It ain't pretty, but as a friend of mine put it recently, the lesser of two evils is...less evil. I've serious issues with Obama myself, but I see more options for a progressive push with the President than with Romney. A third party vote might be noble, but it isn't going to be immediately effective.
I don't think NY is a swing state even with the storm (although if there's any substantial number of people who can't vote, they will be disproportionately Obama -- Republicans live further from the water), but I do think there's a real chance that Obama's popular vote total will be artificially suppressed by losing NE coastal votes.
I guess I don't have a problem with Obama losing the popular vote. After all, he's kind of a shitty president. Republicans will be intransigent either way, so I don't think it will much difference how the popular vote goes.
I hope you're all happy.
Not exactly!
And I remain seriously dissatisfied with Obama.
Me too, although probably somewhat differently when it comes to specifics!
My mother, who is basically Bob McManus, has also flipped back to voting Obama. (She had independently decided to go Stein, for somewhat different and more McManusy reasons than mine.)
"The bottom line is that third-party voting at the national level is either ineffectual or actively pernicious. There have been periods in American history where the gaps between the national parties were narrow enough that the calculus might be tempting even so, but this is not close to one of those times."
From here: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/11/why-obama-is-the-obvious-choice
6.last was glib, and doesn't actually accurately characterize the target of my dissatisfaction at all.
5 is really, really not thinking things through.
I will admit to having some McManus tendencies.
10: tell me how it's wrong. I'm curious if you have any new reasons that won't bore me.
I guess I don't have a problem with Obama losing the popular vote. After all, he's kind of a shitty president.
I wouldn't have any problem with Obama losing the popular vote, but I would have a serious problem with Mitt Romney winning it. My worry is that the one would imply the other.
12: if Obama loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college I think the chance that he will actually remain President is much reduced.
I would have a serious problem with Mitt Romney winning it
As long as Mitt Romney doesn't win the electoral vote, I'm cool.
I mean I also don't think that Obama is a shitty President compared to the space of possible alternatives, but that's a different issue.
Quite frankly I'll be pretty embarrassed and ashamed if Mitt Romney ends up getting much over 30% of the national vote. Which is looking very likely.
It's certain he'll get that. Practice your ashamed face.
15 isn't that clear. I think that if Obama loses the popular vote the chance that his re-election will be viciously contested at great length, with a probably Supreme Court endgame, is much increased. And in that scenario, I think that the chance that he will lose the presidency despite more-or-less convincing victories in enough states to handily win 270 electoral is much increased.
15: disagree. But I do think it would lead some wringing of hands that I would enjoy watching. Again, though (we've talked about this before, I know), I'm really not sure what I think about this issue.
17: agree entirely. He's about as good as we possibly could have hoped for given the status anxiety of white men, and probably white people more broadly, in this moment of the nation's history.
and probably white people more broadly
Are you blaming corn syrup for the political system?
For a comment that attempts to clarify 20 is lacking a lot. Hopefully the point came across.
12 -- I'm willing to bore VW: because there are more players than just elected Republicans.
Hmm, how did I end up being on the hook for giving a "Subject Matter Expert" talk tomorrow (two sessions) on a subject that I do not have expertise on. At least it's internal only. I'm getting ready but obsessively checking here, Twitter, Kos and reading every word that Charles Pierce writes.
My mother, who is basically Bob McManus...
Fascinating.
(And maybe I find it so because I'm kinda with 11, or used to be)
20: I understood this to be your meaning. I think you're wrong, but again, I'm sort of maybe kind of keen to see the fight you describe. I think things are terribly, terribly fucked up in this country at the moment, and I'm not sure what will change them for the better other than a real crisis. And the kind of crisis you describe is one that seems likely to end with the good guys winning, so I'm more willing to risk such a thing than other crises I can imagine. Having said that, as always, I'm really averse to ushering in a thousand year Reich, and I think history suggests that whenever there's a real crisis, it's genuinely possible that the bad guys will win, or even that if the bad guys lose, lots and lots of innocent people will suffer terribly.
I am a little worried in Va bc a significant number of my reproductive rights people arent voting for Obama bc the Dems never really do much to protect reproductive rights.
Republicans live further from the water
Not sure about that. The LI shore, the Rockaways and Staten Island are what pass for red areas in the inner NY metropolitan area. Lots of Irish and Italian middle class and well paid blue collar workers around there.
18 The Repubs could nominate Herman Cain or Steve King or Jim DeMint or Heckuvajob Brown and get thirty percent of the vote. (Same goes for the Democrats)
28: oh, I mean, the most likely scenario is that Obama wins both. If that doesn't happen, the most likely scenario is that he prevails in the electoral college and is duly returned to office. The next most likely scenario is that he prevails in the electoral college after a large, punishing, state-level fight. The next most likely is that he prevails in the electoral college after a large, punishing Supreme Court fight. Less likely yet is that he loses in the Supreme Court after a large, punishing fight, and Mitt Romney is installed. But having gone through that last condition before (and given the changes to the court since then) OMf'ingG do I not want to increase the probability that they could do that again.
Possibly the availability heuristic is doing some work on my particular neuroses, but nonetheless.
32: gotcha. Still and all, I'm not convinced that the last scenario you describe would have quite the same end game this time. But as ever, I'm a historian; we're excellent at predicting the past and not much else.
I have been thinking on 15 for a while.
Moving backwards
I presume the Secret Service is like totally gonzo, the black President will not get assassinated on their fucking watch.
I can't see the Senate removing so if Obama gets inaugurated I think he is safe.
The House, I think, if I read it correctly, can at fucking will throw out any and all slate of electors. (The Senate is not involved, they do the VP). The House has never done it, or even seriously considered it. AFAIK. I don't think it would be easy to then certify an alternative slate of electors...because...
The States send only one slate. Don't know State Law, or if a State legislature can just vote up a slate of electors, at will, disregarding the popular vote.
This would all be totally crazy. Fun!
This time I think SCOTUS would run to Bermuda and wear false beards. They should stay the fuck out, also circuits and districts.
After the Ruth Hayes clown show, 188? Law I think, Presidents are decided by Congress, if all other systems fail. And this is exactly how it should be.
And a twenty vote Republican margin in the House would not be decisive. Politics and bargaining will be determinative.
I'm not sure what will change them for the better other than a real crisis
Maybe I'll put "Heightening the contradictions" as a write-in.
Unless the election judge is a lurker, they won't get it.
I'm surprised how many people in this thread want to nuke Japan.
... and all the even shittier and more personal things, but anyhow, let's keep it light.
I'm close to a similar conclusion but every time I read something like 8 it pushes me back the other way.
Twelfth Amendment, bob. It doesn't matter what the margin in the House is, because it's one state one vote.
Sooooo...if I understand it.
For the first time ever, because Husted is scum and obviously crooked, party leaders throw out Ohio.
We then do not have a majority, and the President is elected by the House, one vote per state delegation.
Fuck the popular vote. It isn't as if State legislatures and Congressional delegations are appointed by the UN Sec Gen or something. They are close enough to the people to get a bloody nose or tar and feathers.
They will be listening.
My mother, who is basically Bob McManus
I'm with 27, this adds a whole new dimension to things. I'm trying to picture bob as a stewardess.
Coffee, tea, or blood in the streets?
44:Steward. Actually flight attendant.
Sexist.
8: Scott Lemieux had convinced me to vote for Stein (I'm in a safe Romney state), but the risk of Romney winning the popular vote has pushed me back to Obama.
45: Nothing could sum my mother up more succinctly.
42: I am not sure what stage you are referring to.
Certification of electors matters, and is not one vote per state, because of the difference in size of delegations.
But in some kind of love of Constitution and law thing, I would like to see this one go to the House, redeeming the disaster of 2000. Fuck Scalia, the nation has a lot more ruin in it than he presumed.
SCOTUS does not belong in elections, after the vote has been cast.
And I am not predicting, but I would not be surprised this time. Ohio will be a disaster, and Florida and Penn not much better.
Obama would win in the House, at great cost. I promise.
49: The applicable clause from the 12th Amendment:
"But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote;"
49 last:WTF am I thinking. One vote per state, Obama would lose in a landslide in the House.
Then Democrats could rethink their strategy of clustering in rabbit warrens on the coasts and come on down to Texas, y'all.
Outa here.
43 -- Actually, I don't think 'disregard Ohio' is on the menu. You probably end up instead having litigation over whether the slate certified by Husted is proper under federal and Ohio election law.
I guess I'm not surprised to learn that that sock-puppeting fucker Henry Clay is using "bob mcmanus" as one of his many pseuds.
52:I had a details wrong.
Wiki
Members of Congress can object to any state's vote count, provided that the objection is presented in writing and is signed by at least one member of each house of Congress. An objection supported by at least one Senator and one Representative will be followed by the suspension of the joint session and by separate debates and votes in each House of Congress; after both Houses deliberate on the objection, the joint session is resumed. A State's certificate of vote can be rejected only if both Houses of Congress vote to accept the objection. In that case, the votes from the State in question are simply ignored. The votes of Arkansas and Louisiana were rejected in the presidential election of 1872.[47]
Fuck courts, lawyers, and laws. Congress decides.
LGM is doing yeomans work in convincing me I should consider voting for Romney tomorrow.
I also am getting tired of the argument that because every four years, if you jump through a bunch of hoops, you are given a powerless voice in a national referendum that does not in any meaningful way constrain the government, makes you totally responsible for all the governments shitty actions.
LGM is doing yeomans work in convincing me I should consider voting for Romney tomorrow.
I just wrote to a couple of friends over there telling them exactly this. You know what liberal blogs really need? MORE SANCTIMONY!
Should I go to LGM and make cock jokes?
56: I assume you pointed out how they'd be morally culpable if they didn't cut it out.
I think I'd better go to the movies until the election is over. I wonder if Berlin Alexanderplatz is showing anywhere.
59: I did go to Cloud Atlas over the weekend. Spent most of the time wondering what poll results I was missing.
58: jeez, I like a bunch of those guy, but I'm seriously going to dip into the IJC fund to buy Mitt Romney a drone if they don't shut up with that shit.
I saw Spy Kids II over the weekend. It wasn't bad.
I was camping where Spy Kids II was being filmed and one early morning I wandered around the set involving a giant treehouse.
The House rejecting a Husted-certified Romney slate is less likely than Obama winning Texas.
64: There was a nest for a flying pig.
I was going to go to the movies, but now I've been guilted into doing voter protection again.
Tell me about your mother, LB.
65: Yeah. Oh well, contradictions keep hiding.
Anybody been to FDL today? Blinding and offensive, looks like an Obama campaign site.
I'm with 55 and 56. I love that blog and have for donkey's but they (and by "they" I primarily mean "he") ought to give it a rest. When they he they started in on Doug Henwood that was almost the last straw for me.
Charlie Pierce today*: This is not "fear" talking. This is simply the way things are. It is important to stand against the people and the forces to which Willard Romney owes his political career. It is more important to do that than it is to do anything else. It is more important to do that than to salve my conscience, or make a statement, or dream my wistful dreams of a better and more noble politics. And that is why, today, I will vote for Barack Obama, not because of the man he is not, but because of the man his opponent clearly has become. I will do so without enthusiasm, and without a sliver of doubt in my mind.
Don't try to yell at him, Wafer, he's a national treasure.
I saw Spy Kids II over the weekend. It wasn't bad.
Just wait until you see it for the 20th time. Spider monkeys have never been so tiresome.
A huge part of the reason I am registered Green, and will vote for Stein, and voted for Nader twice, and voted for Obama four years ago, is because I think the system is bullshit. From that perspective, a popular vote/electoral vote split decision is perhaps the best outcome because it lays bare that yes, the system is, in fact, bullshit. But for once, it will be the Republicans on the short end of the stick.
Addendum to 70, I do like what Loomis says in his latest (and I really like his blogging in general). He makes some great points about the left and institutionalizing political change and he does it without all of the gee don't my farts smell great you must smell them no really I insist sanctimony of his co-blogger.
71: and you know why I love Pierce? Because he's talking about what he's going to do and about his own motivations, that's why. He's not ascribing motives and judging other people who are doing what they're doing for who the fuck knows what reason. And he's not calling other people vain or self-aggrandizing or stupid for wanting to vote for a third-party candidate. Hell, he might even be implying such a thing, but he's not saying it outright, and that distinction that matters to me.
Also, I agree with every word he says. But I'm just fucking sick to fucking death of bloggers mocking people who want to change this corrupt fucking system. I'm fucking sick to fucking death of bloggers who are sure that their way forward is the only way and that anyone who dares to disagree with them is selfish or silly or starry-eyed. And yes, I know that this pisses me off in part because I got called starry-eyed so many times during the run-up to the last election -- this slur despite the fact that I haven't had a star in my eyes since, like, the third grade -- that it's a bit personal for me. But really that's not the real issue. The real issue is that I can't stand certitude in the face of complexity. It makes me suspicious. If one doesn't have doubts about very complicated things -- like, for example, the best method of effecting social change -- one is a fucking idiot. And the difference between Charlie Pierce and Matt Taibbi, despite the fact that they sometimes share a voice that I like to think of "late-stage blogger snark", is that Pierce is smart enough to be uncertain about everything he believes.
The real issue is that I can't stand certitude in the face of complexity.
Never?
The real issue is that I can't stand certitude in the face of complexity. It makes me suspicious.
Right. This is exactly how I feel.
I'm a bit of a hypocrite on this, given that I frequently say dogmatic things where I don't have a strong enough basis to justify them. But I do try to catch myself and back down when I notice what I've done.
75 was way longer than I intended. I'm going to go to a couple of meetings now. They should be almost as long as Berlin Alexenderlatz.
Amen to 75 (so not too long at all).
74:Loomis is better. Warblogger Farley (the only warblogger besides Silbey I have contact with) tried to muscle me off that blog last week.
But Loomis is still dreaming the dreams of the first half of the 20th, and we don't live there anymore. We are not getting a 50 million member AFL-CIO back. Organizing within and without is not going to fly.
The Europeans have their own history of 1968, and have learned better, have progressed further, being further from the core. I feel I learn something from the European Left every day.
They will not save us, of course.
I guess I'm voting Obama. I wasn't going to vote for Stein or anyone else, but leaving the President line blank seems silly.
I can't say strongly enough, certitude in the face of complexity is no virtue!
