Omy, another necessary digression before we get to strategy. On Sunday (Feb 24) Ralph Nader announced his run for president…again. My first reaction was ‘That freakin’ @$$#0!=’ but I don’t think I said “freakin.’” Then I did a little research, and realized that in 2000 he received 2.7% of the popular vote, and may indeed have caused Florida to go to dubya rather than to Gore (though I still can’t shake my own conviction that Brother Jeb had at least as much to do with that result). Okay, any voter can make a mistake once, and by 2004 most of his 2000 supporters realized that, contrary to what Nader had been saying, there IS a difference between the two parties. Hence, in 2004, Nader got 0.3% of the popular vote, and was not a factor. That’s LESS THAN ONE-HALF OF ONE PERCENT of the vote. This year, I believe, he won’t qualify for federal funding. I believe the American people, fooled once but not a second time, will dismiss his candidacy and he will, again, be a non-factor. Is he selfish, self-centered, arrogant, an egotist, and all those other negative things? Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s just lost his mind and doesn’t realize that he is at least in part responsible (from his run in 2000 that may have contributed to dubya’s becoming president) for the deaths of more than 4,000 American and Coalition service-men and -women, and countless tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Or maybe he did realize it, and that caused him to lose his mind.
An alternative view is that Nader isn’t senile, and that he is trying to influence the Democratic platform come August, in what he hopes will be the Democrats’ attempt to get him out of the race by adopting his views on the various issues. That would make sense, except that the Democrats already share many of his views. Further, he needs to remember that the Democratic Senate and House the last year-plus were not veto-proof, and so they had to accommodate dubya to some extent if ANYthing were to get accomplished.
In either case, Nader’s not going to make it to the finish line this year. Remember: you saw it here first. If I’m wrong…you don’t remember where you saw it.
And now, what this post was supposed to be about, BR (Before Ralph):
In one area in particular my first strategy—picking a vice presidential candidate who will balance the ticket by being a centrist from a red state that he can move to the blue—may not work out as I hope, despite the strong potential VP candidates for the Democratic party. Clearly, Ted Strickland, Jim Webb, Bill Nelson, Sherrod Brown, Bill Richardson, and possibly others, could provide a great advantage in the national election. Strickland, Nelson and Brown in particular could potentially bring a large number of electoral votes into the Democratic column if they helped to carry their home states. Any of these potential VP candidates for the Democrats will provide more talent than anyone I can think of as a VP candidate for the Republicans.
But the Republicans have the advantage in scheduling. The Democrats are convening in Denver to nominate their presidential and vice-presidential candidates from August 25 to 28, and the Republicans have scheduled their convention in the twin cities of Minneapolist/St. Paul immediately after, from September 1 to 4.
In post #8, I indicated that Minnesota, while nominally a blue state, is pretty closely contested between the Democrats and the Republicans. I don’t know if holding their convention there will actually help the Republicans. I am surprised, however, they’re holding it on the Labor Day weekend. Of course, the nominations and acceptance speeches will take place after Labor Day, so they may not lose much audience.
And maybe the Republicans don’t want a large audience for the discussion of their national platform, which will likely be strongly right-wing: anti-Choice, pro-Finish-the-Job-in-Iraq, and an echoing call to balance the budget (echoing since it will be so hollow). Oh, and maybe some form of providing vouchers, chits, or some other means of allowing people to send their children to private sectarian schools without having to pay much or anything. dubya sneaked this last item into his State of the Union speech last month (seriously!), somewhere between "Chocolate-for-Everyone" and "Tax-Breaks-for-the-Rich-Trickle-Down-to-Soak-the-rest-of-You-Slobs" (okay, so I made up those last two; but dubya would have put them in had he thought of them).
With their convention coming after the Democrats meet, the Republicans have a strategic advantage. If, for example, the Democrats were to nominate Senator Bill Nelson of Florida for VP—both because he’s qualified AND because he may bring Florida into the Democratic column in November—the Republicans could counter by nominating Charlie Crist, the 52 year old governor of Florida, or Mel Martinez, the other senator from Florida. Martinez, elected in November 2005, is much newer to the national scene than is Senator Nelson, and is much less qualified, but he is Hispanic, and he might make major inroads in the Hispanic vote nationally. A Martinez VP nomination could help swing Florida and other states with large Hispanic populations into the Republican camp. Let’s remember that Hispanics are now the largest minority in the country. That could be a lot of votes going red instead of blue in November. And please let’s not claim there’s no such thing as block voting, not when something like 70% to 80% of the African Americans voting in the later Democratic primaries were voting for BO. I have no problem with that size vote, but that looks pretty darn block size to me. Of course, in my view there's a significant difference in qualifications between Obama and Martinez, since I'm far more partial to the former as a candidate than I am to the latter.
Another possibility, with the Republican convention already in the Twin Cities, is that Senator McCain could choose Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, in order to make inroads into what had been a blue state (though weakly so) for the Democrats. I’m sure there are other possibilities for the Republicans, but frankly…I don’t care.
If his advisors are thinking ahead, John McCain will not announce his VP candidate until just before or early in the Republican convention; that is, AFTER the Democratic convention. That way, the Republicans can see whom the Democrats nominate for VP, and then adjust their own choice accordingly.
Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Next time: Strategies Two and Three
triton
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
#9 The Senators, Part 2: Indiana, Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Ohio.
But first, a Timely Digression/Regression.
On February 17, in post #7 I talked about the Democratic governors who might be considered as VP candidates to run with Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti discusses six Democratic governors (published on Saturday, Feb. 23).
---------- ---------- ----------
[quoting from Sidoti's article:]
1. Janet Napolitano, Arizona. Age 50, she has proven that she can attract independents and crossover Republicans. In any other year, she could help Democrats capitalize on a changing Southwest. This year that would be tough; McCain is an Arizona senator. But she backed Obama and he might find it advantageous to choose a woman if he wins the nomination.
2. Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas. She knows how to win — twice — in a state that's solidly Republican in presidential elections, which could help the Democratic nominee expand the playing field. Age 59, she has a moderate image and is politically savvy. She's another woman who backed Obama and campaigned for him.
3. Bill Richardson, New Mexico. He ran for president this year but dropped out after poor showings in a celebrity-packed field. A Hispanic who is 60, he appeals to an up-for-grabs constituency in a politically shifting region. He has foreign policy experience.
4. Ted Strickland, Ohio. A big-time Clinton backer, he probably would only be considered for the slot if she wins the nomination. Strickland, 66, had a generally moderate voting record in Congress, and could help deliver the pivotal state for her.
5. Tim Kaine, Virginia. He's another Democrat who ran as a moderate and proved he can win in a state that leans Republican in presidential elections. Virginia, too, is a potential swing state that he could help turn Democratic. Kaine, 49, backed Obama early.
6. Joe Manchin, West Virginia. This first term governor, 60, is popular in the state, and could help put a state that Bush won twice into the Democratic column. He is known nationally for his legislative efforts following several deadly mine accidents.
---------- ---------- ----------
Sidoti maintains that a governor would make a good running mate because the governor has “management experience” that the senators running as the presidential candidates don’t have. That’s a good point. But not good enough. Members of the cabinet can be managers; presidential advisors can be managers; hell, managers can be managers. Besides, no Vice President is going to “manage” a president. Oh. Wait….
Before I move on to the Senators, Part 2, let me comment why I think that four of Sidoti’s ‘nominees’ probably wouldn’t work out for the Democrats.
Napolitano and Sebelius because they’re women, and the Democrats will have either a minority or a woman at the head of the ticket. Somewhere in there they need a white male. Too bluntly stated on my part? Sure. But let’s be honest about what we're probably asking the American voting public to accept: either an African American or a female to be president, when we’ve never had either nominated at the head of a major party ticket? Add a female in the VP slot (or, if HRC gets the presidential nomination, two females on the ticket)? I don't think so. I’m hoping, Hoping, HOPING that our country is ready for an African American or a female to be our president; I’m not willing to push the envelope all the way to the edge. If we do, John McCain will be the next president. He may be, anyway, but let’s at least have a fighting chance.
Richardson and Strickland were on my post #7 lists. Richardson is eminently qualified but would bring only five electoral votes with him. Strickland might help carry Ohio, as might the state’s Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown (see below in the main body of this current post); neither would provide much geographical diversity but, if either can carry Ohio for the Democrats, who cares?
Neither Tim Kaine (Va) nor Joe Manchin (WVa) made the cut onto my VP list, not through any failings of their own, but because I had other, in my view stronger, possibilities. If we’re going to make a play for Virginia’s thirteen electoral votes, I think Sen. James Webb (see below) would make a stronger candidate; and West Virginia (like New Mexico) has only five electoral votes.
Any one of my five choices below is more likely to bring more electoral votes to the Democratic column in November, than are Kaine and Manchin.
And that’s my goal in this blog: to examine how the Democratic ticket can get 270 electoral votes. It ain’t sexy, but it's practical, and the more I learn about John McCain’s proposed policies, the more I realize a Democratic victory in November is very necessary.
End of digression/regression.
At least four of the following senators (and possibly all five) could provide a major boost to the Democratic ticket in November. Their records in elected office portray them as moderates, centrists, whatever it is in the middle of the political spectrum; and they have shown surprising strength in their political races, even though one of them actually won very narrowly (against an incumbent who put his foot in his mouth, in a state that dubya had won two years earlier, 54% to 46%).
(1) Evan Bayh may be from Indiana, but he’s no(e) Dan(e) Quayle(e). dubya won Indiana very easily--60% to 39%--in 2004. Evan Bayh is former governor of the state, and is the son of Indiana’s former senator, Birch Bayh, a progressive Democrat in the 1960s and ‘70s. Evan Bayh is in his second term as senator, but it’s hard to tell what he has actually accomplished. His website is surprisingly unsubstantial: ‘Senator Bayh has helped with this, and participated in that’ sort of listings. So I might add, “And he’s no Birch Bayh either.” Nonetheless, he’s from a state that would go a long way toward putting a Democrat in the White House if it could go blue in November. And Bayh looks the part of a VP. Too superficial? Of course. And he might not work as VP candidate if Obama becomes the presidential nominee—too geographically close; besides, Bayh has already endorsed Hillary. Nonetheless, I’m having trouble getting past the thought of Indiana’s eleven electoral votes possibly in the Democratic column. Bayh does present a potential logistical problem for the Democrats if he runs for VP and is elected: Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, would appoint a Republican as the replacement senator. So, unless the Democrats pick up additional Senate seats, they could actually lose the slim Senate majority they now enjoy.
Give me a minute; maybe I’ll get past my consideration of Evan Bayh…. Nope, I didn’t. Bayh is a dark horse VP candidate, especially should HRC get the nomination.
(2) As I mentioned in discussing the governors, the Democratic national convention is in Colorado this year, and the governor is a Democrat. So is one of the senators, Ken Salazar, elected in 2004. His political positions are all over the map—strong national defense and homeland security, economic opportunity, agriculture, health care affordability, protecting the environment. In other words, he seems to average out as a centrist. And he might be able to bring some of the Rocky Mountain states into the blue column.
