Back to the Basics of Electoral Politics

The media is filled with numerous polls which purport to demonstrate that Obama is ahead here, McCain there, Obama leads among Latino voters, and so on.

Perhaps it’s time to refresh our memories about the Constitutional system for selecting a President of the United States.

The President is not elected by a direct popular vote. Rather, individuals called Electors, who hold their positions according to the rules established by the State Legislatures, elect a President. There is no specific constitutional “right” of an individual American citizen to vote directly for a candidate of his or her choice. Instead, as individuals, we vote for a slate of electors.

The system is complicated, cumbersome, and widely misunderstood. The link at the beginning of the preceding paragraph, which will take you to Wikipedia, explains the system as well as any other source.

In a nutshell, each state has a number of electoral votes equal to the total of their combined number of Senators and Representatives in the federal Congress. Thus, California with two Senatorial  and 53 Representational seats has 55 electoral votes for President.

In addition to the total number of states’ votes, the District of Columbia is entitled to three electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution.

The total number of electoral votes for the 50 states and the District in 2008 is thus 538. To become the President, a candidate would  require a majority of those votes, or 269 + 1, for a total of 270 electoral votes.

Basic 8th Grade Civics class stuff. But it’s important to remember because the polls can be misleading. A better gauge of how a candidate stands can be found by examining the current estimated state by state electoral vote breakout.

Here’s one excellent site, complete with an electoral map and supporting data in tabular form. According to this site, Obama leads in the solid electoral vote category 153 to 99.

In terms of states leaning toward one candidate or the other, Obama leads in that category as well with 85 to McCain’s 64. There are 137 tossup states.

Keep in mind that this is early in the game. The map will change, and other “experts” may have other visions of the electoral vote distribution.

But primarily keep your eye on Electoral College politics rather than side matter such as polls and trips to foreign countries.

Politics is pragmatic. In this game, idealism is for the untutored.

Technorati Tags: Electoral College,Barack Obama,John McCain,California,Latino Voters,Polls

The Outdoorsy Type

In 2004, Chris Matthews observed that Americans have always elected outdoorsy presidents.

He cited a few examples of the type he was talking about, men like Clinton, Truman, and Reagan. He called these presidents physically healthy-looking guys.

Then he named Dukakis and Mondale as classic losers and called them indoor types.

The meaning of a word like outdoorsy is largely in the eye of the beholder, but to help us along, Dictionary.com defines it as characteristic of or suitable to the outdoors, unusually fond of outdoor life, associated with the outdoors, showing a liking for the outdoors.

When Matthews called it for the outdoorsy types, he lined up with many others who believe Americans vote based on the appearance of a candidate. The most common belief is that the taller candidate will likely win.

There’s probably little if any empirical evidence for any of these beliefs. But a number of studies has demonstrated that children almost from birth prefer an attractive face.

In one film clip I watched, a group of elementary school students thought that a beautiful blond teacher was more competent than a plain brunette.

When queried later about the reason for their selection, a large majority said “Because she’s beautiful.”

I don’t think we can conclude from this that Pam Anderson would be a shoo-in for president. But the evidence suggests a strong connection between appearance and perceived strengths and talents.

Attractive people are widely considered more intelligent and capable at many tasks than individuals who may rank lower on the symmetrical scale.

In men, attractive usually refers to maleness, a rather indefinable characteristic that Chris Matthews probably meant when he used the word outdoorsy.

Men are attractive if they do outdoor things like play ball, hunt, fish, blow watermelons to smithereens with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with Number Two buckshot.

Fast forwarding to 2008, and given the expert opinions of Chris and others, how do Barack and John stack up against the two main characteristics outlined here?

Barack is obviously the taller of the two, so he has the advantage on that point. But which is outdoorsy or the most outdoorsy?

Barrack has been photographed shooting baskets on an outdoor basketball court. That’s certainly outdoorsy. To the best of my knowledge, John doesn’t play basketball, but he wears a baseball cap with “Navy” on it. That’s man-stuff in action and speaks of an outdoorsy lifestyle.

Sounds like a draw, doesn’t it?

But when push comes to shove, these factors may be totally irrelevant. The final outcome will depend on which group votes in the greater numbers, Barack’s younger generation or McCain’s older age group.

One thing is certain: no matter how emotional voters vote, you and I are too intelligent to be swayed by base feelings.

