[Grinds teeth] Stop whining, Democrats. Get more fucking votes if you want me to respond to your goddamned fundraising letters next time.
Let's use that narrative, instead, hmm?
Whether or not we think it's true?
It's demonstrably not true, but I'm willing to indulge heebie's hormone-induced delusion.
Media narratives hardly need to be true. And there surely was a demonstrable impact, even if it didn't tip many elections.
1 - There's a certain chicken-and-egg problem here.
Media narratives hardly need to be true.
This is the problem. The way forward is better informed voters. A populace that votes the way they choose detergent is dangerous. I don't care how impractical of a prescription this is.
The solution for stereotypical low-information voters is to find someone they trust to distill issues that they care about. That's a social arrangement that works pretty well.
Youngsters, women, minorities, poor folks and non-asshole old white folks need to get out and vote, for their own sake and the sake of the country and world. People who vote for Republicans need to stop.
Noticing that fact has got nothing to do with blaming or berating anyone. It is what it is.
I've never understood why people fighting the "anti-voter-fraud" restrictions don't bring up low voter turnout as a counter-argument.
I mean, in-person voter fraud, where you're impersonating someone else, carries high risks if you're caught, and the pay-off for each vote cast is so low, you'd have to do it on a truly massive scale to have a chance of swaying even a close election, and to engage in it on a massive scale exponentially increases the chances that you'll get caught. Why go though all that hassle when there are so many legally-registered voters out there who don't bother to vote, but maybe the would if you knocked on their doors and gave them and giving them a ride to the polls? If you want to sway a close election, that's the way to do it.
Yeah, I know, the above assumes that the voter ID folks are genuinely concerned about voter fraud rather than voter suppression, but still.
Right now the problem with the media is so much bigger than just slanted narratives. An actual commitment to honesty would solve a lot of problems.
Ignore the grammar errors in 8. And fuck those who are too lazy to vote. And doubleplusfuck those who choose not to vote as some sort of "protest" against the shortcomings of our two-party system.
Media narratives hardly need to be true
I took Let's to be directed at us, not the media.
I can support Charley's low-college-turnout story from yesterday with one of my own. I found low participation from the students of the lower-tier state university whose "University Chorus I sing in and happened to be performing with Tuesday.
There is a bit of a class divide among college students, ime. My son the Wolfcub senior and my daughter the UofC grad student voted, in Illinois this time, because every vote was needed to try and protect the governorship. So did everyone they know, whether they'd been home recently or not: his roommate voted absentee in Illinois, his girlfriend cast a vote for Coakley which may have been wasted, and so on. Only the native Iowans were left to hold the line against Ernst. We got panic calls from IA GOTV in the last weeks on our home phone, but my kids had had to choose.
But in my chorus, the election wasn't part of their priorities. The kid who sang next to me all semester flunked the course and threw all his practice away because he skipped the dress rehearsal. I wish I could say it was because he voted, I wanted it to be that, but he couldn't really give a reason. There's often an impasse in my conversations with them, because I'm very conscious of not being their dad, and having a different relationship. I wait until later to slap my forehead.
The hysterical nature of the fundraising emails was really off-putting.
It was like the world's worst public radio pledge drive, piped into my inbox.
Speaking of voter turnout, any more news on the Stanford/Dartmouth experiment in Montana. I've seen new analysis, but not news. I remain curious as to what happened at the Dartmouth IRB.
Well, Wheat won handily in District 2, according to the Montana election website (he was the more liberal justice). Rice (also slightly more liberal but both candidates were conservative) won in District 1.
Both Dartmouth and Stanford have apologized and are sending letters to 100,000 Montana voters, according to the WaPo.
Nothing about the professors involved that I can find, or the IRB.
Ah, an actual election post-mortem thread, so will repost this I just left in ogged's disturbing porn thread:
"Centrist" and flat-out racist Ron Fournier not happy that the White House Negro didn't get the message (not linking).
From all appearances Wednesday, the president won't change--not his policies, not his style, not his staff, not nothing. Defiant and begrudging, the president said he would meet with GOP leaders, seek their suggestions for common ground, and maybe grab a drink with Senate Majority Leader-to-Be Mitch McConnell.
