“Yes we did!”

Bumper sticker seen the other day:

Do the math while doing the recount

The race for Senator Norm Coleman’s seat (R-MN) is an amazingly close one. Writer and comedian Al Franken, the Democratic challenger, has come very close to unseating the incumbent, but the margin — whichever way you look at the counts — is about as thin as it could be. The official tally before the recount put Senator Coleman ahead by only 215 votes, out of around 2.9 million, an edge of about .0074%.

Even that edge has gone down in the recount, but exactly how much is still in question, what with missing and disputed votes. The “search” for the missing votes has been interesting, with people literally looking in closets and desk drawers for them. Maybe the key ballot fell behind the sofa. In any case, the search has now officially stopped (one wonders what would happen if someone happened to move the right sofa tomorrow), and it’s now down to an analysis of the data and of thousands of disputed ballots (where the question is whether they’re filled out correctly, and whether the official count has correctly considered these voters’ intents).

But let’s take a moment to do a little long division. We’ll use the numbers from the NY Times for convenience. At this writing, it shows a difference of 206 votes between Senator Coleman and Mr Franken:

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Norm Coleman	Republican	1,211,565	42.0%
Al Franken	Democrat	1,211,359	42.0%
Deak Barkley	Independent	437,389	15.2%
Charles Aldrich	Libertarian	13,916	0.5%
James Niemacki	Constitution	8,908	0.3%
(Total)		2,883,137

Now, a difference of 206 votes in 2,883,137 means that if one ballot in 14,000 was miscounted, the election could turn around. One in fourteen thousand. Do you think you could tally fourteen thousand ballots without making a single mistake? I don’t think I could.

And if you do think so, have a look at these images of actual challenged ballots (also linked from the image above). I find some (#2, for instance) to be straightforward, but some are really questionable, and certainly could have been miscounted. How many others were confusing to the counters, but not challenged? Would that make the difference in the election? One in fourteen thousand.

And remember that it isn’t just a question of tallying votes for Coleman and Franken: there are three other candidates too. They aren’t in the running, of course, but votes for them do affect the count, and the recount. Votes could have been misattributed for them or against them.

The right answer here is a problematic one: re-run the election, as a run-off between Mr Coleman and Mr Franken, with no other candidates. If that re-vote is too close to call, use the state’s tie-breaking rule — every state has one, from a coin toss to a selection by the Governor; I’m not sure what Minnesota’s is, but at least it’s codified.

It’s a problematic move for a couple of reasons. First, and most obviously, it’s expensive. But besides that, it’s also not the same thing. The momentum of the Presidential election is no longer there, a difference that’s likely to favour Senator Coleman, both as the incumbent and as the Republican candidate (Democrats who flocked to the polls to vote for President Obama won’t have that incentive now). We saw that when Georgia re-ran its Senate election and handily retained Senator Chambliss.

But it’s more fair that trying to decide a 200-vote margin based on ink-stained, smeared ballots. And it tells the people that we really care what vote they want to cast, rather than disputing ballots because of stray pencil marks.
 

---

As a side note, a look at these challenged ballots really highlights why we have to move away from voting by pencil (did you imagine that the tiniest pencil-tap could call your heavy, black, fully filled bubble into question?), or, indeed, by other means that allows for misinterpretation (you’ll recall the “hanging” and “pregnant” chads, from Florida in 2000).

History

No Blog, Vote

The Real Virginia

One week to go....

Three “guest bloggers”

You know, sometimes it just way easier to let other people do the blogging, especially when they say things so devastatingly well. And so, this Friday I’ll send you to three treatises that are just like that: terrific material well written, giving me more time to be lazy get some work done.

Item one is from a bloke who calls himself Honeybakedham. He writes in response to the McCain/Palin criticism of anyone opposing them as not being “real Americans”. Honeybakedham and others like him, he says, are certainly real Americans:

I believe that any two people, being of different sexes or the same, who are in love and desire to be married, have a fundamental right to be so. And I am an American.

I am opposed to the war in Iraq. And I am an American.

I believe in protecting a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. And I am an American.

[...]

I am a “REAL” American.

And I believe that any aspiring candidate to any high office, regardless of ideology, does not deserve that office if they cannot recognize that we are all Americans, regardless of our own political views or philosophies.

Item two is a personal plea from a friend of mine, Thom Watson, who asks for help from everyone, in and out of California, in defeating Proposition 8 and allowing him and his partner of five years to retain the option to marry:

There is an unfair ballot proposition in California that, if passed, will take away my fundamental rights. This is really important to me. Will you help me defeat Proposition 8?

