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

Truth is the First Casualty of Politics

That’s a paraphrase of an old saying of indeterminate origin about truth and war.

We’ll soon have an opportunity to observe the paraphrased adage in action. John McCain has established a Truth Squad in reaction to  comments by retired four-star general and Obama advocate, Wesley Clark. Below is one comment Clark made on an interview on Face the Nation yesterday. You can listen to the full interview on Youtube here. 

“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Although awkwardly stated, Clark is correct, of course. No single act of an individual, whether a veteran or not, in and of itself, is a qualification for the Office of the President of the United States. I know some fine pilots, but I wouldn’t vote for them for president simply because they have the ability to fly an airplane.

But in the world of politics, accusations cannot remain unanswered. In an effort to counter Clark’s comments, John McCain has decided to operate on another old adage–the truth shall set ye free.

He has recruited Sen. John Warner, Col. Bud Day and Lt. Col. Orson Swindle for some truth telling. There may be more individuals in the squad, but I stopped reading when my eyes hit Orson Swindle.

I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Orson Swindle for about ten minutes in the privacy of my office before we walked next door where he spoke to a class in political science.

He was an affable and friendly guy and told me about growing up in Georgia under the tutelage of an aunt. Despite my moderate political opinions and his somewhat right of center conservative leanings, we had many points in common.

We were both veterans and both products of Southern culture. Moreover, he had a long history with the federal government in various appointed capacities. I was a low-level apparatchik, a pencil pusher in the Southern dialect of my own straight talking aunt. Both of us knew the system.

I was actually surprised when he accepted my invitation to speak. This was at the height of the lunacy about liberals ruining our colleges and destroying our youth, which I thought was oddly overstated, since almost every instructor of my acquaintance was moderate or conservative. The extreme liberals were confined to the the social sciences.

Still, the atmosphere of accusation and innuendo was so bad that the public relations apparatchik of one admiral went ballistic at my audacity when I asked if the admiral would speak on campus.

He (not the admiral who probably never saw my request) fired off a three page e-mail about how “he” wasn’t going to permit “his” admiral to appear on this pinko campus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I should have retained the e-mail. It was a wonderful combination of the dead language of bureaucrats mixed with the colorful and earthy language of real people.

Anyway, Orson walked into my office on the appointed morning, accompanied by a bodyguard because he was running for political office as a Republican in a state where Republicans were as scarce as hen’s teeth on a Petaluma chicken ranch.

His first question was, “Where’s the men’s room?”

Well, after I led him to it, I returned to my office and chatted with his body guard for a minute or two, which was also an enjoyable experience because he was a boxing fan and so was I.

The upshot of Orson’s appearance before my class of ravenous, slobbering 19-year old radicals was a resounding success. The students were polite and attentive and Orson presented a well-reasoned case for his policies.

For balance, we had other candidates of other political persuasions on different days. Most also had good rapport with the students. The libertarian candidate, however, took an immediate dislike to me the moment she walked into my office and sat down for a pre-class chat. God knows why. Humans seem possessed of an underlying revulsion for some things. I was hers.

Mine? Well, it’s the swift-boating of reputations. Let’s see if John McCain and Orson Swindle permit themselves to swiftboat Obama. I hope not. Orson was too nice a guy for that sort of politics.

Technorati Tags: Wesley Clark,John McCain,Orson Swindle,Truth Squad

Thugs 1 People 0

By now, we know that the Supreme Court by a 5 to 4 margin has ruled that a Washington, D.C. city law banning handguns is unconstitutional. The ruling will have a nationwide impact, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) has already announced its intent to file lawsuits to overturn similar laws elsewhere.

One of NRA’s targets will be San Francisco. Maybe the Mayornoter and the Supes can mount a pre-emptive strike and work together to craft a constitutionally acceptable ordinance. But that’s a tall order given the current composition of the Supreme Court.

The court’s rationale in this case was quite simple.

Justice Scalia, mouthpiece of the Back to 1791 Movement, summed it up neatly when he said the Second Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1791 (not passed as come Tallking Pinheads continue to phrase it) is still effective today and it isn’t the duty of the courts to change it.

Translation: Jeez, any idiot ought to be able to read plain English.

Scalia believes that judges should not legislate from the bench. If society wants to change the Constitution, then society ought to amend the Constitution.