And in the beyond-parody category Politico chimes in with "Wall Street has a good election. (no link to those dicks either). Finally! Was wondering when those guys would catch a break.
Every 4 years Michelle Obama starts send me emails with subject lines like "You were great last night, peep!" and "Six things I like about you, peep". I'm tempted to respond, "Jeez, Michelle, don't you think you should be a little more discreet?"
What actually confuses me more about the Democratic coalition (young, poor, minority) isn't why they don't vote in the midterms, but why they do vote in the presidential elections? I completely understand thinking that all the options are the same, nothing is going to change, voting doesn't affect anything, and my individual vote particularly really won't change anything -- I feel exactly the same way, I just vote out of cultural guilt and a sort of Kantian sense that if everyone voted, things would be better, so I should.
But what's the trigger for thinking that way in off years but getting psyched to go to the polls for the presidency? Just that there's one personality to focus on, rather than a number of races, or what?
Just that there's one personality to focus on
Yes, I think so. People aren't very sophisticated about how things actually get done, so they just show up to vote for the person they think will be in charge.
12: Markey is always saying that he desperately needs money. His election wasn't even close; he doesn't. He ought to be raising money for other candidates.
||
Blume, while you're here, I've got the Webern-conducted-Berg up next on my ipod, and thought I'd ask whenabouts that was recorded, 1938?
I could look it up, but thought you'd know off the top of your head.
I love that recording.
|>
19: The question that needs to be answered is why you see more variation in voting rates in the Democratic coalition than the Republican.
What makes sense to me is that rich old white people (stereotyping, but you know what I mean) vote out of habit/guilt/sense of civic ritual rather than out of a strong reaction to the specifics of a particular election. Poor young minority people (same caveat) vote out of excitement about personalities, rather than habit/ritual, so they get triggered more strongly in presidential years. And pretty much no one votes for rational reasons. I mean, there are people out there, but they/we are few enough to be statistically negligible.
What actually confuses me more about the Democratic coalition (young, poor, minority) isn't why they don't vote in the midterms, but why they do vote in the presidential elections?
I don't know about where you are, but here there is an absolutely huge difference in the get out the vote effort during presidential elections. In 2008 and 2013, it was literally impossible to be in or near campus and not be asked if you were registered to vote. People came by the house and actual humans called, enough times that it was really annoying.
This election, I got called by a robot once and there were a few signs out reminding people to the deadline for voter registration.
25 before seeing 24. But, I don't think excitement about personalities has much to do with it. It's mostly the ground game.
22: Earlier than that, because it was shortly after Berg died. '36, maybe?
I live in a one-party area -- I don't see GOTV efforts, or get phone calls, or anything. Looking at my address is enough to establish how I'm voting, if I'm voting. I guess there might be a GOTV effort in a close statewide race, but I don't recall one.
20 is correct. People don't understand how the government works.
Just a minor election tidbit that doesn't change anything but is somewhat interesting. Just as in 2012 when Obama's final margin was pretty much double what it looked like it was on election night, the initial impressions of the Colorado results are quite different than what I and most everyone had when we went to bed Tuesday. As of now Hickenlooper's (who was behind after the initial count--Denver Post caught some grief for declaring him the winner) margin is about the same as Gardner's over Udall (which from initial results/exit polls looked to be a romp), and I'm sure both will trend that way even more as final counts come in (although I believe some places don't bother with provisionals at all if it cannot make a difference).
I've always believed that if the margin had not mattered in Florida 2000, Gore would have easily gained more votes than the actual margin in question in that kind of final counting which almost always skews sharply Dem. (And there's a "story" there around differentials in polling place access, need for provisional ballots etc.)
27: Thanks. I've just looked it up, and it was May, 1936. Remarkable sound for the time; circuit design made huge strides during the war in both Britain and Germany, and immediate-postwar recordings are terrific. One as good as this from that early is rare.
I see he also recorded Lyric Suite at the same time, and I'll have to get that.
28: I haven't gotten GOTV calls, and I don't think that my town is as reliable as it ought to be.