(3) Lordy lordy, but I hate to bring up Florida, given its 2000 debacle. “If you like the way we vote, you should see us drive!” was one of the many jokes that came out of that election. dubya was another, but much less funny. Still, I have to bring Florida to the blog, and with good reason. Senator Bill Nelson describes himself as “a principled family man, a staunch advocate for all Floridians and a moderate voice in the increasingly partisan world of national politics.” His position as a political moderate is reinforced by his being a member of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council
Even before being elected to the Senate in 2000 (and certainly since then), he has worked to prevent oil drilling off Florida’s coast; he has worked to insure that veterans and their spouses get the benefits and health care they deserve; he has worked to provide Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors at a government-negotiated lower cost from the drug companies. His support of veterans and senior citizens are virtuous positions, and he has at least one additional advantage: in January 1986, Bill Nelson spent six days orbiting Earth as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia. So he really can claim to have a global view of what's going on. Literally. He may not be John Glenn, but he’s got a lot of strengths that can help the Democratic ticket. And he would provide a big boost in an important state that could, once again, swing the election.
One potential problem: the governor of Florida is a Republican who, should Nelson become VP, would appoint a Republican senator, possibly eliminating the Democratic majority in the Senate.
(4) This would not be a problem if Jim Webb of Virginia were the VP nominee. Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, is a Democrat (is that POSSIBLE??), and would appoint a Democrat. dubya won the state in 2004 by more than a quarter million votes, and I remember the ultimately joyous near-all-nighter I pulled to watch Webb defeat the self-besieged George Allen in 2006.
Webb has many strong attributes that he could bring to the Democratic ticket in November if he were to be nominated as VP. To some degree, he could counter John McCain. Webb is a Naval Academy graduate; he was first in his class of 243 at the Marine Corps Officers' Basic School in Quantico, Virginia; and he served with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam. Webb received his J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center in 1975, and has extensive experience with Veterans Affairs.
But there’s another side to Jim Webb that I find particularly appealing: he’s literate. He has written eight books, “including six best-selling novels, and has worked extensively as a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood. He taught literature at the Naval Academy…, has traveled worldwide as a journalist, and earned an Emmy Award…for his PBS coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut.” He was an embedded journalist in Afghanistan in 2004; he is an original co-sponsor of bills pertaining to “stronger ethics rules, prescription drug pricing negotiations, the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, stem cell research, energy/global warming, college affordability and rebuilding the military” (quoted from his website).
In other words, he’s a Renaissance Man. I think he would be a tremendous asset to the Democratic ticket.
On the down side, he presented the Democratic response to one of dubya’s speeches last year, and wasn’t energizing. But he was thrust into that artificial situation early in his senatorial career. Senator Webb can be worked with in his speechifying, as President Eisenhower was many years ago when it was obvious that Ike had trouble expressing what were actually pretty intelligent thoughts.
(5) Sherrod Brown was elected to the Senate from Ohio in November 2006, defeating the Republican incumbent 56% to 44%. That is a very impressive win in a state whose citizens, two years earlier, had trouble touching the voter-screen, much less voting intelligently. Seriously, at 55 years old Brown has a long and popular history in Ohio, and could be a great asset to the Democratic ticket. If one looks at his accomplishments in his several elected offices, one would think he’s an Eagle scout. And, actually, he is. If BO heads the ticket, having two candidates from the Midwest would not provide geographical diversity, but Brown looks like a centrist to me, and clearly appeals to “middle America.” If Brown were to become VP, Democratic governor Ted Strickland would appoint a Democrat to replace him, thus protecting the party’s very slim majority in the Senate (even if they don’t gain seats in November).
These last three blog-posts (#7,8,9) contain discussions of possible VP candidates on the Democratic ticket from among current Democratic governors and senators. I invite your ideas and comments. The next post will discuss a potential problem that can arise from the currently scheduled national conventions of both major parties.
triton
On February 17, in post #7 I talked about the Democratic governors who might be considered as VP candidates to run with Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti discusses six Democratic governors (published on Saturday, Feb. 23).
---------- ---------- ----------
[quoting from Sidoti's article:]
1. Janet Napolitano, Arizona. Age 50, she has proven that she can attract independents and crossover Republicans. In any other year, she could help Democrats capitalize on a changing Southwest. This year that would be tough; McCain is an Arizona senator. But she backed Obama and he might find it advantageous to choose a woman if he wins the nomination.
2. Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas. She knows how to win — twice — in a state that's solidly Republican in presidential elections, which could help the Democratic nominee expand the playing field. Age 59, she has a moderate image and is politically savvy. She's another woman who backed Obama and campaigned for him.
3. Bill Richardson, New Mexico. He ran for president this year but dropped out after poor showings in a celebrity-packed field. A Hispanic who is 60, he appeals to an up-for-grabs constituency in a politically shifting region. He has foreign policy experience.
4. Ted Strickland, Ohio. A big-time Clinton backer, he probably would only be considered for the slot if she wins the nomination. Strickland, 66, had a generally moderate voting record in Congress, and could help deliver the pivotal state for her.
5. Tim Kaine, Virginia. He's another Democrat who ran as a moderate and proved he can win in a state that leans Republican in presidential elections. Virginia, too, is a potential swing state that he could help turn Democratic. Kaine, 49, backed Obama early.
6. Joe Manchin, West Virginia. This first term governor, 60, is popular in the state, and could help put a state that Bush won twice into the Democratic column. He is known nationally for his legislative efforts following several deadly mine accidents.
---------- ---------- ----------
Sidoti maintains that a governor would make a good running mate because the governor has “management experience” that the senators running as the presidential candidates don’t have. That’s a good point. But not good enough. Members of the cabinet can be managers; presidential advisors can be managers; hell, managers can be managers. Besides, no Vice President is going to “manage” a president. Oh. Wait….
Before I move on to the Senators, Part 2, let me comment why I think that four of Sidoti’s ‘nominees’ probably wouldn’t work out for the Democrats.
Napolitano and Sebelius because they’re women, and the Democrats will have either a minority or a woman at the head of the ticket. Somewhere in there they need a white male. Too bluntly stated on my part? Sure. But let’s be honest about what we're probably asking the American voting public to accept: either an African American or a female to be president, when we’ve never had either nominated at the head of a major party ticket? Add a female in the VP slot (or, if HRC gets the presidential nomination, two females on the ticket)? I don't think so. I’m hoping, Hoping, HOPING that our country is ready for an African American or a female to be our president; I’m not willing to push the envelope all the way to the edge. If we do, John McCain will be the next president. He may be, anyway, but let’s at least have a fighting chance.
Richardson and Strickland were on my post #7 lists. Richardson is eminently qualified but would bring only five electoral votes with him. Strickland might help carry Ohio, as might the state’s Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown (see below in the main body of this current post); neither would provide much geographical diversity but, if either can carry Ohio for the Democrats, who cares?
Neither Tim Kaine (Va) nor Joe Manchin (WVa) made the cut onto my VP list, not through any failings of their own, but because I had other, in my view stronger, possibilities. If we’re going to make a play for Virginia’s thirteen electoral votes, I think Sen. James Webb (see below) would make a stronger candidate; and West Virginia (like New Mexico) has only five electoral votes.
Any one of my five choices below is more likely to bring more electoral votes to the Democratic column in November, than are Kaine and Manchin.
And that’s my goal in this blog: to examine how the Democratic ticket can get 270 electoral votes. It ain’t sexy, but it's practical, and the more I learn about John McCain’s proposed policies, the more I realize a Democratic victory in November is very necessary.
End of digression/regression.
At least four of the following senators (and possibly all five) could provide a major boost to the Democratic ticket in November. Their records in elected office portray them as moderates, centrists, whatever it is in the middle of the political spectrum; and they have shown surprising strength in their political races, even though one of them actually won very narrowly (against an incumbent who put his foot in his mouth, in a state that dubya had won two years earlier, 54% to 46%).
(1) Evan Bayh may be from Indiana, but he’s no(e) Dan(e) Quayle(e). dubya won Indiana very easily--60% to 39%--in 2004. Evan Bayh is former governor of the state, and is the son of Indiana’s former senator, Birch Bayh, a progressive Democrat in the 1960s and ‘70s. Evan Bayh is in his second term as senator, but it’s hard to tell what he has actually accomplished. His website is surprisingly unsubstantial: ‘Senator Bayh has helped with this, and participated in that’ sort of listings. So I might add, “And he’s no Birch Bayh either.” Nonetheless, he’s from a state that would go a long way toward putting a Democrat in the White House if it could go blue in November. And Bayh looks the part of a VP. Too superficial? Of course. And he might not work as VP candidate if Obama becomes the presidential nominee—too geographically close; besides, Bayh has already endorsed Hillary. Nonetheless, I’m having trouble getting past the thought of Indiana’s eleven electoral votes possibly in the Democratic column. Bayh does present a potential logistical problem for the Democrats if he runs for VP and is elected: Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, would appoint a Republican as the replacement senator. So, unless the Democrats pick up additional Senate seats, they could actually lose the slim Senate majority they now enjoy.
Give me a minute; maybe I’ll get past my consideration of Evan Bayh…. Nope, I didn’t. Bayh is a dark horse VP candidate, especially should HRC get the nomination.
(2) As I mentioned in discussing the governors, the Democratic national convention is in Colorado this year, and the governor is a Democrat. So is one of the senators, Ken Salazar, elected in 2004. His political positions are all over the map—strong national defense and homeland security, economic opportunity, agriculture, health care affordability, protecting the environment. In other words, he seems to average out as a centrist. And he might be able to bring some of the Rocky Mountain states into the blue column.
(3) Lordy lordy, but I hate to bring up Florida, given its 2000 debacle. “If you like the way we vote, you should see us drive!” was one of the many jokes that came out of that election. dubya was another, but much less funny. Still, I have to bring Florida to the blog, and with good reason. Senator Bill Nelson describes himself as “a principled family man, a staunch advocate for all Floridians and a moderate voice in the increasingly partisan world of national politics.” His position as a political moderate is reinforced by his being a member of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council
Even before being elected to the Senate in 2000 (and certainly since then), he has worked to prevent oil drilling off Florida’s coast; he has worked to insure that veterans and their spouses get the benefits and health care they deserve; he has worked to provide Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors at a government-negotiated lower cost from the drug companies. His support of veterans and senior citizens are virtuous positions, and he has at least one additional advantage: in January 1986, Bill Nelson spent six days orbiting Earth as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia. So he really can claim to have a global view of what's going on. Literally. He may not be John Glenn, but he’s got a lot of strengths that can help the Democratic ticket. And he would provide a big boost in an important state that could, once again, swing the election.
One potential problem: the governor of Florida is a Republican who, should Nelson become VP, would appoint a Republican senator, possibly eliminating the Democratic majority in the Senate.
(4) This would not be a problem if Jim Webb of Virginia were the VP nominee. Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, is a Democrat (is that POSSIBLE??), and would appoint a Democrat. dubya won the state in 2004 by more than a quarter million votes, and I remember the ultimately joyous near-all-nighter I pulled to watch Webb defeat the self-besieged George Allen in 2006.
