Patriot Third Party

 

As my kids know and others can attest, I have for at least 40 years referred to myself politically as a “Radical Moderate”.  I include the adjective “radical” to differentiate from many people’s conception of “Moderates” as indecisive, shallow thinkers who aren’t interested enough to find out what’s going on and make decisive choices.  I could just as easily call myself a “conservative” Democrat, but that would be just as misunderstood. There are certain moral issues about which I have definite private opinions, but which I believe should not be addressed through legislation and governmental action. I will skip for now a lengthy discussion of examples on both sides.  But I do offer this introductory paragraph as a prelude to my thoughts on current politics.

Many people across the political spectrum decry the efficiency of America’s de facto two-party system as it seems to be straining in 2020-2021. This leads them to call for the emergence of a third party to solve whatever they believe are the failures of the status quo. The latest efforts have been public musings by Donald Trump himself suggesting he might form a “Patriot Party”. One assumes he means by this he would take with him all the “true Republicans” who were not RINOs.  The obvious observation is that this would be the opposite of expanding his base and would, therefore, fail.   Not only would the Patriot Party be a fringe party, the Republican Party they left behind would be more akin to the Republicans of the 50s and 60s in terms of size and strength.

As a Democrat I could navigate through those waters. But as a moderate I’d still strive for a more perfect party. That is to say, I do think a third party could succeed and even improve the American political landscape if it was positioned as a mainstream moderate party. A good 30%  or more moderate or conservative Democrats might have more in common with moderate Republicans than with the fringe leftists in their party. A Republican Party freed of its “Patriot” element might be open-minded enough to forge an alliance with enough moderate Democrats to produce a center party strong enough to win elections.

I doubt this will occur, though.  The gaps in the parties’ approaches to economic justice and civil rights issues will take more time before sufficient common ground is achievable.  Even the moderate wings of their parties. But one can dream.

Trump tax returns

Random thoughts on Donald Trump. The Congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media:

Who prior to 2017 could have imagined a scenario in which any politician, much less the President of the United States, would feel compelled or emboldened to declare on national that he was a “stable genius”?

Since some time in 2015 or 2016 Donald Trump has claimed that he couldn’t or wouldn’t release his federal income tax returns apparently for any year because he was in an ongoing status of being “under audit”. Never mind that there is apparently no law, no legal justification for this claim. Nowhere does anything assert that being under audit represents a valid justification for wrapping his data in a cloke of secrecy. A few tepid justifications have been offered by him and his lawyers and supporters claiming that the great unwashed public would simply not be equipped to understand his returns without jumping to erroneous conclusions. The questions raised by this situation are many. Is EVERY year involved in an unresolved audit? Has IRS not been able to wrap up any of the specific audits? If some specific years have had their audits concluded and closed out, why can’t the returns for those years and the audit findings be revealed? How does the fact that each year an audit is opened relate to prior years? Why doesn’t the media press the president on the public’s right to know what public officials’ finances looks like? How is concealing this in the best interests of the nation?

And this week Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has bought into the administration’s claim that Congress cannot compel release of this information absent a clear “legislative purpose” to Congress’s demand. I do predict this defense will eventually crumble before the third equal branch of the federal government, the Judiciary. But this three years+ of “running out the clock” is at a minimum frustrating. And the claim by Trump and his supporters that the entire question was rendered moot by the 2016 elections is insulting and one that the media and the Congressional Democrats should not let stand unchallenged.

Television Coverage of News Events

Recently on a Sunday morning a friend of a friend woke up, turned on the TV intending to get his daily fix of the “Kavanaugh saga”. But this friend was particular. He wanted to watch it through the lens of those who produce “Meet the Press” on NBC. Sadly he discovered that the morning's NBC shows had all been preempted by the Ryder Cup Finals. So he lamented to my friend or on social media his distress over being denied this week's “Meet the Depressed”.