I am not voting. I need to de-moralize.
Speaking of rats and ships:
ANCHOR: And is Jeep creating more jobs in Ohio or are they sending them to China?
KASICH: No. Chrysler has, has -- Chrysler is the one automaker that has increased employment.
Thanks, LB. This does make me happy. My dad is espousing a third party candidate because he doesn't think there is any real difference between Obama and Romney. I feel relatively safe that his vote is meaningless in this sea of blue anyway. But the argument that it doesn't matter which one wins makes me weep.
75: You forgot to mention how you despise sanctimony.
come on down to Texas, y'all.
I'm already as far south as my thermometer will allow me to live.
Has this been linked yet, or some other source?
Ohio Republicans Sneak Risky Software Onto Voting Machines
Salon (Shrug)
The thing to remember about Spy Kids is that appearances to the contrary, Alexa Vega is not over 18 until Spy Kids IV
83- You should dot it really lightly so that if there's a manual recount you can have your ballot appear in one of the action shots.
87- "doesn't think there is any real difference between Obama and Romney." See, this is bullshit- if you want to argue that Obama doesn't deserve your vote because he doesn't ride your imaginary unicorn and shit gold, fine, whatever. But don't tell me the sky is green and expect me to respect the purity of your incorrectness.
89: My thermometer expects 60-80 from here to April. And everything is still totally green.
This time of year summer feels worth it.
I should add teh caveat that if the voting line is more than 10 deep or so, I'm going to say "fuck it" and head off to work. Such is my commitment to the process.
95 is stranger to me than the whole "blood in the streets" thing. A good freeze kills the critters and rests the lungs.
Con-Ed is not able to get steam to my office building right now. Sitting in here the cold makes Texas sound tempting.
Same here. It's not too bad, but I am wearing a sweater that probably took about a sheep-and-a-half's worth of wool to make.
Okay, this is fucked up beyond belief. I don't suppose I will have the opportunity to confront anyone like this in south MPLS, but it still turns my stomach and makes me want to go out and stomp somebody:
http://transgenderequality.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/tea-party-group-targets-trans-voters/
I am being so well-behaved and not sending an angry, angry message to the neighborhood listserv about the stupid school board debate and the smarmy hypocrite who's running the campaign against the incumbents because stirring things up more won't help, but FUCK.
I get that my family is already devalued because we're gay and don't have the same legal connection to each other that "normal" families get and lots of folks around here (physically; not on unfogged) want to make sure it stays that way. But STFU about poor kids and your statements that are code for non-white kids and "broken homes" and all this nonsense people are spewing because gawdforbid we don't pile extra money and help onto the rich white kids from straight moneyed homes. It makes me feel so sick and sad and angry.
101: You could change the subject by creating an account with a different email and using it criticize the lawn care of selected neighbors and imply that others are having affairs.
Lee already suggested that we return to segregation but by income rather than race. No one took her up on it yet, but I pointed out to her that that's because it's already what they're doing and they don't have a problem with it, which I think she thought they would. Am I allowed to call her starry-eyed?
Apparently Sean Hannity has resorted to ranting about Jeremy Wright. Winning!
102 gets it wrong. Poor lawn care is not a moral ill.
I've known plenty of people whose only evident life goal was a nice lawn.
104: The Louisville running back? But he's having an excellent season.
It's about time someone complained about Jeffrey Wright. Felix Leiter is a WHITE MAN. He has a GERMAN NAME for god's sakes. P.C. run amok.
107: Oh, I know them, too. Their landscape bigotry should not be validated.
107: A monoculture is the second most sterile thing you can do to a plot of land short of paving it. Either commit to sterility all the way or grow a lush mess. Anything else is chickenshit.
Austin has a neat program where they'll pay you $16/ft^2 to get rid of your lawn. Xeriscaping, garden, mulch, etc all count.
My town has a not-neat law still on the books that it's illegal not to have a grass front yard.
Paving your lawn is tougher for the skinned knees, though.
Heebies town is obviously in the pocket of Big Fescue.
Kind of on-topic to the OP:
I finally printed out my CA sample ballot. As near as I can tell, I should vote:
30 - YES
31 - No
32 - NO
33 - No
34 - Yes (you all, plus nearly everyone else I know, convinced me)
35 - No
36 - Yes
37 - Still on the fence. Probably yes?
38 - No
39 - What is this? Help please
40 - Yes
My state assembly race is an extraordinarily vicious contest between two individuals who appear to have exactly the same views on every issue, but who emphatically contend that the other is a liar and a cheat. I can't wait for this election to end.
Paving your lawn creates more run-off from storm water. That appears to be the biggest water-related issue here.
It's Halloween in New Jersey. I like living in a place where kids come around on Halloween, even when the holiday is storm-delayed.
The real issue is that I can't stand certitude in the face of complexity. It makes me suspicious.
Give me a fucking break. Saying "voting for the Green Party is either a harmless but stupid gesture or something affirmatively harmful" [which is true, and something VW seems to agree with] isn't "certitude in the face of complexity" it's an argument, and a correct one.
I'm sick of having to worry about mollycoddling the feelings of a bunch of idiot half-wit so-called progressives who can't get on with the fucking team when it counts. And put up posts and energy about this crap but not about actually organizing. And, sure, I have plenty of differences with the Obama administration, but that's not really what the salient issue is right now.
I totally agree with everything in 75 except for the bit about "the real issue", which is the historian's deformation professionelle.
What's really wrong is not the certainty in the face of complexity, but the inability to formulate a convincing argument about the source of your uncertainty in the face of uncertainty. It's just not true that everyone who disagrees with you on every issue is dumb or malevolent. If you want to make a convincing argument, you start by respectfully addressing the affirmative case for the other side, and then explaining why you think these other points are more important. (Pierce does this -- he concedes that Obama sucks, before making the case that the Republicans are worse -- which is why his post is more convincing than any of the 100 posts at LGM on the same subject.)
There are plenty of times where mockery is appropriate, but sometimes you just have knuckle down and try to convince someone of something.
you just have knuckle down and try to convince someone of something.
Sure. But that's been done hundreds or thousands of times now (including on LGM, which has had tons of arguments about this for what, 10 years now?), and it's more than apparent that some people just aren't interested in listening but want to vanity vote (or more precisely endlessly muse about vanity voting) for identity reasons. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm also fine calling you a dumbass for doing so.
121: Saying "voting for the Green Party is either a harmless but stupid gesture or something affirmatively harmful" [which is true, and something VW seems to agree with] isn't "certitude in the face of complexity" it's an argument, and a correct one.
That's actually not an argument, that's a conclusion. An argument would involve having some kind of basis for saying that voting for the Green Party is either affirmatively harmful or stupid. And while you've been emphatic about your beliefs in that regard, you haven't been terribly convincing.
And put up posts and energy about this crap but not about actually organizing.
This. If Libertarian Q. Green is such an amazing candidate who speaks so deeply to your core values that you feel morally compelled to throw your vote at his utterly unviable candidacy, then maybe you should have done something for the past 3 years and 51 weeks to actually make a candidate with those values viable.
37 - Still on the fence. Probably yes?
Drum had a good argument against it: it's really the sort of thing the legislature should handle, not the initiative process. The comparison he drew was to Prop. 65, and I suspect he's right that the labeling will quickly get to be as useless as Prop. 65 warnings are.
124: There was a Monty Python sketch about that.
119: That and water quality issues. The rivers aren't as bad as they used to be, but still not something I want to think about.
Once again, and these arguments have been made a thousand times. It's harmless if it doesn't matter. It's potentially harmful because you are helping to build a third party that will waste progressive energy, has no reasonable ability to advance the progressive agenda, and will be an affirmative drain on the ability of progressives to accomplish that agenda.
The argument that the "threat" presented by "sending a message" through the Green party (as opposed to, e.g., supporting the progressive wing of the Democratic party) will force Democrats to the left is frankly ridiculous -- in any remotely realistic scenario, it will drain a few percentage points off the left end of the ticket which the Dems will try to make up for by moving to the right. There's essentially no evidence of any third party moving the Democrats to the left, and there are plenty of reasons to think that the Green party structure won't come close to helping that goal. The "sending a message to the administration" argument is also stupid, since the message is extraordinarily unlikely to be persuasive to Democrats in office.
Again, work to elect Democrats. Then, if you don't like what they're doing, organize against them -- I'm fine with that. The Green Party is a bet for suckers and wankers, and I'm not going to be shy about saying that.
128: Right, but I thought the big issue with the rivers was the amount of shit washed into them because the sewers can't handle the run-off after a storm.
I'm probably voting against 37 on the Drum theory that this isn't something that should be enacted by proposition, but I'm somewhat on the fence. Big Ag is a really destructive force and it would be nice to slap them on the face in principle.
Prop 39 just corrects a stupid policy that promoted out-of-state job growth and is a clear yes. Is there even a "no" campaign for that one?
125: There's a difference between a vote against and a vote for. If we stipulate harmlessness (that is, assume someone in my position -- strong preference for Obama over Romney, similarly strong desire to express opposition to many of Obama's policies -- and figure that they've done a reasonable job of assuring themselves that they're in a safe state one way or the other), there's no real point in worrying too much about the specifics of how any third party candidate would govern, because they're not realistically going to be elected.
a bunch of idiot half-wit so-called progressives who can't get on with the fucking team when it counts.
Yeah, see, the thing about voting in a non-swing state is that it is not a situation where anything actually "counts." So why the hell should one not spend one's basically useless vote supporting a third party candidate who has positions actually in line with one's beliefs?
133 -- because you're helping to build something (a third party) that's ultimately actively harmful for progressives, if not in your state than elsewhere.
Put it this way, in very simple and clear terms. Under what scenario is an Obama administration more likely to enact progressive policies -- one where he wins a clear majority of the popular vote, or one where he doesn't, due in part to Green voters? I don't see how anyone can conceivably argue that the latter result would lead to a more progressive administration, though I can see an argument that the popular vote totals won't matter that much.
you are helping to build a third party that will waste progressive energy, has no reasonable ability to advance the progressive agenda, and will be an affirmative drain on the ability of progressives to accomplish that agenda.
This is all assertion rather than argument. How does the existence of the Green Party impede the progressive agenda? You make it sound like a vampire.
in any remotely realistic scenario, it will drain a few percentage points off the left end of the ticket which the Dems will try to make up for by moving to the right.
Again, you're stating this as self-evident without any argument. At this point, I don't see a lot of people still voting Republican who aren't batshit crazy: those people are going to be hard to pick up. I, and my ilk (under the assumption that I have an ilk) are easy to pick up. I'm not saying that it's impossible that you could be right, but you really haven't supported a claim that it's absolutely unrealistic to think the Democrats might move left to recover disgruntled leftists.
I think both the dems and the republicans would like to govern to the right of the median member of the public. Given this the democrats will always choose the marginal rightwing voter over the marginal left wing voter, because that is who they want their base to be.
At this point, I don't see a lot of people still voting Republican who aren't batshit crazy
Approximately 50% of the country will be voting Republican.
Prop 39 just corrects a stupid policy that promoted out-of-state job growth and is a clear yes. Is there even a "no" campaign for that one?
The SF Chron ran an editorial against Prop 39. The editorial itself made no sense, but I've heard very little else about 39.
I don't see how anyone can conceivably argue that the latter result would lead to a more progressive administration, though I can see an argument that the popular vote totals won't matter that much.
Because under the assumption that disgruntled leftists were common enough to be visible (which, I admit is unlikely, but coming out of the closet as one is the only way to make ourselves visible), Congress and other decisionmakers might see us as a constituency that has to be appeased. Is that a sure thing? No, of course not. Is it inconceivable? No, it really isn't. And your calling it inconceivable is the sort of thing that makes it difficult to sort through what you say on this topic to see if there's anything worth listening to.
132 -- I'm not willing to stipulate harmlessness. Small but non-trivial risk, yes. Leave off the certainty that this vote can't have any harmful effect of any kind, and embrace the complexity that is the actual world. Where does that leave you? Other than mocking people who think your certainty about harmlessness is either overblown or insincere.
Big Ag is a really destructive force and it would be nice to slap them on the face in principle.
This is why I'm voting yes on 37. I'd rather be part of an anti-corporate coalition with some tension around scientific claims than vote to punish the anti-GMO people for scientific sloppiness and align myself with Monsanto.
I mostly agree with Halford on the Green Party. I don't think it's impossible to build a third-party challenge in a way that sustains a progressive voice and challenges Dem centrism, but I don't see anything coming from the Greens that makes me believe in them. I voted for Nader twice, but I don't think there was any great play there, or has been since Eugene Debs.
That said, I'll probably vote for Roseanne tomorrow, because I'm eternally ashamed that I passed up the chance to vote for Gary Coleman for California governor.
because you're helping to build something (a third party) that's ultimately actively harmful for progressives, if not in your state than elsewhere.
That's one way to see it. A different way to see it is that maybe I'm doing my best to yank on the Overton Window. Neither one of us has the data or the foresight to know which, if either, of these interpretations will be proven correct in the long run.
141: Sorry, who was I mocking, and when?
Nothing's certain in this world, and in practice I'm flipping back to Obama because the weather disruption has me uncertain about harmlessness. But still, you can know what a safe state is with about as much certainty as you can know anything.
Popular vote? Eh. I'm unconvinced that the intensity of opposition to Obama is going to be much affected by anything -- they've been maximally oppositional for the four years where he had a large popular vote majority. I don't think they've been holding back. I also don't think losing the popular vote did Bush any harm at all. So I'm willing to evaluate the risk of a popular vote loss as not terribly important.
OK, I switched verbs in the middle. Should be 'Other than mocking reservations about your certainty as either overblown or insincere.'
Ever since the New Party's fusion run was knocked down by the Supreme Court, it's hard for me to see what the point of third-party progressive politics is. "Stand up and be counted" isn't meaningless, but voting for a third party isn't a very effective way to do that -- I'd rather see single-issue lobbies with greater strength.
I passed up the chance to vote for Gary Coleman for California governor.
Because you had to vote for Angelyne?
No, I was a good soldier and voted for Cruz Bustamante. I shudder just to type his name.
Bush din't have to contend with a right plutocrat leaning Village, or rely on moderate red state Senate Dems.
