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December 30, 2007 by Alpha.
Iowa is a three-way toss-up between Clinton and Obama and Edwards. The biggest question is one which I have no good way to answer: who has more rural support in Iowa? Not a clue. Although I expect that Clinton has higher rural negatives she has an excellent ground game. She also has more at-large delegates endorsing her. I’m going to play it safe and take Clinton first, followed by Obama and Edwards.
New Hampshire has a larger percentage of undecided voters than Iowa, Obama has more momentum and a much closer margin on Clinton. Barring a disastrous showing in Iowa, I expect Obama to take New Hampshire, followed by Clinton then Edwards.
After a Clinton victory lap in Michigan I anticipate Nevada to go Clinton/Obama/Edwards, assuming Edwards is still in the race.
South Carolina is Obama’s firewall state, and I think he will win it.
The exhibition match in Florida is a toss-up, and so is February 5th, but I personally think that Senator Barack Obama is the candidate to beat, or as John Madden might say “Al, there’s a guy who controls his own, ah… his um… his future.”
PS The Huckster now leads in national polling. Is this story making itself? Discuss!
Posted in Democrats, 2008, Presidential, Campaigns | 1 Comment »
December 20, 2007 by Alpha.
Here’ s my best guess about what will happen in the early Republican primaries. This is based largely on my own analysis of polling data and my own gut feelings about where things are going.
I expect former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to win the Iowa Caucuses. His appeal seems to be broad-based and his Iowa campaign has practically caught fire. The response that he has gotten in polling there has been dramatic, if not especially predictive. Take a look at this image from Pollster.com for a good sense of how hot Huckabee’s mojo is. I suspect that Huckabee is playing well with rural Iowa Republicans particularly those who really liked Romney or Giuliani five or six months ago. Of course, at that point Rudy and Mitt really were the only game in town. These days in Iowa you might as well be a McCain fan. Seriously, take a look at that graph again: two candidates’ curves have positive slopes; Paul, in last place; and Huckabee, in first. At this point, anyone other than Romney spending money in Iowa is wasting their contributors’ money. Call it Huckabee, then Romney, then the also-rans.
Wyoming is a tough call. They like ‘em good and conservative in Wyoming–but a number of the precincts in Western Wyoming are heavily Mormon. I suspect that Romney will end up with about half the delegates, with Huckabee picking up four or five delegates, with a few going to McCain for old times’ sake. Of course, in the case of anything other than a Romney blowout the story will be not about how huge his win was but on how little it counts for.
Romney, Huckabee and McCain all have some momentum in New Hampshire. Romney has a healthy lead, but if Huckabee hits Iowa hard, he could well a victory. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that both Romney and McCain will collapse in New Hampshire, with the finish going: Huckabee, Romney, McCain.
I anticipate the continued deflation of Guiliani’s campaign, and I suspect that Romney’s money will run out. Either one might make some hay in Michigan ad Nevada, but I expect South Carolina and Florida’s primaries to fall to Huckabee.
If he can keep the winner’s smile on and make a big show when FEC time comes up, Huckabee has the best shot. He seems to have the religious thing and the spunky underdog thing going for him.
Huckabee’s biggest worries aren’t small: He needs Romney and Giuliani to go down like a pair of wounded U2’s over Russia. If they manage to muddy the waters as they go down or if they manage to raise enough money to keep at it once they start losing they could wound him. Lastly, if he doesn’t pick up Nevada or South Carolina or Florida his position on February 5th is tenuous.
These fears notwithstanding, I expect Huckabee to be the candidate to beat going into Super Duper Tuesday.
Posted in Republicans, 2008, Presidential, Campaigns | 1 Comment »
December 18, 2007 by Alpha.
About a week ago, it entered my mind to try to lay out what the big variables would be in the first part of the primary kerfluffle. I figured that if I could tease out some details I might find that one or another candidate might have some kind of procedural advantage. On the Republican side I found some pretty clear victory conditions for each of the candidates. If you haven’t seen that post, it can be found here.
While any of the Republican candidates has about a 50/50 chance of making it through the 8 contests they’ll have before February 5th and thence into the madness of Super Duper Tuesday, the Democrats seem committed to, well, not committing. My first topic: The Phantom Primaries!
Everyone in politics is aware that those who work for a state party ought to refrain from dissing the national party. Unfortunately for Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan, some of the Democratic leadership in their states seem to have missed that point. Both states moved their primaries up, both were warned of sanctions coming, and neither have done anything about it. The way it looks right now, neither of those primary votes will count: Michigan’s 157 delegates and Florida’s 210 delegates will be disqualified.