Webb has many strong attributes that he could bring to the Democratic ticket in November if he were to be nominated as VP. To some degree, he could counter John McCain. Webb is a Naval Academy graduate; he was first in his class of 243 at the Marine Corps Officers' Basic School in Quantico, Virginia; and he served with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam. Webb received his J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center in 1975, and has extensive experience with Veterans Affairs.
But there’s another side to Jim Webb that I find particularly appealing: he’s literate. He has written eight books, “including six best-selling novels, and has worked extensively as a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood. He taught literature at the Naval Academy…, has traveled worldwide as a journalist, and earned an Emmy Award…for his PBS coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut.” He was an embedded journalist in Afghanistan in 2004; he is an original co-sponsor of bills pertaining to “stronger ethics rules, prescription drug pricing negotiations, the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, stem cell research, energy/global warming, college affordability and rebuilding the military” (quoted from his website).
In other words, he’s a Renaissance Man. I think he would be a tremendous asset to the Democratic ticket.
On the down side, he presented the Democratic response to one of dubya’s speeches last year, and wasn’t energizing. But he was thrust into that artificial situation early in his senatorial career. Senator Webb can be worked with in his speechifying, as President Eisenhower was many years ago when it was obvious that Ike had trouble expressing what were actually pretty intelligent thoughts.
(5) Sherrod Brown was elected to the Senate from Ohio in November 2006, defeating the Republican incumbent 56% to 44%. That is a very impressive win in a state whose citizens, two years earlier, had trouble touching the voter-screen, much less voting intelligently. Seriously, at 55 years old Brown has a long and popular history in Ohio, and could be a great asset to the Democratic ticket. If one looks at his accomplishments in his several elected offices, one would think he’s an Eagle scout. And, actually, he is. If BO heads the ticket, having two candidates from the Midwest would not provide geographical diversity, but Brown looks like a centrist to me, and clearly appeals to “middle America.” If Brown were to become VP, Democratic governor Ted Strickland would appoint a Democrat to replace him, thus protecting the party’s very slim majority in the Senate (even if they don’t gain seats in November).
These last three blog-posts (#7,8,9) contain discussions of possible VP candidates on the Democratic ticket from among current Democratic governors and senators. I invite your ideas and comments. The next post will discuss a potential problem that can arise from the currently scheduled national conventions of both major parties.
triton
Thursday, February 21, 2008
#8 The Senators, Part 1
In post #5 I talked about the Super Delegates, and how they could contribute to a major split in the Democratic party. It’s beginning to appear that they won’t. Over the past two weeks, several of the SDs previously committed to Senator Clinton have quietly (and in some recent cases not so quietly) shifted to uncommitted or directly to Senator Obama. If this movement continues, Obama could have enough pledged delegates from the primaries, caucuses, and Super Delegates to win the nomination on the first vote at the convention. Some ugly statements or actions may occur while this happens, and after (during?) the convention, but I think the scene won’t be as ugly as it would be if one candidate won most of the primaries and caucuses and the other candidate won the nomination because of Super Delegate support.
A Few of the Senators
Iowa is up for grabs in November’s election. That’s one of the reasons in post #7 that I mentioned Chet Culver, the current Democratic governor. Culver isn’t very well known, but the Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, is. The state’s seven electoral votes went Republican in 2004 by a narrow margin. If he were the VP nominee, Harkin might be able to swing the state to the Democrats this year. To my way of thinking, Harkin is a total good guy: author and chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990; favoring legalized abortion (while supporting education and contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies); supporting embryonic stem cell research; and, my personal favorite, rated “F” by the NRA and the Gun Owners of America.
While he is 68 years old, I don’t see age as a factor. He is still three years younger than the putative Republican nominee for president.
I do see three problems, however, with his being the VP candidate:
(1) in an election focusing on “change” (Obama has been emphasizing this particular discussion, and Clinton has embraced the word), Harkin represents the entrenched insider. Look at the length of his public service, with an excellent record to be sure, but hardly reflecting the idea of change: elected to the House of Representatives in 1974; re-elected in ’76, ’78, ’80, ’82; elected to the Senate in 1984, re-elected in ’90, ’96, and 2002.
(2) his senate term is up this year, and the current smart money is on his running for re-election. If he does run for VP, he will not run for senate, the Democrats could lose that seat and, depending on other senatorial contests, they could lose their majority in the Senate.
(3) OMYGOD is he “liberal.” As VP nominee to either BO or HRC, Harkin would provide no balance on the ticket. In an ideal world that would be wonderful. However, in the real world, the Democrats will need to convince some of the centrists to vote blue. An Obama/Harkin or Clinton/Harkin ticket would just about abandon the center of the political spectrum to John McCain and whichever Irving Pell he selects as his running mate, unless he chooses Mike Huckabee, in which case McCain will have ceded the center.
Although I would love to see Tom Harkin as Vice President, even as President, he isn’t a magician, and thus likely cannot change red into blue on the national level.
--sigh--
Pennsylvania, however much we view it as a blue state, was just barely blue in 2004. Kerry beat dubya by fewer than 145,000 votes out of the nearly six million votes cast. Although Robert Casey Jr is the Democratic senator, and the state has a Democratic governor, I would hope that with either BO or HRC heading the ticket, Pennsylvania would go Democratic without using the VP position to solidify it.
Minnesota is a strange state right now. Hubert Humprey, Walter Mondale, and the late Paul Wellstone notwithstanding, its governor and one senator, Norm Coleman, are Republicans. Amy Klobuchar is the Democratic senator, having taken office in January 2007. And the state went for Kerry pretty narrowly four years ago, by fewer than 100,000 votes. This is not a definite blue state this year, and will need some serious campaigning. But Sen. Klobuchar is not a likely VP candidate.
Next post: five states whose Senators are “lookin’ good, Mr. Kottaire!” (quoted from Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington, from the long-ago TV sitcom, “Welcome Back, Kotter”—this blog is eclectic, if nothing else.)
triton
A Few of the Senators
Iowa is up for grabs in November’s election. That’s one of the reasons in post #7 that I mentioned Chet Culver, the current Democratic governor. Culver isn’t very well known, but the Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, is. The state’s seven electoral votes went Republican in 2004 by a narrow margin. If he were the VP nominee, Harkin might be able to swing the state to the Democrats this year. To my way of thinking, Harkin is a total good guy: author and chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990; favoring legalized abortion (while supporting education and contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies); supporting embryonic stem cell research; and, my personal favorite, rated “F” by the NRA and the Gun Owners of America.
While he is 68 years old, I don’t see age as a factor. He is still three years younger than the putative Republican nominee for president.
I do see three problems, however, with his being the VP candidate:
(1) in an election focusing on “change” (Obama has been emphasizing this particular discussion, and Clinton has embraced the word), Harkin represents the entrenched insider. Look at the length of his public service, with an excellent record to be sure, but hardly reflecting the idea of change: elected to the House of Representatives in 1974; re-elected in ’76, ’78, ’80, ’82; elected to the Senate in 1984, re-elected in ’90, ’96, and 2002.
(2) his senate term is up this year, and the current smart money is on his running for re-election. If he does run for VP, he will not run for senate, the Democrats could lose that seat and, depending on other senatorial contests, they could lose their majority in the Senate.
(3) OMYGOD is he “liberal.” As VP nominee to either BO or HRC, Harkin would provide no balance on the ticket. In an ideal world that would be wonderful. However, in the real world, the Democrats will need to convince some of the centrists to vote blue. An Obama/Harkin or Clinton/Harkin ticket would just about abandon the center of the political spectrum to John McCain and whichever Irving Pell he selects as his running mate, unless he chooses Mike Huckabee, in which case McCain will have ceded the center.
Although I would love to see Tom Harkin as Vice President, even as President, he isn’t a magician, and thus likely cannot change red into blue on the national level.
--sigh--
Pennsylvania, however much we view it as a blue state, was just barely blue in 2004. Kerry beat dubya by fewer than 145,000 votes out of the nearly six million votes cast. Although Robert Casey Jr is the Democratic senator, and the state has a Democratic governor, I would hope that with either BO or HRC heading the ticket, Pennsylvania would go Democratic without using the VP position to solidify it.
Minnesota is a strange state right now. Hubert Humprey, Walter Mondale, and the late Paul Wellstone notwithstanding, its governor and one senator, Norm Coleman, are Republicans. Amy Klobuchar is the Democratic senator, having taken office in January 2007. And the state went for Kerry pretty narrowly four years ago, by fewer than 100,000 votes. This is not a definite blue state this year, and will need some serious campaigning. But Sen. Klobuchar is not a likely VP candidate.
Next post: five states whose Senators are “lookin’ good, Mr. Kottaire!” (quoted from Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington, from the long-ago TV sitcom, “Welcome Back, Kotter”—this blog is eclectic, if nothing else.)
triton
Sunday, February 17, 2008
#7 The Governors
My freshman chemistry instructor years ago was a graduate student who tried to teach us to go with the results of our experiments, and then find a way to validate those results by “making the math come out right.” I never understood how that could work, when the math part was less susceptible to human error than was my spilling the chemical residue out of the test tube before weighing it.
Based on the last two presidential elections, I am not very confident that a large majority of voters will necessarily vote for the candidate who has strong qualifications and the best proposals for dealing with the problems our country faces. In 2000, dubya was in no objective way more qualified than Al Gore (though I suspect that some voters thought dubya had more personality, and voted for him for that reason. Go figure. yeesh.). And by 2004, it should have been clear--God knows it was clear to me, and I’m not that good at reading subtleties--that dubya and his advisors were clueless and, worse, careless about how to create policies that would be good for America and the rest of the world. In other words, somewhere along the line in these last two presidential elections, a whole bunch of voters spilled their chemical residue on the way to weighing it, and never did get the right answer.
Still, I cling to the hope that Reason will prevail, and that American voters, having seen the disastrous results of dubya’s economic, educational, environmental, and foreign policies, will vote to change the direction in which our country has been heading for eight years.
Theoretically, the way to win a presidential election is to have the right candidates and the right policies. Practically, the way to win the election is to get 270 or more electoral votes. That’s the math.
The Democrats need to select a qualified presidential candidate (we happen to have two qualified candidates right now), AND find a way to make the candidate palatable to enough red state voters so that the candidate can win enough electoral votes to be elected. That means, holding on to the blue states and shifting eighteen 2004 red state electoral votes to blue. That’s also the math.
I believe this year that choosing the right Vice Presidential candidate is particularly important in order to ‘make the math come out right.’
Balance, Geographically and Politically: the Governors
Whether BO or HRC is nominated as the presidential candidate, the VP candidate needs to be viewed as more of a moderate, possibly needs to come from a different region of the country, and almost definitely needs to come from a state that was weakly blue (and perhaps can be firmed up) or that went red in 2004 and might be able to shift on the spectrum to blue. It might be helpful if the VP nominee were not also a senator, though I don’t think this is a major issue. In 1992, Clinton and Gore violated most of the precepts I just listed, and they won; but that was Bill’s doing…and the economy’s.