I know how he felt. Three days earlier I had been denied my regular dose of “Price is Right” because CBS decided to preempt their entire day's programming with the Senate Judiciary Hearing concerning Justice Kavanaugh's suitability for confirmation. I had already decided to wait on the news bunnies' recap of the riviting testimony. So I tried to substitute “Price is Right” with a local news segment on ABC or FOX or even something on public television. No such luck. Every local channel, plus public TV, plus all the cable news channels, including BBC and C-Span had all decided that only they separately and individually could produce the true, “fair and unbalanced” peek into the Senate chambers I needed. So the same hearings were broadcast simultaneously on at least 5 local and 7 national cable channels.

Was this collusion to ensure that if I watched TV Thursday daytime that I would for sure watch Senators Grassley, et al at their “finest”? Did CBS not trust its “Price is Right” viewers to record the Senate proceedings on another channel and dutifully watch it after “Price” ended? I obviously don't understand the thought processes at work here. I understood all three channels covering the Kennedy funeral in 1963. I understood however many (7 or 8?) channels covering the events of 9/11/2001. But from my humble point of view things have gotten out of hand. We shouldn't have to settle for Home Shopping Network in order to find a TV show we want to watch that differs from the topic du jour.

But I triumphed. I clicked around until I landed on the Golf Channel's presentation of the opening round of the Ryder Cup competition.

It did make me chuckle on Sunday, however, to ponder how all the news junkies would have felt if the Ryder Cup Finals had been broadcast on ten or twelve channels simultaneously and deprived them of reactions from the White House.

SCOTUS Senate Confirmation hearings

Since I taught federal government classes at community colleges off for 15 years following a 32 yr career in the federal government, I have studied these issues a little more than the average bear. But I confess to being confused and puzzled. How do we get a Supreme Courts containing liberals like Sotomayor and Kagan along with conservatives of the Thomas and Scalia ilk and still have the gall to pretend the established process is not political? You say, “Nobody pretends that. Everyone knows it's political and how it works.” Everyone? Really? Well somebody needs to whisper that to Mr. Kavanaugh. He is sitting in the witness chair of the Judiciary Committee declaring with a straight face that he will follow the lead of EVERY current sitting justice and render decisions devoid of a shred of political influence. He will take his extensive judicial and governmental experience and background, consider the provisions of the constitution and written law along with the peculiar facts and circumstances of a case before him and he will vote for a decision that is obviously correct and apolitical. His only litmus test other than the constitution will be whether his vote is consistent with the answers he gave the Senate Judiciary in confirmation hearing years before.

The big question or issue that seemingly is never challenged is the notion that there can appropriately be a “liberal” versus a “conservative” solution to a given constitutional issue. Are important laws that poorly written that vastly different interpretations of those laws can be drawn by different jurists? If not, then where have we gone wrong in the way we select judges? Why don't “liberal” justices and “conservatives” reach the same conclusions in comparing the facts of a case with written law and the constitution? Had I understood that conundrum, my years teaching federal government topics might have produced a clearer concept of the place of the Judiciary in a fair American republic.

John McCain

More later after I ruminate on it, but it's striking the differences and similarities of the national observance of the passing of John McCain with the first televised observance of a national leader, John F Kennedy's funeral and observances 55 years ago.

Differences are perhaps more stark. JFK's death was unexpected, even startling. McCain's was long awaited following announcement of its probable inevitability one year earlier. McCain left a retiring hero who had accomplished about all he could be expected to accomplish. JFK was taken early in his Camelot-like first term of his presidency while it was still very unclear how successful he might be and while he was not perceived as particularly bipartisan. McCain was a politician who could straddle the partisan divide like none of his contemporaries.

But there are also similarities. The world wondered how things might have been different if JFK had not been taken when he was. Similarly, many ponder what might have transpired had McCain lasted another year. The nation sat and watched the unfolding events of the funeral and burial and return to “regular order” in the political world in the winter of 1963. Late August of 2018 all network channels and basic cable news stations simultaneously carry the memorial services and funeral for McCain and fill in the time gaps with prognostications of a return to “regular order” in the political world this Fall.

More after Sunday when it's all over.