We will analyze each and every issue. And only after we’ve fully examined the pros and cons will we walk into a voting booth and vote our guts.

Technorati Tags: Obama,McCain,Chris Matthews,Perceptions,Attractiveness,Outdoorsy,Pam Anderson

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It Ain’t Tulsa Time

You think the Bay Area has traffic woes? Heck, you haven’t lived. For the worst traffic in the nation, you’ll need to hop on a 727 out of SFO and land in…you never guessed it…the original, the genuine, the one and only. Ta da!

The Paradise of the Pacific.

That’s right. Blue Hawaii, land of blue skies, scooting cumuli, rainbows, swaying hula maidens, and Elvis crooning The Hawaiian Wedding song as you loll on a beach with a tall, cool Mai Tai.

The image might work if you spend a few days in a luxury resort on Maui or the Kona Coast, pampered by tan, healthy hot bods.

But if you try Honolulu, you may be in for a shock. This is a city recently ranked the Number One spot in the nation for gridlock at the morning and afternoon rush hours by INRIX in its recent National Traffic Scorecard.

In fact, Honolulu beat out Los Angeles, Bridgeport Conn., San Francisco, and New York City for top honors.

Oddly, Honolulu ranked 38th of the Most Congested metropolitan areas. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Francisco held the top five spots.

How does Honolulu, Number38 in terms of traffic congestion, rank Number 1 in work hour gridlock? The answer lies in a lack of adequate traffic thoroughfares. Oahu is just too small and too cramped for the construction of more roads.

I can testify to the accuracy of INRIX’’s gridlock data. For three years, I left my home in a nice bedroom community about 15 miles from downtown Honolulu where I worked, arriving about an hour and a half later.

That is, if traffic was “normal.” If a minor mishap occurred along the way, the time could easily stretch to 2-3 hours. By the time I sat down at my desk, my face would be red, my heart racing, and my stomach gurgling.

The real problem wasn’t the entire fifteen miles of my commute. The first half was quick and easy. The last half was murder. Central Oahu has two freeways that merge near a community college. Suddenly eight lanes become four lanes.

That’s only the beginning. The narrowing process occurs a couple of more time, until the total number of lanes available becomes three. I mean, you are talking about more cars contending for a few lanes than you ever dreamed about.

A friend once observed, “If all of the people in these cars were suddenly in homes, we’d have a housing shortage.” He probably figured that folks did double duty, sleeping and eating at home in shifts.

So, my message is this. All of you Bay Areans who whine about 101-N and the Maze, relax. You never had it so good.

Technorati Tags: Traffic,Honolulu,Maui,Kona Coast,Elvis Presley,San Francisco

Addiction is Addicting

Without conscious awareness, I’ve developed an addictive habit. I may need a 12-step program to break it, but that’s something to think about later. For the time being, I’m loving it.

What is my addictive habit?

I am reading e-mails from my relatives.

For years, I clicked Delete when a recognizable name materialized in my inbox. The turning point came one day with a message “The sender requests a return receipt.”

What could I do. This was a close cousin. If I didn’t open the damned e-mail, I ran the risk of a phone call in the middle of the night.

So, I opened the message and found a funny joke that I don’t remember now except to say that it was one of those scatological, roll-in-the-dirt, whoop and holler eighth grade anecdotes. The damned thing was still effective after all of these years. So much for adult male social evolution.

Making a short story longer that it ought to be for no reason except to fill space on TGIF-Day, some of the emails from this and other sources were often more vituperative than funny. Many had a mean quality about them, demeaning and insulting to various groups, Blacks, Asians, Gays, Democrats, Californians, San Franciscans, you name it.

Somehow, the individuals who sent me these e-mails knew I was a Californian and didn’t take kindly to Red Neck humor. Nonetheless, their output continued, even doubled.

I finally managed to construct a rationale for opening their e-mails. I would use them as a gauge of the sense of a broader segment of the population in various parts of the country on a variety of political matters. I would become my own poll taker.

However, could I accept my sources as representative of a larger group? You betcha. Using my own steady flow of messages from a geographically and demographically diverse set of relatives, I manage quite well, thank you, when it comes to predicting political outcomes in some areas of the country.

For example, I’m predicting right now that John McWayne will do well in Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Maryland, and most of the Southern states except Mississippi.