Obviously, given my own oft-stated preference for him in all matters presidential, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, looks like a good VP choice. He certainly has name recognition from serving in the House of Representatives, serving as UN ambassador, serving as Clinton’s Secretary of the Interior, serving now as Governor of NM.
Two problems surface: New Mexico has only five electoral votes, and Richardson—as qualified as he is on paper and in real life—doesn’t excite a crowd, doesn’t ignite a passion among the masses who voted differently four years ago.
From not so deep down in my own mind, another concern arises. In 2000, with Richardson campaigning vigorously and publicly, Gore carried New Mexico by 366 votes. Yes, you’re reading that correctly: Gore and dubya each received 48% of the votes, with Nader picking up the other 4%. During the 2004 campaign, however, Richardson all but disappeared, and dubya carried the state by a little under six thousand votes. I don’t know why Richardson wasn’t more visible in support of Kerry, but he wasn’t. New Mexico would not have made the difference in the election, but I expressed surprise at the time at the lack of more party visibility by the governor.
Despite this last reservation, I can’t rule Richardson out as a possible VP candidate behind either BO or HRC, though a Clinton/Richardson ticket might provoke an unpleasant sense of déjà vu about the other Clinton’s administration. Bill Richardson would make a fine vice president, I agree with many of his policies, and he has had to deal first hand with immigration, which may or may not appear again as a significant issue in this campaign. If the economy continues to be the number one concern in poll results, can concern with immigration’s effect on our economy be far behind?
Besides, as VP, Richardson would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Ask yourself whom you would rather have a heartbeat away—Richardson or Cheney.
Other governors are also possible candidates. Wisconsin narrowly went to Kerry in 2004, a difference of eleven thousand votes out of nearly three million cast. That narrow margin was surprising: Governor Jim Doyle and both senators are Democrats. Thus, it’s a blue state that the Democrats have to hold on to this year. Doyle attended Stanford before graduating from Wisconsin (Madison) and receiving his law degree from Harvard. He was elected governor in November 2002 against a seated governor, by running as a centrist who supported stem-cell research and a woman’s right to choose. He’s not well known outside the region, and his fundamental Wisconsin political positions are more left of center than the Democrats can use as balance on the ticket. Besides, if BO becomes the presidential candidate, the Democrats might do well not to have the VP also from the Midwest.
That would also work against Chet Culver, current governor of Iowa. The difference is that Iowa went narrowly for dubya in 2004 (fewer than sixty thousand votes out of one and a half million), and the Democrats could use its seven electoral votes in the blue column this year. Not enough to swing the election, but it’s a start. Culver, however, is also not well known, but he or Doyle could serve as geographical and gender balance if HRC gets the presidential nomination.
I’d love to see Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, and Jennifer Granholm, governor of Michigan, be considered seriously, but we may be pushing our luck to have a female VP candidate behind either HRC or BO. Besides, two years after Sebelius was elected, Bush won Kansas by twenty-five percentage points(!). Despite her personal popularity in the state, I don’t see Sebelius moving KS over to the blue states this year. Michigan almost seemed touch-and-go on election night four years ago, but then later in the evening moved solidly into Kerry’s camp. I expect Michigan to remain Democratic this fall, so we probably don’t need a Michigander on the ticket to secure the state. Probably.
On the other hand -- Ted Strickland became governor of Ohio a year ago, after some unsuccessful and then successful campaigns for the House of Representatives. In 1992, in fact, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, the NRA, and anti-Choice forces (I refuse to call them “Pro-Life”) campaigned against him, but failed to defeat him. From my point of view, he’s got strong credentials. And we all know how important Ohio’s twenty electoral votes can be in a presidential election. Again, if BO is the presidential nominee, Strickland as a fellow Midwesterner would not help geographical diversity, but if he can carry Ohio for the Democrats….
One more gubernatorial possibility, especially with the Democratic convention there this summer: Colorado has nine electoral votes, and dubya won it four years ago by fewer than 100,000 votes. Bill Ritter was just elected governor in 2006 (taking office in January 2007), and so may be too new to his position to become involved in a national campaign. But he has very strong human services credentials (Alternatives to Violence through Education; United Way; the first Victims Services Network in the U.S.; food distribution as a Catholic missionary in Zambia). If not a figure of national prominence this year, then maybe in four or eight years?
If HRC gets the nomination, any of these governors save perhaps Bill Richardson could serve as the VP nominee. If BO gets the nomination, the Midwestern governors would not provide geographical distribution, which may not be as important as the electoral votes they might bring to the blue side.
As I gathered my thoughts on these VP prospects from among the nation’s Democratic governors, I was actually quite impressed by how qualified several of them are. It bodes well for the Democratic party for future national elections, even if none of these is chosen to run as VP this year.
Next time: The Senators
Based on the last two presidential elections, I am not very confident that a large majority of voters will necessarily vote for the candidate who has strong qualifications and the best proposals for dealing with the problems our country faces. In 2000, dubya was in no objective way more qualified than Al Gore (though I suspect that some voters thought dubya had more personality, and voted for him for that reason. Go figure. yeesh.). And by 2004, it should have been clear--God knows it was clear to me, and I’m not that good at reading subtleties--that dubya and his advisors were clueless and, worse, careless about how to create policies that would be good for America and the rest of the world. In other words, somewhere along the line in these last two presidential elections, a whole bunch of voters spilled their chemical residue on the way to weighing it, and never did get the right answer.
Still, I cling to the hope that Reason will prevail, and that American voters, having seen the disastrous results of dubya’s economic, educational, environmental, and foreign policies, will vote to change the direction in which our country has been heading for eight years.
Theoretically, the way to win a presidential election is to have the right candidates and the right policies. Practically, the way to win the election is to get 270 or more electoral votes. That’s the math.
The Democrats need to select a qualified presidential candidate (we happen to have two qualified candidates right now), AND find a way to make the candidate palatable to enough red state voters so that the candidate can win enough electoral votes to be elected. That means, holding on to the blue states and shifting eighteen 2004 red state electoral votes to blue. That’s also the math.
I believe this year that choosing the right Vice Presidential candidate is particularly important in order to ‘make the math come out right.’
Balance, Geographically and Politically: the Governors
Whether BO or HRC is nominated as the presidential candidate, the VP candidate needs to be viewed as more of a moderate, possibly needs to come from a different region of the country, and almost definitely needs to come from a state that was weakly blue (and perhaps can be firmed up) or that went red in 2004 and might be able to shift on the spectrum to blue. It might be helpful if the VP nominee were not also a senator, though I don’t think this is a major issue. In 1992, Clinton and Gore violated most of the precepts I just listed, and they won; but that was Bill’s doing…and the economy’s.
Obviously, given my own oft-stated preference for him in all matters presidential, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, looks like a good VP choice. He certainly has name recognition from serving in the House of Representatives, serving as UN ambassador, serving as Clinton’s Secretary of the Interior, serving now as Governor of NM.
Two problems surface: New Mexico has only five electoral votes, and Richardson—as qualified as he is on paper and in real life—doesn’t excite a crowd, doesn’t ignite a passion among the masses who voted differently four years ago.
From not so deep down in my own mind, another concern arises. In 2000, with Richardson campaigning vigorously and publicly, Gore carried New Mexico by 366 votes. Yes, you’re reading that correctly: Gore and dubya each received 48% of the votes, with Nader picking up the other 4%. During the 2004 campaign, however, Richardson all but disappeared, and dubya carried the state by a little under six thousand votes. I don’t know why Richardson wasn’t more visible in support of Kerry, but he wasn’t. New Mexico would not have made the difference in the election, but I expressed surprise at the time at the lack of more party visibility by the governor.
Despite this last reservation, I can’t rule Richardson out as a possible VP candidate behind either BO or HRC, though a Clinton/Richardson ticket might provoke an unpleasant sense of déjà vu about the other Clinton’s administration. Bill Richardson would make a fine vice president, I agree with many of his policies, and he has had to deal first hand with immigration, which may or may not appear again as a significant issue in this campaign. If the economy continues to be the number one concern in poll results, can concern with immigration’s effect on our economy be far behind?
Besides, as VP, Richardson would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Ask yourself whom you would rather have a heartbeat away—Richardson or Cheney.
Other governors are also possible candidates. Wisconsin narrowly went to Kerry in 2004, a difference of eleven thousand votes out of nearly three million cast. That narrow margin was surprising: Governor Jim Doyle and both senators are Democrats. Thus, it’s a blue state that the Democrats have to hold on to this year. Doyle attended Stanford before graduating from Wisconsin (Madison) and receiving his law degree from Harvard. He was elected governor in November 2002 against a seated governor, by running as a centrist who supported stem-cell research and a woman’s right to choose. He’s not well known outside the region, and his fundamental Wisconsin political positions are more left of center than the Democrats can use as balance on the ticket. Besides, if BO becomes the presidential candidate, the Democrats might do well not to have the VP also from the Midwest.
That would also work against Chet Culver, current governor of Iowa. The difference is that Iowa went narrowly for dubya in 2004 (fewer than sixty thousand votes out of one and a half million), and the Democrats could use its seven electoral votes in the blue column this year. Not enough to swing the election, but it’s a start. Culver, however, is also not well known, but he or Doyle could serve as geographical and gender balance if HRC gets the presidential nomination.
I’d love to see Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, and Jennifer Granholm, governor of Michigan, be considered seriously, but we may be pushing our luck to have a female VP candidate behind either HRC or BO. Besides, two years after Sebelius was elected, Bush won Kansas by twenty-five percentage points(!). Despite her personal popularity in the state, I don’t see Sebelius moving KS over to the blue states this year. Michigan almost seemed touch-and-go on election night four years ago, but then later in the evening moved solidly into Kerry’s camp. I expect Michigan to remain Democratic this fall, so we probably don’t need a Michigander on the ticket to secure the state. Probably.
On the other hand -- Ted Strickland became governor of Ohio a year ago, after some unsuccessful and then successful campaigns for the House of Representatives. In 1992, in fact, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, the NRA, and anti-Choice forces (I refuse to call them “Pro-Life”) campaigned against him, but failed to defeat him. From my point of view, he’s got strong credentials. And we all know how important Ohio’s twenty electoral votes can be in a presidential election. Again, if BO is the presidential nominee, Strickland as a fellow Midwesterner would not help geographical diversity, but if he can carry Ohio for the Democrats….
One more gubernatorial possibility, especially with the Democratic convention there this summer: Colorado has nine electoral votes, and dubya won it four years ago by fewer than 100,000 votes. Bill Ritter was just elected governor in 2006 (taking office in January 2007), and so may be too new to his position to become involved in a national campaign. But he has very strong human services credentials (Alternatives to Violence through Education; United Way; the first Victims Services Network in the U.S.; food distribution as a Catholic missionary in Zambia). If not a figure of national prominence this year, then maybe in four or eight years?
If HRC gets the nomination, any of these governors save perhaps Bill Richardson could serve as the VP nominee. If BO gets the nomination, the Midwestern governors would not provide geographical distribution, which may not be as important as the electoral votes they might bring to the blue side.