Jeff and I have been together for five years. We love and support each other in the same way as families all over the country; we share the same joys and the same sorrows, we have the same dreams and the same fears. We intend to spend our lives together, and we hope to be married next year. The California Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that it is unconstitutional in California to deny us the right to marry, just as it was the first court to rule, in 1948, that laws prohibiting interracial marriages also were unconstitutional. It is the constitutional duty of the court, in fact, to safeguard the rights of minorities, and that is what the California Supreme Court did.

California’s Proposition 8, however, now would take away our constitutional right to marry. It would take this right away only for same-sex couples and it would write discrimination directly into the state constitution.

Item three is another post against Proposition 8, this one from a straight woman in California who goes by the moniker Green Yogurt. She doesn’t understand why there’s a problem here; she “doesn’t get it”:

There are a slew of commercials about this. Here’s the gist of them: little pigtailed girl runs up to her mom (who naturally, is in the kitchen), and says, “Hey, guess what I learned in school today! A king can marry a king and when I grow up, I can marry a princess!” Cut to the mom looking horrified.

Probably no surprise to anyone who knows me, that “I don’t get it.” These commercials are aiming to say two things:

1. Children shouldn’t know about gay people.
2. Gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

I understand neither of these. Should children not know about handicapped people? Should white children not know about black children? Should children not know anyone who is in any way different from them? Different religion? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought there was something about stimulating children’s brains by exposing them to different things.

Especially if you live in California, please help my friend Thom, help my other friends out there, help actor George Takei, help all Californians — and, ultimately, help the rest of real America — ensure that any two people who are in love and want to get married... can.

On campaign finance

A friend of mine recently asked a friend of his, someone who he describes as “involved in politics,” for advice about how to decide on political donations. A key part of his question is whether it’s useful to donate to a campaign that’s already “rolling in money,” and whether donating “this late in the campaign” matters.

The response suggested considering things in three steps. First, and most obviously, decide whom you want to support from the point of view of ideology and policy. Second, of those who made the ideological cut, consider who has a reasonable chance to win — why spend money on someone who’s polling in single-digit percentages?

And third, consider what they’ll do with the money:

[...] it’s astounding how much money candidates can burn through extremely quickly — particularly for presidential candidates and senate candidates running in expensive media markets like NY, Calif. Donating to most candidates now would help, most likely. But, I would look at any candidate’s latest financial report first. Go to fec.gov [the Federal Election Commission web site] to see what their cash on hand is. If they are in debt, you can help. If they have a six- or seven-figure balance, they may well end up in a surplus. If your money goes to their surplus, they might use it as seed money for the next race. Or they might give some to other candidates whom you might or might not support. As to DNC and party committees in general, you just need to have faith they will use it in a way you like as you really don’t have control over how it will be used.

It’s certainly not surprising that party committees can use donation money for whatever they want, and for that reason I’d stick with donating to specific candidates. What bothers me here is that the candidates may turn over their surplus to someone else. I suppose it would be unwieldy to try to give a large number of small contributions back to the donors. On the other hand, donors to the campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton would not necessarily be pleased to have their money handed to John McCain and Barack Obama, respectively.

But perhaps more to the point, the system lends itself to abuse by quiet collusion. Perhaps a close race is expected between Republican Ferdinand Wingnut and Democrat Taxon Spennd. Mr Spennd finds three other Democrats to run against him in the primary, people with varying positions that are more centrist and more fiscally conservative than his. Through the primary season, the four raise money and support, amassing a larger total than Mr Spennd could do on his own, and pulling some Republican support over to the more conservative of the four Democrats.

But just before the primary, the two least popular of the four withdraw, giving their money and support to Taxon Spennd. He easily defeats his remaining “opponent,” who then also throws his resources to Mr Spennd, giving the candidate a significant edge over Mr Wingnut, both in money and in support, compared with what he could have gotten on his own.

It’s undoubtedly illegal, sure. But if it’s done with a quiet agreement among the four, who would know?

And then there’s this:

One last thought — If you give over $200, your name address, occupation, and employer are collected and will find [their] way onto FEC reports. That’s the law. Your friends and neighbors and business associates can look you up by name and see who you gave to.

I found that interesting: I hadn’t realized that the threshold for public disclosure was only $200; I thought it was $2000. There’s an interesting conflict, here, between “free speech” (using the courts’ consistent decisions that donating money is a form of political speech, a characterization I disagree with) and the right to anonymity, or at least to privacy.