Both of these early winner-take-all primaries would likely have significantly aided Senator Clinton. The poll results may still give her a boost, but she may take some heat, too: she is the only major candidate to reject the national party’s rulings and campaign in those states.
This takes us into the Early Primaries!
In all, the Democrats will have 6 contests before Feb. 5 including those in Michigan and Florida. Here’s how I expect them to shake out:
On Super Duper Tuesday, the Democrats will assign another 2,064 delegates. On the Republican side I estimated that the odds of multiple candidates surviving the sheer volume of voting were slim. However, given the massive bankrolls of the top three Democratic candidates and the fact that (Clinton aside) they’re faced with at most four contests before Feb. 5, I wouldn’t be surprised if the votes were more or less split.
Once again, to the big finish: Keys to Victory!
That’s it, boys and girls. My well-considered analysis of the Democratic and Republican primaries through February 5th.
I’ll post my Up/Down predictions in the next couple of days.
Posted in Democrats, 2008, Presidential, Campaigns | 3 Comments »
December 15, 2007 by Alpha.
A few days ago I realized, with a touch of humility, that I knew astonishingly little about the nuts and bolts of the Pesidential primary process outside of a vague understanding of how nominating conventions work. Quickly! to Wikipedia!
There are actually two remarkably informative Wikipedia entries: one for the Dems and another for the GOP. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find (properly filed) pages for the Green Party or the Constitution Party or the Communist Party, so I don’t know that I’d call this a thorough digest, but some interesting notes arose regardless.
First off, a topic I haven’t heard mentioned much: The Phantom Primaries!
The Republican Party of the great state of Wyoming, no doubt in a riotous fit of pique, decided in late August to get out in front of the bus, so to speak. The National Party penalized them–half of their 28 delegates. They’ve earned the right to be an early bump in the road, but it will be an awfully small one: 24 days later Florida will assign 57 (out of a possible 114 rating a D-).
This takes us into the Early Primaries!
The Republicans will assign just 229 delegates in 8 states before February 5th. The way the polling looks right now, here’s what that means in terms of the numbers of delegates we can expect to see early on:
Then on February 5th, another 1,081 delegates will be assigned, and that flood seems likely to wipe away most of the competition.
That brings me to the big finish: Keys to Victory!
Well there you have it. I’ve handicapped to Republican race through Florida… Sort of. A similar breakdown for the Dems is on its way!
Okay, now you go.
Posted in Republicans, 2008, Presidential, Campaigns | 2 Comments »
July 26, 2007 by Alpha.
Last Monday, something interesting happened. Real people got to ask questions of the Democratic Presidential candidates. While the sheer volume of candidate makes a proper debate a practical impossibility, Anderson Cooper did a relatively good job pointing the questions at candidates whose answers would prove interesting.
The big one, for me, wasn’t that important until I started seeing the direction the public response was taking. Here’s the short version of the most popular narrative: Obama’s naive, Hillary’s commanding, and Edwards is the guy we all wish were leading the pack. I want to challenge that narrative, but first, the details.
QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat (then-President of Egypt) traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
COOPER: ….Senator Obama?
OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq — one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.
They have been acting irresponsibly up until this point. But if we tell them that we are not going to be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that they are going to have to carry some weight, in terms of stabilizing the region.
COOPER: ….Senator Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.
I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.
And I will pursue very vigorous diplomacy.
And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we’re not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Edwards, would you meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il?
EDWARDS: Yes, and I think actually Senator Clinton’s right though. Before that meeting takes place, we need to do the work, the diplomacy, to make sure that that meeting’s not going to be used for propaganda purposes, will not be used to just beat down the United States of America in the world community.
But I think this is just a piece of a bigger question, which is, what do we actually do? What should the president of the United States do to restore America’s moral leadership in the world. It’s not enough just to lead with bad leaders. In addition to that, the world needs to hear from the president of the United States about who we are, what it is we represent.
COOPER: Time.
EDWARDS: That, in fact, we believe in equality, we believe in diversity, that they are at the heart and soul of what the United States of America is.
Apologies for the massive quote block, but I think the juxtaposition is excellent. The candidates are asked “Will you meet with people who are avowed enemies of the United States?” Obama says: “Yes, because not doing so has been disastrous.” Clinton says: “I’d like to, but I’m not going to let these people screw America over with it.” Edwards says: “Bad diplomacy is a leadership problem, and if we want to regain a position of leadership we have to earn it.”