135-- there's a long argument, linked in this very thread!, that makes exactly this point. I've cut and pasted it here and then I'm done. This is exactly what's so frustrating -- you can make the same points over and over and Naderites just want that sweet sweet taste of identity voting.
But the basic point is simple -- a "left" third party that's not based around an actual social movement* and organizing is a total and complete waste of time. Our political system just isn't constituted that way. The Green Party is certainly not going to be the bearer of a left social movement, because it has no reality in an actual social movement. If you want an actual left social movement to succeed, the way to make that work is to organize and take over an existing party, just as conservatives did on the left and African Americans and women's groups have largely done for the Democratic party recently, and as unions did with the Democrats in the past. The Green Party is just running away from reality.
I'm voting Yes on 37 too. Would I like GMO foods to be labeled as such? Yes. So I'm voting for that.
leaving the President line blank seems silly
Out here, some people appreciate it.
Ever since the New Party's fusion run was knocked down by the Supreme Court, it's hard for me to see what the point of third-party progressive politics is.
I'm really groping here -- I'm not certain that voting for the Greens is a good thing to do at all. But I am thinking of the position of the religious right within the Republican party: a coherent, organized political constituency that, while it's never going to defect to the other major party, has a continuous implicit threat to stay home if not catered to. And they get catered to.
I don't know how to get progressives to that position within the Democratic party, which means that I've started thinking that maybe they have to organize outside it, and get co-opted back in.
150, this. For a while there were two Green Party councilmembers on the (non-partisan) Santa Monica City Council, and they were warriors on union organizing issues. (One of them still is. God bless Kevin McKeown.) If there were more of that, I'd be more interested in them.
I don't know how to get progressives to that position within the Democratic party
Fair enough. I think the labor movement has the potential to do that, but... it seems to be stuck as "potential." There's only one Marty Martinez, and there should be many more.
It would be great to see some climate change primary challenges in the next couple of years. Orange post title! Who can we run?
Or, I didn't cut and paste the link. But I meant to link to Loomis and Lemieux's argument.
Honestly, are there any people who are serious left-wing community organizers who are big on the Green Party? Having asked that question, I'm sure someone can dig up somebody. But it seems to me that the people who are actually working on moving the country to the left -- including on issues where there's serious disagreement with the administration -- pretty uniformly understand that the way to move forward is to disagree with national democrats, to try and move that party to the left, and to vote Democratic in national elections. That the people who are actually doing the work of progressive politics mostly reject the Green Party is pretty persuasive evidence to me that it's a waste of time and energy.
"Stand up and be counted" isn't meaningless, but voting for a third party isn't a very effective way to do that -- I'd rather see single-issue lobbies with greater strength.
Well, I'm my support the Green Party is basically single issue (in as much as environmentalism is a single thing.) I also identify with the Pirate Party based on their single issue of intellectual property reform.
I don't need these parties to be standard bearers for "the Left"... voting Green is more of my way of stating "hey, pay attention to the goddamn environment, you goons."
I think that making it clear there is a constituency for pro-environmental policies is a positive in this regard, one that goes past sticking it to Obama because of drones, or civil liberties, or corporatocracy or whatever.
From the link above:
And in 2000, she did something liberals always talk about doing and almost never do: she challenged an incumbent Democratic congressman with a piss-poor record in that Spring's Democratic primary, and defeated him soundly. Marty Martinez, a 9-term incumbent seeking his 10th, had voted for NAFTA, opposed gun controls and abortion rights, and backed the extension of a freeway into a residential area -- managing to estrange labor, enviros, feminists and liberals of all descriptions. Still, Democrats virtually never run against incumbents, from the left or from anyplace. But Solis, with the encouragement of L.A. County AFL-CIO chieftain Miguel Contreras, did just that. She not only won, but defeated Matinez by a whopping 69 percent to 31 percent margin.
The "Tea Party" has been entirely co-opted by the Republican party because the Republican party moved very aggressively to the right in response to the threat posed by Tea Party activists. Counterfactual history is hard, but I think there was an at-the-very-least-plausible risk that if the Republicans had tried to become more moderate in response to the Tea Party protests, the Republican coalition would have split.
Now, that move to the hard right may end up having its benefits outweighed by its electoral costs (from the view of a hard-right activist), since it continues to cost the party in national elections. So maybe that's a bad model to follow. But that's a very different argument from "there's no plausible way that supporting an aggressively progressive party could do anything other than cause the Democrats to move further right." Which is the "self-evident" argument Halford seems to be making.
I don't know how to get progressives to that position within the Democratic party, which means that I've started thinking that maybe they have to organize outside it, and get co-opted back in.
This seems to have been an effective tactic for the Tea Party, on the other side.
Regarding 37, I liked this post from a biologist friend-of-a-friend: Prop 37 and the right to know nothing. The followup comment about labeling foods from Minnesota is also good.
(Are there actually 40-ish questions in CA, or is the numbering just such that it starts at 30?)
I'd rather be part of an anti-corporate coalition with some tension around scientific claims than vote to punish the anti-GMO people for scientific sloppiness and align myself with Monsanto.
Hey now, them's fighting words!
I might support something like an organized progressive party, maybe a Green party, that was focused on local races in largely one-party Democratic cities that are pretty left wing. But there's little need for such a party; the way it's usually worked is simply that there are more, and less, progressive wings of the local Democratic party -- and that works even better than a third party.
I also think people are failing to realize their own successes. On most issues, the Democratic party is substantially more progressive now than it was in 1970, due to a lot of people's hard work in pushing the party to the left. There's a long way to go, particularly, on economic issues, but people forget just how conservative the party was in 1970 and how much liberals have gained. Nancy Pelosi, for example, is about as progressive as a mainstream politician gets, and she was goddamn speaker of the house. Progressives don't run the party, but they're a substantial faction in the coalition and increasingly so.
161: The numbering is such that it starts at 30. Reset in 1982, then again in 1998 when it was set for 10-year cycles.
150: I'm sure you're frustrated, but trust me that frustrated or not, you're still not convincing.
I'm not committed to third-party politics for leftier-than-thou identity reasons, I'm so temperamentally middle-of-the-road that I get embarrassed calling myself a progressive rather than a liberal. I don't think the Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable -- obviously the Democrats are strongly preferable on a whole bunch of issues. But they're still, and Obama particularly is, horrible on a whole bunch of other issues, and they have been for my entire adult life. While I may be wrong, I'm not your fantasy of a too-cool-to-vote-Democratic Naderite. I'm a Democrat, but I'm a heartbroken, despairing Democrat.
"Organize and take over an actually existing political party" sounds very practical, but that's what progressives have been trying to do for decades, and we still have indefinite detention without judicial process and endless war. I'm not certain of what to do, but you haven't convinced me that you have any better idea of what to do about the things I'm worried about than I do.
123 is completely wrong. You're not interested in making the argument, Scott Lemieux is not interested in making the argument, almost nobody is. I think convincing no one is basically the goal, so that you can lash out at Nader voters again in 2012.
And I say this as someone who completely agrees with you. I would set myself on fire before I voted Green. I run over Ralph Nader with my car if I could get away with it. There's a hard core of people who you can't convince, of course, but there are people who are on the fence, and can be convinced. But what's really important is not convincing them, but telling them how stupid they are for ever daring to have thought otherwise. You're not nearly as bad as Lemieux, but I swear to God, every single time I read another post at LGM on this subject, I become this much closer to voting third-party out of spite.
I'm a Democrat, but I'm a heartbroken, despairing Democrat.
But you repeat yourself.
It bears saying that 80 is exactly right.
The Charlie Pierce article in 71 is very good.
I'll have to try to read it when I get home -- something's wrong with the ad that loads before it, and I can't get through to read the article.
I agree with everything LB is saying here even more than usual.
Nancy Pelosi, for example, is about as progressive as a mainstream politician gets
More's the fucking pity. Pelosi is a corporate hack. I would love to primary her out of office, and I'm sure you would contribute thousands of dollars to get it done, right Halford?
You will do nothing at all dangerous or risky to the Democratic Party, and that is exactly what it going to take. Powerful Democrats losing office. Lots of them.
Such fucking bullshit. The one thing I am absolutely certain of is that the strongest Obama supporters are absolutely worthless in terms of getting the country to where I want it to be.
Oh, I will be watching. Blow me off, I ain't voting for him and it is not my job to push his policy. You do it. Show me you Care. I do not fucking believe a word of your fucking bullshit.
Proof? The last four years and where we are.
Obama couldn't move the Gini Index in four years .0001 in the just direction.
The religious right is very active in Republican party politics, fielding and working for candidates for local and state offices, participating in platform drafting efforts, working to become an indispensable element of the GOTV operation, and a zillion more things.
Fuck Pierce. Fuck Coates.
I am not voting Obama and leaving the Democratic Party not because of Obama or Geithner or Nelson or Pelosi but because of you and you and you.
Democrats who demand my loyalty to evil and then don't fix it.
Fix it. You do it. Democrats you do it.
Then give me a call.
If anyone is trying to send articles to disgruntled liberals explaining why they ought to vote for Obama instead of Stein even if the bluest blue states (or districts), that Pierce piece is quite effective. A bunch of the other arguments I've read are actively counterproductive.
No one should mock anyone for voting out of spite, that's for sure.
I really don't understand why that Pierce piece would be more persuasive to someone thinking about voting Green than the many other articles making more detailed arguments about the affirmative harm caused by trying to build progressive politics through the fantasy of third-parties, but I'm obviously not the target audience.
And while there might be some difference between the tea party, as an organization, and the actual party, it's no coincidence that the tp was well funded, right from the get-go, by people who expected to use it as a vehicle to remake the Republican policy.
People who didn't mind not getting the Senate in 2010, or, it seems, in 2012, because they could be confident that their own interests -- I'm talking about funders, not rank and file -- would be just fine in the interim.
In the Green/whatever/Dem world, losing the wrong SC seat could be enormously harmful. In real time. And indeed was, since without Bush in the White House, there's no Citizens United.
And the Pierce article generated this gem of a comment:
But..but...but...David Brooks solemnly promises Peace In Our Times if we all just agree to get into the windowless van with the nice man and his big bag of Republican Freedom Candy.
Didn't the Democratic Party kind of become more visibly liberal after 2004? Does President Kerry tackle health reform?
The "Tea Party" has been entirely co-opted by the Republican party because
Because it was never, ever for one single second anything but an integral part of the Republican Party, paid for and promoted by official party organs. It is the same caucus within the party that has always been there. They just call themselves something different every twenty years or so.
Bob, you've been singing that same song here for at nearly a decade now. If we offend you so very much, you can always go somewhere else for conversation. Nobody's demanding loyalty (or anything else) from you. We're just watching you scream fuck you at passing cars.
Have you been to FDL today?
They work over there, on Bradley Manning, on evictions, on the pipeline and healthcare and they work within the party do it all the way you say it should be done...and they get nothing and go nowhere. Except Pam Spaulding and TBogg are pretty happy.
Am I proud of them, do I give them an 'A' for effort? Not really. Trying and losing is not what it is about. This is not a morality play. Trying and losing gives the assholes in the Democratic Party a bit of guilt relief and a vicarious thrill.
Why can't they drive the Party to the left? Because of you and you and you. I have given up on you.
I think LB's decision is quite correct.
As for the third-party debate: people should remember it's not really happening in a factual vaccuum. There is an available example of what happens when progressives work to take over the Democratic party from within, and there is an available example of what happens when a third-party candidate splits the progressive vote and thereby lends impetus to a cohesive right wing. Those examples are the Obama Presidency and the Dubya Presidency respectively. (When power gathers on the right, coalition-building rather than vote-splitting is almost always the better bet on the left, and vice versa. That's true even in systems quite different from the American one.)
It seems to me that in order to really view the third-party option as attractive, one would have to in some significant sense see (or have seen) these two options as interchangeable or at least closely comparable -- which whatever one might think about how Obama should be more progressive, would nevertheless be simply factually inaccurate. It's okay to have huge problems with measures being taken in support of the "war on terror," but that's not the same thing as Obama's being kin enough to Dubya to warrant weighing the prospects of Democrat and Republican accession equally. However incomplete the extent of progressive influence inside the Dems, it seems hard to argue with the proposition that the strategy of working within the party has led -- thus far -- to better results than attempt to "nudge the establishment" via third party.
Alternatively, if one doesn't weigh the two sides equally but still thinks the progressive vote can be split without serious consequence to the Democrats, it is rather down to the would-be third-party voter to explain why it is they believe that, and to have extremely solid reasons in place for claiming that this in particular is a good time for running that kind of experiment and why it is worth running the risk of another Nader scenario (or why you wouldn't be running such a risk). I personally don't see any way to make this argument in compelling fashion except if there were also a major right-wing split that involves the parallel advent of a major independent party to split the right-wing vote.
So I get why people are impatient about this.
178: doesn't make false claims about Obama's record or overstate likely harm of voting third party. Acknowledges that the Democrats are feckless & bought. It is not a ludicrous fantasy to argue that if there are no circumstances under which you will NOT vote Democratic, that reduces their incentive to bother caring what their base thinks, or at least disguise their contempt for said base. It's pretty simple game theory. In fact, I think the main difference between the way the parties treat their bases is that the GOP base and funders positions' don't conflict, and Dems do, and voting Green in safe states in ineffectual frustration isn't likely to change that.
Didn't we already have the Green test case in Florida? I think it's a mistake to blame Nader voters, but it's certainly not the case that the Democrats got all thoughtful after losing Florida and decided that they'd never give up the left again after it cost them so much. The Presidency is a bad place to try to push an agenda left; would all that energy had been spent not letting various clowns take over state legislatures...
What I find frustrating about these arguments is that I have no interest in the Green Party or any other third party, but I also don't feel like I'm in a position to help push the Democratic Party leftwards.
(I know, I know, I should get involved in organizing/activism. If I were in a position to make political donations, I'd do that too.)
187: right. The Democratic party leadership is, to a large extent, bought. Or maybe that's too crude but they only listen to their rich constituents and donors, because those are the people who've bought access to them. A vote for a third party candidate in a close state has no hope of changing this and carries an (admittedly very small, but still real) risk of helping Romney get elected. A vote for a third party candidate in a place like D.C. has even less hope of changing this, I suppose, but also much less downside risk. Lecturing the latter group about how they have a moral obligation to vote for the Democratic party NO MATTER WHAT and they are idiots for even considering not doing so seems totally misdirected to me though.