I see, for example, that one Ned Leiba (no relation of which I’m aware), a CPA in Stockton, CA, gave a total of $1300 to Ron Paul’s campaign. That Mr Leiba appears to be a partner in his own accounting firm... but what if he worked for someone else? What if his bosses had been Giuliani supporters and vehemently disliked Ron Paul? What if he feared for his job if they learned that he donated to Mr Paul. These small contributions are well below the levels where we really need to worry about special interests... mightn’t the publication of their details create a “chilling effect”?

I’d rather see campaign spending (and timeframes) limited to the point where donations don’t really matter. Barack Obama has raised more than $460 million so far in his presidential campaign, according to the FEC. That’s just an insane amount of money to spend (and it’s not even considering the paid leave of absence he’s taken from his job — remember, he’s a Senator, but he hasn’t actually been doing that job for about half the time he’s had it — in order to run for president). We should not be allowing that much money and time to be spent on political campaigns.

It’s strict spending limits, more than donation limits, that can quell these excesses. And the spending limits have to apply to all political advertising, whether it directly supports particular candidates or not (ads saying “McCain is Wrong” and “America Out of Iraq”, as well as “Vote Obama!”).

Unfortunately, we can’t have any real reform in our campaign spending as long as the courts consider money to be speech.

“My friends...”

Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The veeps have at it

In the spirit of my post the other day, as I talk about last night’s debate I want to keep it to the substance. I’m finding it hard, though, because I find her accent, her manner, her expressions (“doggone it” and “you betcha”, for example), her mispronunciations (“eye-raq”, “eye-ran”, “noo-kya-lar”[1]), and her whiny voice to be so annoying that it’s hard to sit and listen, to pay attention, and not to run, screaming, from the room.

I actually think she did pretty well. She was certainly far better prepared than she had been for either Charles Gibson or Katie Couric, the latter having been a total disaster.

That said, she spent her time spewing talking points and making every fifth word either “John McCain” or “maverick”. I didn’t get any new information from her, and she repeated a bunch of the usual lies. For example, she gave the standard claim that Barack Obama voted against funding the troops, a shameful thing that John McCain would never do. Senator Biden corrected that, pointing out that John McCain also voted against that bill, and that it was because of the other stuff tacked onto the bill (in McCain’s case, the withdrawal timeline). For example, she said that John McCain’s health care plan is “budget neutral” because it’s gives a $5000 tax credit to people to use for buying medical insurance. Say what? How does taking $5000 per person of tax money away not affect the budget. Senator Biden cleared that up.

She often didn’t answer the questions given to her, but instead addressed the points that she’d planned to make. Unfortunately, Ms Ifill didn’t hold Ms Palin to the questions. In fact, there was one point where Ms Palin explicitly said that she was not going to answer the question, but had her own stuff to say. And she was allowed to.

One key question that she ducked was whether she would put no restrictions on the rights of same-sex couples. The two agreed that they would not support “marriage” here (sigh), but while Senator Biden clearly said that he would have homosexual couples treated exactly the same as heterosexual ones in law and civil rights, Governor Palin only said that she’s “tolerant” of homosexual couples, and gave a couple of examples of things they should be allowed to do (enter into contracts as couples, have hospital “family” visitation rights). When Mr Biden said it seemed they agreed, and Ms Ifill pressed her to confirm that, she did not, but instead repeated her more limited stand. I bet many people didn’t notice the dodge.

It seemed to me that Senator Biden answered the questions more rigorously, and I didn’t find myself throwing any, “But he didn’t answer the question!” bricks at the TV. He corrected Ms Palin when he could, though the format didn’t always allow that.

Of course, he, too, came with talking points, which he fit in as he could. And he, too, mentioned the top of his ticket quite often, though more so at the beginning than later.

I did like the part where Mr Biden had about had it with the “maverick” thing, and spent a couple of minutes pointing out how un-maverick-like Senator McCain has been.

While he addressed the moderator’s questions more directly, and was less obviously parroting talking points, I have to say that I didn’t get any useful information from him either. It’s all the same stuff we’ve been hearing over and over again. The only purpose of this “debate” was to see if Sarah Palin could avoid falling on her face, and she succeeded in not doing so. Apart from that, it was 90 minutes of nothing.

I will add that both candidates were respectful to each other.

I’ll also add that I continue to be amazed that the media are allowing Sarah Palin to keep saying that the McCain/Palin ticket represents a change from “Washington insiders”, when John McCain has been in Congress for almost 26 years and is in no sense an “outsider”. They really need to start calling bullshit on that line, and stop letting the campaign get away with it.
 