I want to be absolutely clear about this: Any of these three would represent a massive improvement over the Bush Administration’s “diplomatic” “policy.” However, they represent three different degrees of change.
Clinton’s position is the most Bush-esque on this topic. I appreciate that she is wary of foreign leaders who have a bad track record of playing along with American interests, but she leaves herself an awful lot of room to ease away from actively engaging Kim, Chavez, Castro, et al.
Edwards’ position is the classiest pivot I’ve seen in a while, and positions him squarely between Clinton and Obama. He refuses to commit to anything other than the lofty goals of doing good things. I like Edwards a lot, but I’ve never enjoyed him in a wonkish way. He hits me more like puppies and kittens and rainbows.
Obama takes the strongest position, and holds it. Unfortunately, since the debate his staff have done an incredible job of making it look like he really meant to say whatever it was that Hillary and John said. It’s a real shame that someone with a strong and principled stand on international relations is scared he’s going to look weak. The right response to all the accusations of naivete, in my book, is to say simply “Of course I’m not going to let Kim Jung-Il walk out of here with the keys to Air Force One. Come on. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to say no when one of the most anti-American leaders in the world asks for a sit-down.”
Anyone who’s taken a basic introduction to International Relations will recall a little thought experiment called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. I urge to to familiarize yourself with this Wikipedia page, or the rest of this might sail over your head. The conclusion is this: in any indefinitely repeating, iterated two-player game absent reliable communication, both players will seek to maximize self-interest over seeking to maximize the interest of the group. With high frequency, players will go so far as to “shoot themselves in the foot in order to stab another player in the back,” as my Intro IR professor put it.
The key to any Prisoner’s Dilemma situation is that players have little or no idea how any other player will behave, and they are unable to collude or cooperate actively. As a result, each player develops the defensive assumption that the other will betray him, and they simultaneously prove one another correct.
I love peace. And if we want to make it, keep it, and share it, we must be willing to talk to anyone. We must especially talk to those who would destroy us if they could. Peace can only be found through dialogue and through the intertwining of common interests.
Comments, as always, are encouraged.
Posted in 2008, Presidential, Rants, Campaigns | 1 Comment »
July 22, 2007 by Alpha.
CNN reports that Sen. John McCain (R-Crazyland) had this to say: “I’m not going to talk about my campaign anymore. I’m finished with talking about it. I’ve talked about it for two weeks. I will not discuss it or any aspect of it. Thank you.”
It is possible that War Candidate McCain is simply tired. Pulling all-nighters will have that effect on a man his age. But let’s face the facts: McCain’s campaign is coming apart. His staff are fleeing, his fundraising sucks, and now, finally, he has done the one thing no candidate can ever do–he’s told the media he doesn’t want to talk to them.
The last man to be elected President without mounting a campaign was Abraham Lincoln. Mr. McCain, you are no Abraham Lincoln, and if you don’t have something incredible to report in the next month, we will simply stop talking about you. And you, sir, will lose.
Posted in 2008, Presidential, Rants | 1 Comment »
July 4, 2007 by Alpha.
Dear President Bush,
I have tried, I really have, to give you the benefit of the doubt. I started trying when evidence surfaced in 2000 that your aide, Mr. Rove, had run some remarkably offensive push-polls indicating that Senator McCain might have had some scandalous interracial dalliances.
But today, sir, I am truly glad that I never doubted you. I never, not for one delirious moment, doubted that you were exactly the scum-sucking would-be tyrant you have shown yourself to be.
The true shame of what you have done may, if you are very lucky, die with me and my generation. This is unlikely. Your many misdeeds have been so brazen and heinous and cowardly that you are most likely to go down in history as the most shamefully wanting “leader” that this nation has ever had. I sincerely hope that you wear that mantle for many, many years.
Now, just before America’s birthday, you have shamed her again.
You swore to the American people that whoever was responsible for the public release of Valerie Plame’s identity would see hard justice done to them. That you took that disclosure as a serious crime, worthy of severe penalties.
Now that a man has been found guilty in precisely that treason, you find that time in prison, any time in prison at all, is simply too cruel, to inhumane to lay on his head.
Sir, Mr. Libby is guilty. He lied while under oath and he lied to the FBI, obstructing an investigation that would very likely have buried Vice-President Cheney, another whose notoriety will hopefully serve as a lesson to future generations.