In Colorado, Barack will carry Boulder and that’s about it. And in Maryland, he should easily take Baltimore. His influence in rural Maryland, a rather conservative part of the state, is problematic.

Barack will also handily carry the West Coast and perhaps Montana, although that remains to be seen.

Several other states are also iffy. We’ll have to wait and see.

Okay, this is an example of converting an addiction into a valuable political and social function. Works for me.

Technorati Tags: Addictive Behavior,Relatives,E-Mails,Predictions

Bay Area Best Place to Raise a Family

I’ve always been a lover of lists, stuff like The 100 Sexiest Jobs in Elko NV, Top Five Hunks in the History of Human Civilization, and The 100 Best Places to Raise a Family.

The latter is a real list put together by the Today Show’s Best Life editors from a plethora of sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, and the National Center for Educational Statistics among others.

Using these data and more, the editors ranked and rated the desirability of cities based on the congeniality of a city toward the safety, health, and education of its youth.

The thing that strikes me positively about this particular list is the large number of California cities on it.

Based on my unofficial and hopefully accurate summary, Cal had 22, or 22% of the nationwide total. No other state came close to that proportion.

Moreover, 11 of the 22 are located in the Bay Area, a number still higher than the number for any other single state. If that isn’t commendable, I don’t know what is.

However, I have serious reservations about the inclusion of some of them.

Richmond, for example, came in at Number 73, high but still on the list. I’m familiar with the city and the surrounding area, which causes me to wonder about the family friendliness of a city that has become a gang and murder center fully worth the extra gas it takes to circle the town when heading to Tahoe.

Oakland at Number 84 is another city I would think seriously about if I were raising children. The murder rate in Oakland is astronomical and the schools leave much to be desired. There may be pockets of tranquility within the city limits, but even that is problematic as a gauge of family togetherness.

One other city, San Francisco at Number 67, made my seriously doubt list. SF is a great place for fun and games, but is it a commendable spot to raise kids in? There are many good neighborhoods, but the question in my mind relates to proximity. Can a parent in one of SF’s garden spots rest comfortably knowing that their adolescent darlings can jump on a bus and ride to the center of the action the minute they’re out of parental sight.

The remainder of the Bay Area cities on the cut include some that seem quite nice. Santa Rosa at Number 10 would be my personal choice. And I always considered Number 64 Concord a real nice spot.

The balance includes the South Bay Area 22, Fremont 38, Berkeley 40, Fairfield 50, Antioch 51, and Hayward 93.

Worth mentioning, not a single California city made the list of the 10 Worst Places to Raise a Family (find this list below the Top 100).

I’m surprised that Davis didn’t make the California state-wide cut. It was Number 3 on the 5 Friendliest Cities in America.

Technorati Tags: Bay Area,Oakland,Richmond,San Francisco,Berkeley,Santa Rosa,Concord

Who Trades with Whom?

I notice that Cuba is on the front burner all of a sudden. I watched John Boy blasting Barack on television this morning because Barack says he will talk to Raul Castro. John wants to continue the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba for another 100 years.

John’s argument is interesting. He believes U.S. pressure on Cuba will result in “real” change for the “Cuban people.” Maybe. The future is unpredictable. The story is in the past. We’ve done our best to isolate Cuba since Castro came to power more than 40 years ago. So far, the strategy hasn’t seemed to work. I wonder why?

One reason may be because our embargo on trade with Cuba has been a complete and total failure. Other countries have filled any gap left by us as a result of the trade embargo act of 1996. But wait. There’s more.

The United States is Cuba’s seventh largest import partner.

Hola!

How can this be? Who knows. Maybe a total trade embargo doesn’t really mean “total.” Or, big money trumps “total” every time. Here’s the list of Cuba’s top export markets.

• Netherlands, 21.8%
• Canada, 21.6%
• China, 18.7%
• Spain, 5.9%

Hmmm. We aren’t buying anything from Cuba. But are we selling them anything? Let’s see. Here are Cuba’s top import partners:

• Venezuela, 25,6%
• China, 15.6%
• Spain, 9.8%
• Germany, 6.4%
• Canada, 5.6%
• Italy, 4.4%
• US, 4.3%
• Brazil, 4.2%

Hola! I wonder, exactly what the US doesn’t sell to Cuba to warrant a Number 7 spot on Cuba’s imports partners list?