But what's the trigger for thinking that way in off years but getting psyched to go to the polls for the presidency?
Voting has costs and benefits. In off years the benefits aren't perceived to outweigh the costs. In presidential years they are.
Republicans are all retired anyway, so they have a lower costs and hence a lower cost-benefit curve. Meanwhile, the young/poor/minority have a tougher time getting off work, or face longer lines at urban polling stations, or need to pick up the kids from daycare, so the costs are higher, which means they are less likely to show up.
If you want them to show up, you got to increase the perceived benefits or reduce the costs. Making voting easier reduces the costs, which is why Republicans are against it. But considerations like "ensuring the somewhat less evil party retains control of the Senate" is apparently not a concern that changes the benefit side of the equation as much as Democratic political junkies think it should.
Wait, the candidates in a big agriculture state were named Wheat and Rice?
I'm getting rid of my landline because 95% of the calls to it are annoying party fundraising calls- we gave a large amount to Planned Parenthood and Obama's first campaign so now we're on the "suckers" list- or those illegal marketing calls for home security etc. The callerID showed DNC from Washington at almost the exact same time every evening for two straight weeks. Also get some automated calls from the city occasionally. I think they only real calls I still get on that line are from my parents.
is apparently not a concern that changes the benefit side of the equation as much as Democratic political junkies think it should.
In the very short-term it's not for a lot of people. Daycare late fees are very expensive, and getting in marginally better officials won't turn around anyone's lives quickly.
I mean, the mayor of the city of Boston does have a lot of power over things right away.
19: Because Americans are trained to view the president as the great decider -- witness the ongoing confusion about who controls Congress, demands that the president do something about things that are constitutionally limited to Congressional control, etc. (This was Mitch McConnell's great realization in 2008; if he ground Congress to a halt and made the economy suffer, it wouldn't be good for Congress but it would be worse for Obama because Obama == the gummint.) So if you've got an election that doesn't involve the important stuff and voting is difficult in any way (taking time off work, going off campus, whatever), and you don't have the habit of voting every single time, why do it?
Daycare late fees are very expensive
So take your kid(s) with you to vote.
What throws me, though, is what makes voting in a presidential election seem like such a significantly greater benefit, other than getting excited about personalities? (Or maybe Moby is right about the ground game. That seems like there have to be natural experiments out there, though -- like, my neighbors aren't getting any GOTY efforts; are the younger/poorer/minoritier segment of them more variable from presidential years to off-years despite that?)
It was pretty exciting arond the 2004 election coming home to find answering machine messages from President Clinton and other VIPs. By 2008 when there was a message from Mayor Koch telling me to vote for McCain for the sake of Israel the thrill was gone.
So take your kid(s) with you to vote.
I used to let my son write-in names for uncontested races. Unless there was a line.
So take your kid(s) with you to vote.
Certainly plausible in precincts with relatively short lines. Less so if you need to wait for 45 minutes standing in line with an impatient child.
Neither of my children voted, grrr, although they both voted in 2012. I had a talk with my daughter about this yesterday - she was busy, she wasn't near her polling place, the candidates she would have voted for both won, etc etc. MASSIVE FAIL on my parenting (I didn't tell her that). I blame Obamacare.
What throws me, though, is what makes voting in a presidential election seem like such a significantly greater benefit
Because you are taking part in what feels like a national thing, instead of what feels like one of dozens of state and regional things.
I'm not sure lower income/status turnout is all that great in presidential years, just not as bad in off years.
Voting could not be easier here, I don't think. 30 days to send it in or drop it off by mail, 52 polling places in the county, with very rare waiting. We didn't beat 50% -- and you can bet that the 70,000 people who would have gotten Medicaid expansion coverage and the countless more who would have otherwise benefited from an extra billion sloshing around all over the state were way underrepresented in that.
We don't vote for SC by district, in case anyone misunderstood DaveLMA, it's statewide. I found voters in the low income precincts where I knocked doors to be pretty well informed about that race -- people may have voted for the out-of-touch creationist zillionaire for the Senate, but they weren't going to go with the underqualified out-of-state zealot for the Supreme Court.
had a talk with my daughter about this yesterday - she was busy, she wasn't near her polling place, the candidates she would have voted for both won, etc etc.
