong with that state?!?!

Loser: the Conservative Mainstream Media Elites. They don't like McCain. It's that obvious. They also can't understand why most Republican voters are backing McCain, which is risky (for them and their wallets). Ann Coulter's always been more on the fringe, having alienated a few too many fellow Conservatives, but Rush Limbaugh is starting to look waaaay out-of-touch with the average Republican. What do you think could happen if the voters keep siding with McCain come November? Will the talking heads swallow their pride and calmly back the party's candidate, or will they continue to blast him and end up alienating their own audiences?

Loser: the people who want a One Day Primary. Dammit! Are we the only ones who notice how convoluted and inconsistent the whole damn mess is?!?!

Remember all that stuff about primaries I whine about?

"...Never thought they'd go the distance..." - Lex Luthor in Superman II

We live in interesting times. For one thing, this is February and the Primaries aren't over yet.

I've complained before about how by the time the voting gets to Florida, there's no choices left. Well, this time we are heading into Super Tuesday (the mass bulk of Primaries across 21-22 states) and both parties still have a few knock-down drag-out fights to go. Something we've haven't seen in decades.

For the Republicans, there's still four candidates: McCain now the media front-runner, Romney the last of the 'conservative' standard-bearers (and to call him the standard-bearer means the conservatives in the party are seriously screwed), Huckabee the Socio-Religious Spoiler, and Paul the Clueless Geek Who Knows the Party Hates His Guts But Is Sticking Around to Cheese People Off. For the Democrats, it's come down to two: Hillary Clinton, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, and Barack Obama the Boy King of Destiny.

That we still have so many candidates left in February shouldn't really be a surprise: for one, there were so many candidates in both parties to begin with (roughly 10 for Republicans, roughly 8 for Democrats) that the natural weeding process of the strung-out Primary system got strung out further. The second thing, for the first time in a long time, the individual states holding their own early voting did not agree on a single front-runner, splitting enough delegates between the surviving candidates that some of them could well survive into the conventions. Neither McCain nor Romney have delivered a death-blow to the other, with Huckabee holding his own: Hillary and Obama are almost neck-and-neck.

Of course, by the end of the evening tomorrow the math may straighten itself out, and a front-runner on both sides could emerge. But does this all contradict my earlier rants about how screwed up the Primary system is?

No. One of my strongest concerns is that not all of the states are getting a fair chance to choose a candidate they like, simply because there has still been drop-outs in this year's race. Possibly strong candidates like Edwards and Thompson, or Dodd and Biden, all of whom didn't attract enough support in the first few voting states... but for all we know they could have done well if they held on to campaign in upcoming states like California (who's to say that Fred!'s Hollywood ties wouldn't have helped him out?). The later states voting are stuck with fewer choices... and the rumblings from the Republicans about McCain suggest there's enough dissatisfaction about the choices that *are* left to cause problems down the line.

Another problem rearing its' head is that each state's Primary, and also their Caucus, do not follow uniform delegate distribution. Nevada, for example, had a complex math for dividing up Democratic delegates that Obama actually ended up with 1 more delegate than Clinton who actually won the overall state. Penalties on Michigan and Florida meant their delegates aren't being counted for the Democrats. Florida's Republican Primary became a Winner-Take-All whereas all other states are dividing up delegates by percentages. The delegate selections are uneven, and in some cases unfair.

There's been a few more blog postings out there about how screwy this Primary season has been. Sadly, the blogs I've seen still think the 'Solution' is to have regional primaries, rotating between regions. That doesn't resolve the issue of front-loading, essentially the issue of candidates dropping out before EVERY state and EVERY voter gets a say. And it doesn't fix the problem of having inconsistent Primary voting methods and delegate distribution.

We still need a One-Day Primary. All states, all voters, getting a chance to choose all at once. Also making sure the rules are uniform across all states and all primaries (no more Caucuses, those things get too complicated). And making sure the delegate selections directly reflect who wins what and where. We need to make sure the system allows every voter an opportunity to have their choice count.