I think the main difference between the way the parties treat their bases is that the GOP base and funders positions' don't conflict
You are begging to be ignored.
My position is that one can vote for whomever one likes (I can't imagine a moral obligation to vote for Democrats, for example), but that thinking that a protest vote for President is going to move the party anywhere is deluded. The Tea Party is inside the tent. They're just rebranded sameolds -- and it's not clear they're not a liability in Senate and Presidential campaigns.
190: genuinely confused by this reaction. There's serious empirical evidence that Congress responds a lot to wealthy constituents' policy preferences, and totally disregards poor constitutents' policy preferences. E.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daron-acemoglu/us-inequality_b_1338118.html, http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Democracy-Political-Economy-Gilded/dp/0691136637
189 -- I agree that 'moral obligation no matter what' is over the top, and not productive. I don't agree that states are safe -- from the small risk of creating headwind, or the much larger risk of encouraging people in swing states to do the same. These acts aren't individual, once one talks about and justifies them in public. They are part of a movement. An uncoordinated movement, to be sure, but a movement just the same. One can either say that people in a movement are not in any way responsible for damage that movement may cause, or that they bear some responsibility, should things go wrong.
Obviously, the split between funders and leftward members of the coalition is concerning. I don't think it's accurate to call the leftmost 8% of the Dem party "the base" although obviously in particular gerrymandered districts it'll be.
Better link for points in 192: http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/economic.pdf
I'm not claiming that I'm a good representative of the median Democratic voters' policy preferences, just claiming that the party's elected leadership also systematically neglects those preferences.
185: If you think the Obama candidacy was some sort of insurgency against the power brokers in the Party, you go back and check his donor list.
So what is the difference between backing a third party candidate in Pelosi's district and backing a lefty insurgent in Pelosi's district, except that the Democratic alternative is more likely to win, or weaken her for the general?
Because that is where insurgents have to fight, they will not move the party left by fighting in blue dog districts, where they will lose and affirm their uselessness.
And that is how the Party went left in the late 60s, by knocking off left of median Democrats with radicals.
Will you help? I doubt it very much.
If you think the Obama candidacy was some sort of insurgency against the power brokers in the Party
I think you're a very stupid person with reading comprehension problems, Bob.
There's a reason there's an analogy ban, because otherwise a person might be tempted to suggest that third-party voters who get in a lather only during a presidential election are like people who don't watch football until the Super Bowl and then spend the whole time mouthing off about the game, when in fact the better analogy lies in the Super Bowl and presidential elections being the supreme expressions of American vulgarity.
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Say it ain't so, but I read somewhere that it's NMM to Elliott Carter.
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I agree totally with 194.
On the funders/base point, I agree that this is a serious concern. But it's not the concern that seems to drive the conversation on (most of, especially here) voting Green, which has to do with either foreign policy or civil liberties issues. That's not a base/funder issue (the funders don't care much about it either); it's an issue with the fact that pro-civil liberties, "anti-Drone" policies are broadly unpopular, even among the Democratic base. The way to change that, if you want to, is to organize around those issues, and your organizing is much more likely to be fruitful with Democrats in office than the reverse, and with pro-civil liberties activists inside the Democratic tent than in a third party.
Because it was never, ever for one single second anything but an integral part of the Republican Party, paid for and promoted by official party organs.
This is true in some real sense, but it's misleadingly oversimplistic. E.g., Rand Paul defeated Trey Grayson in the Republican primary (and of course went on to become a US Senator) despite virtually all party support and endorsements going to Grayson. And he did it by branding himself a member of the "Tea Party movement", and campaigning against "business as usual" Republicans every bit as much as he campaigned against Democrats. And sure, the Republicans eventually adopted him because... well what else were they going to do?
My takeaway is that the "Green Party", such as it is, ought to focus on running self-identified Green Party "candidates" in Democratic primaries. Instead of its current strategy, which as far as I can tell isn't really any sort of coherent strategy at all.
the way it's usually worked is simply that there are more, and less, progressive wings of the local Democratic party -- and that works even better than a third party.
Actually, this works for shit. Maybe not in actual lefty cities (which for the most part are small cities; very few big American cities are in any meaningful sense lefty), but in solidly Dem cities, what you get is Republican-Democrat (the "Republican" is silent) running against left-Democrats (of varying degrees of "left"; left enough not to be viable Presidential candidates, let's say), and the R-Ds win as often as not in the primaries because people don't actually notice that their agendas are effectively identical to those of the Republicans who poll 10% in the general election.
And what's the upshot of this? A Democratic bench that consists of lots and lots of local pols who got elected because they suck up to big business. Also, too, part of the reason that Republicans lack any meaningful number of non-crazy candidates is that the kind of people who could get elected in big, American cities are, pretty much by definition, not Republican. I don't know if that part is plausibly addressed in a world where there's a viable Green Party (or whatever) in every now-Democratic city in the country, but it could be.
Imagine a world in which the Dem mayoral primary isn't between a D-R and a l-D, but between, say, Obama and Barney Frank. Then, in the general, you get a lefty (with years in council or whatever, not a vanity candidate) Green, a center-left or center-right Dem, and a center-right Republican. Whoever wins, you get different governance at the local level and you get different national parties.
What's funny about this is that I'm kind of borrowing AB's rant about local politics here; I don't really hate the existing system, but seeing Halford hold it up as somehow beneficial is a bridge too far.
The faithful should also remember when and how the modern Republican Party was built.
Newt Gingrich and the insurgents were vicious 1988-94, and they abandoned George Bush I and took a loss.
Yeah, see, the thing about voting in a non-swing state is that it is not a situation where anything actually "counts."
This is also the thing about voting in a swing state. If you're only voting because you think your vote will affect the outcome of the election, you're not voting for the right reason.
201 -- I'm not saying it's beneficial or not beneficial; it's just the way it is.
A more organized and self-identified progressive coalition in the Democratic party could be useful in a lot of local races, including maybe in Pittsburgh.* The Tea Party was in the Republican tent, and very much so, but benefited from branding. The Working Families party in New York is great precisely because it's trying to do that kind of thing.
That's very different than supporting the Green Party in national elections.
*Whose Democratic politics were unusually machine-driven even by the standards of a big city when I was familiar with them, in the mid-90s. Sure, if you want to run candidates against a conservative local Dem machine in a safe Dem city, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd encourage you to do.
196: Pelosi isn't the example I'd choose but I'm with you on, e.g., Rahm Emanuel's old Congressional district, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, etc. All districts that could send someone really good to Congress.
There is an available example of what happens when progressives work to take over the Democratic party from within, and there is an available example of what happens when a third-party candidate splits the progressive vote and thereby lends impetus to a cohesive right wing
You could argue that the third-party spoiler is necessary to purge the party's dominant neoliberal wing in order for progressive forces to successfully gather in a future election. But you still get Obama.
198.2--sad if true, but the man had an amazing fifth act.
I'm sitting in a bar, waiting for the snarled subway to clear, and really unhappy about my poor parents, whose very beloved puppy was just mauled to death by neighbors' huskies. They've had a hell of a year. So I'm feeling raw and sentimental. That's a caveat.
I doubt that any Democratic president would or could have done much better with the cards Obama was dealt. (I grant everything about what we wish he'd done differently. But the US is sort of a horrible country, with horrible political forces.) Also, it's still really important to me that he is our first black president, and I desparately want him to succeed.
their agendas are effectively identical to those of the Republicans who poll 10% in the general election.
But they're not identical. At least not in NYC. The R-D's that win are identical to old school liberal Repubs - the kind that are completely extinct these days. I've got a lot of issues with Bloomberg, but he's a hell of a lot better than your generic Republican.
very beloved puppy was just mauled to death by neighbors' huskies
Oh no!
Prop 39: I was expecting to support this wholeheartedly when I started reading it, because I thought it was just increasing taxes on large corporations by closing a featherbeddy tax provision. As it turns out, it also dedicates a lot of the savings to particular uses, and I hate ballot-box budgeting - I want the Legislature to be able to decide where to put the money, because there are more pressing needs than clean energy projects. (This is why I voted against the Prop 29 tobacco tax in June.)
But 39 at least doesn't earmark all the money for its pet project, leaving a lot for the GF. Also, the earmarks apparently expire. Considering the crisis point we're at, I've decided to vote yes on the grounds that every little bit helps.
I think bob makes about the most persuasive possible case for anti-Obama voting.
200, 205 -- I think the tp political strategy is a useful template. It works a whole lot better in a state where you're very likely to win, of course: the risk was worth taking in Kentucky (or in Texas now) in a way that it wasn't in Delaware (or, God willing, Indiana). And knocking off establishment incumbents you have to worry about the bruised ego problem: a Murkowski or Lieberman running 'centrist' and killing your insurgency. (Lugar could probably have won his seat back, but seems not to have had the ego for it).
I think it's a mistake to blame Nader voters
Are we allowed to blame Nader?
This year has been like a blues song for my poor parents. This last tragedy just feels gratuitous. Anyway, sorry to interrupt everyone with this.
I blame unfogged for trying to figure out the academic politics meaning of what happened to jm's parents.
1. Their dog died.
2. Dad fell off a ladder and broke seven ribs.
3. Grandma was hit by a bicyclist and died.
4. Dad fell on a trail and hurt his back.
5. Beautiful, affectionate puppy, well you know how that ends.
Er, vote Obama!
Off to try the subway again. Go back to arguing about third parties, people.
216: That's horrible, especially about grandma.
216: Wow, that's really awful.
Oh, and my dad's brother had a heart attack, from which he is recovering, and my mom's brother-in-law is recovering from his horrible stroke. So that's good news. Ok, time for the subway! Am crossing streets carefully, with the lights!
216: Oh shit. My sympathies to you and them.
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Oh, go fuck yourself, you complacent snotball. If you ever write something that's worth a fucking fuck instead of just constantly insinuating you could then feel free to get back to me.
Excuse me. I needed to get that off my chest.
Ahem.
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Rand Paul defeated Trey Grayson in the Republican primary
But that's still Republican-on-Republican violence. For whatever branding strategy he adopted, it isn't the case that he's outside of the GOP mainstream ideology on any issue of importance. Also, son of a sitting Republican congressman.
198.2: it's true. Former tutor at my alma mater.
Rand Paul defeated Trey Grayson in the Republican primary
A friend of mine who used to debate Trey Grayson in high school matches was delighted by that particular outcome.
211:I presume irony.
Thing is, I read "cases against Obama" all the time, and for months. So much that I am largely indifferent to that conversation. I am much more interested in the alternative anti-politics (anti-Oedipus) of tiqqun, TC, Endnotes and the radical European left. I think Chomsky, Henwood, and the American left I have a little respect for are mostly being tactical and keepng lines of communication open. Good for them.
But we are in a new world, a new empire, and I don't need, for the sake of my sanity and honesty, to pretend the old politics is worth arguing. All I can really do, if they won't read the Leftists*, is scream at passing cars and try to hit the nearest donkey with the proverbial 2 x 4. In the time I am wasting not reading better stuff.
Of which there are 2-3 generations of genius. Around the left blogosphere, it is like Lacan, Lyotard, and Althusser never existed, let alone the 2 fucking generations that moved beyond them.
Is anyone prepared to argue that Barack Obama is the second-best president we've had since FDR? If so, who is No. 1? How do Obama's crimes stack up against LBJ's? How do his accomplishments stack up against Truman's?
If you're saying that Obama is the best or second-best in 70 years, and you still don't want to vote for him - even when he's running against a Republican Party that would reject Goldwater and Nixon as bleeding hearts - then you're just saying that you don't want to participate in majoritarian American politics. Which is an understandable impulse, but not one that's going to endear you to people who want to make democracy more functional.
The splinter-left's decisions to reject Humphrey and Gore strike me as tragic. I don't have any illusion that my vote "matters," but as a statement of principle, I'm proud to be voting for Barack Obama - war criminal though he is - because on principle, I believe in working with my fellow citizens to forge a majority.
If you're a Tea Partier stuck with Romney, then you've already lost a big part of the battle. But Tea Partiers get this, and they'll turn out for Romney because they understand the difference between losing some things and losing everything. As long as Romney wins, they'll have an opportunity to have an impact on the White House. And the more Romney perceives himself as relying on their votes, the more he'll listen to them.
And if you're Barack Obama, a career politician who is one of the most liberal presidents in 70 years, and some people won't vote for you because you're not enough of a lefty, what do you do? Do you try to persuade the 3% who have made it clear they're not interested in supporting someone who is merely better than everybody else for decades, or do you look to poach some of the 49%? The question seems to answer itself.
But we are in a new world, a new empire, and I don't need, for the sake of my sanity and honesty, to pretend the old politics is worth arguing. All I can really do, if they won't read the Leftists*, is scream at passing cars and try to hit the nearest donkey with the proverbial 2 x 4. In the time I am wasting not reading better stuff.
I say again: I've yet to see anyone make the case for the anti-Obama vote better than bob.
Mitt Romney/Gary Johnson vote swap site.
Barack Obama is not even an Eisenhower (who built infrastructure like a madman, and refused to cut taxes) Republican, and is to the right of Richard Nixon.
No, Clinton was to the left of Obama, raising taxes in his first budget.
Barack Obama is a Reagan Republican.
233: Mitt Romney on FOXNews election eve 2008 predicting Pa for McCain (as well as Ohio and a bunch of others).
Oh, shit, Jackmormon, that's just awful.
Well, at the very least, I have finally ascertained that my parents are not voting for Romney. (Gary Johnson picks a few up in the east bay, w00t.) Thanks for all the kind words, people.
then you're just saying that you don't want to participate in majoritarian American politics.
The electoral college being what it is, majoritarian American politics has already made it clear that its not interested in my vote. So if majoritarian American politics doesn't care what I have to say, why should I use my vote to support it?
Another one for the Cookie of the Cuyahoga.
In an advertisement taken out in the Cleveland Jewish News, Mandel's wife's cousins published an open letter in which they publicly lambasted him for his stance on same-sex marriages, gays and lesbians serving in the military, and general anti-inclusive beliefs.
Maybe I'll consider it when majoritarian American politics send me a written apology.
Can I just note here for the record that Obamacare will redistribute ca. $200 billion from upper income taxpayers to lower income citizens in the form of health care, per year, FOREVER? Thank you, that is all.