As I gathered my thoughts on these VP prospects from among the nation’s Democratic governors, I was actually quite impressed by how qualified several of them are. It bodes well for the Democratic party for future national elections, even if none of these is chosen to run as VP this year.
Next time: The Senators
Thursday, February 14, 2008
#6 Ironically, I can't think of a catchy title for a post about the significance of choosing the right vice presidential candidate...
…perhaps, because, in the last century the VP candidate has been a kind of afterthought, an attempt to balance the ticket at least geographically and occasionally politically: FDR and Truman, Stevenson and Kefauver, JFK and LBJ, etc. That changed with Clinton/Gore, both southerners, though one was a governor, the other a senator.
This year, the choice for Vice President on the Democratic ticket will be essential for victory in November.
If we assume that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee by the end of the summer, the next question is, How can the Democrats persuade the 20% of the American public that isn’t automatically voting Democratic or Republican to swing to the left?
One way is for the Democrats to find a vice-presidential candidate to provide some political balance, not a far right conservative, but a legitimate centrist, who can (one hopes) prevent the Republicans from seizing the center of the political spectrum, as dubya was allowed to do. There has been nothing centrist about dubya’s policies, but he was allowed in 2000 to appear to be, and to claim to be, “in the middle.” Given the mess he’s made of EVERY aspect of his presidency, “in the muddle” is more appropriate.
The Democratic VP nominee also has to be from, or at least influential in, a narrowly-won blue state, or a red state with a significant electoral college number, or a few smaller red states whose total electoral votes are enough to tilt the election blue. The VP candidate has to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, and has to deliver his home state and additional states. And, yes, I wrote “his”: whether Obama or Clinton gets the nomination, the VP will probably be a male.
The best known political figures tend to come from the national stage, likely the Senate (rather than the House of Representatives, whose numbers dilute the possibility of any but the Speaker and Minority Leader from achieving much national attention). While governors may be more well known in their own states than on the national scene--except perhaps for actors from California, and the occasional charismatic if sexual-predatory personality--governors have been more successful in seeking the presidency than have sitting senators.
JFK was the last sitting senator to be elected president, and Warren G. Harding was the only other sitting senator to be elected president. James Garfield was elected to both the senate and the presidency in 1880, but declined the senate position to become president. By contrast, in the last seventy-five years FDR, Carter, Clinton, and dubya have all moved from the statehouse to the White House.
It is from these two groups, governors and senators, that the Democrats should look for a Vice Presidential candidate who will add strength to the fall ticket. John Edwards (yes, I realize that some of you liked him for this year’s presidential run) added nothing to the 2004 ticket. The personality he showed during 2007-2008’s early campaigning was yet undeveloped or, worse, missing in action in 2004, and he was unable to carry either his birth state (SC) or his elected state (NC). Together, those two states would have won the election for John Kerry. However, Kerry lost SC by seventeen percentage points, and NC by twelve and a half, so it may not have been possible for Edwards, even had he a stronger public persona at the time, to have affected those extreme results.
The Democrats in 2004 needed to have focused on a swing state, preferably a narrowly red state from 2000, to find a VP candidate who might have helped swing the election. In 2000, dubya won Missouri by fewer than 79,000 votes, putting Missouri in play for the Democrats in 2004. But in 2004, against the Kerry/Edwards ticket, dubya won Missouri by nearly 200,000 votes. I don’t know if Missouri’s own Dick Gephardt could have altered results, but he had national exposure (as former Speaker of the House and then minority leader), he had a lot of congressional experience, and he probably would have inspired more confidence in voters than John Edwards did at the time. Missouri alone would not have changed the outcome of the 2004 election, but Gephardt might have had a coattail effect. Edwards certainly didn’t. Gephardt should have been the Democrats’ VP candidate four years ago.
Next post: a look at Democratic governors, as we begin to examine specifically who might be an electable VP choice on the Democratic ticket.
This year, the choice for Vice President on the Democratic ticket will be essential for victory in November.
If we assume that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee by the end of the summer, the next question is, How can the Democrats persuade the 20% of the American public that isn’t automatically voting Democratic or Republican to swing to the left?
One way is for the Democrats to find a vice-presidential candidate to provide some political balance, not a far right conservative, but a legitimate centrist, who can (one hopes) prevent the Republicans from seizing the center of the political spectrum, as dubya was allowed to do. There has been nothing centrist about dubya’s policies, but he was allowed in 2000 to appear to be, and to claim to be, “in the middle.” Given the mess he’s made of EVERY aspect of his presidency, “in the muddle” is more appropriate.
The Democratic VP nominee also has to be from, or at least influential in, a narrowly-won blue state, or a red state with a significant electoral college number, or a few smaller red states whose total electoral votes are enough to tilt the election blue. The VP candidate has to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, and has to deliver his home state and additional states. And, yes, I wrote “his”: whether Obama or Clinton gets the nomination, the VP will probably be a male.
The best known political figures tend to come from the national stage, likely the Senate (rather than the House of Representatives, whose numbers dilute the possibility of any but the Speaker and Minority Leader from achieving much national attention). While governors may be more well known in their own states than on the national scene--except perhaps for actors from California, and the occasional charismatic if sexual-predatory personality--governors have been more successful in seeking the presidency than have sitting senators.
JFK was the last sitting senator to be elected president, and Warren G. Harding was the only other sitting senator to be elected president. James Garfield was elected to both the senate and the presidency in 1880, but declined the senate position to become president. By contrast, in the last seventy-five years FDR, Carter, Clinton, and dubya have all moved from the statehouse to the White House.
It is from these two groups, governors and senators, that the Democrats should look for a Vice Presidential candidate who will add strength to the fall ticket. John Edwards (yes, I realize that some of you liked him for this year’s presidential run) added nothing to the 2004 ticket. The personality he showed during 2007-2008’s early campaigning was yet undeveloped or, worse, missing in action in 2004, and he was unable to carry either his birth state (SC) or his elected state (NC). Together, those two states would have won the election for John Kerry. However, Kerry lost SC by seventeen percentage points, and NC by twelve and a half, so it may not have been possible for Edwards, even had he a stronger public persona at the time, to have affected those extreme results.
The Democrats in 2004 needed to have focused on a swing state, preferably a narrowly red state from 2000, to find a VP candidate who might have helped swing the election. In 2000, dubya won Missouri by fewer than 79,000 votes, putting Missouri in play for the Democrats in 2004. But in 2004, against the Kerry/Edwards ticket, dubya won Missouri by nearly 200,000 votes. I don’t know if Missouri’s own Dick Gephardt could have altered results, but he had national exposure (as former Speaker of the House and then minority leader), he had a lot of congressional experience, and he probably would have inspired more confidence in voters than John Edwards did at the time. Missouri alone would not have changed the outcome of the 2004 election, but Gephardt might have had a coattail effect. Edwards certainly didn’t. Gephardt should have been the Democrats’ VP candidate four years ago.
Next post: a look at Democratic governors, as we begin to examine specifically who might be an electable VP choice on the Democratic ticket.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
#5 Super Delegates could be a Super Pain in...
There are between 796 and 842 Democratic Super Delegates (depending on whose numbers you wish to accept): Democratic party members and elected officials who vote at the convention but are not subject to obeying the results of caucuses or primaries. Put as baldly as I can: if neither HRC nor BO comes into the convention with the nomination in hand, the Democrats may be in bad baaaaaaaad trouble. If Hillary maintains her current lead in Super Delegates, and is nominated by their convention votes, expect a major rift in some segments of the party over the first African-American who came so close but was denied by the party power-structure. If Barack gets enough Super Delegates to gain the nomination, expect Bill and Hillary to have a hissy-fit and perhaps even walk out (emotionally, if not physically).
Who are these Super Delegates? “The category includes Democratic governors and members of Congress, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former vice president Al Gore, retired congressional leaders such as Dick Gephardt, and all Democratic National Committee members, some of whom are appointed by party chairman Howard Dean” (quoted from Tom Curry, of MSNBC.com). Given the folk and categories listed in Curry’s paragraph, I believe—currently—that Hillary will continue to attract the larger share of the SuperDs. Many of them owe at least part of their political success to President Clinton, and he may be calling in those IOUs.
What may change things, however, is an increasing recognition (if there IS an increasing recognition) that she can’t beat John McCain. SuperDs have announced in favor of candidates in the past but have then changed their minds when political reality hit them; most recently, it happened to Howard Dean in 2004, when the officially “unpledged” but Dean-allied SuperDs began to understand that Dean couldn’t beat dubya, and dropped their support. It could happen again this year.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. And it won’t if…BO or HRC can cleanly lock up the nomination before the convention. Right now, that’s unlikely to happen, though it is still mathematically possible. The way the Democrats provide proportional delegates based on one’s success in primaries and caucuses, even with HRC “losing” to BO in state votes, she’s still earning delegates, and if a strong enough majority of SuperDs support her, we could have the Democratic convention equivalent of 2000’s Gore vs. Bush popular vote/electoral vote inversion.
Sometimes it just hurts my head to think of the ways the Democrats can seize defeat while staring in the face of victory. How upset does it make me? It makes me mix metaphors.
On the lighter side: this, from Sunday’s NYTimes—the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), our friends on the front lines at our air fields, have created a blog for folk to be able to yell at them or otherwise communicate, and for a rapport to develop between citizenry and bureaucracy. One early blogger wrote:
“Ever since you started X-raying our shoes, I’ve been forced to carry all my plastic explosives in my pants, which I find most inconvenient.”
It’s good that a sense of humor can survive even the most serious situations. I’ll try to hold on to that thought when I think about SuperDs.
Next time, we begin to look at some of the potential vice presidential candidates, should either Obama or Clinton get the presidential nomination.
Who are these Super Delegates? “The category includes Democratic governors and members of Congress, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former vice president Al Gore, retired congressional leaders such as Dick Gephardt, and all Democratic National Committee members, some of whom are appointed by party chairman Howard Dean” (quoted from Tom Curry, of MSNBC.com). Given the folk and categories listed in Curry’s paragraph, I believe—currently—that Hillary will continue to attract the larger share of the SuperDs. Many of them owe at least part of their political success to President Clinton, and he may be calling in those IOUs.
What may change things, however, is an increasing recognition (if there IS an increasing recognition) that she can’t beat John McCain. SuperDs have announced in favor of candidates in the past but have then changed their minds when political reality hit them; most recently, it happened to Howard Dean in 2004, when the officially “unpledged” but Dean-allied SuperDs began to understand that Dean couldn’t beat dubya, and dropped their support. It could happen again this year.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. And it won’t if…BO or HRC can cleanly lock up the nomination before the convention. Right now, that’s unlikely to happen, though it is still mathematically possible. The way the Democrats provide proportional delegates based on one’s success in primaries and caucuses, even with HRC “losing” to BO in state votes, she’s still earning delegates, and if a strong enough majority of SuperDs support her, we could have the Democratic convention equivalent of 2000’s Gore vs. Bush popular vote/electoral vote inversion.