Amendment we DON'T need: Florida Amendment 1

This Tuesday, Florida will host a primary for Republicans (and Democrats, even though the DNC has barred delegates from the state because we're voting out of turn). There will also be a ballot for a state amendment, meant to reform our state's property tax laws and supposedly making things easier for homeowners.

The amendment, in short, sucks.

To quote from Jeff Webb's article I linked to:

For sure, Florida's tax system is a mess and it needs reform desperately. But the deceitful deal that is Amendment 1 doesn't do the job; it only perpetuates the inequities and gives people an undeserved sense of confidence in their lawmakers.

And make no mistake about it: That's exactly what the politicians who back Amendment 1 are seeking. They want to go on the campaign trail this year and crow about how they saved you money by cutting your taxes.

(Remember, these are the same people who still claim - amazingly, with straight faces - that they solved the homeowners insurance crisis.)

So what exactly would fix Florida's tax system?

For one thing, recognition by both voters and politicians that, dammit, things cost money. We look to government to fix our roads, hire the police, clean the water, rebuild our schools, aid us during and after disasters, and take care of a hundred other things. That means governments have to establish taxes in order to pay for all those things. That means taxes are, honestly, a necessary evil. The question becomes, "How do we keep taxes fair?"

The answer isn't "Cut taxes," which seems to be the only answer politicians are willing to provide. Nobody wants to be on record as saying we need to raise them, or keep them at certain levels, because then the anti-tax nuts will go on the warpath and everything sensible gets tossed overboard. As a result, the incoming revenue stream gets narrowed with those cuts, just as government services have to expand in order to meet more needs of a state that has outgrown its limits (overpopulation, which is stressing our schools, transportation, water supply, health care service, and everything else).

There was already a major budget cut hit this past year in 2007, a lot to do with the fact that Florida can no longer rely on sales taxes and property taxes to pay for everything the state needs to do. Home sales and new constructions are down due to a massive market downturn (which is another disaster story altogether). Home values are dropping, screwing up the math of property assessment and taxation. Instead of expanding services, the state government had to cut back, and also cut back funding to the counties and cities, hurting those groups' abilities to fund their services. (Disclosure: I work as a public librarian whose library system exists on state and county funding)

Instead of trying to wow the voters with a Super Homestead Exemption, which looks so pretty on paper but which can come back to bite us on the ass, the state of Florida needs to switch to a State Income Tax system. Yes, there's about 900 million people screaming about how Florida never needed a state-level income tax system to mess things up further. But here's the deal: relying on property and sales taxes ain't helping. Florida is one of the few states left that HASN'T gone to an income tax system, and maybe that's saying something that the other states know what they're doing.

Huckabee, please read this

Regarding statements Huckabee has made about his plans to amend the Constitution: HOLY BLEEP

Dear Mr. Huckabee, please do me the pleasure of reading these tidbits out aloud:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This is known as the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights.

Article Six of the Constitution has this paragraph: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
James Madison: The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning RELIGION, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.
Please also read this, sir: the Massacre during St. Bartholomew's Day in France, in which the Protestants got screwed over simply because they butter their Jesus bread upside down.
Please also read this, sir: Cromwell's Calvinist conquest of Catholic Ireland, in which the Catholics got screwed over simply because they butter their Jesus bread rightside up. Please note sir, the overwhelming history of religious wars even among fellow Christians.
Please note, sir, how the Founding Fathers were descendants of those who fled Europe due to religious persecution, such as the Pilgrims of Plymouth, the Catholics who settled in Maryland, the Quakers who fled to Pennsylvania. Which was why they went out of their way to insist NO RELIGIOUS TEST be applied to government duties and oaths.

Please note sir, that your definition of what God is and what God wants, as a Baptist, is going to be different from even your fellow Christians, be they Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Calvinist, Reform, etc.

Please note Mr. Huckabee that your desire to rewrite the Constitution to reflect *your* point-of-view on God's Will, and it's only *your* will by the by, is going to scare the crap out of every other person who doesn't preach and pray to God the same way you do.