Sorry for your parents JM, may this year bring only good things.
241: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a stethoscope stamping on a human chest - forever."
Here in CA, I'm not entirely sure what to do with my presidential vote; I honestly hadn't given it any thought, symbolic as it is. A friend of mine helpfully suggested flipping using some randomizing system to pick--it's like she knows me!
I'm No on 37, yes on 39.
244.1: I assume you've read about how the Coptic church picks it's pope?
And how I decide on where to place an apostrophe.
Oh, and I think this new book by Gil/ens is now the go-to source on how our political system completely ignores the non-wealthy; Bart/els himself (the linkee in comments 192 and 195) calls it the best book in decades on political inequality. Here's a Boston Review symposium on it, with responses; here's a one, two, three part Monkey Cage series of posts on the book.
I should really read it in advance of my Commonwealth Club debate next week on replacing elections with lotteries.
So why don't the Democrats have a green caucus or something. Make a show of renaming the progressive caucus with a catchy color.
Knowing California, they'd probably replace elections with the Big Spin.
I'm not sure anything has ever made Mitt Romney look smaller than picking a fight with Chris Christie right now.
You can have as many entendres as you want with this comment.
What about the time I stood atop the telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory Romney was by the eyepiece?
|| I just realized tonight that I guy I know and like is running for CJ of the Alabama Sup Ct. Against Roy Moore. Feel free to ask the divinity of your choice to intervene on the right side of that one. |>
237: Right. At the risk of being tiresome, I'll say yet again that I think bob - with his contempt for American democracy in general - makes the strongest available anti-Obama case.
255: Heh. I just saw this ad from that race via TPM (maybe that's what prompted your recollection?).
241
Can I just note here for the record that Obamacare will redistribute ca. $200 billion from upper income taxpayers to lower income citizens in the form of health care, per year, FOREVER? Thank you, that is all.
Most of this money will go to health care professionals many of whom are also upper income.
I'll say yet again that I think bob - with his contempt for American democracy in general - makes the strongest available anti-Obama case.
I share some of his contempt, but I imagine I'll have to study a few more years before I can reach a Bob-like level of zen.
The link it 257 is stupid. Godfather is New York, if they want to make the Chicago-politics slur, they need to use Al Capone.
Godfather makes me think of Herman Cain.
Talking politics with my dad was easier than anything else, even though his views are orthogonal to mine. He's outraged that people aren't being informed that the funds allocated for Prop 30 will also go to moving prisoners from state to county jails, to ObamaCare mandates on MediCal, and, er, something else.
I did try to point out that moving prisoners was part of a court order, but I don't know much of the details. The business about MediCal strikes me as a massive red herring. We all are hoping that the efficiencies baked into the system will become manifest. Also, yes, states are supposed to help deal with their local needs, and no, I'm not willing to leave Alabamans to die.
When I lived in California, however, I was much more localist, much more apt to think that other regions of the country should just deal with their own problems.
Part of that may have to do with how few states there are west of, say, Texas. The electoral map is distorted towards the East. Part of it is the general sense in the West that the slavery and post-slavery histories don't have much to do with current local politics--not true, but it's a general idea.
But really, I think that most of it is lack of familiarity with the rest of the country. "Leave it to the states" should be a chilling statement to anyone who feels any sort of solidarity with poor people in corrupt, backwards states.
Just to be as annoying and aggressive on this topic as possible, I really think there's a connection between the logic that leads to Green Party voting and the individualistic, self-centered libertarian nonsense that's ruined America since about 1970. Instead of viewing politics as a collective effort in which, for better or for worse, you support your group when it counts, people decide to cast a feel-good ballot for a party that's done no community organizing whatsoever, has no social base, and has no plans to develop one. Instead of organizing on an issue by trying to move actual politicians with real chances of winning, you opt out of politics altogether. It's not just an ineffectual way of approaching politics, it's an affirmatively harmful one. You're a member of society, not a brain in a box, and that means joining in imperfect institutions and rolling up your sleeves and working with the world and politics we have.
Lots of people wear t-shirts now, Halford. Or tank tops. Or sometimes not even shirts, if it's hot out and they're sexy.
263: just to be a dick back, "I really think there's a connection" is about the lamest possible argument I've ever seen. It's roughly on par with Peggy Noonan's sense that things are breaking Mitt's way! And the more you talk about feel-good voting, the more you make me want to vote for Roseanne, you smug fuck.* Again, your way (which is my way, don't forget), lots of smart people believe, hasn't worked. So they're considering an alternative. Stop pretending that you know for sure your way is the only way. It makes you -- and by extension me -- sound like an ass.
* Written with love. Seriously, I have no beef with you about any of this.
265: OTOH, to be fair to Halford, I'm totally somebody who drank the "individualistic, self-centered libertarian nonsense" kool-aid in the past, and am now basically flipping a coin about whether to vote Green or not with my California presidential vote. So I seem to be a good example of what he's talking about. That said, for his argument to cut any ice, it would be much better to find examples of someone moving the other direction, from Green protest voting to Tea Partyism.
249: 150 years after Marx American Political Science discovers the Class War. The Ruling Ideas are the Ideas of the Ruling Class. Wait. They aren't quite there yet, are they.
With the Internet and all, I will predict it will only be a century before they recreate Gramsci. Micro-founded in quantitative empirical studies, of course, and thereby almost useless as a base for a political project.
I read the forum and was not encouraged.
The US Intellectual History blog put out a call for Marxian American Historians. There's a list. Too bad I am no longer interested in American History.
Nothing says self-centered-Libertarian like wanting to tax the crap out of polluters and spend the proceeds on social services.
I may just be reading the wrong media outlets or living in the wrong part of the country, but my perception of the Greens is that they run a presidential candidate every four years, then disappear completely for the next three.
Having written that to be a dick, I do think there's a connection between people voting Green and the rise of Libertarianism (especially as an entity in electoral politics): discontent with a corrupt status quo. For Libertarians, they view the expansion of government, which is bought and paid for and curbs their freedom, as a real problem. For Greens, they view the government, which is bought and paid for and refuses to curb the freedom of corrupt oligarchs, as a real problem. But I'm not sure there's any common cause between them, especially if you posit that common cause as selfishness. One of those groups is ideologically selfish; the other isn't.
Also, I totally agree that there are countless ways in which the country has become more progressive since 1970. But socio-economic stratification isn't one of them. And for people who believe that that's THE underlying problem, they don't have a lot of good options available to them in our two-party system.
265: "I really think there's a connection" is about the lamest possible argument I've ever seen
I would in fairness say "lots of smart people believe" is much lamer.
I've noticed the same thing Halford notes in Canadian politics, too: that there's a rather consumerist sense of politics-as-euphoric-self-affirmation that underlies a lot ineffectual progressivism. I remember getting lambasted for voting strategically against the ultra right-wing nutjobs in my province -- by people who were Facebooking messages like "I don't care if I threw my vote away, my conscience is clear." And fuck a bunch of that shit, really; I guarantee you they wouldn't have been blase about it if we were living under a "Wildrose Alliance" government right now.
Maybe 270 is to 266. Or maybe you're just a selfish prick. I can't know for certain.
270: discontent with a corrupt status quo.
Except that libertarianism is deep in the DNA of the corrupt status quo. Only an incredibly tiny handful of libertarians recognize this and go further, and usually it leads them to not being libertarians any more. The rest are just sold an insurgent mentality for the same reason the rest of the conservative movement is: it moves units for the vast shakedown operation that is the conservative movement.
271: the thing is, I'm not trying to make an affirmative argument for anything other than not shitting on people who are justifiably alienated by a corrupt system and for the difficulty of charting a course to change that system. If you think the smart people are wrong about those things, please feel free to make a counterargument.
274: I already did. I'm just saying "smart people" is basically an analytically useless term in this context. "Lots of smart people" bought the Iraq War; this didn't mean much more than that they either didn't deserve reputations as "smart people" or had checked their brains at the door for that particular subject.
273: if you think I'm defending libertarians (or even Libertarians), I don't know what to say. Fuck, I'm not even defending people who vote Green (who I think, as I've said a gazillion times, are making a mistake). I'm just saying that insisting that they're selfish and voting out of nothing but vanity is stupid and certainly not at all persuasive.
I'm not accusing you of defending anyone, VW, we're all just talking here.
(Here we all are: Ike, Mike and mustard.)
Not to derail the thread with earnestness or anything, but I just sent my annual nonpartisan Here Are Your Key Voting Rights Hotline Numbers e-mail to my friends, acquaintances, and passing strangers.
I encourage any of you who have semi-apathetic or indifferently political friends to do the same. Using a simple subject line helps to communicate that it's not just another partisan pitch, and reminding people to put the numbers in their phones is a simple and practical step that they might actually do.
275: I'm not saying you should believe the smart people because they're smart (if you took this to be my meaning, fair enough). I'm saying that dismissing an entire class of people, some of whom are really quite bright, as nothing but selfish and vain is both shitty and also unlikely to build the coalition that Halford and I both want to see built.
271 does a good job of describing the politics as consumerism thing that I'm talking about. That's the connection right there. I'm not saying that Greens and Libertarians agree on the same policy proposals. I'm saying that both are averse to joining in and participating in the system we have, in favor of basically purity politics, and while I guess that's not incomprehensible, it's also a shame and symptomatic of a broader recognition of caring about immediate social reality.
Look, if you're worried about economic stratification, one of your worst strategies is showing up every four years to vote for a party that has no organization and that does. Otho g between elections (as Apo says). And I don't get the sense that "economic stratification" is what drives the average Green party voter. "Corruption" is more like it, but the response to corruption is not counter-organizing; it's inventing something more pure and then basically fantasizing that it's effective.
Everyone has their own stupid reasons for voting for their own stupid candidates. Some people are even voting for Mitt Romney.
Otho g between elections (as Apo says).
That is a paraphrase at best.
Honestly, I just don't care who's thought of as "smart" or "stupid." The proof of that is in the content of the arguments: if someone can answer the kinds of questions in 185, then they're not being vain or foolish in voting for a third party. If they can't or won't, that doesn't look as good.
Also "recognition" is the wrong word but maybe of you squint you can see what I mean. I'm being social by posting this while driving (in insanely heavy traffic).
281: there's no consistent Green organizing in Cambridge? They don't run candidates for the Board of Syndics (or whatever the city council is called there)? That really surprises me, as they're a real presence here. That said, I refuse to box myself into defending the Greens, who I can't stand at all for my own set of dumb reasons.
God, this election can not end soon enough.
Sorry, I have to go play Madden with my kid.
289: worst of my lifetime. By far.
Nate Silver just updated to his final forecast numbers- 92.2% reelect, bottom of the EV 95% confidence interval is exactly 269.
If Obama loses, I will never forgive Nate Silver.
Some people are even voting for Mitt Romney.
Indeed. And many of them are very smart. Why should people be shitting on them, just because we have a political disagreement?
Yes, there are people who vote for Romney out of base motives, but many Romney voters are idealists who are appalled by the corruption of modern politics. It's important that they be treated with respect, not merely because doing so is a better method of persuasion, but because Romney voters object to very real problems, such as the way special interests have taken over American politics. Their opinions are worthy of respect.
Well, no, not really. Opinions can be wrong, even if they are held by people who are very nice, as many Romney voters are.
288: they lost their official certification so they can't officially run candidates for anything. I'm sure they do some organizing; Jill Stein's previous triumphant political career has been mostly around here.
292: Ohio taken off the list of competitive states.
Since any one person's vote is vanishingly unlikely to make a difference, isn't the decision to vote for one candidate or another more of a religious thing?
I'm interested in how much further you have to go to be in the good graces of whoever's the arbiter of what good progressives should be doing. Say you have a friend who reliably votes Democratic but otherwise doesn't really get into politics -- they've got a busy life, other interests. That person is okay, right? Would you say that person is a bad person, or selfish, or apathetic?
But their vote is vanishingly unlikely to make a difference. So should anything else be required? Well, we might say that your duty as a citizen is to be moderately engaged. So you donate a bit of money to Act Blue candidates, volunteer at a phone bank and on Election Day, and talk up progressive causes when conversations turn political and you're not going to offend anyone. That surely must be enough.
But what about someone else, who puts in at least as much of their time but does non-party activity instead -- say phone-banking for a climate-change group and defending clinic access at the only abortion provider in town; gives money but to things like Occupy Sandy; talks up progressive causes when they get the chance, and tries to bring others into a higher level of political activity. Does it matter if that person votes Green instead of Obama? What if they vote for Obama but decline to donate or volunteer? What if they decline to donate or volunteer and explain that they think Obama has done some horrible things and they can't bring themselves to do anything but vote for him?
The degrees of purity and impurity are quite subtle.
297: I stopped donating money to Kony, because I care.
297 -- I'd say I'd hope people would be moderately engaged, and also would not choose the weeks immediately before a national presidential election to affirmatively advocate a vote for a third party that's been completely imeffective between elections. For these purposes, I'd leave it at that. No individual vote matters that much, of course.
.
Or what are the rules for talking in ways that tend to depress enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate? I work at a law clinic that tends to be very progressive and public-interested, and this year apparently there's less enthusiasm for the presidential race than during previous elections. Some people have been volunteering, but a lot of that is about Warren. Others are less enthusiastic. I'm in that second category, and I don't hold back with my criticisms of the President when I'm speaking with friends at this clinic. So I'm probably contributing in some way to someone's decision not to go knock doors in Ohio for the last three days. But I don't think any obligation I have to vote for Obama because he's the least horrible viable candidate extends so far that I must also talk up his awesomeness in the hopes that some of my friends will go volunteer.
Also, Jill Stein seems like the kind of voice that I wouldn't mind having a little more prominence. Helping her eke out a couple percentage points of the popular vote can help with that. Maybe she'll land a few more guest spots on talk shows or whatever.
God, this election can not end soon enough.
About three months into the recounts and court battles, you'll look back longingly at the campaign part of the campaign. But then the 2014 midterm fundraising will crank up, so it'll be okay.
Nader in 2000 at least was trying to hit some threshold (5%?) that guaranteed future ballot access. Now it's just, meh, vote for us because we can't suck since we'll never be in power.