Sometimes it just hurts my head to think of the ways the Democrats can seize defeat while staring in the face of victory. How upset does it make me? It makes me mix metaphors.
On the lighter side: this, from Sunday’s NYTimes—the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), our friends on the front lines at our air fields, have created a blog for folk to be able to yell at them or otherwise communicate, and for a rapport to develop between citizenry and bureaucracy. One early blogger wrote:
“Ever since you started X-raying our shoes, I’ve been forced to carry all my plastic explosives in my pants, which I find most inconvenient.”
It’s good that a sense of humor can survive even the most serious situations. I’ll try to hold on to that thought when I think about SuperDs.
Next time, we begin to look at some of the potential vice presidential candidates, should either Obama or Clinton get the presidential nomination.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
#4 McCaikabee could be a problem....
“Moreover” (as one of my university students once BEGAN his out-of-class essay for me years ago), I really am trying to keep these posts shorter. But it’s not happening with this one.
So I uncovered that this student, who began his essay with “Moreover,” had copied it wholesale from US News and World Report. But for some reason he had started with paragraph two of the article. Cleverly, I had suspected early on that there was a problem with his paper. It was similar to the problem a friend of ours encountered years earlier as she began reading a plagiarized paper turned in by one of her high school students: “We British….”
A potential problem for the Democrats is a Republican McCaikabee ticket. John McCain is desperately trying to showcase his conservative credentials in order to sew up the nomination. Normally, I would think, ‘Hallelujah! We can grab the center of the political spectrum where we should have been in 2000 and 2004 as well!’
Well, Not So Fast, Blogger!. Both Hillary and Obama have no credibility as centrists. They have been branded as liberals and Barack, at least, has been voted the Senate’s most liberal member. That doesn’t particularly bother me: in my current state of residence, I look like a liberal. But I’m not the problem. I’m voting Democratic whichever one is nominated. Hell, I’m voting Democratic even if no one is nominated. The problem is that a lot of folk out there won’t vote for perceived liberals.
A potentially bigger problem for the Democrats is that McCain isn’t really a deep-down, dyed-in-the-wool, across-the-board conservative, and that’s why he’s having so much trouble convincing his own party’s base that he is. Oh, sure, he takes some political stands that conservatives take, but he also takes some stands that they oppose. To me that makes him more independent/not-partyline/perhaps-even-centrist. Oops.
Possible Republican Strategy?
Right now, here’s my thinking, subject to change of course, since I’m not running for president and don’t have to endure the shouts of “HE’S FLIPFLOPPING!” Several TV analysts on Super Tuesday stated that, if the Republicans were smart, they’d at least consider a McCain-Huckabee ticket.
It is true that Huckabee appeals to significant portions of the far right, with particular power in the south, and only in part because he’s from Arkansas: more to the point, his religious views resonate with a large minority of voters, and his fiscal views can pick up enough other voters to carry perhaps all of the old confederacy, with the possible exception of Florida (and even FL, we may remember, has had trouble deciding its electoral preferences, or at least how to cast a vote for them).
Of course, Republican strategists may be put off by the January Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that showed forty-five percent of Americans have concerns about an evangelical Christian as president. On the other hand, that leaves fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed who have not stated having such concerns. Besides, Huckabee would be second on the Republican ticket…behind a man nineteen years his senior. Oops…again.
But wait. There’s more: Huckabee has taken positions, online, that may provide specific areas of alarm for moderates, such as evolution and gay marriage. His various websites include the following innocuous-sounding comments:
"I think that the state ought to give students exposure to all points of view. And I would hope that that would be all points of view and not only evolution. I think that they also should be given exposure to the theories not only of evolution but to the basis of those who believe in creationism.... I think [evolution] is something kids ought to be exposed to. I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally. But that does not mean that I’m afraid that somebody might find out what it is."
"I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life."
Well, okay, they’re actually NOT innocuous-sounding. And they sure as heck aren’t innocuous. But they’re very appealing to extreme-right conservatives.
Thus, in a general election against an Obama- or Hillary-led ticket, McCain could try to take the middle ground, and Huckabee could try to secure the further right (furthest right?) for the Republican ticket. Look at a red and blue map from the last two elections, and you’ll see it favoring the GOP again. Third “Oops.” Unless…
Possible Democratic Strategy?
The Democrats may have blown it already, with two perceived liberals the only potential presidential nominees left in the campaign. At the very least, whoever is on the Democratic ticket will have to hold on to the blue states, and win at least one midsized red state, or two or three small red states in order to get the electoral votes needed. I don’t think an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket will succeed.
Obama may be electable IF (and this is a big If) the young people who have flocked to his campaign continue at his side, and actually register and vote. They have large numbers. The current Democratic nomination process, reformed after the 1968 nominating process that subverted the significance of Eugene McCarthy’s anti-war youth following, could result in an Obama nomination. And a continued strong showing of new young voters could propel him to victory. I like his policies, and would be happy to vote for him. My vote, however, and the vote of both of my friends, may not be enough.
Right now at least, I believe that Hillary is less electable than Barack. Legitimately or not, she has been portrayed as divisive, and folk are currently buying that picture. I find that so incredibly ironic: dubya ran in 2000 as a Uniter (even before he called himself the Decider), but the only thing he has successfully united is the strongest opposition to a president’s policies since Viet Nam.
My concern is that people won’t listen to what Hillary Clinton’s policy points are, and hence won’t recognize that her proposals are reasonable and humane. Further, her position on health care is vital to our future, and to our children’s futures, and to their children’s futures.
With either of these senators at the head of the ticket, the Democrats will need a moderate (i.e., centrist) vice-presidential candidate. Preferably a popular and moderate Democrat from a red state. If we look in the right places, several medium-to-strong possibilities emerge. Over the next several posts we can begin to look.
So I uncovered that this student, who began his essay with “Moreover,” had copied it wholesale from US News and World Report. But for some reason he had started with paragraph two of the article. Cleverly, I had suspected early on that there was a problem with his paper. It was similar to the problem a friend of ours encountered years earlier as she began reading a plagiarized paper turned in by one of her high school students: “We British….”
A potential problem for the Democrats is a Republican McCaikabee ticket. John McCain is desperately trying to showcase his conservative credentials in order to sew up the nomination. Normally, I would think, ‘Hallelujah! We can grab the center of the political spectrum where we should have been in 2000 and 2004 as well!’
Well, Not So Fast, Blogger!. Both Hillary and Obama have no credibility as centrists. They have been branded as liberals and Barack, at least, has been voted the Senate’s most liberal member. That doesn’t particularly bother me: in my current state of residence, I look like a liberal. But I’m not the problem. I’m voting Democratic whichever one is nominated. Hell, I’m voting Democratic even if no one is nominated. The problem is that a lot of folk out there won’t vote for perceived liberals.
A potentially bigger problem for the Democrats is that McCain isn’t really a deep-down, dyed-in-the-wool, across-the-board conservative, and that’s why he’s having so much trouble convincing his own party’s base that he is. Oh, sure, he takes some political stands that conservatives take, but he also takes some stands that they oppose. To me that makes him more independent/not-partyline/perhaps-even-centrist. Oops.
Possible Republican Strategy?
Right now, here’s my thinking, subject to change of course, since I’m not running for president and don’t have to endure the shouts of “HE’S FLIPFLOPPING!” Several TV analysts on Super Tuesday stated that, if the Republicans were smart, they’d at least consider a McCain-Huckabee ticket.
It is true that Huckabee appeals to significant portions of the far right, with particular power in the south, and only in part because he’s from Arkansas: more to the point, his religious views resonate with a large minority of voters, and his fiscal views can pick up enough other voters to carry perhaps all of the old confederacy, with the possible exception of Florida (and even FL, we may remember, has had trouble deciding its electoral preferences, or at least how to cast a vote for them).
Of course, Republican strategists may be put off by the January Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that showed forty-five percent of Americans have concerns about an evangelical Christian as president. On the other hand, that leaves fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed who have not stated having such concerns. Besides, Huckabee would be second on the Republican ticket…behind a man nineteen years his senior. Oops…again.
But wait. There’s more: Huckabee has taken positions, online, that may provide specific areas of alarm for moderates, such as evolution and gay marriage. His various websites include the following innocuous-sounding comments:
"I think that the state ought to give students exposure to all points of view. And I would hope that that would be all points of view and not only evolution. I think that they also should be given exposure to the theories not only of evolution but to the basis of those who believe in creationism.... I think [evolution] is something kids ought to be exposed to. I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally. But that does not mean that I’m afraid that somebody might find out what it is."
"I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life."
Well, okay, they’re actually NOT innocuous-sounding. And they sure as heck aren’t innocuous. But they’re very appealing to extreme-right conservatives.
Thus, in a general election against an Obama- or Hillary-led ticket, McCain could try to take the middle ground, and Huckabee could try to secure the further right (furthest right?) for the Republican ticket. Look at a red and blue map from the last two elections, and you’ll see it favoring the GOP again. Third “Oops.” Unless…
Possible Democratic Strategy?
The Democrats may have blown it already, with two perceived liberals the only potential presidential nominees left in the campaign. At the very least, whoever is on the Democratic ticket will have to hold on to the blue states, and win at least one midsized red state, or two or three small red states in order to get the electoral votes needed. I don’t think an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket will succeed.
Obama may be electable IF (and this is a big If) the young people who have flocked to his campaign continue at his side, and actually register and vote. They have large numbers. The current Democratic nomination process, reformed after the 1968 nominating process that subverted the significance of Eugene McCarthy’s anti-war youth following, could result in an Obama nomination. And a continued strong showing of new young voters could propel him to victory. I like his policies, and would be happy to vote for him. My vote, however, and the vote of both of my friends, may not be enough.
Right now at least, I believe that Hillary is less electable than Barack. Legitimately or not, she has been portrayed as divisive, and folk are currently buying that picture. I find that so incredibly ironic: dubya ran in 2000 as a Uniter (even before he called himself the Decider), but the only thing he has successfully united is the strongest opposition to a president’s policies since Viet Nam.
My concern is that people won’t listen to what Hillary Clinton’s policy points are, and hence won’t recognize that her proposals are reasonable and humane. Further, her position on health care is vital to our future, and to our children’s futures, and to their children’s futures.
With either of these senators at the head of the ticket, the Democrats will need a moderate (i.e., centrist) vice-presidential candidate. Preferably a popular and moderate Democrat from a red state. If we look in the right places, several medium-to-strong possibilities emerge. Over the next several posts we can begin to look.
Friday, February 8, 2008
#3 Sad to say, we may owe these last eight years to Bill’s charisma.
I’ve decided to number the posts, just to make them easier to refer to if ever necessary. And here’s a brief followup to the previous post (what would have been #2): for a brief discussion of differences between evangelicals and fundamentalists—and of how so many Americans have strong religious beliefs but don’t actually know what they believe—you may be interested to look at Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy (San Franciso: HarperCollins, 2007).