Sir, you may be preaching thinking that you want to convert this nation from its seemingly godless ways, but rest assured we Americans are more driven by our faith and our acceptance of God moreso than any other Western nation. There is no need to make the Secular Law of the Land to mirror the Law of Faith. If you do, if you persist, you're going to find more people bickering and arguing over the Law of Faith the same as they bicker and argue over the Secular Law. Bickering leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate... leads to suffering.

History has borne that out. Even Biblical history has shown that. Please note this. And please stop running for Secular office. You are clearly not meant for it.

A Review of Sabato's amendments book

Ezra Klein does a review of Sabato's A More Perfect Constitution on the Barnes & Noble site. I still am waiting for a copy of the book meself (curse ye, WorldCat! It takes months for the sucka to get a book from Alaska to Florida...).

Searching for voters' rights groups

And I think I found a few:

• Common Cause
• VotersUnite
• People for the American Way

I'll be shopping around, see which ones best fit my righteous angry mood about how screwed up the electoral system is.

New Year's Resolution

I hereby resolve to find and join an organization that is pushing for a nationwide one-day primary system. There has to be a voting rights activist group that is already pushing for it, or would be interested in pushing for it.

Oh, and also I'm gonna try to finish writing a bloody bleeping novel. For once. Sheesh. ;)

Saturnalia Wish List 2007

Dear Saturn:

I've been sending this crank prankster St. Nick letters for years, hoping he'd buy my Nice act and send me all the toys I want, but I've gotten tired of the non-replies, so I hope you don't mind if I'm shopping around for another Deity this season. Fail to deliver, and I'm taking my business to Mithra, got it?! Kay.

O mighty Roman lord o Time and phone boxes, I have a few simple Constitutional Amendment ideas I'd really like to see implemented before the world goes completely batsh-t crazy, please and thank you:

1. An amendment where any politician who compares waterboarding torture to swimming be compelled to swim the Atlantic Ocean... from Jacksonville to Hamburg. And back again. Then said politician can understand what waterboarding torture is actually like. EDITED: actually, they need to swim whilst their mouth and nostrils are covered with saran wrap with tiny holes in them. THEN it's more like waterboarding.
   
2. An amendment where the White House press secretary is given a truth serum before meeting the press every day. (caveat is that the truth serum be non-toxic. Don't want to kill anybody, just embarrass the hell out of them) That oughta keep 'em honest.
3. An amendment barring any Bush or Clinton from being in the White House in any capacity ever again. JESUS CHRIST NO MORE! Will you PLEASE bring the Adams and Roosevelts back! Thank you.....
4. An amendment where no American citizen has to pay taxes ever again. Except for Grover Norquist. He has to cover for everybody. Maybe then he'll understand.
5. An amendment that sanctions the building of an elaborate maze and tunnel system, complete with lethal traps, between the border of Mexico and the United States. Anyone sneaking through successfully can stay. For each Hispanic person that successfully enters the United States, a registered Republican known to have made anti-immigrant statements (starting with Tom Tancredo, then Pat Buchanan, then the next most deserving racist f-ckwad) will be picked up and shipped to whichever country that successful immigrant came from.
6. An amendment that sanctions the building of an elaborate maze and tunnel system, complete with lethal traps, between the border of the United States and Canada. Any American sneaking through successfully can stay in Canada. Canadians don't have to send us anybody back. Unless they want to clear out Quebec or something.
7. An amendment that allows ducks and pigeons to hunt Dick Cheney down like the mongrel he is.
8. An amendment wherein if anyone from Texas does something arrogant and stupid ever again, we will give that state free of charge back to Mexico. The maze and tunnel system can be redesigned as needed, at Texans' expense.
9. An amendment forcing Hollywood to assent to the writers' demands. Also to get them to stop making worthless remakes of movies that don't need to be remade (with the noted exception of any remake for Plan 9 From Outer Space). Also to get them to stop dithering and make that Wonder Woman movie I've been waiting for. R-rated version.

And that, o Lord Saturn, shall do it for now. Unless I come up with something snarkier.