Voter Turnout

EXCESSIVE ELECTIONS

It is easy to cite voting results that prove Americans take the right to vote too much for granted. We are the oldest democratic form of government in the world and a model for many others across the globe. Yet in the past century we have, as voting eligible peoples, not performed our civic duty very admirably. Closely contested presidential elections have struggled to tally 62% of the potentially available, non-incarcerated adult citizens. And presidential elections garner the best we can do. Congressional midterm elections, statewide gubernatorial elections and local city/county contests struggle to attain a sizable fraction of the presidential vote totals. Many places, however, have initial party primary elections with subsequent runoffs where the initial contest started with more than two candidates. Sometimes local school districts will even stage special elections for bond issues to decide on capital construction questions. Many such local elections have produced results on the basis of as little as 10% to 12% turnout. Who can claim with confidence that decisions made by such paltry representations of the body politic are indeed decisions made as a form of a democratic process?

Yet other than the occasional post-election editorial decrying low turnouts, little is ever done to reverse these trends or to boost turnout in subsequent elections. And, in fact, one major party seems intent on going the other direction, making it even more difficult for turnouts to rise. They push voter ID laws and restrictions on early voting while continuing to seek to produce and maintain legislative maps that gerrymander voter rolls in ways designed to maximize their numbers in spite of relative parity of voters at the macro level. Some in that party are more worried about the potential for undocumented immigrants voting in ways they abhor than they are ensuring that legal citizens vote in sufficient numbers to express a common will.

This being an essay, not a book, I will not offer data validating the generalizations I have made. Such data does exit and could be produced. Instead, my intent here is to suggest several simple changes available that could markedly improve voter turnout at little cost (if not produce a savings to the overall costs of elections).

We need far fewer elections. Send the voters to the polls less often. Presidential and midterm elections every two years in November are sufficient. They can be preceded by single open primaries scheduled at the whim and pleasure of various states, but without runoffs. Instead of separate party primaries, for all offices below that of President, have a totally open primary for a given office with the top two vote getters advancing to the general election in November. This could work for Congress and Senate as well as gubernatorial offices.

I would also take many currently elective offices out of the mix and convert them to appointive positions. This is most easily seen at the local levels. Why should voters elect county clerks, state superintendents of education or insurance, even attorneys general? Do local voters really have any idea who would make the best municipal or district judge? If we elect the mayor and the governor and the state legislators with appropriately representative turnout margins, why can't we trust those elected officials to appoint qualified people who will administer the various departments of government properly? And if they err they can be removed by the elected officials. And if the elected officials fail to act, they can be removed by election.

Oklahoma Gubernatorial Primaries

My muses are conflicted. I am bemused, amused, and confused (a kissing cousin to muses). We lived in Oklahoma for five years, then took a five year break down in Texas. Now we’ve been back in Tulsa five more years. So we’re not “newbies”, but we don’t have the grasp of  state politics that natives do. What flummoxes me currently is gubernatorial politics. The three or four best known and highest spending Republicans seeking their party’s nomination this time around are all claiming that they are solid Conservatives who represent the answer to the current dilemmas the state faces. But it seems to me these dilemmas are the product of a decade of policies enacted by Republican super-majority legislatures and governor. Exactly how will these candidates regimes differ? And where will the one who promises to audit every state agency think he’s going to find the funds for such audits?  They haven’t even ponied up the resources to “fix” public education in the state.  I understand that some believe each state agency has on its organization charts a “Bureau of Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement” and that X-ing out that bureau will unleash hidden millions of dollars to fund all the other annoying purposes of government. Purposes such as teacher raises, road and bridge repair, maintaining healthcare in remote rural areas, and the like. But do these genius candidates really think the required intrepid auditors are going to work for free?

So, I guess I’ll watch the primary season lumber on. Maybe the teachers and civil servants will rise up again as they did earlier this Spring and bring educated debate to the game. Couldn’t hurt.

Presidential election system

There are those who offer defenses of the current system of presidential elections that they believe disclose some kind of deep, pure motivation by the drafters of the Constitution.  And the centerpiece of their disclosure is that those putting together the first workable version of a democratic republic wanted to guard against certain dangers.  The claim is that a truly, pure democratic election needed to be protected from itself.  While people claimed to desire democratically elected leaders, they really only wanted only certain types of truly democratically elected leaders, those who agreed with them.