---

[1] On “noo-kya-lar”, I’d really like to hear from a speech therapist, because I figure there has to be something truly hard about that for some people. It’s not just the Bad Guys who say it that way; in addition to Bush and Palin, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale also said “noo-kya-lar”, and Carter even has a physics degree and studied nuclear power. I have to think that if it were easy to fix this pronunciation, at least one of those people would have.

Going to the candidates’ debate

I watched Friday night’s “debate”. I hadn’t planned to, but I did. What I saw was actually better than I’d expected: a set of core questions that each candidate had two minutes of uninterrupted time to address — and they generally did address the questions at hand, despite not having known in advance what they would be (though none were real surprises), and time with each question to discuss and rebut. It was almost like a proper debate, certainly more so than others in recent years.

I was very surprised by Senator McCain’s manner. Senator Obama came across as confident, secure, and presidential, while Senator McCain just appeared to be lame, not at all in control and not specific enough in his answers. I was puzzled.

Then I read James Hanley’s analysis of what purpose the debates serve (written Friday morning, but I hadn’t had time to read it and it sat in a browser tab until Saturday), and he hits the problem exactly with this:

That stuff just doesn’t give you any idea who would be a more capable president, so it doesn’t help anyone make an informed decision.

And of course the mass media almost solely focuses on who “won” and who “lost” the debates, treating them as wholly self-contests, with little regard for what they really reveal—if anything—about a candidate’s presidential qualifications. And winning is a wholly relative term, based on how the candidates are expected to perform. You don’t have to do well to win, you just have to do better than expected, which means that if you’re expected to be a clueless dolt, you can win just by not misprouncing “nucular” too badly. That’s why we get the candidates’ campaigns doing their best to create very low expectations.

Well, yes, of course. That’s it. High school debate teams “win” or “lose” their debates on how they’ve put together and conducted their arguments, and they are assigned different sides of an issue to debate. In those debates, the participants score points, and we tally them... but that’s not what these debates are supposed to be about.

These are supposed to be telling us where the candidates stand on the issues of the day, and giving them a chance to challenge each other’s stand right there in front of us. And, in fact, this debate did much more of that than most others have done.

And yet as soon as it was over, I started seeing things pop up in the news media and in the blogs... telling us who “won” on each question, and overall. But it’s not a question of winning and losing; it’s a question of giving you and me the information we need in order to choose between them in the election. Senator Obama might have appeared more in control of the question about the economy, but if you don’t agree with his plan, that’s what matters. Senator McCain may have succeeded in beating Senator Obama up for being willing to “sit across the table” from Iranian President Ahmadinejad, saying that doing so “legitimizes” everything the latter has said... but if you think that’s a ridiculous bucket of hog-spittle, has he “won” that question?

If we really want informed voters, both the voters and the news media have to stop trying to bring everything down to a check mark in one column or another. It’s not black and white, it’s not sound bites, it’s not a zero-sum game.[1] It’s a complex set of issues, and we have to think about them. And the media have to help get us the information we really need to think about.

Laugh about it, shout about it,
When you’ve got to choose;
Every way you look at it, you lose.

— Paul Simon, “Mrs Robinson”

 

---

[1] Well, the election is a zero-sum game, of course. But the issues, and the candidates’ and voters’ views on them aren’t.

On foreign policy and moose

On Thursday’s Morning Edition, NPR aired items about McCain and Palin in Michigan and Obama in Nevada (pronounce the first “a” as in “dad”, not as in “pa”, if you want to wow the Nevadans). In the Michigan segment was this bit, from a “town hall meeting” in Grand Rapids:

NPR’s David Greene: One question at last night’s town hall came from Kimberly King:

Kimberly King: Governor Palin, there has been quite a bit of discussion about your perceived lack of foreign policy experience. I want to give you your chance: If you could please respond to that criticism and give us specific skills that you think you have to bring to the White House to rebut that or mitigate that concern.

Sarah Palin: Well, I think because I’m a Washington outsider, that, uh, that opponents are going to be looking for a whole lot of things that they can criticize, and they can kind of try to beat the candidate, here, who chose me as his partner to, um, kind of tear down the ticket. But as for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared, and I know that on January 20th if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready, I’ll be ready, I have that confidence, I have that readiness. And if you want specifics, with specific policy or countries, go ahead and, and you can ask me, you can, you can play Stump the Candidate if you want to. Um. But we are ready to serve.

Right. In other words, “No, Kimberly, nothing specific. Sorry. But I have that readiness, bless me, I do.”

Ugh.

Suppose you were, say, having your kitchen re-done from the ground up, and someone wanted to do the design and contracting for you. Only, she’d never designed a kitchen before, never contracted with builders, and wasn’t really even aware of what sorts of cabinets and countertops were available, except for that time she flipped through a catalogue while she waited at the Home Depot. But, she assures you, being an outsider is actually a benefit, and if she’s blessed with your business she has that confidence and readiness.