The problem is that today’s ruling changed not only the Constitution but several centuries of accepted English language usage, which is after all, the language of the Constitution.

Scalia and his cohorts effectively eliminated modifying clauses from the language and the law. Here’s how they managed to do it. The original language in the Second Amendment reads:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Now, we might rightly and fairly ask, were the Founders so dumb they inserted a boatload of extra words in our sacred text? Scalia apparently thinks so. His ruling erased everything preceding “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Almost every sane individual of my acquaintance, which includes a lawyer or two, understands that the words before the money sentence are modifying words and clauses. They are there for a clarifying purpose. They set the conditions for gun ownership and relate such ownership to a well-regulated militia.

We can better understand the Amendment if we wrote it in modern English, like this:

Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Or this way:

A well-regulated militia is necessary to a free state. Therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Most of us aren’t attorneys or grammarians, but we have enough moxie to understand the purpose behind Scalia’s specious reasoning. This quintessential 18th Century neocon, wants to lock pet neocon programs in concrete before GB becomes a footnote to a footnote.

And it’s possible he has succeeded. At the very least, he’s made it possible for any garden-variety thug to walk in a store and buy a gun. Of course, thugs get guns anyway, but now, they’ll become easier to buy. Wanna shoot a few more innocent people along Bay Area freeways? No sweat, pal. Tell ‘em Scalia sent you.

This ruling has also given a boost to the fortunes of gun manufacturers and a host of economic activities that profit from the sale of guns and ammunition. A thousand years from now, aliens from another universe will land and unearth millions of petrified guns and little oblong pellets that look oddly like goose droppings. “This is a dead civilization,” they will conclude and fly away to another spot.

In support of his decision, Scalia called handguns the prefect weapon for home defense. Light in weight and easy to use, handguns permit a person to use one hand to dial 911 while pointing a gun at a burglar with the other hand. What’s a homeowner to do if the burglar is pointing a Dirty Harry special at the him or her?

As an ex-member of the gun culture and an expert marksman in the military service, I can support the contention that facility with a handgun is one thing. The presence of mind and a willingness to use one under pressure are something else again. Few people possess the latter abilities.

Congratulations, Scalia! You’ve done your job for the thugs.

Technorati Tags: Supreme Court,Gun Control,Antonin Scalia,Second Amendment

Irreverent Humor

George Carlin and Mark Twain had a lot in common. Both decried hypocrisy and both vigorously attacked the hypocrisy they saw in organized religion.

One of Carlin’s classic routines was this one, a to-the-point, meant-to-shock revelation about a Biblical deity from his perspective.

Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man — living in the sky — who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you.
(Excerpt from George Carlin on Religion)

Twain’s approach was softer but no less effective. His style and biting humor reached a peak with a book written in 1909 and published after his death. The book is Letters from the Earth, and it’s written from the perspective of an angel on Earth who chronicles every human foible under the sun.

Twain also wrote a short story that he called The War Prayer. The piece in its entirety appears below, courtesy of The Resources for Peace, found on the Internet here.

The War Prayer graphically describes the results we pray for when we pray for victory in war. This is a rather long story for inclusion in a blog post, but I hope you have the patience to read it through. The story appears here without editing.

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain

in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched fire-crackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies, a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came–next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the colunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams–visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!

Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged

no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, falling, to die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:

“God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,

Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword.”

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and begnignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them; shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory–

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside–which the startled minister did–and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne–bearing a message from Almighty God.” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import–that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of–except he pause and think. God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two–one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this–keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! Lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer–the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it–that part which the pastor–and also in your hearts–fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You have heard those words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God.’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory, you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle–be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of the patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of their guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their offending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it–

“For our sakes who adore thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

“We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him who is the Source of Love, and Who is the Ever-Faithful Refuge and Friends of all who are sore beset and seeking His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

(The old man paused). “Ye have prayed it; if you still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High awaits.”

* * * * *

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

–Mark Twain

Technorati Tags: George Carlin,Mark Twain,The War Prayer,Letters from the Earth

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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Sunday is a Day for Deep Reflection

And it dawned on me that I am a shallow thinker.