That's sounding too much like philosophical hair splitting for my taste. I don't think you need to hold back on criticism, but it might also have been nice to lend some support with money or time, though hopefully that help won't be needed and you were helping with an equally important local race. Just leave it at that.
If I take more time than that to vote, people will just assume I'm obstructing the voting machine to depress turnout.
Some of the people waiting in line in Florida wish they could say the same thing.
306: eleven for me. And now that I've lost in Madden, I'm going to take my rage out on Mitt Romney, who knows many NFL owners (or whatever).
At some point I'll look back on why all the third-party-voter bashing got to me, but for now, I want to focus all of my energy on hoping that Nate Silver is right.
Also, is it wrong to hope that Scalia chokes on a goldfish at a frat party, that the actuarial tables catch up with Thomas, and that Kennedy decides that he wants to spend more time with his boyfriend? (It's too much to hope for Alito or Roberts to go away, I'm thinking.)
At some point I'll look back on why all the third-party-voter bashing got to me
I will be curious to hear! My personal theory is there are particular thoughtful-yet-idealistic grad students you are implicitly defending from the Internet jerks.
Bave asks all the interesting questions. Regarding 300, I come down in most cases, including this one, as favoring telling the truth as you see it. People should make decisions based on correct information, and your opinions and beliefs are what they are. Assuming that your opinions are valid ones, honestly arrived at, there's no reason to hide them.
To 297, I'd say that it's entirely possible to do the right thing in some cases, and not in others. By my lights, the right thing is to work for liberal causes and to vote for Obama, now that he's won the Democratic nomination. Achieving less than perfect virtue is pretty routine in this life, and really doesn't pose any kind of complicated dilemma that I can see.
I can vote in less than 8 hours.
Sorry it took so long, but I campaigned a lot as a kid.
312: I think that's mostly right (you're perceptive). But it's also the tone at LGM and elsewhere. It just became too much for me in the past week or so. Really, I don't mind it here from Halford, because I know he's a professional asshole. But there's something about Lemieux's voice -- despite the fact that he's supposed to be a decent guy -- that gets my goat. I also think I'm unusually down about the state of play, and that's left me more sympathetic to people alienated by this hell.
317: that's a feature not a bug, ableist.
I guess maybe, if I'm totally honest with myself, that it hurts a little that nobody has bought me a gift certificate to the French Laundry.
315: shoebox full of Campaign Finance back issues under the bed?
Hey baby, want to see my October surprise?
What I wanted to suggest in 297 is that there are different ways of engaging politically, working in the same general direction although perhaps with different final goals and definitely with vastly different tactics. One thing that I think is counterproductive about the liberal third-party-bashing is that it overemphasizes the importance of presidential politics and of party politics, when it could well be that non-party political engagement is more needed right now. Or maybe it's just someone's "calling" to be involved politically in one way rather than another -- like some people will phone bank and others prefer data entry, and if you asked them to switch they'd just quit volunteering altogether. I think U.S. progressives ought to be broadening their methods of engagement, although I recognize that the party stuff is important and the people who are into it should keep doing it. Like VW, I'm not convinced enough that any one set of tactics is so superior that I'm willing to get worked up over people who embrace another set of (plausibly effective) tactics to work for goals similar to mine. That shit over at LGM is distasteful, although Lemieux is a friend of mine.
291: That's an odd thing to say. You were alive and voting in 2004, yes?
All this angst! I asked what to do with the CA ballot, the gimpy guy gave me a list, it took 30 seconds to fill out, and it was done. Now back to Game of Thrones.
323: yes and yes. Or maybe no and yes. I definitely voted; that's all I know.
324: I have love for all of my graduate students, especially the ones who got pepper-sprayed last fall.
I heard comparatively little about voting Green in 2004 and 2008. Now obviously that had a lot to do with circumstances, but I also have heard very little about progressive-leaning but more or less in the Democratic Party groups like Move-On in the past few years. It really does seem like the Democrats made a concerted effort to mute the progressives in the party since Obama got into office.
326.1: So this election is worse than watching Dubya romp his way to a second term long with the open connivance of Diebold after it was obvious that Iraq was a catastrophe and Hurricane Katrina a self-inflicted clusterfuck and that he couldn't govern his way out of a wet paper bag?
Changing the subject (sort of), I have to go to a meeting in Oakland on Wednesday. Assuming Prop 30 fails, that meeting will be devoted entirely to determining which campus gets to pick which bits of flesh from the carcass of the UC. I'll live-blog it!
long with the open connivance of Diebold after s/b "with the open connivance of Diebold long after"
328: asked and answered, counselor.
It really does seem like the Democrats made a concerted effort to mute the progressives in the party since Obama got into office.
There's some reporting on this, right? It seems like a counterproductive lesson for Democrats to have taken from the 2000 election.
Ironically, I think Occupy played a big role in re-electing Obama by creating very fertile ground for his critiques of Romney as a rich Wall Street guy who will hurt working Americans. Not that this narrative wouldn't have been available without Occupy (among other things, the narrative has the virtue of being true), but Occupy started a discussion about inequality and finance that hadn't been happening on a mass level.
Man, I was seriously anxious for months before the 2004 election, and quite depressed for months afterward. What a perfect shitstorm.
331: He heard you. He simply could not believe his ears.
334: Right you are. So it was just little matters like Abu Ghraib and the total failure of every claim about Iraq, then.
|| It's looking like I'll be in the Bay Area on some part of Thursday and Friday of next week. |>
334: I genuinely wondered if anyone would notice.
I agree with a lot 322, but, for reasons I've gone on about at length already, supporting the Green Party is actively harmful. It isnt like choosing to work on environment stuff instead of labor stuff, or data entry instead of phone banking; it's either pointless or actively harmful to the whole enterprise (in this election, to be sure, almost certainly more pointless than harmful).
I don't think Democrats have "muted" Progressive voices; Democrats have been in power, so Progressives, often rightly, have been criticizing them. That's well and good but a different issue than voting Green.
332: I don't even think it's "ironically." Not that Occupiers were necessarily fooled about whether Obama is a centrist rather than a progressive, but likewise I doubt many of them had any illusions about which party is the most dangerous driving force of plutocracy and corruption.
The irony I see is that a lot of the Dem establishment was unnerved by Occupy, and plenty of my Dem friends (certainly not all) were openly hostile. I am willing to admit that my view of these things is distorted by having to spend time with many future DC lobbyists and lickspittles.
341: The irony I see is that a lot of the Dem establishment was unnerved by Occupy
And yet would wind up happily (if selectively) appropriate their message regardless. Sure, fair enough.
Politics is so full of little ironies like that that it's hard to assess their importance after a while. There's certainly plenty to go around for Obama's critics on the left: for instance I recall that certain people complaining now about how disappointed they are that Obama isn't progressive enough (including some parties to this thread) openly ridiculed and dismissed Kucinich, the only genuinely progressive candidate in the '08 primaries.
Bave, you and your group are perfectly positioned to do election-protection. I can't think of a calling more important this year.
The combination of the 2004 election results and, oddly, passing my oral exams about a week later, very slowly but eventually led to my briefly getting involved* in politics in 2008-2009. But I blame Canada for my later disengagement.
*As in actually doing some work in political journalism and issue advocacy.
I don't read LGM, and can't comment on the tone there. Maybe that's the source of the 'Obama is awesome, and you're an idiot for thinking he has flaws' straw man folks like to punch. I don't feel that way about him, Halford evidently doesn't, nor pf, or anyone else taking the Team Blue side of the conversation here.
I certainly don't think I can judge the worthiness of someone's contribution to society, and how they spend their time. On the other hand, enough with the 'your vote doesn't matter.' Of course it doesn't, individually. But if you're part of a movement, a collective, than your voice, or vote, is significant. No single person camping out in urban parks across the country accomplished anything about changing the dialogue. Together, the tens of thousands across the country had a significant impact. That how humans work.
What I find the strangest is the insistence on individual non-responsibility -- my vote doesn't count, and yours doesn't either -- by people who *want* to build a movement. That actually accomplishes things.
342: is it hard to imagine reasons that people might have ridiculed Kucinich back then and now think Obama isn't progressive enough? Also, do you really remember who was saying what about Kucinich back then? That's kind of cool.
Oddly, some of my Green Party leaning friends have been pretty critical of Occupy in the way that lots of people make fun of protesters with puppets. One of them is voting for Obama anyway, another for Stein. Both in uncontested states.
Locally, the Occupy movement* was enthusiastically welcomed, for a while, at least, by the mayor and current DNC chair. I'm not saying the relationship isn't complicated, but there's at least some potential for influence of a force to the party's left.
*which I have my own problems with
345: you're the one who called them vanity votes, Charley. Seriously, I don't want the fight with you, because we agree on basically everything, but it's not like you and Halford haven't spent a decent amount of time lately and in the past ridiculing people, named and unnamed, who talk about voting for third party presidential candidates.
Or maybe I'm just drugged, hypersensitive about my students, and misunderstanding things you've said.
345.3: Dovetails rather well with the politics-as-consumerism analysis, though.
346: The conversation here about the Department of Peace idea here was quite memorable. And is it hard to imagine reasons? No. Good reasons, OTOH? Yes.
Is it ok if I don't vote for Diane "after we cave in on the votes, we'll address your concerns" Feinstein?
352: No. If you don't vote a straight Dem ticket Halford will break into your house and beat you to death with a bison femur.
349 -- In the recent comment on that, I struck through 'vanity' and later in the thread said that I don't think most of the people voting 3d party are engaging in vanity, but in a mistaken (imo) effort to bring about systemic change. I don't think voting 3d party every four years, all the while denying participation in any movement, or any effect of that vote at all, is "plausibly effective."
What I said in the other thread is that I think people who say things like they are going to vote out of spite, or who vote based on the tone at LGM, deserve mockery. I have no reason whatever to believe that any of your students fall into this set.
354: I missed the later comment. The strike through seemed like snark to me. Regardless, I seriously don't want to fight about it. I never actually did, though I do cop to goading Halford upthread, because that's my way of flirting with him.
Anyway, I'm hoping you engage in effective voter fraud for Tester tomorrow. That's much more important to me than any of these other issues, though I would love to find a way to get rid of Feinstein when the time is right.
355: Constitutional crisis in the making! Blood in the streets! Someone wake bob!
The Thick of It is on Hulu. $7.99/month. I know what I'm doing between now and whenever.
If this helps, my own experiment with supporting a screwy third party in the hope that being the tie-breaker in a close election would drag Labour leftwards has failed pretty much as badly as it possibly could.
Obviously the set-up is rather different (Jill Stein can't change her mind and form a coalition with Rmoney). common prudence, however.
Did it? Jesus Christ can't believe I'm saying this, but the Labour Party is swinging left I think.
I'm happy to own to mocking people, here, who act in a way that I think is at best deeply foolish and at worst harmful, although the truth is that voting Green is unlikely to make a big difference one way or another.
If I was teaching your grad students, I might act differently, but let's face it the hot one would be more into me because I do Crossfit and don't have a limp.
I'll vote for the swinging left party, when they come along.
361: And arguably a Labour gov't was never an option, and the ConDem coalition is better than just a Con gov't.
(oh dear i am going to hell amn't I?)
The race is so safe that I'm thinking about not casting a vote for DiFi, just to depress her total a little, though I would just leave it blank and would never vote Green. But only because the ToS told me so.
Actually, no. I'm a straight ticket voting motherfucker.
I'd like to vote a straight Alaskan Independence Party ticket, but they're not running candidates for any of the offices on my ballot. I guess I could just write in Joe Vogler for all of them. (He's dead, but it's not like that matters.)
I was going to vote a straight Green ticket, but people kept giving speeches on the subject, and that totally turned me off, although I think perhaps they were doing some awesome coalition building, laying groundwork for the future, that sort of thing.
Actually I don't think any of the contests on my ballot are at all in question, which I don't remember being the case in any other election I've voted in. Everything I've seen suggests very strongly that Romney will win Alaska, Don Young will win, the Democratic candidates will win in my legislative districts, the bond issue will pass, the constitutional convention question will fail, and the judges will be retained.
I'll still vote, of course, but it's not like it'll make a serious difference.
Maybe I should have put that in the prediction thread. Meh.
I'd just like to say that I believe that LB has chosen wisely.
LB: if you're still listening, vote the Working Families Party line (maybe you already do). They use the NY state fusion ticket, mostly cross-endorse Democrats, but try to use their voters to bring progressive pressure. That's the idea, anyway, I've only worked with them once but people I respect respect them.
By the time you're faced with the mediocre candidate vs. the horrible candidate in the general election I think it's too late to get all pious about going third party. The key organizing decisions are in primaries and also in how money is deployed. The question to me is how much of the hundreds of millions of dollars unions (especially) and left individuals are spending on reelecting Obama could be better spent elsewhere, between elections. I didn't contribute to Obama this year; a chunk of that money is going to diapers and child care but another piece is going to other politicians I trust more on the things I care about. Not that money on our individual scales means that much.
Even though Obama is by far the better choice today, I agree with the OP that he's been a disappointment. Not just relative to one's fantasies but relative to the limited but real play that exists in the system. I hope in his second term that he can break the obstructionist fever on the right and pull the center back toward a more humane/mildly reformist version of the status quo. I think that's always what he's wanted his legacy to be, and he has a lot of cards over the next couple of months. Unfortunately, I don't see why the Republicans should give ground, they have an effective blocking position, the bulk of the party doesn't give a damn what damage is done along the way, and in a two party system they will eventually win the presidency. I think they would have to lose the House (or lose a fair number of seats in the 2014 midterm) to really start to shift. Obama will have to be willing to call their bluff in the fiscal cliff debate.
And on an optimistic note, if Obama wins today that will be the true final passage of the PPACA -- a real and significant achievement to celebrate. (at least IMO, there is still work to do but I don't buy the it's-a-con argument on the left).
374: Oh, I do (and am just about to). I think I voted for Kerry on the Dem line in 04, because I was superstitiously nervous about vote counting, but other than that, I've been voting straight WFP since they showed up.
335: Well, I don't believe in your ears!
354: Dude, are you high? When I said I would vote third-party out of spite, I was kidding. I'm also not voting for Romney, and I don't want to destroy America. I stand behind the statement that it's party time, chumps, though.