The earliest cited fears were that the power office of the total nation could be captured by those beholden to “regional factionalism”.  And where would such factionalism arise? It would be in the cities, the urban centers of the more populous states.  The gentlemen farmers like Jefferson and Washington could count. They knew that there were more people, and thus more voters

packed into the crowded neighborhoods of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Richmond than resided on the plantations and farms of Maryland and New Hampshire.  And yet when they studied maps they could see (as do today’s patriots) that our vast nation covered much, much more landmass than the actual acreage that housed those cities of the day.  And this realization produced the initial fear and desire that those city people not be allowed to render judgments which might be different than what the plantation owners knew was best policy for the new land.  Rural people did not want to be dictated to by city folk. 

And the Great Compromise which had shaped the bicameral Congress with the small states having equal representation in the Senate ended up bleeding over into a similar small state advantage (read that “rural” advantage)   for presidential elections. And in the early years the agrarian advantage was even more pronounced since there wasn’t that great a difference between the electoral votes of larger states to the smaller ones. But added together the smaller states totaled quite a few more votes in proportion when the votes counted in the Electoral College.

All of this brings us to contemporary times. Defenders of the status quo electoral system still love to point to the map, color every county that had a Republican plurality red and counties with Democratic pluralities blue and smugly declare that any idiot can see how much red covers the nation. And that seems to fuel their belief and assertion that hordes of voters packed into urban areas like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle did not possess votes as worthy as voters from smaller towns and rural areas. So even though Mr. Trump lost the overall popular vote, those in charge of current rules are quite comfortable allowing Republicans to believe and claim legitimacy since the existing rules declared them the winner.

There is another, separate issue that most citizens and observers simply don’t understand or don’t credit with enough importance.  That is the fact that the Constitution and the Electoral College do NOT require states to employ the “unit rule” whereby states seek to maximize the impact of their votes by assigning all their electoral votes to the winner of the mere plurality in their state.  This allowed all 38 electoral votes available in Texas to go to Republican Trump even though 47.4% of Texas voters picked other candidates. Such an inequity exists for 48 of the nation’s 50 states. On both sides. A more egregious example of the distortion for Trump would be Pennsylvania where a mere 68,000 voters out of 6 million, little over one percent, threw all 20 PA electoral votes to the president elect. And, of course, similar corresponding examples of Democrat Clinton winning a closely contested state could be cited, but this isn’t a lengthy grad school treatise on the topic, merely a lament.  And it is noteworthy that the two states that do allow their electoral vote to be divided (NE and ME) are small and pretty inconsequential, at least in the presidential election arena. 

But this whole side issue merely avoids the bigger point. Elections using the Electoral College, with or without the “unit rule”, are simply undemocratic, pure and simple.  The idea that a person’s vote is devalued for choosing to reside in an urban area is wrong. All votes should be of relatively equal value. Owners of broad swatches of countryside should not have weightier votes than those living in a four story walkup tenement. Newer voters, be they recent immigrants or young people attaining voting age, should not be discounted merely because they happen to live in cities.

This, I believe, is closer to the democratic ideal and understanding that infused the work of our nation’s framers than an approach that denies equal voice to some based on where they live and work.  

I do believe Donald Trump’s assertions that had the rules been different, had he needed to win the popular vote in order to win the presidency, that he would have run a significantly different campaign and might have indeed pulled off a popular vote win. I have no idea why this is true or possible. But I don’t discount it. Had Trump done campaign rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston in addition to where he did rallies, he well might have pulled some disinterested voters his way and eaten into Clinton’s urban advantage.  But regardless, I do wish we simply used the popular vote to settle on our national leader. We deserve to be assured that the winner, the leader for four years indeed has a mandate.

RNC "New King" Christmas Declaration

RNC Exhibits Genius in “New King” Christmas declaration

Whether or not it was calculated, the Republican National Committee produced a Christmas declaration that benefited them at least four ways with little or no down side.  The statement they issued was as follows:

 "Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King.”

For starters,  it does make one wonder why the national committee of the political party that recently won the White House for the first time in eight years chose to issue such a statement.  Is this routine? Do they always acknowledge universally commemorated religious events? Or were there specific causes of this year’s effusion?