Ya think you’d hire her?

I certainly wouldn’t.

But let’s not forget that George H.W. Bush got elected with Dan “Potatoe” Quayle at his side. Anything can happen. So let’s be clear about why the country and the world will be better off if we’re “blessed” with Barack Obama in the White House, and make sure that that gets at least as much press.

 

While we’re at it: I’m getting irritated by how the media, even NPR, are going on about the “moose hunter” and “hockey mom” stuff, just parroting advertising copy from the McCain campaign. It’s not news and it’s not relevant, and by continuing to cover it, even in an attempt to add humour, they’re giving credibility to it and acting as sock puppets for the campaign. (On the other hand, NPR also added this stand-up routine of Woody Allen’s, from 1960. Funny, if a bit dated.)

 

Oh, and also while we’re here, we should give link love to The Palin Truth Squad. Lovely satire up front with real, important information behind it; click forthwith.

Inhaled, contrary to ban

When we first learned of Sarah Palin, I noted, in passing, that she’d tried marijuana and said she didn’t like it. Bill Clinton, of course, famously told us that he hadn’t inhaled when he smoked up. Barack Obama’s also admitted to a doobie or two in his salad days, and even George Bush has some puffing in his past.

We’ve arrived at a time, over the last 15 years, where the people we’re calling on to run things grew up in generations that simply did that. I think of my high school and college classmates — doctors, professional photographers, small-business owners, bank managers, police officers, scientists, lawyers, actors, ministers, military personnel... yes, there are some of all of those in the mix — and I know that most of them smoked weed at one time or another, some once or twice, some occasionally, some regularly and often.

Now, they and others a bit older and a bit younger, folks in their 40s and 50s, are the ones who are out there as community leaders. And, you know, I almost feel that I’d trust them less if they hadn’t been part of it, back in the day.

True to that, we seem to be worrying less about minor drug use, though there’s still some criticism to be heard. There might be something to worry about if one is still getting stoned in the office, right before a big meeting with customers, or union leaders, or whatever. Otherwise, what we did 20 years ago shouldn’t matter, and doesn’t seem to. Who knows?: maybe we’ll eventually be able to see that keeping weed illegal is just silly.

We’ve also seen our first wave of presidents and candidates who haven’t served in the military, and who, in fact, went out of their way to dodge it — again, just as many in my generation did during the Vietnam years. Bill Clinton left the country, and participated in anti-war protests; George Bush got an appointment in the National Guard and then ducked out of that; John Kerry did serve, and then protested the war when he came back; Barack Obama hasn’t served nor been called to. We need to accept that that, too, is a common situation with the new generations of our country’s leaders.

And now I think, as I read more about the level of connectedness and information sharing that’s common today, what political campaigns will be like 20 years from now. How will politicians of that day deal with the resurfacing of old Facebook profiles and Twitter logs? Will proudly calling oneself a “[obscene gerund] redneck” at 18 be a political liability at 48? When there’s a dense and detailed Twitter record of one’s daily comings and goings, moods and thoughts, what will happen to one’s public face?

Perhaps it will just be so much information that it will equalize everyone. Maybe if no one can be completely clean, we’ll stop worrying about the smudges.

Roll another one
Just like the other one
You’ve been holding on to it
And I sure would like a hit
 
Don’t bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me

 

---

[The title phrase is an anagram of “tetrahydrocannabinol”.]

“God is my dictator”

Maybe you’ve seen the recent New York Times article, In Palin’s Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God’s Will. Maybe that doesn’t scare you as much as it should. Maybe you figure that following God’s will is a good thing, and that such a goal speaks well for one. So maybe you’ll disagree with my take on it:

Such a statement should result in 100% disqualification from public office.

Yes, that’s severe. But here’s why:

When one takes public office, one works for the people; one swears to serve the people and to abide by the constitution. If “God’s will” and the people’s will and the constitution intersect, following the first might work for a while. But there will come a time when they diverge, and by ignoring the will of the people and the constitution because one follows a higher power, one is reneging on one’s oath and responsibility as a public servant.

“The churches that Sarah has attended all believe in a literal translation of the Bible,” Ms. Kincaid said. “Her principal ethical and moral beliefs stem from this.”

There will come such a time because no two people agree completely on what “God’s will” is. Different people believe in different gods. Different people read and believe different scriptures. Even of the Christian Bible, there are differing translations and differing opinions about what it means — there are many, many interpretations. There is no “literal translation” without interpretation. When one says that God’s will is in control, one actually says, “My interpretation of what God’s will is, that’s what’s in control.”