I’d be willing to bet that that we enacted legislation in 2000 permitting exceptions to the “total” trade embargo.

I’d further bet that those exceptions were for “humanitarian” purposes, stuff like medical and agricultural products.

Heck, if it’s for humanitarian purposes, why don’t we show a little compassion and give the stuff to them?

Is it merely coincidence, a merging of the stars, that the medical and agricultural industries in the US are two if the most powerful lobbies in D.C. Hmmm.

Oh, well. At least we’re running a trade surplus with Cuba.

Where did I get all of this data? Why, from the CIA.

Say what, Bro?

Technorati Tags: Cuba,Trade,John McCain,Barack Obama,US Exports to Cuba

Take Me Home Country Roads

…West Virginia, Mountain Mama…

Even John Denver couldn’t take Hillary home now. She’s expected to win WV’s primary this coming Tuesday, May 13, and although some Talking Pin Heads estimate her margin of victory at around 30%, she’s already a day late and a dollar short.

In my judgement, she’s in her current state of rapid decline because she is affiliated with Bill Clinton. He was popular and well liked once but he’s old stuff now, a part of the Establishment ever since the Republicans began their own run of sex scandals and had to admit that, yes, Republicans actually engage in sex, a revolutionary development.

Now, a humongous slice of the American population today is looking for a degree of political enlightenment that isn’t likely to occur with her and Bill in the Oval Office. Change is in the air, but the Clintons haven’t yet inhaled deeply enough to clear their political lungs.

It’s quite accurate and fair to argue that I once presented a different analysis. I said that Barack was an unknown element and Americans are afraid of real change when you get right down to it. But that was before John Boy became the so-called presumptive Republican nominee and began to talk about colonizing the Middle East.

With John as Commander in chief, the Sun Will Never Set on the Rovian Empire. Americans don’t like change, true, but they want a return to the 19th Century even less. Suddenly, Americans figure, maybe Barack isn’t so scary after all.

Put that together with the lovey dovey platitudes exchanged between the John and Billery camps and many people have come to believe that she is auditioning for the role of the Oldest Living Confederate Widow.

So, given Barack’s lead in just about any marker you care to name, why is Hillary bothering with West Virginia? Even if she wins handily, as the Talking Pinheads predict, her standing in the primary will remain largely unchanged from a practical standpoint.

But we all know that emotion not logic is the name of the psychological game of politics. Tiny and seemingly insignificant matters can make or break kings and presidents. Hope springs eternal.

I hope I haven’t insulted the state of West Virginia and its citizens by counting the state itself as politically insignificant in terms of Hillary’s race for the Democratic presidential nominee. Far from it.

But most Americans rarely read or hear about WV in the corporate media unless a story appears on the sports page. The WV Mountaineers are a perennial football powerhouse. I happen to know a lot about the Mountaineers and West Virginia through the simple process of osmosis. I was once within the borders of the state for about an hour. It happened this way.

As our soon-to-be son in law drove us into the town of Cumberland, Maryland to meet his parents, I looked up and spotted a World War II B-17 coming in for a landing somewhere.

Later we learned that a traveling exhibition of old aircraft was at the Cumberland Airport, which happened to be located across the state line in West Virginia. We spent a couple of hours wandering among the planes, and that’s the sum total of my on-the-ground experience in West Virginia.

But there’s more osmosis. When our son-in-law was a student at WVU, he was a member of the Drum Line and is still an avid Mountaineer. His father also graduated from WVU, and his grandfather lived in Morgantown most of his life.

Put all of this together and I feel like an honorary Mountaineer. I want a Mountaineer cap or tee shirt or some scrap to show my allegiance. Our daughter, however, refuses to send me anything.

In the manner of daughters everywhere, she looks out for our well-being.

“Yellow is too bright for you, Dad. It isn’t your color.”

Mountaineer colors are actually Blue and Gold, but I’ve learned one thing about daughters. When they are looking out for our well being, they can be rather intractable.

Now, if Chelsea would just tell Hillary she doesn’t look good in ruddy red embarrassment. Tell her, Chelsea, so we can get on with returning John Boy to Spencer’s Mountain.

Did You Know?
The first known Mother’s Day celebration in America occurred in May of 1907 or 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia. President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday in 1914.

Technorati Tags: West Virginia,Mountaineers,Hillary Clinton,Barack Obama