What is the pursuit of justice worth, Sir? You once claimed that we would find justice in Iraq. Surely, if the ugly shadow of justice that breathes in Baghdad is worth the lives of a few hundred thousand men women and children, then some real justice in Washington, D.C. must be worth a guilty man at least visiting a prison cell.
But no. Mr. Libby has been isolated, he has been terrorized, and he must now be rewarded for his loyalty. Of course, he can’t be pardoned, because then he could not claim his Fifth Amendment right to refuse self-incrimination.
Sir, I am truly disgusted.
My disgust notwithstanding, I try to be a benevolent man. In that spirit I will offer to you some guidance.
First, you must accept that the deception has failed. You have turned back into a pumpkin, and the wheels have fallen off of your Presidency. I know that you crave respect. What man does not? But you can no longer manufacture or demand that respect. If you want any more respect, you will have to earn it.
I urge you, I ask you, I beg you to tell the people of the world the truth. The real truth. No matter how ugly. Tell us who was responsible for what happened in 2000 and 2004. Tell us who was on that Energy Policy task force back in 2001. Tell us who gave you the forged documents that you used to propel the United States into Iraq. Tell us why. Tell us where the bodies are buried and show us the skeletons in your closet.
Sir, enough lies. Perhaps truth will change your legacy.
You concluded your statement on the occasion of the commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence thusly: “The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby’s case is an appropriate exercise of this power.”
This gets at the crux of your dysfunction as an American President. You have repeatedly pursued those uses of your power which are “appropriate,” or “justified.” This standard is unacceptably low. You are not just the “Commander Guy.” You are the most powerful man in America, and you are responsible for her health. I know that responsibility has never been your strong suit, but the time has come when you have only two options.
You must either spend the rest of your Presidency taking responsibility for your past actions and working to exemplify the kind of stewardship that this nation so badly needs after six years of your lies and manipulation, or you must simply go down in history as an excellent example of the excesses of power.
The choice is yours, sir.
Alpha
Posted in Presidential, National, Rants, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
June 26, 2007 by Alpha.
Whereas the Republican Presidential nomination is developing into something approaching a cohesive narrative (Giuliani and McCain collapsing, Fred Thompson fizzling, and Mitt Romney picking up the proverbial spare) the Democratic picture remains murky. Here are the national polling numbers:
Six Months Ago/Today
Clinton: 35% / 34.4%
Obama: 18% / 22.6%
Edwards: 12% / 12.4%
(Gore): 12.5% / 15.9%
Hillary Clinton has a huge cash-on-hand advantage, that should serve her well as February 5th approaches. Her fundraising numbers for Q2 are rumored to be low, but my gut tells me her campaign is sandbagging. Her campaign has, however, started showing signs of “fruntrunnerosis,” from the quirky selection and announcement of her “campaign theme” to the downright strangeness of the Clinton webteam’s own Drudge-style newsfeed. And although she leads decisively in national polls and holds leads in New Hampshire, Nevada and Florida, she’s lost traction in South Carolina and Iowa. If her national ad machine can’t make Super Duper Tuesday a big victory, Hillary might face big troubles.
The biggest present threat to Clinton comes from Barack Obama, who shows a recent but sizeable lead in South Carolina and who beat Clinton’s mark for primary-funding in Q1. He is hugely popular with younger voters, and has the netroots support to drive that crowd to the polls. The big questions hanging over Obama now are ones that only he can put to rest: Is America ready for a President with a black dad? Is Obama ready for the White House?
John Edwards, though locked in third for the last several months, is still sitting on more than enough cash to mount an effective advertising blitz going into February. He has an excellent staff and he enjoys a significant lead in grassroots organizing in many states, particularly Iowa, where he leads in polling. Edwards certainly has everything he needs at this point to be a contender, but if he wins it will be a thrilling race.
And then there’s the rest of the pack. These five candidates are all strong(ish) but are more marked by question marks than by exclamation points. Will Joe Biden let Sam Brownback steal his Three-State Solution for Iraq? Will Chris Dodd impress, well, anyone? How did Dennis Kucinich land his wife? Is Mike Gravel older than Bob Dole? What’s Bill Richardson’s strategy for dealing with the fact that he is hispanic in the middle of a truly ugly immigration debate? Finally, just how long is Al Gore going to continue getting asked if he’s running? If he’s said it once, he’s said it a thousand times: “Well, not right now, no.”
