For a success, Barack Obama is a very bad politician, the worst politician to win the presidency by an electoral landslide, to never lose a major election, or to rise to the presidency from a state legislature in little more than four years.
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
UnPrecedented President? Not Really.
Told Ya.
Monday, September 21, 2009
I Hold These Truths to be Pretty Darn Clear (Even If Nobody Else Does)
While there is plenty to argue about today, these issues should not be on the list.
Afghanistan.
Somehow we confused fighting a war in Afghanistan with our national interest, which is keeping the US safe by killing terrorists. Since the Islamic fundamentalist insurgency is convinced the United States is fighting an global anti-Muslim war, could we find some way to fight them that doesn't hand them a propaganda victory every time we drop a bomb?
Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does say some crazy shit, but that doesn't mean his opponent Mousavi is a noble humanitarian. Mousavi was Prime Minister when Iran founded the Hezbollah, if that gives you some clue to his political leanings.
I know lazy reporters call him a reformer, but he just wants to make Iran a better theocracy, not turn it into the 51st state. If this guy was running the show in Tehran, the Flying Spit Index might dip, but other than that, we wouldn't notice.
Two more things from the bleeding obvious pile.
1) Iran's internal struggles are none of our business. Can we focus on their nuclear program?
2) Even if Mousavi was Thomas Jefferson come again, any support from the US would hurt him way more than it helped.
Back Home
The US is a not-particularly-ideological center-right country and that isn't going to change. What's new is we're now an angry center-right country. Gas prices are going nowhere good, the house is an unreliable ATM, people are getting laid off all over the place, and we're running two wars.
The defining political characteristic of 2009 is not a resurgence of racism or socialism*, but anger. The electorate threw Bush out of office, and is impatiently waiting for Obama to fix things.
The key to political victory in the next couple years is figuring out why the electorate is angry (not hard) and what to do about it (very hard). Will the voters give them chance? Angry people are tough to predict. Anyone sitting in Congress or the Oval Office should try very hard not to make them angrier.
*All the bloviating about racism and socialism is "fun", but ultimately pointless. Being nasty has a long and glorious tradition in this Republic. Go read what Benjamin Bache wrote about George Washington in the Aurora after the Jay Treaty was signed, if you don't believe me.
Also, most of the internet political readers ARE ideological and do have a clear political philosophy, so if you're angry about creeping socialism, and have proof, you may indeed be livid, but I'm not talking about you. You've probably been mad for a while. We are hugely outnumbered by the not-particularly-ideological and we live in their world.
Afghanistan.
Somehow we confused fighting a war in Afghanistan with our national interest, which is keeping the US safe by killing terrorists. Since the Islamic fundamentalist insurgency is convinced the United States is fighting an global anti-Muslim war, could we find some way to fight them that doesn't hand them a propaganda victory every time we drop a bomb?
Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does say some crazy shit, but that doesn't mean his opponent Mousavi is a noble humanitarian. Mousavi was Prime Minister when Iran founded the Hezbollah, if that gives you some clue to his political leanings.
I know lazy reporters call him a reformer, but he just wants to make Iran a better theocracy, not turn it into the 51st state. If this guy was running the show in Tehran, the Flying Spit Index might dip, but other than that, we wouldn't notice.
Two more things from the bleeding obvious pile.
1) Iran's internal struggles are none of our business. Can we focus on their nuclear program?
2) Even if Mousavi was Thomas Jefferson come again, any support from the US would hurt him way more than it helped.
Back Home
The US is a not-particularly-ideological center-right country and that isn't going to change. What's new is we're now an angry center-right country. Gas prices are going nowhere good, the house is an unreliable ATM, people are getting laid off all over the place, and we're running two wars.
The defining political characteristic of 2009 is not a resurgence of racism or socialism*, but anger. The electorate threw Bush out of office, and is impatiently waiting for Obama to fix things.
The key to political victory in the next couple years is figuring out why the electorate is angry (not hard) and what to do about it (very hard). Will the voters give them chance? Angry people are tough to predict. Anyone sitting in Congress or the Oval Office should try very hard not to make them angrier.
*All the bloviating about racism and socialism is "fun", but ultimately pointless. Being nasty has a long and glorious tradition in this Republic. Go read what Benjamin Bache wrote about George Washington in the Aurora after the Jay Treaty was signed, if you don't believe me.
Also, most of the internet political readers ARE ideological and do have a clear political philosophy, so if you're angry about creeping socialism, and have proof, you may indeed be livid, but I'm not talking about you. You've probably been mad for a while. We are hugely outnumbered by the not-particularly-ideological and we live in their world.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Electoral College and You
Continuing my recent habit of perusing old haunts and lifting posts of mine that I like, here we have an entry of mine in a thread that posed "the question that won't go away": Is the Electoral College past its prime?
=====================================
The EC is "better" than a popular vote because we already HAVE a branch of government completely determined by popular vote and that's the House of Representatives.
[pedantry]
I've said it a million times but some folks don't seem to grasp the simple reality that our system was DESIGNED, it wasn't stumbled upon.[/pedantry]
Legislative Branch
The House, the PEOPLES' House, is strictly proportional to population - the more you have, the more representin' you get. And its members are elected by direct and popular vote and serve 2 year terms. Bob Jones gets 85,000 votes and Jane Smith gets 85,001 votes? Say hello to Representative Jane.
The Senate is not propotional, it is uniform and "fair" - 2 Senators per state, 6 year terms, no matter how big or small your state is. Senators were originally appointed by the individual state Senates until the 17th Amendment. Now they are directly elected like Representatives.
Executive Branch
The President is elected to a 4 year term via a weighted system whereby appointed and elected Electors cast their votes as determined by popular vote within their states. The total number of electoral votes in a state is based on the sum of its Senators and Congressmen. Most states are "winner take all" states for their Electoral votes. The Legislative branch breaks ties.
Judicial Branch
Nine Supreme Court justices, appointed by the executive, serving life appointments.
If you take various parts of this system and make it based on popular vote where it wasn't designed to be such, it throws off the concepts of "checks and balances" that were originally set up with multiple branches subject to various and separate forces and fads for different lengths of time.
It's just a bad idea.
=====================================
The EC is "better" than a popular vote because we already HAVE a branch of government completely determined by popular vote and that's the House of Representatives.
[pedantry]
I've said it a million times but some folks don't seem to grasp the simple reality that our system was DESIGNED, it wasn't stumbled upon.[/pedantry]
Legislative Branch
The House, the PEOPLES' House, is strictly proportional to population - the more you have, the more representin' you get. And its members are elected by direct and popular vote and serve 2 year terms. Bob Jones gets 85,000 votes and Jane Smith gets 85,001 votes? Say hello to Representative Jane.
The Senate is not propotional, it is uniform and "fair" - 2 Senators per state, 6 year terms, no matter how big or small your state is. Senators were originally appointed by the individual state Senates until the 17th Amendment. Now they are directly elected like Representatives.
Executive Branch
The President is elected to a 4 year term via a weighted system whereby appointed and elected Electors cast their votes as determined by popular vote within their states. The total number of electoral votes in a state is based on the sum of its Senators and Congressmen. Most states are "winner take all" states for their Electoral votes. The Legislative branch breaks ties.
Judicial Branch
Nine Supreme Court justices, appointed by the executive, serving life appointments.
If you take various parts of this system and make it based on popular vote where it wasn't designed to be such, it throws off the concepts of "checks and balances" that were originally set up with multiple branches subject to various and separate forces and fads for different lengths of time.
It's just a bad idea.
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