Oh, actually one more thing: can you get Bill O'Reilly to pay for the sacrificial bull this Mithras season? Cool.

Io, Saturnalia!!!

So, I emailed Larry Sabato

Having spent a few threads discussing the amendment ideas he'd brought up in his book A More Perfect Constitution, I decided on a whim to email Mr. Sabato and offer my alternative suggestion regarding the representation in Congress for both the House and Senate. I wrote as politely as possible, noted I had seen the threads on Moderate Voice, added that I was waiting for a copy of my own of his book (waiting via Interlibrary Loan), then offered up my suggestion and sent in the email. Here's a copy of it:
Hello.

I had spotted the Moderate Voice's overview of your book A More Perfect Constitution. As someone interested in reform, especially the type of reform only constitutional amendments could achieve, I gave the entry a good look, and I am attempting to get the book through my library for a more thorough reading.

I did have a few issues with some of your suggestions. For one, the need to expand the number of representatives and senators. To expand the House to an even 1,000 may improve the ratio of representation, but it does not guarantee *effective* representation. As of now, given the nature of the political beast, expanding to 1,000 congresspersons is simply giving lobbyists and deep pockets more targets to bribe with billion-dollar campaign warchests. I understand the desire to improve representation, to give voters better opportunities to meet and confront their representatives. But first, get rid of the current lobbying system that perpetuates corruption, then maybe we can see about expanding the number of representatives.

I also have issue with the suggestion of having the number of senators expand by giving the most populous states 2 more senators, and the next tier of populous states 1 extra senator. I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of the Great Compromise to have the small states get equal representation in the Senate. I think, if you want to expand representation in the Senate, there is a simpler method: just bump the number of Senators from 2 to 3. Right now that gives you 50 extra Senators. You get the benefit of having the states now vote every election cycle (2 years) a new Senator instead of skipping one cycle.

With regards to expanding the number of House representatives, if possible they could bump the small states with one lone representative up to the same number of Senators (right now at 2, with my suggested boost it would be 3). Having only one representative for the smallest states seem so... lonely.

Also, about having ex-Presidents serve as "national" senators seems a flippant way of trying to solve the age-old question of what to do with them. I don't think there are going to be a lot of people who would be thrilled to see Carter, Clinton or Dubya serve in government like that. After all, not every ex-President is going to be a Harry Truman or Herbert Hoover post-term. Though I'm still partial to one politician's suggestion that ex-Presidents be sent in exile to small islands. ;-) Or maybe the Disney President's Ride...

I do support your overall suggestion about our need to reform government via constitutional amendments, and I would love to see at the state level more active attempts to get a convention (or at least pressure on Congress) going on the matters that need to be addressed.

I do await getting your book so I can read it in greater detail.

I do admit, I did get a little snarky in that email.

Having tried for years to get short stories published, I didn't expect much back: I've rarely gotten replies, and of the rejections that did come back they were along the lines of "Gosh, we're impressed you can read and write." I was pretty sure Sabato, a public figure in political punditry, was someone swamped with messages, complaints, hassles, half-baked amendment proposals, and Viagra offers (hey, even my sister gets those!).

However, I did get a reply. It was, pretty much, a "Gosh" reply, sent by a colleague of Mr. Sabato's who apparently had to answer the mail this week:

Mr. Wartenberg,

Thank you for your e-mail last week to Dr. Sabato regarding A More Perfect Constitution. I am glad you are taking an interest in the subject. Dr. Sabato has been out of town on book tour but send his best. I think most of the questions you have presented here are addressed in detail in the text of the book. Please let me know if you have further questions once you have looked into it.

Best,

Michael

Didn't exactly read like he/they had viewed the whole email, nor that there were any qualms or rebuttals of the issues I had with Sabato's push for increased numbers of representatives. Just a simple cookie-cutter response. At least it was a reply, I hadn't been expecting one. Wasn't expecting anything like a C-SPAN debate or anything, although that would have been nice...

So anyway, here I am, thinking up a Christmas wish list of constitutional amendments for the holidays. Coming soon!