I strongly doubt that, with the amounts of money being raised by the top three candidates, any of the second-tier fellows will make it through the end of the year. That said, a certain Arkansas governor made quite a splash in 1992, have been ranked as low as 13th in primary polling. Who the heck knows what will happen?
Edwards has raised enough to keep up the fight till the end, no matter how bitter. But realistically, his numbers can’t compare to the $20M+ Clinton and Obama have raised, especially given the frontloading of next year’s primaries. The Obama/Clinton fight is going to be an ugly one: Clinton’s certitude against Obama’s optimism; Clinton’s cold calculation against Obama’s apparent improvisation; Clinton’s triangulation against Obama’s guesstimation; Clinton’s ineptitude against Obama’s inexperience.
Then there’s the elephant in the room. A woman? Competing against a man? Who is only half white? This is madness. You’d think that the Democratic party had turned into some kind of heathen land, where people who weren’t white men could, maybe, just maybe, have a shot at the Presidency.
In all seriousness, we have to ask ourselves which prejudice is more entrenched, and getting liberals to freely discuss a quantitative or even qualitative comparison of racism and sexism isn’t my job. If it were, I’d demand a big raise.
I’ll cut right to it: Hillary has a lead among women, but she trails among men. Obama looks good among African-American voters, but that difference is smaller. Is it possible that women like a woman who frequently gets called masculine more than blacks like a man who is… mulatto? I think so, unfortunately.
During the 2000 election, a friend asked me who I thought the United States would elect first: a black man or a white woman. As I said then, I say now that sexism runs deeper than racism. The big problem with that is that Barack Obama apparently isn’t qite black enough. The mulatto problem, one which has been close to my heart for some time, won’t be solved by Barack Obama’s candidacy.
Barring a significant mistake by the Clinton campaign, or an unprecedented act of sheer genius by the Obama camp, I’m picking Hillary Clinton to face off against Mitt “the Glove” Romney next year.
Posted in Elections, Presidential, National, Campaigns | 6 Comments »
June 14, 2007 by Alpha.
Stuck’s last post mentioned a personal hero of mine: Jim Gilchrist. What a great American! In spite of all of the evidence, both statistical and ethical, that his stance is wrong, he goes right on ahead “defending our borders.” With guns and white supremacists. Who but a giant among men could stand in the face of all things that are good and say “No more! I’ve had it with all these brown people!”
A new poll from the LA Times that has been making the rounds (ah, that ‘new poll’ smell!) shows that 63% of Americans and 65% of Republicans (!) support a path to citizenship including the standard set of hurdles: fines, learning English, and “other requirements.” You know, all that stuff that us natural-born types had to do to be citizens.
The issue of immigration reform hits me close to home. Well, it hits in my home. My mother is foreign-born, but moved to the United States at the age of 16. Earlier this year, after living (legally) in this country for more than 40 consecutive years, she finally got to take her oath as a citizen.
She did it the way you’re supposed to. She got her green card when her family moved to the US and she renewed it as required. In early 2006 she was finally persuaded it was time for her to start speaking her mind, and making her voice count. She wanted to vote.
The processing of her paperwork took some 14 months. The various fees cost her in excess of $4,000. Her husband, children, in-laws, nieces, nephews, colleagues and friends (mostly) are all American citizens. If that makes me one of those awful “anchor babies” Mr. Limbaugh talks about, then I’m damn proud to be one.
Now maybe my mom isn’t a fair test case. After all, she’s fair-skinned and is a native speaker of English with advanced degrees and a good income and a strong set of professional and personal resources. She’s not a Guatemalan single mother of two who doesn’t speak English well enough to get directions to a bus stop. Does that mean that my mom is worth more to America than our fictional Guatemalan family? For that matter, why aren’t we asking which of these two women value America more?
Simply put, it is because this debate isn’t about the preservation of the inherent value of American citizenship, as Rep. Tancredo would have us think. It’s about the preservation of the inherent value of people.
63% support Bush’s plan. 63% support a plan that requires people to pay an unspecified fine to clear their illegal status, return to their countries of origin, learn to speak English, then come back to the US and get in the back of the citizenship line, all for the privilege of paying thousands of dollars to become an American.
How many currently illegal immigrants have legal access to that kind of money? We’re talking about at least $4,000 per person before the fines and costs of returning to their native countries. This path to citizenship is a largely impractical carrot at the end of a relativistically long stick.