In the address at the Assembly of God Church here, Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”

And there’s a great deal of confirmation bias in one’s interpretation. One tends to interpret God’s will in support of one’s own sensibilities. That’s fine in many contexts, but it doesn’t work at all for developing public policy. The rigidity of a “what’s right with God” argument is not appropriate here. One must be willing to debate and compromise, to take other opinions into account. No supreme master can be involved, not in a democracy.

She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”

Taking that beyond honest attempts at conforming to God’s will, one can also manipulate any situation to one’s own will by invoking God’s. For any situation, there’s something one can quote and use to claim that God’s will supports one’s own plan.

When one works from God’s will, one is protected from influence by public opinion, by science, by advice from legislators or judges, by discussion with other world leaders, by new information of any kind or from any source. One is protected from influence even by the constitution, as when Mike Huckabee said that we need to change the constitution to conform to God’s standards. One has the answer, a priori, and no other answer is possible.

If you still think it’s a good thing for public policy to be set according to God’s will, I suggest that you consider a time — a time which has already come for many, over the last seven and a half years — when God’s will as interpreted by those in power differs dramatically from how you see it. Will it be a good thing then?

“God is my dictator," does not a democracy make.
 

---

An additional note: this is quoting from the article about Sarah Palin, because that's what was in the NY Times, but it is not about Ms Palin in particular. It applies in general to the intrusion of religion into government.

Sarah Palin

So, John McCain has officially selected Sarah Palin, the first-term governor of Alaska, as his running mate.

WTF?

I can’t imagine why this is a good choice.

Well, she is younger than he is. That wouldn’t be hard, of course, but she’s a lot younger: 44. She’s a conservative Christian, natch, an NRA member, against abortion rights, and so on. She wants to rape her state’s interior drill in ANWR, which, I suppose, complements McCain’s interest in drilling offshore.

But she’s just a political lightweight. If McCain is claiming that Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience or maturity to be president, how can he possibly present us with someone like Governor Palin and tell us he wants to put her a heartbeat away from the presidency — with a president who’s 72?

Oh, she’s smoked weed. She doesn’t say whether she inhaled or not, but she does claim that she didn’t like it.

And then there’s what at least some of the media are doing with it. She has a son with Down syndrome, just born in April. Maybe someone’s hoping to play that for cuteness and sympathy, because we’re certainly seeing some of that already. I heard a bit on NPR Friday afternoon that had them commenting on the baby-swing in her office, and her giggling about how her youngest daughter likes to push the baby on the swing, and how visitors to her office think it’s so cuuuuuuuute. Awwwwwww. She calls herself an “average mom.”

Puh-leez! This is not about being a mommy. It’s about running the country, and her brood of children isn’t any more relevant than her hair colour. If you can do that with the kids around, that’s fine with me, but don’t try to sell us on the family. Just don’t.

Speaking of the family, of course, her husband works for BP, the third largest oil company in the world (after ExxonMobil and Shell). I guess that’s sort of like saying that a Texan is an oil man — it’s not surprising. But it’s also not a very good way to disabuse people of the idea that we’d be looking ahead to four more years like the last eight.

I can’t imagine why this is a good choice.

But, then, I guess that’s a good thing for the Good Guys.

I told you so...

It wasn’t rocket science, and I wasn’t the only one that said it, but back in March, I said this:

What’s worse, though, is that she’s actually telling us that if Senator Obama winds up with the Democratic nomination, we’d be better off voting for Senator McCain. Sure, look at what she’s said: Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience behind him, and all Senator Obama has to offer us is one lousy anti-war speech. We’d have to be crazy to go for that over more than 70 years of experience!

Is that really the message she wants to leave us with, should she happen to lose her bid for the nomination?

And, well, yes, now Senator Clinton appears — not by her choice, to be sure — in a campaign ad for John McCain. The ad shows clips of Ms Clinton criticizing Senator Obama. The “lifetime of experience” comment that I noted in March is not in that ad, but it’s being re-aired along side it in news items about the ad campaign.

Senator Clinton’s office, of course, ignores the problem and says that the senator supports Mr Obama, as though she’s done so all along:

Hillary Clinton’s support of Barack Obama is clear. She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn’t. It’s interesting how those remarks didn’t make it into his ad.

Yes, well. It seemed pretty clear that the attacks in the primary season were not going to serve the party well now. And they aren’t.

And I did tell you so.

It’s not a card game

Is Senator Obama “playing the race card”? Or is it Senator McCain who is? Who’s playing the religion card? The war-hero card? The age card? Or is it the youth card? I can't remember.