Young people probably have a more cynical/realistic sense of the relative importance of their single vote, unlike those idealistic, starry-eyed grown ups.
One of my wife's favorite stories is of our 2 1/2-year-old daughter saying in a loud voice to the entire polling place "We're going to vote for BILL CLINTON!"
I think negative campaign fatigue is a real thing. I don't watch broadcast TV, but people who do were absolutely bombarded by outrageous claims of one kind of another.
To heebie's point above, media narratives don't have to be true, but you don't want the media narrative to be that you've tried to concoct an untrue media narrative.
the candidates she would have voted for both won
If that were reasonably predictable, I'm ok with it. Same with college kids choosing whether to vote at home or school: make it count.
the candidates she would have voted for both won ... If that were reasonably predictable, I'm ok with it.
Mark Warner, I'm pretty sure, was one of her candidates. "Reasonably predictable" to win, but welcome to 2014! That's one of the things we talked about.
3
It's demonstrably not true
Based on what? Not disagreeing, genuinely curious. Until reading this thread I was thinking that voter suppression probably played at least a little role but would be very hard to prove or measure. But you seem to be saying that it's very easy.
19: I agree about the "one personality to focus on" thing, but also I have a lot of inchoate theories about how the current federal system itself is a big problem, with lots of powers at the state level. This could be either evidence or an example of it. People don't vote in only-statewide elections because people don't care about states, even though in some senses they're far more important. Or something, I don't know, I was reminded just last night of my own Pauline Kael-ness on a related issue.
47:
I don't watch broadcast TV, but people who do were absolutely bombarded by outrageous claims of one kind of another.
Aren't young people particularly unlikely to watch broadcast TV (as opposed to Hulu and stuff)? No idea how that affects the poor and minorities of all ages, but that trend, at least, seems like it would reduce voter turnout among the elderly rather than the reverse.
Young people probably have a more cynical/realistic sense of the relative importance of their single vote, unlike those idealistic, starry-eyed grown ups.
I've never understood this. I mean, yes, it is exceedingly unlikely that any election you participate in will be decided by a single vote, and that your vote will be the one that tips the balance. But every election is decided by one side getting more people to the polls than the other side, and the count on both sides is made up of a mass of individual votes.
If you want to plead indifference, and you don't care who wins, fine. But if your complaint is that your precious snowflake vote is just one in a giant snowstorm? Please.
It was pretty exciting arond the 2004 election coming home to find answering machine messages from President Clinton and other VIPs.
Those were pre-recorded calls.
Basically a reflection of regionality and location in urban centers versus subrubs/rural areas, but this is probably the definitive "Cracker Barrel/Whole Foods" analysis. You can among 2,700 different retail outlets. American Apparel most Dem, Belk most Repub.
People don't vote in only-statewide elections because people don't care about states, even though in some senses they're far more important.
Yeah, this is huge. States are terribly important, and terribly opaque
I guess Chiptole is the perfect New Democrat food in more ways than one.
55: That's hysterical. I have literally never heard of Belk.
58: Me neither! Well, to be literally true, I had never heard of Belk.
I have literally never heard of Belk.
It's just your standard department store, more or less equivalent to Macy's, but it seems all their stores are in the South.
There were Belks in Durham. I haven't seen them elsewhere.
Belk - a blast from the past. When we vacationed on the Outer Banks of NC years ago, "Belk of Morehead City" ran a lot of radio ads.
Low turnout for off-year elections isn't any kind of puzzle. People are more inclined to vote when they understand what's going on, and it's easier with the presidency to understand, or to think you understand, what the stakes are.
Young voters and poor voters, compared to other voters, lack the resources and experience to be knowledgeable about politics below the presidential level.
Show a picture of Barack Obama, and at least 40% of the electorate knows whom they want to win. And there are lots of opportunities to see BHO's picture.
Me, I thought I had prepared for the election, but I had to leave a judge race blank. I had no idea. So turnout was lower in that race.