Of course, the RNC claims innocent motives and surprise at the reaction on social media, in the mainline media, and among their political opponents. The notion that they issued this statement to draw any kind of comparison of their president-elect to the Son of God gives them several ways to try to profit from the controversy. I would suggest they get to benefit as follows:

1.     For those Americans inclined to make the same connection between Trump and Christ the RNC statement becomes a validation or affirmation.

2.     The RNC is seen as “pro-Christian” if anybody had doubted it.

3.     They get to position themselves as victims of petty, small-minded opponents who appear to protest every Republican utterance.

4.     They get to keep alive the fiction of religious persecution in this country without having to address any legitimate religious issue.  

If this was calculated, it was truly genius. If, as the RNC claims, it was innocent, then their streak of positive, lucky benefits continues unabated.

Newspaper writing for the public

Not sure why, but I feel compelled to criticize the writing of some professional newspaper reporters and writers. This Washington Post article with a tri-person byline concerned Trump’s transition and selection of Whitehouse aids. It included the following sentence. They said:

“As the seriousness of governing subsumes the vitriol of the campaign, a dozen national security experts interviewed said they believed experienced people will resume their roles as apolitical professionals and be willing to join the administration.”

Did whichever writer who penned this sentence actually believe that most of their readers or even ANY of their readers actually talk like this? “The seriousness of the campaign subsumes the vitriol of the campaign . . .”   REALLY?

Rather than trying to impress their colleagues, they should work harder on using plain language that clearly makes their point.

Term Limits

TERM LIMITS

It sounds reassuring and comforting to hear that term limits would be more good than bad. One can believe that limiting terms would allow us to return to a time of “citizen legislators”, people who take a brief sabbatical from their chosen career to contribute to society in guiding how the ship of state should steer its course. Arguments are that this would rid us of power grabbing “career politicians”, possibly “promote new ideas”, and “eliminate corruption”. Nice work if we could get it, but it ain’t that easy. 

Two of those goals are elusive and, in my mind not necessarily fulfilled with a mere return to simpler more honorable times. Term limits will not eliminate all those who wish to grab and hold power, who want to have their way. Nor will term limits eradicate corruption in the public sphere. And thirdly, I don’t deny that the odds are good that new and different people could produce “new ideas”. However, the fact that things like public policy change slowly hasn’t necessarily been due to a lack of new ideas. The vast majority of new ideas just never survive the labyrinth of all the competing goals and wishes of the general body politic.  

But more on “career politicians” and “eliminating corruption”. To say that elected officials quickly or invariably become power hoarders is first of all unfair to so many of them. There are many modest, thoughtful members of the Senate and the House as well as most state legislatures who serve to improve the lives of their constituents, not to build an empire. Yes, there are some who do act as the poster children for the cliché. And most op-ed essays and letters to newspapers spend most of their time describing the exceptional horror stories of those who do game the system. But that doesn’t make it so. I believe we are mostly well served by the true “public servants” who devote their lives to doing good, or trying to.

As for “corruption” by elected officials, there are just too many safeguards and checks and balances for corruption to be as rampant as term limits advocates assert occurs. Yes, the occasional elected office holder is caught accepting a bribe or promoting favoritism within the sphere of their power. But percentagewise, such “corruption” is miniscule. Would we prefer it be zero? Of course! But we also tend not to want to pay for the higher cost of control and prevention. So again, we get what we want to pay for.

But I’m torn. Too many Americans like and want to keep their Senator or Congressman. They also want to term limit yours. They believe the villain is the Speaker of the House or the Senate minority leader. They wonder how the voters in those districts or states keep voting them back in. Wouldn’t term limits solve “the problem”?

There are two strong arguments against term limits. One is that such a restriction would take away the franchise, the choice from voters in the district or state that would, given a chance, returned them to office. It is un-American to restrict my freedom to vote for whom I wish. The other argument addresses institutional continuity. Do we really want to take away the imbedded memory of how and why laws were passed as they were? This would seriously skew the playing field in favor of the lobbyists and Executive Branch bureaucrats who are not term limited. Do Fortune 500 companies term limit their boards of directors? Their top management staff? Mostly no.