And how many cards are in this deck?

OK, so... here: Barack Obama is black, yes, he is. He’s African-American. On his father’s side, that is; his mother is white. He’s Christian. He’s lived in Indonesia and Hawaii. His middle name is Hussein. And he’s a few years younger than I am.

John McCain is white, and is also Christian. He’s divorced and re-married. He’s relatively old — he’ll be 72 at the end of this month — and his wife is almost 20 years younger than he is. He was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and he was tortured there. He was born in the Canal Zone.

And none of that makes any difference. None of it makes either one of them more nor less suitable to be president. So let’s stop with all these “cards”, and get back to the issues.

We’ve seen some of that, recently, as both candidates have talked about bringing science back out of the Dark Ages (officially, 20 Jan 2001 through 19 Jan 2008), and that’s good — it’s good that they’re saying that, and it’s good that we’re seeing the issues in the forefront some of the time.

So, yeah: issues. There are plenty of them. Science, medicine and health care, the economy, education, energy, civil rights, human rights, war and bringing the troops home, other foreign affairs... the list goes on, and we all need to know where the candidates stand on them so we can vote accordingly.

McCain: AIDS breeds Islamic extremism

On All Things Considered on Thursday, I heard John McCain say something that made me go to NPR’s web site to make sure I’d heard it right. I had. Here’s what Senator McCain said last month, in New Hampshire (“it”, here, refers to U.S. foreign aid):

It really needs to eliminate many of the breeding grounds for extremism, which is poverty, which is HIV/AIDS, which is all of these terrible conditions that make people totally dissatisfied and then look to extremism, particularly Islamic extremism.

WTF?

I don’t recall hearing anything about this at the time, but is this statement really as stupid as it sounds? Did he really say that AIDS results in terrorists? And not just any ones, but “particularly Islamic” ones? Why should Islamic extremists be more motivated than any other sorts by widespread AIDS infection? And is there any evidence that AIDS fosters extremism in general (other than, perhaps, “extremist” demands for more money to combat AIDS)? Where did he pull that one out of?

Yes, we should definitely put a good bit of our foreign aid money toward fighting AIDS. Absolutely.

We should also make sure we don’t elect someone who makes stupid, unsupportable statements like this. We’ve already had one of those for the last eight years.

Partisan “experts”

NPR’s Morning Edition had an item on Wednesday about the major-party candidates’ energy plans. They talked with a professor from MIT:

Expert Assesses Candidates’ Energy Plans

Morning Edition, July 16, 2008 — Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his Republican challenger John McCain have proposals for dealing with the tight supply of oil. Steve Inskeep talks with Bob Pindyck, a professor of economics and finance at MIT, about whether the candidates’ energy plans would make a difference as Americans face rising energy costs.

An economics professor, talking about energy? They don’t make clear why he’s an “expert” in this field, but, still, I eagerly listened to Professor Pindyck’s analysis of the two candidates’ plans.

He likes an idea that John McCain supports, of removing the tariff on Brazilian ethanol (made from sugar cane) for adding to gasoline, to provide a cheaper alternative to making our own ethanol from corn. Barack Obama opposes that idea, and Prof. Pindyck figures it’s political pressure from middle-America corn farmers, looking to keep the price of corn high, that’s the reason for his opposition.

I’m not convinced. I see, now, where his expertise is: he’s looking at it from an economics point of view, which is, after all, one of the primary issues right now — the price of fuel. But he’s just speculating on Senator Obama’s reasons for opposition; he says, “I think that, politically, it’s hard”. Has he considered other reasons? Does he have any statements from Barack Obama about this?

When asked directly about his opinions on Senator Obama’s plans, Professor Pindyck begins, “You know, it’s all very vague.” Oh, that’s not good; vague is not good. Tell me more about that. Prof. Pindyck does:

He talks about providing subsidies to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and it’s not clear what those subsidies would look like, where they would go. And in addition, it’s not going to have a large impact, and any impact it has is many years away. So that’s the big problem with that.

Hm. Subsidizing the development of renewable energy sources doesn’t sound vague at all. And it sounds to me like a fine start. But you know what does sound vague? The statement that “it’s not going to have a large impact.” Any more detail on that, Professor? Anything to back it up?

Well, Steve Inskeep does press him on that point:

NPR: What do you mean, "not going to have a large impact"? Because we were talking the other day to a guy who’s investing in wind farms, and he’s saying there’s enough wind in the Dakotas to run the entire United States.