58: I have literally never heard of Belk.
Either had I. But to be fair I had to look up American Apparel as well.
There is an American Apparel store in Shadyside and there was one in Oakland for years. It's the one run by the skeevy guy who uses really young looking models.
A relic of regional department stores before Macy's bought everything. More old lady than Dillard's, also mostly Southern and regional.
Good link, JP. I'm having fun looking at how many blue stores I can walk to. The short answer is lots.
Apparently the kids were too busy frolicking on my lawn to go out and vote.
Here's my guess: Republicans voters are more aware that they are voting for a party, not a person.
The Democratic party doesn't have a coherent message, and their would-be supporters are constantly being assured that compromise is a possible and desirable goal. So no one votes for them unless there's a known candidate.
Hey maybe some political science types should do some experiments on the determinants of turnout!
The Democratic party doesn't have a coherent message
But the Republican party does, and that message is "Fuck you." That's all you need to know, voters! A yes vote for Democrats is a no vote on "Fuck you."
Yeah. A couple of years ago the Governor's council--that's the body which vets judicial appointments--was surprisingly competitive. There were 2 Dem candidates who were very good, one of whom I knew to be an excellent lawyer, and a total hack Dem. She got a lot of endorsements, but she's terrible. So now, I just vote for her opponent automatically.
I left the probate court person blank, because I knew nothing about the candidates. I'd like to find a way to get more information so that I can make an informed decision, but it's not easy.
The Republican vote skews old, white and rich. The mid-term electorate skews old, white and rich. It's not, I don't think, that old white rich Democrats fail to vote (see this thread) it's that old white rich people are more likely to vote overall. (I'm not 100% on this. But rough guess.)
So I don't think that the problem is the Republicans have better messaging - I think they just have a more receptive pool.
52: Are there any studies looking for correlation between voter apathy and job satisfaction? I'd think that if you have a job that you believe in some sense improves the world--even or perhaps especially if you know your individual contribution is only a small epsilon--you'd be more likely to believe that the small epsilon that is your vote has an effect. Young people tend to have crappier, less satisfying jobs.
The link in 55 is hilarious. There a lot of anodyne brands, but enough of them can be stereotyped exactly as you'd expect that it forms a definite pattern. The most Republican row includes Hobby Lobby, Cracker Barrel, Casey's General Store, and a brand I've never heard of called Cato.
It's the Institute. Republicans, for some reason, buy stationery from them.
A yes vote for Democrats is a no vote on "Fuck you."
Well, that's a problem. "Fuck You!" is a message that resonates.
I used to live near a Belk. My congressman was the northernmost member of the Tea Party Caucus.
75: It mostly seems to be a measure of whether it's an urban or suburban/rural brand, and to a lesser degree whether it's regional to the West Coast.
We have a Dillards in the mall. I have no idea who shops there. Also a Cracker Barrel -- out by the Interstate (thus fairly close to my house).
Lots of people ask me about judicial races. When I don't know the judicial candidates, I ask lawyers who know them.
On the Wheat thing, the election wasn't about partisanship, but about the candidates and what they represent. I guess I've come around to thinking that Stanford folks really are too dumb to understand the actual dynamics of the thing, and so they'll think their partisan identification of a non-partisan race actually means something.
As noted the other day, I had an interesting chat about this with Justice Wheat on Sunday. He was able to survive because the Koch/Stanford challenger was really, obviously, an out-of-state play. I suppose if they'd won with him, that would be the signal that it's Karl Rove's world, and we just live in it -- that they can have anybody anytime. It didn't work this time. However, in 2 years CJ McGrath is going to be up for re-election. It's entirely conceivable that the forces of darkness could find themselves a genuinely conservative Republican lawyer with decades of experience and a decent reputation -- there are lots of such people around. Tell him they'll spend $1.5 mill on the election (McGrath will raise well less than 100k, I'd guess) and maybe they'd get a taker. It's the world John Roberts has designed for us.
