Assorted notes on the Democratic problem

The DNC has a fairly clear problem, set up by a series of tangible “what ifs?” this primary season.

If the delegates from Florida and Michigan are actually seated, there would be a deeper mistrust of Clinton by Obama supporters, since Clinton didn’t remove her name from the ballot in Michigan, while Edwards and Obama did. Additionally, if those delegates end up being seated, McCain can campaign on two different angles: Democrats change and ignore rules to suit them or, that voters in Florida and Michigan don’t matter. This last statement would work particularly well in downtrodden Michigan, which Mitt Romney did so well in, and Florida which demographically speaking, remains full of McCain’s ideal voters. If Clinton supporters abstain from voting entirely as some have threatened, they will systematically kill Democratic candidates in other important elections nationwide.

If either candidate hopes to make a graceful exit from the race, they will have to genuinely emphasize unity and I’m not sure how possible this is, given how fractured Clinton and Obama supporters remain. The Democratic electorate is so hung up on “their” candidate that they’ll end up handing the election to McCain, who is already using more centrist language and has a—frankly—more realistic view of Iraq.

Should we get our troops out? Of course we should, but not in a way that leaves Iraq at the mercy of whatever faction with the most guns and ammo decides to take power, essentially guaranteeing another military action within the next decade. This doesn’t make me a McCain supporter, but the Clinton/Obama timetables for withdrawal are hilarious in light of Petraeus’ April comments to Congress.

Recently, of course, some militia elements became active again. Though a Sadr stand-down resolved the situation to a degree, the flare-up also highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming and directing the so-called special groups, and generated renewed concern about Iran in the minds of many Iraqi leaders. Unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq. Source

Commentary all over the Internet has some wondering why Clinton remains in the race, and there are good reasons for her to keep going, in spite of her butchered campaign:

Obama could screw up and have some kind of YouTube moment. Admittedly, it would have to be pretty bad, like audio of him ranting about “those white devils” or something to kill the momentum that a 75 thousand person rally can give a campaign.

The super delegates could side with Clinton, although if they do it would be the result of the kind of back room politics that Democrats have grown tired of. There is a real desire for transparency of process from Democratic voters, many of whom still feel that the previous two elections were “stolen” from them. I’ve read over the statistics from elections where Nader was said to be a factor and the reality for me remains that had Gore and Kerry not produced such lukewarm candidacies, more people would have voted to elect them. We can play statistical football with how Nader voters might have swayed the outcome had Nader not been in the race, but Nader empowered many people who would have otherwise not voted in the first place. To assume they would have done so is too big a jump for me—like people who think a Democrat will never go to war.

Oregon? “Battleground”? Nah.

I’ve heard Oregon called a “battleground” state for the general election, which strikes me as odd.

Here is a map of Kerry vs Bush in terms of relative strength of vote during 2004. Multnomah county easily went to Kerry, as it did to Gore in 2000, the numbers created by the popular vote because of Portland destroyed Bush’s lead in rual Oregon.

I am not sure why McCain is campaigning here. He would probably do better to spend money in places with a slimmer margin, unless he wants to start rallying in Portland yesterday.

Clinton has been all over Oregon acting like a Republican, but her biggest problem comes from how she’s set up events here. Nearly all her appearances were clearly photo-op, invite only scenarios or were in the middle of nowhere Portland suburbs, inaccessable by public transit. In a city that prides itself on being super “green”, I wonder what she was trying to accomplish?

Truthers?

My favorite television show growing up was The X-Files and even as a very young person, I did get the impression that a kind of lase faire something was responsible for certain things politically, although I did not consider whatever force this might be to be as manifestly evil as the image many have in mind when they think of conspiracy: poorly lit boardrooms, a cabal of weathered, white male chain smokers in suits.

I still do not consider the “Boardroom” to be malevolent, although they seem quite utilitarian whenever they’re portrayed in fiction, exuding the confident air of knowing what’s best for everybody, the classic two percent of the population taking care of the blissfully sleeping remainder.

I’ve tried to get at the so-called Truth movement for some time now. I remember attending Dr. David Ray Griffin’s lecture on “debunking 9/11 debunking”. I remember Mike Green asking how many in the audience were from Medford. Very few people raised their hands. He then asked how many were from Ashland, and as the rest of the audience raised their hands I felt strange electricity run through the room. The message was clear: we are Ashland. We are enlightened. You are not. I remember being frightened as I came to understand that I was sitting in the middle of a significant mob that might actually attempt to harm me if I were to ask Dr. Griffin the questions I had wanted to ask.