Pindyck: Well, that’s a nice assertion. I’m not sure that’s true, though. Look, wind energy to produce electricity is something that’s going to be part of our energy mix in the future. It’s not going to produce all our electricity; it’ll produce something. It has its own environmental issues. As you might know, there are proposals to build wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts. There are a lot of groups that oppose that, because they think it won’t look nice, it’ll destroy the view.

I’ll note that he hasn’t answered the “large impact” question, but has just focused on one aspect of using wind power. Perhaps that’s because he’s not an expert on renewable energy sources, energy production, or environmental issues. So his contention is that subsidies to developers of wind power will not have a large impact because wind power will “produce something”, but, he implies, not much. It’s a nice assertion, but, again, he doesn’t support his statement.

He then goes on to talk about increased use of nuclear energy — which John McCain supports, and Barack Obama does not. Are we seeing a pattern, here?

I have to include one more quote from the Professor:

There are very few ways you can produce electricity without using fossil fuels, and nuclear is one of them.

Well, yes, that’s true — and, in fact, I, too, think we have to continue using nuclear power as we work on developing other sources. But he completely dismisses the other renewable energy sources. There are a few ways you can produce electricity without using fossil fuels, and wind, water, and solar generation are some of them. It’s OK to tell us that research and development in those areas is not practical, but you have to back such a statement up. Otherwise, you’re just being vague.

What a misdirected, misdescribed article! There’s nothing wrong with having this guy on the radio and hearing what he has to say. But don’t bill him as an “expert” who’s making an “assessment” of the two sides. Here, let me rewrite the headline and the lede:

McCain Supporter Opines On Candidates’ Energy Plans

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his Republican challenger John McCain have proposals for dealing with the tight supply of oil. Steve Inskeep talks with Bob Pindyck, a supporter of John McCain, about what he thinks of the candidates’ energy plans as Americans face rising energy costs.

There. That’s better.

Put your money where your principles are

I have some political donation money to spend.

Let’s see:

1. Barack Obama, whom I supported in the primary election, voted for the Presidential Spying Bill, in the end. One might argue that it was going to pass anyway, and he was just avoiding political trouble with a vote that didn’t matter anyway. But it did matter: one stands on one’s principles, or one falls.
2. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have, since the bill was signed into law, filed suit to challenge it.

   The ACLU contends those blanket powers to grab international communications of Americans without specific court orders violate the Fourth Amendment and would stymie journalists who often speak to confidential sources outside the country.

   That’s standing on principles — the principles this country was founded on.

So....

Where do you think my donation money will go now? To Senator Obama? Or to the ACLU and the EFF?

Hmm....

No liberal option

Damn.

There’s just no real liberal option. Starting on 20 January 2009, our country will be run by one right-leaning president or another. It’s just a question of how far to the right he’ll lean.

I can’t possible choose Senator McCain, for many obvious reasons. That leaves me to choose Senator Obama (or to toss my vote in the bin by voting for some minor-party candidate who has no chance of winning, just to make a statement).

That means I have to vote for someone who opposes same-sex marriage.

But his campaign said that Mr. Obama’s opposition to the initiative, which will appear on the state’s November ballot, did not signal a change in position. He remains opposed to same-sex marriage, but supports civil unions and domestic partnerships.

That means I have to vote for someone who still wants restrictions on abortion, contravening the choice of the mother, and threatening her health.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says “mental distress” should not qualify as a justification for late-term abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

That means I have to vote for someone who thinks that religion belongs in our government and the programs it supports.

Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms.

(and here)

“Now, I know there are some who bristle at the notion that faith has a place in the public square,” Mr. Obama intends to say. “But the fact is, leaders in both parties have recognized the value of a partnership between the White House and faith-based groups.”

That means I have to vote for someone who now supports making it easier for the government to spy on Americans, and giving immunity to companies that agreed to an illegal request for private information.

Senator Barack Obama’s decision to support legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants has led to an intense backlash among some of his most ardent supporters.

Thousands of them are now using the same grass-roots organizing tools previously mastered by the Obama campaign to organize a protest against his decision.

That means I have to vote for someone who agrees with the conservatives on the Supreme Court — the four Bush-41 and Bush-43 appointees — that the death penalty is OK in cases of child rape, going against the decision of the majority of the court, including the liberals and centrists.

Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said, “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, that the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution.” He added that the Supreme Court should have set conditions for imposing the death penalty for the crime, “but it basically had a blanket prohibition, and I disagree with the decision.”

To be sure, Senator McCain’s stand on all these issues is worse, much farther to the right, and to be sure, I agree with Senator Obama on other things. Still... what happened to Mr Liberal, Mr Change?

Damn.