This is exactly what now-Gov then AG Bullock argued when our campaign finance laws were under attack, an argument that persuaded McGrath to distinguish Citizen United. There's a special place in hell for the CU majority. Or would be if there was a hell. Which would have Fox News blaring all the time, I tell you what.
79: That is easily my most impressive reading comprehension failure this week. Sorry.
So, uh, are there any brands besides Whole Foods where management's politics is starkly out of line with that of its consumer base?
I'm pretty sure Long John Silvers customers don't share management's obvious desire for their deaths.
Every time you buy a sweater from them, the salesperson says 'Cathago delenda est"
81 - Eden Foods, the people who make Edensoy soy milk and other things consumed by hippies, were one of the companies that filed to not provide contraception coverage due to religious beliefs.
84 -- So that's 'cahthago delender est' in Massachusetts, right?
I tell you what
I hear the voice of Hank from King of the Hill
My law professor, George Anastaplo, the greatest teacher I ever had, saw CU coming decades ago. Commercial Speech, the expansive view of corporate personhood, and the harbinger of Buckley were all he needed. And he was a conservative, but a deeply principled one.
82: Eat at Long John Silvers once, shame on me. Don't get fooled again.
86: Imagine a world in which Romans in movies are portrayed with Boston accents instead of British.
Kevin Drum's fearless prediction:
Oh, and the 2016 candidates for president will be Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Scott Walker for the Republicans
Scott Walker? I just can't see it.
There was a video store I used to go to in the 90s that would play Scott 2 almost every time I went there. It is a horrible album and they should feel bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_2
I could see Scott Walker. I could also see Mittens II: The Mittening.
I am pretty sure that Cato is the worst possible classical figure to associate with a fashion label. Possibly Diogenes?
(Also: Leonidas chocolates. What on earth.)
92.last Really tasty chocolates though. My brother flies regularly to Brussels and always brings some back. Yum.
Oh yeah, Belk Lindsey was a big department store when I was growing up. At some point it got shortened to Belk. There's one out here, too.
It appears that Belk-Lindsey was a specifically Florida version of the chain, now that I look it up.
6th Circuit rules against gay marriage.
Will this force the Supreme Court's hand?
So, uh, are there any brands besides Whole Foods where management's politics is starkly out of line with that of its consumer base?
AARP.
98 Proponents should probably go for en banc review. The court is still absurdly Republican,* but maybe they'll still go the other way on this.
* Blaming Obama for this is like blaming him for Katrina: there's only one vacancy on the court.
Hey! this makes a case that voter suppression laws did have a measurable impact on a bunch of races. I should have put this in the OP, it's GOLDEN.
Belk sponsors a bowl game. Maybe only started recently; if so, maybe part of a national push?
It does a lot of handwaving - assuming the maximum number of disenfranchised would have otherwise voted, assuming that all early voters failed to vote in places where early voting was killed, and so on. But it's enough for a narrative!
55: That means I have a Republican suit. Tommy Hilfiger, with a Dillard's patch in the lining.
It was Hudson Belk when I was a kid. They probably anchored at least a quarter of the malls in NC then. Or it seemed like it, anyhow.
Does anyone know what the relevant academics have come up with regarding the partisan differences in midterm versus presidential election turnout? It's hard for me to imagine they could have anything very solid, but it would be interesting to see the differences adjusted for age and maybe political involvement.
Here's a pretty stunning graphical representation of the Texas gubernatorial vote this year.
This is the closest hit I've seen so far. Will have to read tomorrow.
Just to add one data point, our son, who goes to a local college across town, only voted this year because I volunteered to pick him up Monday night, take him out to dinner, have him spend the night at home instead of the dorms, and then go with me to vote in the morning on my way to work. He doesn't drive, so for him on his own, it would have been a 2 or 3 bus commute to the polling place (which wasn't particularly close to either the transit lines or our home) and likewise back again, either before his 10AM class, or after his last class, trying to get back before the dining hall closed. For me, it was just a few minutes out of my way on the way to work, as long as I drove instead of taking the train. For him, the costs would have been higher. And while there was a bunch of national stuff at stake in this year's election that could affect him, most of it was elections in other states that he couldn't vote for anyway.