Anyway, people do all kinds of things for irrational reasons. Politics consists of getting a big enough coalition of irrational people voting your way, which means finding a way around their prejudices. The people at the Coca-Cola Company don't run ads on how stupid you are for drinking Pepsi, even if you are stupid for drinking Pepsi.
I'm a straight ticket voting motherfucker.
From my Facebook news feed:
Even if you vote along party lines, please consider avoiding the straight ticket option. Each contest deserves a deliberate decision.
I didn't reply, but I can't figure out what that's supposed to accomplish. If I already know that I'm voting the Democratic slate (which I always do), taking the time to fill in each individual bubble doesn't make my decision any more deliberate.
I can confirm, for any NPR fans who were wondering, that Br!@an Leh/rer voted this morning. My neighborhood doesn't have a whole lot of celebrities -- I think he may be it.
If I already know that I'm voting the Democratic slate (which I always do), taking the time to fill in each individual bubble doesn't make my decision any more deliberate.
It is, however, more satisfying to vote against each Republican individually! (OTOH, you probably have long lines at your polling place because black people vote there, so there is social value in getting in and out of the booth as fast as possible.)
In my current state of residence, there is no straight ticket voting, so I have to fill in the bubble for some Dem candidate for Clerk of the Registry of Deeds and what-not.
My polling place had longer lines than I'd ever seen before, but there was only one black person.
There were maybe ten people ahead of me for my precinct (or whatever) but the other two that vote in the same place had far longer lines, maybe 50 people combined. I had to push past people waiting to vote in order to buy my voting cupcake.
See, compared to the play that seems to exist in the system (but of course IANAWI), Obama's accomplishments actually look pretty remarkable to me. The obstructionist fever on the right was at any rate certainly not of his making -- the racial animus toward him is responsible for an added tinge of hysteria, but not for the root insanity -- and it was IMO never realistic to think it would go anywhere; on the other hand it was never wrong of Obama to make the attempt, and quite possible that if he'd governed the way I initially dreamed of a Democrat governing in 2008, the right would actually be far more freaked out, energized and cohesive, and probably violent, than it is right now.
The way he's done it hasn't led to swift runs into the end zone for every progressive priority -- but he's certainly laid the groundwork for future progress and forced the Republicans to own the role of the Party of Obstruction along the way (one reason Romney now sounds like a bullshitter when he talks about "reaching across the aisle," his own history as Governor notwithstanding). He actually has delivered to very real extents on the promises of hope and change, not only in governing like a responsible adult who cares about governing -- something the opposition is too deranged to deliver by this point -- but also in making space for more.
That he's failed to repudiate many of the excesses of the "war on terror" business is the only real black mark against him. But even here, he's so vastly superior to the alternative in every possible way -- including having actually removed the permanent bases from Iraq that were the obvious purpose for the Dubya invasion, the first instance I can recollect of a President actually shrinking the Imperial Base Network and far from a small thing -- that there's a limit to how much I can get worked up about it. The American body politic across the spectrum is so deeply immured in militarism by now that I'm not inclined to blame Obama for his unwillingness to entirely abandon it.
Given all of that (and given the fact that his accomplishments relative to a broken political system are remarkable but still fall short of what's probably needed to actually fix things -- welcome to life in an age of decline) I can understand some disappointment with Obama but I really think there's way too much Eeyorism. It's very doubtful whether any other politician could have done better with the hand he was dealt.
I've been waiting outside, in 30-degree weather, for 40 minutes now.
welcome to life in an age of decline
Worst nursing home title brochure ever.
Speaking of old people, the lady at the polls asked me for photo ID and I said "No" then she let me vote anyway. Our judicial system at work.
378
... The people at the Coca-Cola Company don't run ads on how stupid you are for drinking Pepsi, even if you are stupid for drinking Pepsi.
Actually companies often sort of do this although it usually isn't completely explicit. Lots of ads compare two people one of whom made the "smart" choice (buying the advertiser's product) and the other of whom made the "dumb" choice (going to an (usually unnamed) competitor).
On the other hand people who buy into these ads can be kind of obnoxious (see for example some Apple fans).
the first instance I can recollect of a President actually shrinking the Imperial Base Network
George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, between them, removed a huge amount of Cold War infrastructure from Europe (especially, but also the Pacific).
I agree with Castock, anyway. Remember how many people thought he wouldn't even physically survive the first year?
30 minutes in line so far, half or maybe two thirds through the line, but at least it's indoors (the line doubles back down several hallways in the building).
The polls here are only open from 6am to 6pm, and generally all voting must be today--early voting isn't allowed. What a crock of shit.
I felt like a bad voter, but I left the ballot for Soil and Conservation District Commissioner blank. I didn't know any of the names, and there were no party affiliations listed, so there was no way for me to distinguish between good and evil. (I can't find a voting guide explaining the political leanings of any of these people even now, with the help of google). It sounds like an important job, though. I hope someone good wins.
Speaking of old people, the lady at the polls asked me for photo ID and I said "No" then she let me vote anyway. Our judicial system at work.
Wait, come to think of it, they asked me for photo ID, too. Should I have refused on principle?
||
Ever since people complained about how the "Obama is up by a touchdown with five minutes left" analogy was wrong I have been messing with the football game win calculator to find appropriate scenarios for various iterations of the 538 predictor. So: at this point Obama is either up by a field goal with a minute and half left and has the ball, or he's up by a touchdown with five minutes left and he has the ball, or he's up by a touchdown with four minutes left and Romney has the ball on his own two yard line. Take your pick.
|>
392: I was basing my refusal on a set of circumstances specific to Pennsylvania. I have no idea about your state.
forced the Republicans to own the role of the Party of Obstruction along the way (one reason Romney now sounds like a bullshitter when he talks about "reaching across the aisle," his own history as Governor notwithstanding)
This would be great if it were true, but only a disappointingly small minority of the population feels this way.
I'm not even sure which is your state.
I can't make any sense of the odds in 393 without knowing who are the respective quarterbacks. At the very least.
395: That small minority seems to include a bit more of the press than it used to. I've been pleasantly surprised with the (completely inadequate) changes in their coverage recently.
384,389:Y'all know I hang out in the economic blogosphere and approach a certain economic determinism. Money is speech and money is power.
The Fed and FDIC, Bernanke and Sheila Bair had an insane degree of power. Bair could have shut the doors and restructured of about any financial institution she chose. Geithner and Obama chose to go in the exact opposite direction. Congress could have bitched but not stopped much. Obama also had a lot of latitude with real estate.
Read Simon Johnson or any of the legion of enemies of finance and financialization. This was a catastrophic and unforgivable mistake, if it was a mistake rather than corruption.
Romney is the candidate in part because finance was not discredited. Hiding income and abusing tax law is considered acceptable enough that he can avoid questions.
Rich got much richer under Obama, and we are not getting that money and power back without a whole lot of pain.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/05/ayahuasca-drinking-shamans-in-peru-give-obama-the-win/
This would be great if it were true
If it weren't true, Romney would've actually kept his "debate bump."
(And still been leading coming into election day.)
An hour and fifteen minutes. So cold.
If your debate bumps lasts more than four news cycles, see your doctor.
397: really it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Best joke I heard on line: "there's actually only one guy voting in there--he's really undecided."
This site is trying to track wait times: https://myfairelection.com. Seems worthwhile--would be useful to have evidence of systematically longer lines in minority, poor precincts.
407
397: really it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
From the link:
I don't usually do this, but I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction in the presidential race. It's 50/50. Prove me wrong! The kick is in the air, and it all depends on the wind.
This is silly, it isn't 50-50. The voting models could be wrong but they could be underestimating Obama's vote just as easily as overestimating it.
And while you can't conclude too much from the results of a single prediction you can compare two sets of many predictions.
Ouch, JM. I waited about 10 minutes.
I waited about 45 minutes, but I got there before the polling place opened. Also, that was two weeks ago.
Seems like a bigass voting line here but then it goes inside and I have never voted at this polling place so who knows how long it actually is.
279: Witt, could you e-mail me your guide?
My wait was an hour and a half. I'm in a blue area of VA and we had a bit more than half the number of voting machines that we had in previous elections. Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly but wait times weren't that long in any of the previous elections. There were a lot more paper ballot stations than usual though, so who the hell knows if there are any shenanigans going on.
I'm beginning to suspect that leaving one-off political comments on the facebooks pages of people I haven't otherwise seen or talked to in years may not actually do much to influence anyone's vote. I should stop.
I can already tell I'm going to get approximately no work done today.
You need the special shampoo and the little comb.
20 minutes or so from walking in to walking out of the polling place in Inwood, but I was fairly early -- I think the line was getting longer as we were leaving. I think a generation of poll workers must have given it up last election. Usually, it's these ancient, ancient women, but this year it was a bunch of fifty-somethings and one or two even younger than that.
That didn't actually take all that long. 20 minutes? Cops had to shoo the Jill Stein sign-holder farther away from the polling place.
Exactly 60 minutes in line, as it turned out. And I learned afterwards that I had decisively influenced a friend's vote for a local race, which was exciting. The nurse offering people free flu shots without having to lose their place in line was a nice touch.
Somebody had coffee and hot chocolate for people at my polling place.
Line was a lot shorter when I left than when I got there.
The PTA of the school where I vote sells coffee and baked goods.
This was free. Advantage of in living in a noted Communist outpost.
How should I vote on the mandatory condoms in porn for LA county measure? I'm inclined to say yes because workplace safety but this is also a pretty transparent attempt at content regulation of expression. I'm voting in an hour so if someone (AWB?) wants to weigh in, that would be great.
Got there three minutes before it opened, was at a booth a few minutes later, was done by ten after.
429: I know nothing, but the Times had an article this morning saying the current condom-free regime works surprisingly well.
No on condoms. Yes on face shields and rubber gloves.
From the article:
The industry says the state's interpretation would require all films to be shot with latex gloves, face shields and lab coats.
I'm sure there's a market for that.
429: Vote no. The measure is not popular with the people directly affected. I've seen multiple performers come out against and none come out in favor. Maybe my sample set is biased (OK fine, most certainly it is), but there's one case of HIV transmission during a shoot out of an industry employing thousands.
Also fuck the busybody little shits who want to use porn to proselytize for safer sex.
The measure is not popular with the people directly affected.
The main argument I've heard from women inside the industry is that porn shoots go on for very long stretches of filming and that condoms become painful after a while.
One of my two good candidates for City Council is here at he coffee shop, reading a paper. The poor man just wants to be left alone, right? He's had to talk to strangers for months now. He doesn't want my good wishes as much as he wants to sit peacefully, wouldn't you think?
He wants you to buy a scone and eat it off his bare belly. That's just how he rolls.
Just be sure you're wearing latex gloves and a face shield when you wish him well, Megan.
Ohio voting pix added to flickr group. Baby O is helping out with voter intimidation efforts.
I was in line for 40 minutes in a heavily Republican area. Three lines divided alphabetically, and my line consistently contained 10 to 20 times as many people as the other two put together. We need more nomenclatural diversity around here.
Three lines divided alphabetically, and my line consistently contained 10 to 20 times as many people as the other two put together. We need more nomenclatural diversity around here.
It would have been a very simple exercise to use the registered voter lists to divide the lines alphabetically but in a manner so as to have approximately the same number of voters in each.
That assumes the time at which people go to the polls is not related to their last name. If the ethnicity of the voters varies by age, that may not be true. For example, if all the Korean voters are working age, the K line might be jammed in the before work hours.
Apparently, everybody in my neighborhood votes early. I assume this is to get in the vote before the liquor kicks in.
The nurse offering people free flu shots without having to lose their place in line was a nice touch.
!
That is a nice touch. Unless of course she's a FAKE NURSE TERRORIST.
387: Speaking of old people, the lady at the polls asked me for photo ID and I said "No" then she let me vote anyway
That's my plan as well. One more time voting like an American citizen.
443: Also my experience. Only time you have a line is first couple of hours in the morning. And I'm a little anxious because I did not have time to go before work like I usually do.
From Moby's link:
"I like the more moderate Mitt that we've seen of late," Mr. Gunderman said.You're clealry a gullible idiot who wouldn't know a pander if it bit you on the ass. You might want to get that looked at.
445.last: I don't tell people to go to your neighborhood and show their ass.
436: He's sitting there thinking to himself, "Nobody even recognizes me. All that effort, and still no one even notices me. I'm going to lose for sure...Wait, is that young woman looking at me? She recognizes me? Oh, she turned away. She was probably just checking out my ass..."
OK, I just voted. No on mandatory condoms. I figured it's not a worker-driven measure, and I don't like regulating this industry by referendum. Also the porn industry's collapsing anyway so why drive even more production into the amateur market where talent doesn't get paid. Still, I think it was a close call and (while I haven't seen polling) I'd expect it to pass.
Yes on 30, No on 32, if there are any CA voters out there who haven't voted yet.
Unless of course she's a FAKE NURSE TERRORIST.
Massachusetts state health officials are scrambling to contain a widespread, unexplained syphilis outbreak. Story at 11.
It's possible that there was not a single Romney vote cast in my precinct.
I'm feeling guilty about not doing voter protection stuff today like I'd planned, but I really do have to work . Stupid courts.
No on mandatory condoms.
Known colloquially as Mandoms.
Yes on 30, No on 32
I assume it's okay if I reversed these. It's all fungible anyway, right?
Also, no line at all. Polls still staffed by octogenarians -- at least -- and the kids came along. Nobody offered me a flu shot, which would have freaked me right out. I did use latex gloves and a face shield, just so no Romney juice would get on me. It's funny to think that by day's end my job could become massively better or worse. Fuck the rest of the country. It will get what it has coming to it. Stock up on face shields, everyone!
Now I have to head off to the place where I'm supposed to limp people to the polls. I'll let you know how it goes.
453: Before you go I have a question. This morning my son told me that World War I started because the duke was shot by people who loved chaos and destruction. He said he needed to know this because he was going to be a historical scientists. How do I stop this?
454: Buy him Animaniacs dvds and then he'll know everything he needs to by 2d grade and get over it?
If I had that kind of money, I could afford for him to go into graduate school.
448: I don't know if someone has linked to this yet, but no on mandatory condoms seems right. This is one of those issues where the mainstream companies really are setting very high and very good standards for themselves. I think the only reason people are arguing for it is because they think porn should exclusively depict behavior they would like everyone to replicate.