So what happens in the interim? Mr. Bush’s wonderfully creative Guest Worker Program! Under this program, illegal immigrants would get to apply for a special new kind of work visa. What’s special about it? How about being put to work at a job where getting fired means getting kicked out of the country? How about being required to pay unspecified fines before entering the program?
So where are all of these illegal immigrants going to come up with the kind of money they’ll need to get into either one of these programs? Especially with all of those undoubtedly hefty unspecified fines running around! They won’t. These folks are mostly working for little more than subsistence, and I anticipate that most of them won’t be able to raise the funds they would need to “go legit.”
So what happens when you offer 12 million undocumented workers access to programs they can’t afford to get into? Nothing. Nothing changes. Whether or not a deal can be struck to pass this so-called “immigration reform” we’re still going to have 12 million undocumented workers.
But if immigration reform really does blow your skirt up, I have two ideas. First, a huge number of illegal immigrants are actually paying tax on their income. These taxes go to Social Security and other social welfare programs, which non-citizens do not benefit from. I propose that all of these payments be credited against the cost of entering either one of Mr. Bush’s programs. Not only would doing so eliminate one of the most fundamentally unfair conditions imposed upon the undocumented worker (taxation without representation?!) but it might also drive up the number of people seeking legal status.
Second, and this one seems like a no-brainer, enforce the law as it stands concerning the employment of persons lacking legal authorization to be employed. Specifically, reinstitute the IRS worker status verification system, which simply looked at how many hours a week a given Social Security Number was taxed for and flagged anomalous ones. “574-10-2405 was taxed for 200 hours of work last week? Better talk to the employers.” Then, fine the shoes off of anyone who knowingly employs someone without status.
Alright, folks. I must have made someone out there in Blogistan angry. Let’s hear it.
Posted in Washington, Rural, Presidential, National, Rants | 1 Comment »
June 12, 2007 by Alpha.
Uncle Sam (Reed) has elected to put Washington’s official primary right there on the verge of relevance. February 19th, 2008 will be Washington’s big day. Of course, the whole story’s a little more complicated…
The party caucuses will begin on the 8th of February, just after Super-Duper Tuesday, putting Washington in line to be about the 25th state to allocate its delegates to the nominating conventions.
But wait! There’s more! The parties have decided, finally, to have it their own ways in the nominating process. The Republicans will allocate their delegates based in part on their caucuses and in part on the results of the primary vote itself. It sounds like the two results will be weighted, 19 delegates from the primary, 22 from the caucuses, and 3 “automatic” delegates, members of the state and national committees.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are putting everything behind the caucuses: The primary vote will count for precisely nothing, with all delegates being selected by caucus, just like in the good old days.
Now, I’m going to take what I like to think of as the high ground on this issue. You might disagree with me. The editorial board of the Longview Daily News sure seems to. Their editorial (reprinted by the Spokesman-Review here) blasts the Washington State Democrats as, har, undemocratic for denying Washingtonians “this opportunity to voice their preference, even if most party leaders don’t want to hear it.”
That kind of Republican water-carrying is all well and good in Longview (although Cowlitz county went to Cantwell 56-40 in 2006), but it simply won’t do here. Their argument is that it’s better for the people to vote on things. I’m sympathetic to this position. In fact, I almost always agree with it.
In Washington we’ve had a lot of conversations over the years about how primaries work, and how they should work. Here’s the sticking point for me: the people should choose who wins the various offices of state, but who the parties nominate is exclusively the business of the party. If you don’t like the way your party’s working or who they’re nominating, then get in there and do something about it.
My ultimate preference would be a shift toward a single transferrable vote (STV) system. The mechanics of STV systems are tricky, but the gist is this: it totally eliminates spoiler candidates and ensures that whoever wins is actually the most-desired candidate. STV could be used in primary elections, general elections or both, any of which would be a big step forward for both third party candidates and democracy. If you’re curious, there’s a wonderful Wikipedia article that goes into depth on the topic. The next-best thing: long, drawn-out, exhausting, totally partisan caucuses.
I like caucuses because they are purely partisan events. People actually talk about the relative merits of the candidates and then vote on who the group supports. This is progressive politics, grassroots politics, at its very best. The argument that the Daily News editorial board floats seems to suggest that having more people making a decision is better, regardless of the mechanism of deciding. I’ve always thought that how we get to a decision is pretty important.
Agree or disagree in the comments.
Posted in Elections, Washington, Presidential | 1 Comment »