So he got to vote, because he has UMC parents who think that voting is important and are willing to model that for him and help make it easier. But I bet a bunch of his classmates didn't vote this year. That might change a bit if you put a polling place on campus.
109: Is there no absentee voting in your state?
I haven't had time to read the whole thread, so maybe this has come up, but combining thoughts from:
6: The solution for stereotypical low-information voters is to find someone they trust to distill issues that they care about.
25: I don't know about where you are, but here there is an absolutely huge difference in the get out the vote effort during presidential elections.
and following:
Local media coverage during midterm elections is dreadful; during presidential elections, you hear a lot about the candidates, the issues, the disparate takes on the matters at hand by the parties and the candidates. During midterms, not very much at all -- virtually crickets.
I'd venture that this has a great deal to do with voters barely registering that there's an election of any import going on at all.
110: There is (California), and he could have applied for an absentee ballot if he had asked far enough in advance. My wife usually votes absentee (although this year, she had to deliver it in person because she ran out of time to mail it). But we're talking about a kid who often lets us know the night before that his tuition/housing deposit/whatever is due the next day and could we kindly stop by campus with a check tomorrow morning? So planning far enough ahead to get the absentee ballot might have been a challenge.
Also, this year I didn't even have time to go over the ballot proposition arguments until Monday night, so I wasn't the greatest role model for advance planning myself.
111: Couple that with the decline of local papers, and the coverage of local stuff is even worse than it used to be. At least in CA, the supplemental ballot materials usually give the local candidates space to write a little about themselves and why you should vote for them. But that won't tell you (e.g.) that we've got one guy on the school board who is a bit of a bozo who keeps going off on irrelevant tangents during meetings. You have to go to the meetings (or watch them on cable) to get the full eye-rolling effect of that. He wasn't up for election this year, unfortunately, and if he was, he probably would have gotten re-elected, just like last time, because of the (Incumbent) next to his name.
113: the decline of local papers, and the coverage of local stuff is even worse than it used to be
Yes, exactly, with very bad results for the polis. We're lucky enough to have a public radio station here (WYPR) that covers local politics reasonably well, but who listens to public radio? The local papers, online versions included, are for shit.
In discussion with my coworker today about this, I wondered aloud whether, since we have public television and public radio in this country, we should not also have some kind of public newspaper.
44: Voting could not be easier here, I don't think. 30 days to send it in or drop it off by mail, 52 polling places in the county, with very rare waiting.
True enough that Maryland, e.g., is very voter-friendly (though not quite as much so as Montana, apparently): early voting for an entire week (!) prior to November 4, with polling stations open until 8 p.m., and election day itself officially designated as a state holiday, with schools closed and so on. Go Maryland! But ...
It mostly seems to be a measure of whether it's an urban or suburban/rural brand, and to a lesser degree whether it's regional to the West Coast.
Or regional to other places - according to http://www.verysmallarray.com/?p=205, at least in 2007, there were no Waffle Houses west of Arizona or northeast of Pennsylvania.
92. Leonidas chocolates pre-date the stupid movie by generations, though not of course Herodotus. They're Belgian, naturally.
104 is a shocking disclosure. Alex buys his suits (or, for that matter, anything) from Tommy Hilfiger? My dear chap, Hilfiger is for Saudis. Was this the result of some sort of catastrophic wardrobe malfunction somewhere in the Gulf which left you with no other option?
115. I'm fairly sure I've seen Waffle Houses in the Boston area, at least one dating to longer ago than 2007. Is "Waffle House" a trademark?
Well, Holy Supreme Court bunch of fucking assholes.
Seattle's two weekly papers -- the ones descended from counterculture theater reviews and ambitious advertising circulars -- do better local politics reporting than the official daily paper.
There's an unrelated "Vic's Waffle House" in Tewksbury, but the nearest outpost of the large "Waffle House" chain is in Scranton, PA (Only the combination of the words with the scrabble-tile-like design is trademarked, AFAICT, and that seems right).
121: I'm speechless. How ... how ... uh, how . How does this happen?
Q: "Who won the Civil War?"
A: "Just tell me who was in it!"