454: I spend at least 6-8 hours/quarter talking to idealistic undergrads about why they shouldn't go to graduate school in history. But now that I know that becoming a historical scientist is an option, I'll have to re-think my pitch.
429 (reading backwards): Sorry I missed this! I am hosting some performers from a certain Communist island nation at my house and this involves things like fretting over breakfast, regretting not having practiced my Spanish in years, and sending them off with sketchy directions and my only umbrella.
458: That's what I want. Those talking points.
Wow, I just drove by an artisinal hula hoop store in a fancy neighborhood. That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model.
Man, the ballot here was too easy. I want to be challenged, like having to choose between competing pot-legalization or right-to-die initiatives.
Also, PTA bake sale provided an excellent chocolate cupcake, decorated to look like one of those Hostess ones.
460: he's too young to worry about it. That's the only talking point you need to remember. Tell it to yourself.
Anyway, what did you want to be when you were his age? I was CERTAIN I was going to be a paleontologist, an NBA point guard, or Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time.
Totally OT, but I just read an essay from a first-year student--cisgendered male, almost certainly straight--using the pronouns "ze" and "zir" instead of "he or she" and "him and her" when describing the plot of a movie. If it were five years ago, I would assume I was being mocked or pandered to (liberal elitist queer feminist prof), but I actually think he is using them unironically.
Anyway, what did you want to be when you were his age?
A worker. But then the Soviets fell.
The GOTV coordinator just texted to tell me that I'm not needed today. They have enough drivers already. I tried to explain that I have a disabled parking placard, but autocorrect kept mucking up the spelling, so I guess I'm going to the movies after all.
465: I get a fair amount of that, actually. I think the reeducation camps are working.
465, 468: Really? Is there something about the context that makes the gender-neutrality of the pronouns salient, or are there people who just don't use gendered pronouns at all in academic writing?
I don't think I've ever seen "ze" or "zir" used without irony. However, I may be seeing more irony than exists.
Never mind, I can't read -- you said 'ze' instead of 'he or she', so in contexts where gender was indefinite.
Hrmph. I'd prefer people to stop being all prissy about singular 'they', but I suppose I'm not going to ever win that one.
It's pretty weird. But to be honest, I was struck this week by how backwards professional literary critics are compared to our students in a lot of respects. I was just as a conference where I was yelled at by someone who attended my talk because I mentioned how upset my students were to discover that Thomas Jefferson was a racist, and invented several new strains of argument about the inferiority of black people. Old guy stands up to yell at me for even suggesting such a thing. And about twenty seconds after that, a colleague my own age called me a "gross pervert" for suggesting that a queer reading of a particular novel seems immediately fruitful to undergrads. I'm so used to being around undergrads who take sexuality and racism seriously that I almost cannot stand discussing these issues with professional writers in my field anymore.
Seeing irony makes life more pleasant.
Hrmph. I'd prefer people to stop being all prissy about singular 'they', but I suppose I'm not going to ever win that one.
Damn right. Why invent a new word when there's already a perfectly good one? (Ian McDonald uses "yo" in "River of Gods" - as in "yo looked at yoself in the mirror" - which is even worse.)
In my culture it is regarded as unacceptable to buy a hat. We wear only the hats that we have taken by force from hipsters we have defeated in battle! This we call "paying the irony price".
The Chicago Manual of Style had a very good defense of the singular "they" in, I think, the 13th edition. Not sure if they kept it though. Team Singular They!
Hrmph. I'd prefer people to stop being all prissy about singular 'they', but I suppose I'm not going to ever win that one.
I use it all the time, in writing as well as speaking. I'm convinced it's the future.
My five-year-old daughter has started announcing that she intends to be a marine biologist (which recently replaced "whale scientist" in her lexicon).
It was smart of her to generalize. By the time she gets her PhD, marine biology will probably be the study of algae and jellyfish.
By the time she gets her PhD, marine biology will probably be the study of algae and jellyfish a branch of paleontology.
I thought we were all going to be underwater, so marine biology would include the study of humans.
I linked this at the other place in a different context, but it's highly whale-appropriate and really delightful if you've got 25 minutes and some patience. Maybe listen on headphones while in the voting booth flipping coins?
Sally was going to be a marine biologist for a while -- we were calling her Jacquie Cousteau. Now she's thinking more along the lines of civil engineering, which this week does look like a field with a lot of potential. Someone's got to design all those seawalls.
I have a genuine question for the Halfords of the world: if you can say with moral certainty that voting for Jill Stein is somewhere between useless and positively harmful (for the reasons you've outlined), can you say with that same moral certainty that voting instead for Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party is somewhere between useless and positively beneficial? Should all "safe state" progressive voters be casting ballots for Virgil Goode? Why or why not?
I thought we were all going to be underwater, so marine biology would include the study of humans.
I've been temping on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island the last week, and the main building of the former has a huge mural depicting the history of the Navy in the Pacific, which moves into speculative fantasy as your gaze drifts to the right--the final sections involve undersea habitats. It's pretty cool.
Oh, and, yeah: Team Singular They, woo!
Von Wafer, so long as we're talking about this, what about my baby brother? He looooves history and he's a senior in high school, applying to college as a history major. How did we go so wrong? How can I stop him?
(Also, he's applying to your school as well, as his best choice. I don't suppose that internet acquaintance is reason enough for you to use your considerable influence to get him in?)
I console myself that with on-campus gender ratios as skewed as they are, he can still pick out a nice successful girl to support him. But what if he marries for love and they are both history majors? I'm afraid for him.
He looooves history and he's a senior in high school, applying to college as a history major. How did we go so wrong? How can I stop him?
Nothing wrong with an undergrad degree in history (unless you hate the liberal arts in general)! It's grad school he's gotta be careful about.
Doesn't a history undergrad degree lead to a history grad degree?
Like petting can lead to sex if somebody isn't watching the kids.
But what if he marries for love and they are both history majors? I'm afraid for him.
If you really care about him, it's not too early to start putting money aside so he won't wind up homeless. I would be very grateful if my sister had done that for me.
492: Sometimes it leads to law school.
492: Sometimes it leads to dropping out of history grad school. And then to working minimum wage jobs. And then.......library school! Oh, no!
Oh god, oudemia. What have I ever done to you?
Personally, I think a strong Virgil Goode/Constitution party would be great for the left. Today, in this election, I think adding more votes to Obama's popular vote total is probably more important, but I hope a bunch of right wing activists spend a lot of time trying to build the Constitution Party. It would probably make the Republicans both marginally less racist and less likely to be elected.
Singular they is clearly winning in colloquial speech. In formal speech, it's easy enough to just make the sentence plural most of the time, which is what I do. I'm pretty sure I haven't used a generic "he" in twenty years, and no one has ever commented on it.
It's not so terrible, Megan. My brother was also a history major. He graduated in 1994, and went to work for Bear Sterns on Wall Street. There he started doing this neat thing where they would take all these mortgages and roll them up into a big bundle. Then they could slice the mortgages like this, and sell that piece to these bankers, and dice the mortgages like that, and sell that piece to other bankers! It was neat because everyone had a piece of all the mortgages and so nobody was at any risk.
I'm also on team Singular They.
Halford and Megan, maybe the 2 of you could spearhead a campaign for a ballot initiative for CA to officially endorse the singular they.
It would be less silly than 90% of the ballot initiatives I saw when I lived in CA.
You don't "have" a future, Megan. You buy and sell futures.
My wife was a history major, now she's a math teacher.
I do have a vivid memory of being maybe 18 or 19 and thinking "I should really have a better understanding of what my brother does for a living" so I made a point of asking him. His answer was basically comment 500, except much longer and I found it infinitely confusing.
506: Have you explained to your brother what a correlation is yet?
500 is great. Love to see Heebie do a children's book version of the financial crisis. Top insiders took billions out of Bear Stearns and Lehman before they went down, so presumably your brother did OK.
Is this the brother who told you the thing about not sitting on boys' laps? One begins to suspect a certain failure of reality testing on his part.
508: I'm thinking a 1994 history major wasn't a "top insider", but I expect he's doing ok, relatively.
Most of that his department at Bear actually died in 9/11 - he was on the 104th floor, but had quit to work elsewhere about 3 months earlier.
I haven't read, like, 85% of the thread, but I just want to put in a cheer for the singular 'they'. Go team!
512: Y'know, how you shouldn't sit in boys' laps at a party because they could have sex with you.
Young Heebie: Through your pants?
Brother: You'd be wearing a skirt.
Young Heebie: Through your underpants?
Brother: You weren't wearing underpants.
Young Heebie concludes that sometimes you stop wearing underpants as a teenager and that sex is something that could happen to you without you noticing it.
498 doesn't really answer the question. Why is it more important for a safe-state progressive voter to increase Obama's popular vote total than to cast a vote to help build the Constitution Party?
Because the Constitution Party is unlikely to do well at all this year, so the vote (to the extent that it matters at all) is probably just completely wasted. But I guess if you really can't find your way to vote for Obama, then I'd rather you vote Constitution Party than Green.
sex is something that could happen to you without you noticing it
Only the butt kind, though, so the pregnancy warnings were just alarmism.
No, no. My otherwise sane, A-math student clarified for me that you can get pregnant from buttsex.
Rather, she treated me like a confidant who would be appalled to learn that our naive first year students thought you couldn't get pregnant from the butt.
Did you tell her about the eye babies?
Maybe she was confusing positioning with point of entry.
I think I guffawed rudely. Then she fumbled and explained that she meant technically everything is such a mess down there that some semen could end up over in that other place and not the number two place. I felt bad for laughing at her so I kind of helped her construct a far-fetched explanation.
525: That actually sounds like something a non-idiot could think from an over-enthusiastic sex-ed teacher. (I mean, it sounds like something that's actually possible, just really really unlikely. I've certainly heard stories of pregnancy resulting from non-penetrative, but close, ejaculation.)
she meant technically everything is such a mess down there
"Well sweetie, try using a washcloth."
Don't you think she ought to have someone tell her how absurdly far-fetched that is?
OTOH I suppose she ought to be using condoms for buttsex anyway, so it's not like this belief is likely keeping her from her secret desires.
Honestly, it seems reasonably kind of likely to me. I mean, not super likely but who knows what's dripping where.
Now I've kind of grossed myself out a little.
I forget if I was on Team Singular They before I read it, but if not the "Orshe" character in Russo's Straight Man changed that.
So, report from Bayview: absolutely no line, but it took me awhile to vote, because I had to fill out a stupid provisional ballot. Apparently they mailed me a vote-by-mail ballot, but I forgot about it; I see now that it was buried under my desk. Oops. I forgot to bring a coin to flip, but decided to go with Roseanne Barr, Cindy Sheehan (third duckduckgo result for her name: "The true facts about Cindy Sheehan. Her Marxist agenda is a direct threat to the security of the United States." -- how can I resist that?), and Peace and Freedom (two great tastes that taste great together, surely). In hindsight I wish I'd investigated Prop 31 a bit more. On the one hand, neoliberal billionaires are about the least trustworthy folks to be "fixing politics." On the other, two year budgeting! That's got to be at least, like, twice as good as one year budgeting, right?
No work today, so trying to decide how to distract myself from the election. Maybe a long bike ride up Mt San Bruno to Ocean Beach. Or a compsci problem set. Or both!
No on 31. It's crazy to vote for Roseanne because you don't know which Becky would be Secretary of State.
She really is a bright, highly responsible person, who I suspect is more book-educated than field-educated on the topic.
It's not like field education would help, really, unless you'd had enough no-condom anal sex to constitute a statistical sample. She just got a wrong sense of the odds from the second-hand sources she was using.
Googling "What are the odds of getting pregnant from anal sex" just as another lawyer walked into my office might not have been the best move.
Maybe her sex ed class was taught by birds.
536: For you, Rob, probably pretty low.
536: I hope he explained that you can't get pregnant at all because you're male.
I guess in what I do it's not COMPLETELY impossible that it could be a client-related search. Probably around the same odds of pregnancy from anal sex, though.
Just because I'm male doesn't mean that I don't have a womb, you sexists.
535- Clearly she need to ask Nate Silver what he thinks.
537: I knew the birds and the bees did it, but I never knew that was how.
Good god, this is aggressively stupid.
543: In other words, 538 to 535.
535: Ah, but if one were on hormonal contraceptives, the lack of pregnancies while having (even a little bit of) non-condom anal sex wouldn't count against that theory. One might simply observe a great deal of stuff dripping, and think that, were it not for the contraceptives, this might be risky. And jesus now I'm totally on Team Halford in 530, having grossed myself out a little. Just use condoms for anal sex, folks.
This just in: CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer will jump the Happy Days episode in which Fonzi jumped shark.
545: yeah that's ridiculous. Everybody knows that colored lights on top of tall buildings should only be used to forecast the weather.
549: That's what they do here. Not so much forecast as broadcast the forecast made with radar or some shit like that.
No, the colored lights tell you whether UT won the football game and whether it was a conference game or a bowl game.
I too am often grossed out thinking about Santorum.
545: I want it to trigger a fireworks display when one candidate makes it to 270. (Bringing this back on topic with the other ongoing conversation.)
499: Good. Those "z" barbarisms are for zombies and I refuse to use those constructions for people.
STOP OTHERING MY PEOPLE.
What happens if an Eyebaby and a Buttbaby have sex?
What happens if an Eyebaby and a Buttbaby have sex?
499: Good. Those "z" barbarisms are for zombies and I refuse to use those constructions for people.
They look less ridiculous if you assume they are referring to dwellers of a distant planet in an Ursula K. Le Guin story who are not bound by our primitive notions of identity.
"But Doctor, I can't be pregnant -- we only had anal sex."
"The test also shows that you're having a lawyer."
I don't know, but give me a script.
Yeah, god, x. There are real girls out there with real feelings and brown eye-butts.
515 Heebie's brother to gf: No really, it was an accident, how was I supposed to know that when she took off her underwear, pulled down my pants, and sat on my lap that something was going to happen.
441
It would have been a very simple exercise to use the registered voter lists to divide the lines alphabetically but in a manner so as to have approximately the same number of voters in each.
Maybe they did. I was annoyed about this because my line (L-Z) had about 10 people in it and the other line (A-K) had about 1 but when I checked phone books later that is about where you should divide. Could be a random fluctuation or perhaps one of the people looking up names was a little faster.