In some ways that’s good. I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating the nuances of the world around me. The world isn’t black and white, but it isn’t completely gray toned, either. Besides, my simple brain gives me an insight into the thought processes of politicians.

A friend once said to me, “You’re a fourth level thinker.”

From the look on his face, I thought he thought this was a compliment.

In my mind, however, I thought, “Let’s see, my office is in the basement of a building with three stories above ground. So he’s referring to my relative status in the pecking order.” The thought seemed logical to me.

“You’re right,” I responded, and the guy thought I was bragging. I still don’t know what the heck he meant.

I once tried thinking sophisticated but gave it up after a couple of stabs. My first effort came out of the simple title “Buffalo Bill.” I’d always thought it an odd label, a combination of mutually exclusive words. So I worked it around in my mind and produced the following bit of logic:

If his name were apropos,
then Bill was partly buffalo.

Awed by my creation, I quickly developed another gem.

Requiem to a Thirsty Tippler
Gin,
you win.

Flush with this evidence of my newly acquired sophistication, I adjourned to the nearest booze joint for some real, in-depth philosophical discourse.

I haven’t had a deep thought since.

Inevitable Afterthoughts. This sounds incredible even to me, but both of the above products of deep thinking were published in a literary magazine. Those were the halcyon days of youth. If only we were born old and grew young, life would be a dream.

Technorati Tags: Deep Thinking,Literary Magazines,Buffalo Bill

Radio Days

We all hide some episodes in our lives from others. My secret is about radio.

I never listen to talk radio. My aversion began a long time ago. As a bright and lively average American, I’d wake and immediately turn on the radio. Mostly, music was my preferred listening genre, but occasionally I’d catch a little conversation.

One morning, I happened to catch this God-awful raspy voice that grated on my ears like a deep-throated buzz saw. I mean. seriously, the speaker should never have been permitted to grace the airwaves of mellifluous Columbia School of Broadcasting graduates.

And then like a bolt out of the blue, it dawned on me. I knew this man. He was an utter lunatic. He also was the voice of Razorback Jack (remember Wolfman Jack?) the station’s country music DJ and Larry T. Worthington bringing big band sounds to the world one song at a time. Now, here he was doing a poor imitation of a talk-show host. What the hell was going on? Was this some damned one-man station operating out of a basement?

But that wasn’t the worst part. This horrible imitation of a human voice, which sounded vaguely like a computer-generated monotonic monster from Mars, was mine.

At the realization, I actually gagged. I’d never heard my own voice before, and the actual sound of it made me ill.

So, my real secret is that I was once a genuine radio talk show host. I still have some of the tapes laying around, and I sincerely hope that I can find them before I die so that no one will learn the truth about my halcyon days.

Those were crazy and maddening times. I’d schedule a guest for a recording session in the studio and ask a few prepared questions, which the guest always ignored. In fact, more than one apparently thought it was his/her own personal show and co-opted the mike. Once, I had to pull the plug on the recording console.

I’d usually work around this minor glitch by recording for an hour and a half and then cutting the most obnoxious fifteen minutes. After hearing my own voice, I realized that I should have cut my own part.

I learned some valuable lessons in my radio days. Even then, I figured, no one listened to radio on Saturday, with the possible exception of some drunks at the corner bar who always called to request their favorite country whine at the exact moment I cued a tape and fell asleep.

I also learned that on-air personalities could be, well, quirky. One guy who had a Filipino music show used to phone me when he had a hangover or a hot babe lined up and ask me to cover. For a couple of hours, I would be Johnny Maldonado, the Manila Music Man. True story.

Another one regularly rang me at midnight and ask me to cover because “this babe just called.” So I’d haul my buns out of bed and drive to the station, slip a tape on, and fall asleep on a cot in the manager’s office. The station manager slipped in one morning and caught me. My penance? I had to sit at the console and sleep while he used his cot for other purposes.

The radio game is different these days. More genteel, more refined. With one exceptions. I doubt very many listeners tune in to talk radio on Saturday.

Which explains why I didn’t listen to el Gavo and Ariana. Others more talented and energetic will cover all bases. I prefer the U.S. Open.

However, if Gav needs an emergency substitute, I may be available on short notice. Call my agent 24/7.

Technorati Tags: Radio Talk Shows,Gavin Newsom,Saturday Radio,Ariana Huffington