It was a bizarre experience. Watching others nod their heads I thought perhaps something was wrong with me for not buying his “alternative” conspiracy theory so quickly. Maybe my love of the style of Chris Carter’s syndicate made me less susceptible on the grounds of image alone.

I can’t help but wonder if conspiracy doesn’t serve a necessary function in American society? Beyond the genuine malevolence that comes from the label conspiracy theorist, what purpose does the industry itself serve? Is it a distraction? This answer seems too easy.

Troubles

I feel dreadfully unequipped to write about decades before I was born, at least with respect to American politics. I hear people younger than I am spout off about the 60s constantly, as if they were qualified to speak and I were qualified to judge.

Academic bullying

From this post, something that hits close to home.

Publicly dissenting from politically correct ideas (meaning those held sacred by campus elites).

Sometimes I want those years back…

Obama in Portland

…and by the time I found out, tickets were gone. Maybe when Clinton or if McCain appears I’ll be able to attend that. I have never been to a big rally.

Or Crater Lake.
Or watched all of “Goonies”.

More soon after I finish up some other writing and books.

Just remember

When things become difficult in our lives, it’s problematic to maintain perspective. We think that our situations will never get better.

When this happens, remember that when it feels like nothing can get worse, you could be served with 80 subpoenas following your sexual abuse charges.

Just sayin’.

Media bias: scene one, take two

A while back while I was enrolled in a politics of mass media course, I wrote a short paper on Groseclose and Milyo’s A Measure of Media Bias. Apparently they’ve responded to the critiques at Language Log. While I freely admit I don’t currently understand much of the statistical workings on the paper, I found this explanation interesting:

Another point that Nunberg raises is that many of our groups are not pure think tanks. E.g. some, such as NAACP, the NRA, and the ACLU, are more appropriately described as activist groups. We are guilty of calling all of them “think tanks.” We do this only because it is unwieldy to to call them throughout the paper, eg., “think tanks, activist groups, and other policy groups.” But more important, there’s no a priori reason to exclude groups that are not pure think tanks.

Yes you can, it’s called a footnote. And it might have saved that argument.

I can think of at least

one person I would send this to.

Dewey defeats Truman

I don’t follow football except for college games once in a great while, but I have to say, the tags for this book over at Amazon about the Patriots are hilarious. I love Web 2.0.

Edit - Looks like Amazon pulled it, but here were some of the tags Amazon users graced the work with:

fiction (86)
failure (49)
cheaters (4
wishful thinking (47)
hubris (44)
cheating (41)
douche (36)
fap fap fap (21)
mustard man (13)
dewey defeats truman (5)
19-0 (3)
18-1 (2)
best team ever (2)
champions (2)
fail (2)
moss is the real mvp (2)
ny fan tears sure are tasty (2)
wicked pissah (2)
72 phins baby (1)
alternate history (1)
assmunch (1)
baba booey (1)
bill belicheat (1)
boston sucks (1)
cart before the horse (1)
ceiling cat is watching you cheat (1)
choke artists (1)
choking for dummies (1)
counting chickens before theyre hatched (1)
curb your enthusiasm (1)
devil incarnate (1)
dewey beats truman (1)
disrespect (1)
drew curtis (1)
drunken kennedy (1)
epic fail (1)
fark (1)
fluffers (1)
fools (1)
frauds (1)
full of win (1)
ha ha (1)
ha ha guy (1)
imaginationland (1)
jinx (1)
jynx (1)
leave the patriots alone111 (1)
lol (1)
losers (1)
minuteman center with gold spraypaint on… (1)
morons (1)
no class (1)
not yours (1)
novelty item (1)
ny giants (1)
ny times owns boston globe (1)
o rly (1)
oh noes (1)
oh snap (1)
oops spilled beer on the server (1)
opie and anthony (1)
perfection (1)
phonies (1)
roger just up and left my house wtf (1)
schandenfreude (1)
see also president kerry (1)
shipoopi (1)
step 1 collect underpants (1)
step 2 — (1)
step 3 profit (1)
taint ticklers (1)
teh fail (1)
the suckiness of boston (1)
time travel (1)
tom brady likes it under center (1)
video surveillance (1)
what if (1)
you fail it (1)
you just got rick rolled by jhill (1)