I am unaware of any studies addressing what has been the impact on state governments of specific states giving term limits a try. But I have yet to see a report that the voters of any state have stepped up and declared adopting term limits to be the best, wisest decision they ever made.  

The Era of Trump?

I have not felt motivated to blog in over four months. And most prior topics have been event or issue driven. I have mostly eschewed using this venue for political musing. But with no class to absorb my venting this Spring, I thought I'd break tradition and share a few of the voices I entertain in my head.

I can think of scenarios where Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination if not the presidency could end up being something other than a “worst case scenario” (my personal designation as an extinct political moderate).

• Trump has voiced some positions on some issues that are not consistent with the far right drift of his party in recent years. To the extent that his policy thoughts are more moderate, this could produce interesting clashes with a Republican controlled Congress if that is what is elected along with him. For example, what Congress is going to pass Trump's tax reform ideas? Maybe a Democratic Congress, but surely not anything like the current 114^th. And how will Trump enforce his immigration control notions? As I understand them, they will require some international treaties or agreements. They would also require Congressional agreements if not highly contentious executive orders.
• In fact, some of the most extreme Teaparty Republicans might not win their Congressional seats with Trump as the top name on the party ticket. That is to say that the Congress elected along with Trump would possibly differ from a Cruz or Rubio Congress.
• One policy area that could become “worst case scenario”-involves the third branch of government, the judiciary. Who would Trump agree to “hire” onto the Supreme Court? How would the confirmation process go with the next Senate? And what about all the other federal judgeships? Would he throw some bones to Senate Republicans and senior Republican House members? Or would there be Apprentice-like scenarios to select loyal judges?
• And what would the Executive Branch look like under Trump? Would he eschew typical Republican insiders to run State, Defense, Treasury and Justice? If so, who would these “best and brightest” he picked instead be and how would they get confirmed?
• So to the extent that I think of myself an objective outside observer I say, bring it on. Something has to step up and replace Downton Abbey. As a teacher of political processes, it would certainly be interesting to watch and analyze.

Shinseki Falls on Sword

Not a huge surprise that Eric Shinseki took one for the team and tendered his resignation as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Either he knew or he should have known that his minions were not stretching their budgets far enough to satisfy everyone and provide the level of service the American public thinks it has promised our veterans.  What remains to be seen is whether or not some of the heads of VA hospitals in various states also admit they were in on the concealment and inability to cope.

But what I'm waiting for is the mass resignation from Congress of all legislators who repeatedly voted against sufficient resources so that the VA could, in fact, comply with the expectations of the American public and veterans.  Will the lackeys of the Koch brothers publicly admit they fully understood the VA had no chance of providing the levels of care they were demanding with the budgets that were being approved?    Pretty sure I'll have a long, long disappointing wait.

California shootings

The least I can do following the actions by the deranged young man in southern California this week is to repeat my screed once again.  And for those who are counting this is the fifth time I've done this. But I think I missed at least one additional opportunity in the last year or two.


"Multiple deaths similar to the Aurora movie house massacre are the price we pay as a society to underwrite the Second Amendment “rights” for “lawful gun owners.”" This is, sadly, the fourth and likely not the last time that I will use the above statement to begin a posting. I first used it following the Aurora CO moviehouse shooting and then following the Newtown CT school shooting and at least one other lesser but equally sad shooting incident. The only differences this time around are minor. The site of the shooting was a federal installation in Washington DC."

What continues to sadden and befuddle is the fact that by now even the kneejerk pundits and reporters no longer bother to raise the specter of suggesting that our insistence on worshipping the Second Amendment   has anything to do with this excessive string of similar events.  A few people on the tube dare to offer up the same tired rhetoric of whining that surely some lesson can be learned from this so that it will not continue.   But their solutions are always Monday morning quarterbacking type claims that local authorities "should have" identified the shooter as a threat and "done something" about him.

I agree that more resources could and should be devoted to addressing the needs and challenges of the emotionally and/or mentally challenged.  But we say that and then shrug our collective shoulders with the further thought, "What and spend our hard earned money on taxes to help others? Are you kidding?"