And now post #3:
Our older daughter met Bill Clinton four or five times during and after his presidency. In Columbus, he gave a speech that she attended as part of the group that sponsored him at Ohio State, and she shook his hand. She lost an apple at that time to the Secret Service—perhaps because they thought it might have been a Halloween “treat” with a razor “trick”? Who knows what they thought, but she went hungry while she listened. Several years later, she and her a capella group sang at a fundraiser for his Harlem Business Enterprise (or some similar name) on 125th Street in Manhattan, across from Columbia University, shortly after he left office.
He was “the most electric presence” she has ever met, she told me today. When he entered the Harlem fundraiser, “it was like Elvis had just come into the room.”
My niece was a Bill fan in 1992 even before I had remembered him from his longwinded keynote address at the 1988 Dukakis nominating convention. He atoned for that ’88 debacle in his 1992 Democratic convention acceptance speech, by beginning, “As I was saying….” She recognized long before the rest of the family did just how powerful his charisma was, and she was positive that he had the ability to be a great president.
She was right. He did have that ability. He also had “hamartia,” part of Aristotle’s discussion from his Poetics, translated variously as ‘tragic flaw’ or ‘error of judgment.’ Whichever translation we use, it is the tragic element in the personality of a prince that causes him to fall from his high place in the world. We all know what that flaw or error was in BC’s case, and it got him impeached for perjury (but not convicted). It also sidetracked what might have been—should have been—an eight year presidency with tremendously beneficial results for our country. Instead of Bill and his brilliance, we ended up with dubya, “Hyperion to a satyr,” as Hamlet lamented about his father and his uncle.
Voters in 2000 turned to dubya in part (in large part, I believe) because he wasn’t associated with the disgraced Clinton administration, and because dubya promised to unite Americans rather than divide them. He failed, as we know, except in one way: he has united us to an amazing extent against his policies. What is his approval rating hanging at--thirty-two percent? If we remember that, in any given presidential election, forty percent of the electorate will vote Democratic, forty percent will vote Republican, and the candidates are fighting over the remaining twenty percent, it’s clear that a significant part of the Republican base (at least 20% of that base, eight percent of the Republican forty percent) disapproves of the job its own candidate has done.
What’s that? What’s that comment over there? You didn’t know there’d be math? Sorry ‘bout that.
I cannot but believe that, to some extent, Hillary is being punished for her husband’s inability to keep his clothes on his body and his mind on his presidency. Yes, yes, I know it’s not fair, and I believe Hillary would make a fine president. But are folk afraid that Bill would play too significant a role in a Clinton II administration? I relish that prospect, not fear it. They are both extremely bright, even brilliant, people, and the combination of putting their minds together with a strong cabinet and other excellent advisors for the good of the country is exactly what we need after bush-cheney. But I suspect I’m in a small small minority in this belief and this hope. It wouldn't be the first time.
And now post #3:
Our older daughter met Bill Clinton four or five times during and after his presidency. In Columbus, he gave a speech that she attended as part of the group that sponsored him at Ohio State, and she shook his hand. She lost an apple at that time to the Secret Service—perhaps because they thought it might have been a Halloween “treat” with a razor “trick”? Who knows what they thought, but she went hungry while she listened. Several years later, she and her a capella group sang at a fundraiser for his Harlem Business Enterprise (or some similar name) on 125th Street in Manhattan, across from Columbia University, shortly after he left office.
He was “the most electric presence” she has ever met, she told me today. When he entered the Harlem fundraiser, “it was like Elvis had just come into the room.”
My niece was a Bill fan in 1992 even before I had remembered him from his longwinded keynote address at the 1988 Dukakis nominating convention. He atoned for that ’88 debacle in his 1992 Democratic convention acceptance speech, by beginning, “As I was saying….” She recognized long before the rest of the family did just how powerful his charisma was, and she was positive that he had the ability to be a great president.
She was right. He did have that ability. He also had “hamartia,” part of Aristotle’s discussion from his Poetics, translated variously as ‘tragic flaw’ or ‘error of judgment.’ Whichever translation we use, it is the tragic element in the personality of a prince that causes him to fall from his high place in the world. We all know what that flaw or error was in BC’s case, and it got him impeached for perjury (but not convicted). It also sidetracked what might have been—should have been—an eight year presidency with tremendously beneficial results for our country. Instead of Bill and his brilliance, we ended up with dubya, “Hyperion to a satyr,” as Hamlet lamented about his father and his uncle.
Voters in 2000 turned to dubya in part (in large part, I believe) because he wasn’t associated with the disgraced Clinton administration, and because dubya promised to unite Americans rather than divide them. He failed, as we know, except in one way: he has united us to an amazing extent against his policies. What is his approval rating hanging at--thirty-two percent? If we remember that, in any given presidential election, forty percent of the electorate will vote Democratic, forty percent will vote Republican, and the candidates are fighting over the remaining twenty percent, it’s clear that a significant part of the Republican base (at least 20% of that base, eight percent of the Republican forty percent) disapproves of the job its own candidate has done.
What’s that? What’s that comment over there? You didn’t know there’d be math? Sorry ‘bout that.
I cannot but believe that, to some extent, Hillary is being punished for her husband’s inability to keep his clothes on his body and his mind on his presidency. Yes, yes, I know it’s not fair, and I believe Hillary would make a fine president. But are folk afraid that Bill would play too significant a role in a Clinton II administration? I relish that prospect, not fear it. They are both extremely bright, even brilliant, people, and the combination of putting their minds together with a strong cabinet and other excellent advisors for the good of the country is exactly what we need after bush-cheney. But I suspect I’m in a small small minority in this belief and this hope. It wouldn't be the first time.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Gender and Race and Religion shouldn't matter, but...
Caution: today's posting is not as humorous as (I hope) future ones will be, but it's a subject that has been bothering me. A lot.
And, no, I won't normally be posting on a daily basis during this campaign. But I've just started this blog and these have been strong concerns. For a little while, you'll see frequent postings if you check in here. They'll taper off, and then near the end of the election cycle I'll go through my quadrennial state-by-state projections of who may win which electoral votes. Something to look forward to, if you like politics and humor. At times, my blog may likely get funnier/nastier than the novelty song from "Fiorello," the 1959 Broadway musical that celebrated Fiorello LaGuardia's career: "Politics and Poker,/Politics and Poker,/Playing with a hand,/That's mediocre.//Politics and Poker,/Politics and Poker,/Shuffle up the deck,/To find the Joker."
Gender: Years ago, we had a poster of Golda Meir, sometme after she had become Israel's prime minister in 1969. The caption was, "But can she type?" It was meant to poke fun, in a sardonic way, at the attitude that women belonged in the home and had no business in business or in other allegedly 'real-world' activities. At the time, Golda Meir was one of the very few women in such a publicly important and powerful position. Indira Gandhi was prime minister of India, but Margaret Thatcher was still ten years away from her position. People may have been aware how influential Eleanor Roosevelt had been in her husband's administrations, but she didn't occupy an elected, officially-titled powerful position.
Race: The last time I saw Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in "Holiday Inn" on tv, the network's editors had removed one holiday from the movie as originally printed, Lincoln's birthday, in which the singers/dancers appeared in blackface. When the movie was made (1942), it was only fifteen years after Jolson's "The Jazz Singer," and apparently blackface was not unacceptable in polite company, or in Hollywood. I wouldn't have known enough at the time to know one way or the other.
Religion: Religious jokes, which used to be a fertile source of humor for professional comedians and folk-on-the-street (note my politically-correct avoidance of "man-on-the-street"), are now rarely uttered in public. Except occasionally by land-grant institutions' provosts who haven't gotten out much in their personal and religious lives. (oops, a streak of nasty/funny just emerged). And I agree with that reduction of religious jokes, as I do with the hoped-for elimination of ethnic jokes. In the past, I have tended to change the subject of such jokes as I may hear to a university a few hundred miles to the south of my home.
From my point of view, these three categories--gender, race, and religion--are valid topics of serious discussion if such discussion can educate and can help bring us together by emphasizing how much more unites us with our fellow and sister human beings than divides us. Negative portrayals and poking fun at 'the different' are belittling, and not helpful in forwarding the recognition of what I truly believe is "the worth and dignity of every human being."
So it is that I have grave concerns about the underlying national significance of Super Tuesday's comments by CNN's commentators. In discussing Missouri (which is currently in first place on my "THE SINGLE KEY STATE in this election" list, but more on that in a future post), John King and others talked about the splits in Missouri's population. Geographically, most of the state is rural (and how many states CAN'T make that statement, John!), with the eastern enclave of St. Louis and the western enclave of Kansas City as the major metropolitan hubs, City-the-Greater and City-the-Lesser. Last time I visited those two places, East City-the-Greater was a slum, and City-the-Lesser felt like the gateway to the west (or at least to Kansas which, to a NYC boy, was the same thing).
Tuesday night's analyses pointed to how Huckabee on the Republican side was winning overwhelmingly in the "evangelical" southern quarter of the state, how Obama's strength came from the "African-American" population in KC and especially in St Louis, and, nationally, how women were supporting Hillary "overwhelmingly." I don't object to John King and the others pointing these facts out, or even using these terms, since that's what the exit polls apparently were showing them. I was a little surprised, however, that the commentators I happened to be listenting to mostly avoided talking about Romney-as-Mormon; they talked about his winning his various "home states": his birth state MI, his home state MA, and his "spiritual home" state UT. I'm not sure how they explain away CO, WY, MT, ND, MN, ME, and AK. But they did seem to avoid most discussion of his religion. Maybe, since it has been such a big part of previous discussions, they decided enough already.
I am concerned, however, that we're still thinking in such terms, and that perhaps indeed some significant numbers of people ARE voting based on gender, race, religion. I am concerned that such views still seem so important at a time when more than four thousand Americans, and countless tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, have died in Iraq; when our international reputation is in shambles when we most need to use our former powers of moral suasion with other nations; when our educational system is in great need of improved salaries for teachers, and of less concentration on getting students to pass tests and more on actually getting them to develop the fundamental abilities to learn and live successfully after formal schooling; when the environment is changing far more drastically and more quickly than we thought possible even seven years ago (not sign the Kyoto Treaty, anyone?); and when the economy has been so manipulated as to make the divide between Disraeli's mid-nineteenth century "Two Nations" a greater reality today than it was when dubya was inaugurated.
I point these concerns out (a) because it's my blog, and I can; (b) because gender, race, and religion (in my view from this distant outpost of the world) should pale in comparison to the earth-shaking, human-defeating concerns surrounding and invading us; and (c) because these are issues I will be discussing in future posts.
I'm not even sure the TV commentators are using the correct terms. They use "Evangelical"; but that term is vastly different from "Fundamentalist" (the term I didn't hear on Tuesday night). These two groups, often lumped together as "the religious right" politically, reflect vastly different approaches to religion, especially in their view of and attitude toward people who don't believe as they do. Historically, evangelicals in England (my educational touchstone) have been in the forefront of social reform. England would not have achieved significant improvement in working conditions and vital health legislation in mid-nineteenth century, for example, had it not been for the moral and political leadership of evangelical members in the House of Commons.
Well, this is heavier than I hoped the blog would be, but I needed to clear this part of my conscience. More paper, less rock next time; you can bring your own scissors. And I'll make future posts shorter, at least until we get to the actual projections of how the states will line up electorally. Comments are always invited.
And, no, I won't normally be posting on a daily basis during this campaign. But I've just started this blog and these have been strong concerns. For a little while, you'll see frequent postings if you check in here. They'll taper off, and then near the end of the election cycle I'll go through my quadrennial state-by-state projections of who may win which electoral votes. Something to look forward to, if you like politics and humor. At times, my blog may likely get funnier/nastier than the novelty song from "Fiorello," the 1959 Broadway musical that celebrated Fiorello LaGuardia's career: "Politics and Poker,/Politics and Poker,/Playing with a hand,/That's mediocre.//Politics and Poker,/Politics and Poker,/Shuffle up the deck,/To find the Joker."
Gender: Years ago, we had a poster of Golda Meir, sometme after she had become Israel's prime minister in 1969. The caption was, "But can she type?" It was meant to poke fun, in a sardonic way, at the attitude that women belonged in the home and had no business in business or in other allegedly 'real-world' activities. At the time, Golda Meir was one of the very few women in such a publicly important and powerful position. Indira Gandhi was prime minister of India, but Margaret Thatcher was still ten years away from her position. People may have been aware how influential Eleanor Roosevelt had been in her husband's administrations, but she didn't occupy an elected, officially-titled powerful position.
Race: The last time I saw Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in "Holiday Inn" on tv, the network's editors had removed one holiday from the movie as originally printed, Lincoln's birthday, in which the singers/dancers appeared in blackface. When the movie was made (1942), it was only fifteen years after Jolson's "The Jazz Singer," and apparently blackface was not unacceptable in polite company, or in Hollywood. I wouldn't have known enough at the time to know one way or the other.
Religion: Religious jokes, which used to be a fertile source of humor for professional comedians and folk-on-the-street (note my politically-correct avoidance of "man-on-the-street"), are now rarely uttered in public. Except occasionally by land-grant institutions' provosts who haven't gotten out much in their personal and religious lives. (oops, a streak of nasty/funny just emerged). And I agree with that reduction of religious jokes, as I do with the hoped-for elimination of ethnic jokes. In the past, I have tended to change the subject of such jokes as I may hear to a university a few hundred miles to the south of my home.
From my point of view, these three categories--gender, race, and religion--are valid topics of serious discussion if such discussion can educate and can help bring us together by emphasizing how much more unites us with our fellow and sister human beings than divides us. Negative portrayals and poking fun at 'the different' are belittling, and not helpful in forwarding the recognition of what I truly believe is "the worth and dignity of every human being."
So it is that I have grave concerns about the underlying national significance of Super Tuesday's comments by CNN's commentators. In discussing Missouri (which is currently in first place on my "THE SINGLE KEY STATE in this election" list, but more on that in a future post), John King and others talked about the splits in Missouri's population. Geographically, most of the state is rural (and how many states CAN'T make that statement, John!), with the eastern enclave of St. Louis and the western enclave of Kansas City as the major metropolitan hubs, City-the-Greater and City-the-Lesser. Last time I visited those two places, East City-the-Greater was a slum, and City-the-Lesser felt like the gateway to the west (or at least to Kansas which, to a NYC boy, was the same thing).
Tuesday night's analyses pointed to how Huckabee on the Republican side was winning overwhelmingly in the "evangelical" southern quarter of the state, how Obama's strength came from the "African-American" population in KC and especially in St Louis, and, nationally, how women were supporting Hillary "overwhelmingly." I don't object to John King and the others pointing these facts out, or even using these terms, since that's what the exit polls apparently were showing them. I was a little surprised, however, that the commentators I happened to be listenting to mostly avoided talking about Romney-as-Mormon; they talked about his winning his various "home states": his birth state MI, his home state MA, and his "spiritual home" state UT. I'm not sure how they explain away CO, WY, MT, ND, MN, ME, and AK. But they did seem to avoid most discussion of his religion. Maybe, since it has been such a big part of previous discussions, they decided enough already.
I am concerned, however, that we're still thinking in such terms, and that perhaps indeed some significant numbers of people ARE voting based on gender, race, religion. I am concerned that such views still seem so important at a time when more than four thousand Americans, and countless tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, have died in Iraq; when our international reputation is in shambles when we most need to use our former powers of moral suasion with other nations; when our educational system is in great need of improved salaries for teachers, and of less concentration on getting students to pass tests and more on actually getting them to develop the fundamental abilities to learn and live successfully after formal schooling; when the environment is changing far more drastically and more quickly than we thought possible even seven years ago (not sign the Kyoto Treaty, anyone?); and when the economy has been so manipulated as to make the divide between Disraeli's mid-nineteenth century "Two Nations" a greater reality today than it was when dubya was inaugurated.
I point these concerns out (a) because it's my blog, and I can; (b) because gender, race, and religion (in my view from this distant outpost of the world) should pale in comparison to the earth-shaking, human-defeating concerns surrounding and invading us; and (c) because these are issues I will be discussing in future posts.
I'm not even sure the TV commentators are using the correct terms. They use "Evangelical"; but that term is vastly different from "Fundamentalist" (the term I didn't hear on Tuesday night). These two groups, often lumped together as "the religious right" politically, reflect vastly different approaches to religion, especially in their view of and attitude toward people who don't believe as they do. Historically, evangelicals in England (my educational touchstone) have been in the forefront of social reform. England would not have achieved significant improvement in working conditions and vital health legislation in mid-nineteenth century, for example, had it not been for the moral and political leadership of evangelical members in the House of Commons.
Well, this is heavier than I hoped the blog would be, but I needed to clear this part of my conscience. More paper, less rock next time; you can bring your own scissors. And I'll make future posts shorter, at least until we get to the actual projections of how the states will line up electorally. Comments are always invited.
This Time Let's Get It Right
Greetings good people. It's that time again, as it is every four years. Four years ago, I set up a private e-distribution list with my prognostications and polemics, but several folk suggested I set up a blog this time. So if you've come here you've decided to check me out. Trust me, I'll try to make it worth your time spent here.
For example, right now--and you're hearing it here first--McCain and Clintama (or McCain and Obanton) are leading the two major parties for the nomination. Frankly, I would have preferred Bill Richardson. He has superb qualifications: as an elected member of the House of Representatives, as Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of the Interior under Clinton, as elected Governor of New Mexico, and (a bonus, though he initially was modest about it) he's a certified minority. However, and this is sad to say, he has no public charisma. Privately, I've heard he's charming. Publicly, he walks into a room, and everyone thinks two people just left. It's unfortunate that charisma plays such a big role in choosing a presidential nominee, but there you are.
I'd also prefer Gore, but my Obama-supporting friends say that he's old school, and that Obama is the "new Kennedy." Well, friends, I knew Jack Kennedy (not personally of course), and let me tell you, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy. Oh. Wait. That was Lloyd Bentsen chastising Dan Quayle.
In any case, I expect that I will be adding to this blog on a pretty regular basis, since I'm a political animal and enjoy presidential elections in particular. Not the last two, but I did accurately predict that Ohio was going to be the key state that Kerry needed in 2004, and that Gore had to win six of the big east-of-the-Mississippi seven--NY, NJ, PA, OH, MI, IL and FL--in 2000 to win. He won five, though initially FL was put in his column (remembering the well-endowed, "hanging" Chads from dubya's brother's state?!). Omy was I overjoyed when TV awarded FL to Gore, and dismayed when they retracted.
So this year, let's try to get it right. But not far right: I'm a political middle-of-the-roader, though in my current state of residence I'm probably viewed as a flaming liberal. But when the overwhelming majority of my state's citizens think that Ronald Reagan walked on water (my God, people, he could barely find the rocks to walk on!), they're so far right they're outta sight! If my current state doesn't have the most conservative state legislature and the most embarrassing DC contingent, then somewhere out there is a state all of whose villages are missing their idiots.
One of our elected national representatives has never recanted on his statement that abortions contribute to causing breast cancer; our state superintendent of public instruction is a creationist (can you BELIEVE he was elected to that post!!), and one of our senators--dare I say it? (Dare! Dare!)--tried a tryst in a twin city restroom. Your state's elected officials can't even come close.
This year, indeed let's get it right. Let's see if the national Democrats can avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, can avoid appealing to the extreme left side of the party (it may be too late for that already), and can legitimately seize the center of the political spectrum--as they SHOULD legitimately have done in 2000 and 2004. dubya is NOT the centrist they allowed him to seem to be. More projections and polemics later...along with a solid dose of humor. You all be well.
I welcome your comments.
For example, right now--and you're hearing it here first--McCain and Clintama (or McCain and Obanton) are leading the two major parties for the nomination. Frankly, I would have preferred Bill Richardson. He has superb qualifications: as an elected member of the House of Representatives, as Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of the Interior under Clinton, as elected Governor of New Mexico, and (a bonus, though he initially was modest about it) he's a certified minority. However, and this is sad to say, he has no public charisma. Privately, I've heard he's charming. Publicly, he walks into a room, and everyone thinks two people just left. It's unfortunate that charisma plays such a big role in choosing a presidential nominee, but there you are.
I'd also prefer Gore, but my Obama-supporting friends say that he's old school, and that Obama is the "new Kennedy." Well, friends, I knew Jack Kennedy (not personally of course), and let me tell you, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy. Oh. Wait. That was Lloyd Bentsen chastising Dan Quayle.
In any case, I expect that I will be adding to this blog on a pretty regular basis, since I'm a political animal and enjoy presidential elections in particular. Not the last two, but I did accurately predict that Ohio was going to be the key state that Kerry needed in 2004, and that Gore had to win six of the big east-of-the-Mississippi seven--NY, NJ, PA, OH, MI, IL and FL--in 2000 to win. He won five, though initially FL was put in his column (remembering the well-endowed, "hanging" Chads from dubya's brother's state?!). Omy was I overjoyed when TV awarded FL to Gore, and dismayed when they retracted.
So this year, let's try to get it right. But not far right: I'm a political middle-of-the-roader, though in my current state of residence I'm probably viewed as a flaming liberal. But when the overwhelming majority of my state's citizens think that Ronald Reagan walked on water (my God, people, he could barely find the rocks to walk on!), they're so far right they're outta sight! If my current state doesn't have the most conservative state legislature and the most embarrassing DC contingent, then somewhere out there is a state all of whose villages are missing their idiots.
One of our elected national representatives has never recanted on his statement that abortions contribute to causing breast cancer; our state superintendent of public instruction is a creationist (can you BELIEVE he was elected to that post!!), and one of our senators--dare I say it? (Dare! Dare!)--tried a tryst in a twin city restroom. Your state's elected officials can't even come close.
This year, indeed let's get it right. Let's see if the national Democrats can avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, can avoid appealing to the extreme left side of the party (it may be too late for that already), and can legitimately seize the center of the political spectrum--as they SHOULD legitimately have done in 2000 and 2004. dubya is NOT the centrist they allowed him to seem to be. More projections and polemics later...along with a solid dose of humor. You all be well.
I welcome your comments.
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