So, no.   This event will likely not produce any helpful change designed to prevent a recurrence. I wish it were not so.

Navy Yard Massacre

"Multiple deaths similar to the Aurora movie house massacre are the price we pay as a society to underwrite the Second Amendment “rights” for “lawful gun owners.”" This is, sadly, the fourth and likely not the last time that I will use the above statement to begin a posting. I first used it following the Aurora CO moviehouse shooting and then following the Newtown CT school shooting and at least one other lesser but equally sad shooting incident. The only differences this time around are minor. The site of the shooting was a federal installation in Washington DC. Thus Americans in "flyover" country see it as less relevant. And it occurred only a week after Colorado voters had recalled two state senators who had supported enhanced background checks following the Colorado shooting. So, politicians who see this continued evidence that our lax laws are too lax will be gun-shy (pun intended) to support legislative fixes to our problems. Actually more states passed more helpful control legislation since Aurora and Newtown than I had expected. And not all of it has been subsequently repealed. So maybe there's hope. Maybe the subsequent debate this time around will help strengthen the case for those who wish to reduce, if not eliminate, future similar incidents. But, in general, I return in my mind to the conclusion of Bridge Over the River Kwai when Major Clipton sums up what he observes of the course of events: "MADNESS"!

Where’s the Outrage? One would think that somewhere in this interminable election season that one of the news networks or cable news outlets would spend the time it takes to produce (and the public to consume) one tiny article or editorial on the “Swing State Phenomenon”. But no one has. Perhaps because there is no chance of it being changed in the short term and apparently little evidence that the parties who could change it show any inclination to do so long term. The impacts of the status quo are obvious and given. The major party candidates campaign only in six or eight states where the competition is extremely close. They virtually ignore (except for money raising efforts) the 40+ states that are thought to be safely in one party’s column. The parity that those 40+ states produce is interesting. Two of the three largest states historically favor the Democratic Party & its candidates. When California with its 55 votes and New York with 29 votes are combined they represent over 31% of the total number of votes needed for a candidate to reach the 270 total for election by the Electoral College. This is balanced, of course, by Texas’ 38 votes that have recently been safely Republican. Several dozen small (votewise) states join Texas in being solidly “Red”. This all makes the contest come down to the more competitive, closer races in the “swing” states of Florida and Ohio plus five to seven other states that Obama and Romney both think they could win if everything falls right for them by election day. Most news readers and pundits and most of the country believe that the way it is must be “Constitutionally mandated”. And parts of it are. The Electoral College formally electing the president is, indeed, constitutional. What is not required, however, is that states cast all their Electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote in that state, even if that winning total is only a mere plurality. (Those years where the Green Party or Libertarians or other third parties garner a few votes, some states end up being “won” by a major party candidate who falls short of a majority total.) But the “unit rule” that is employed by 48 states is not required by the constitution. States could decide to cast their Electoral votes proportionally, reflecting a closer approximation to the popular vote their state produced. In a “proportional” world rather than one controlled by the unit rule, California in 2008 might have awarded 40 votes to Obama and 15 to McCain. Conversely, instead of winning all 34 Texas Electoral votes, McCain might have earned 20 to Obama’s 14. When tallied individually by states, the result would still have been an Obama win, but not, perhaps, the “landslide” it appeared to be. Were the “unit rule” to be mothballed one result would be a nationwide presidential election campaign instead of one limited to the swing states. As a voter who has not lived in a swing state perhaps ever, I for one would love to see the candidates attending rallies and campaign events in my state. I would drive two or three hours to see a candidate in person at a stadium rally. But alas, the only candidate I’ve ever seen live was Hubert Humphrey in 1968. (Oh, I did see Obama live in Feb. 2008 prior to his losing the TX primary to Hillary Clinton.) But this year, since the 2012 nominating conventions I don’t believe voters in any of the nation’s eight or ten largest cities have seen either candidate live and in person. Their VP mates or surrogates may have campaigned at fund raising events, but no presidential candidates. Why? No real need. But if a candidate stood to win as many Electoral Votes in a losing effort in Texas as he can in Iowa or Colorado, he well might reallocate his resources more evenly across the country. I understand why states and the major parties prefer the “winner take all” effect of the status quo. A true nationwide campaign would become infinitely more challenging. But it would be infinitely more democratic and fair. And I assume this one change would produce a huge jump in voter turnout nationwide. Of course, this is one reason Republicans likely will never give it a reasonable chance. By the way, were you aware that Maine and Nebraska do not use the unit rule. They allocate Electoral College votes by House Congressional Districts (with the popular vote winner statewide also getting the two votes representing the Senators in their state). Nebraska has used this for only one presidential election, and Maine several more. It has resulted in Maine still allocating all its Electoral votes to the popular vote winner. In 2008 Nebraska cast one vote for Obama and the rest for McCain. Maybe in 2016 I’ll attend a presidential candidate rally. Bet I’ll need to plan to visit a distant cousin in Ohio, though.

Armageddon by Leon Uris

I just finished reading Leon Uris’s 1964 work, Armageddon. It described post-WWII Germany, the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan. It makes me believe that the type sacrifice and clear headed statesmanship that allowed the Air Lift and the Marshall Plan to succeed would likely not be possible today. There is no way the two major American political parties could agree cooperatively to pay the costs, seek the solutions to our challenges the way Americans did (and British and French) in 1946-48.

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

I must be missing something, maybe several somethings. Why do so many of my peers & friends detest and oppose the Affordable Care Act? Many people who are either Medicare eligible or federal retirees or both have, if they will admit it, benefited from aspects of “socialized medicine” for significant portions of their professional lives. Yet they now lambast the decisions taken by the country in 2009 and subsequently to extend the availabililty of medical care to large portions of the populace. Why? I do regretfully understand the position taken by some in the 20s – 30s age groups who prefer to roll the dice on their current state of good health and avoid the cost of insuring that it continues. That is and should be their “right”, perhaps. Except that the whole concept of insurance has always been that resources are produced by large portions of a population for concentrated use by isolated individuals when unplanned needs arose. And while a person may choose to go without automobile insurance coverages that address replacement or repair of their car if damaged, they cannot likewise decline liability coverages for dealing with what happens if their wreck damages someone else’s car and injures others. In this vein, I could agree with the libertarians that people should be free to pay or not pay for health insurance. If . . . and only if the hospitals and “the people” were free to decline to treat the uninsured. I also am totally missing the argument in the news the last few days that the ACA represents such a huge “tax”. Which specific taxes are set to rise?? And by how much? The “penalty” or “tax” for those who opt out of the “mandatory” coverage would affect a fairly small segment of the population. But what other taxes besides that will be exploding?

Analogies to describe Republican schemes

For various reasons I have taken most of this past semester off from Blogging. I'm not positive I want to dive back into the deep end of the pool. But we'll dabble a little during this "downtime" and see how it goes.
I've been puzzled by the way the media and the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have avoided challenging Republicans on some rather outlandish demands they have made every since they retook the House of Representatives a year ago and retain their stranglehold on the Senate by using Senate rules to insist on super majorities in that chamber. It got me thinking if I could find analogies that would highlight this in different ways. Here's the first effort.
1. Analogy: for those who signed onto Grover Norquist’s “Pledge”.
It’s like the Republican football team takes the field and at the coin toss declares to the referees (media?) that they will only play if everyone agrees that their end of the field, from the 30 yr. line, through the “Red Zone” and their goal line and end zone are all off-limits. They wish to play only from the 30 yr. line to the other end of the field. On any occasion where play penetrates their imaginary new goal, even though it’s not the actual goalline, they will leave the playing field (mostly by invoking Senate filibusters and “super-majority” requirements) until the situation is rectified.
What’s incredible is that the opposing team (Democrats) would agree to continue playing, to give in to these demands.

Geographic Cure?

At the conclusion of this unending burning summer, I'm tempted to consider relocating to the Pacific Northwest. Such a move would solve Global Warming's impact on us, plus put some distance between us and Rick Perry. Where's the down side in this?