1. Ok. It was a long time coming this year, but I'm finally and legitimately excited for the OSU-Michigan game tomorrow. Michigan's pathetic 3-8 is still not enough to taint what is the most anticipated football game for me every year The only exceptions to this would be if the Steelers were playing in the AFC Championship game or of course the Super Bowl. All other games of any level or importance would be secondary, even, believe it or not, an OSU national title game appearance (though I'm sure this opinion is colored by semi-recent events). So it will be fun tomorrow, and I'm semi-confident that the game might itself be interesting for quite a while, or at least long enough to give Michigan a victory against the historically-high 20.5 point spread.
After our game at noon, what I think might be the biggest game of the year is at 8:00 with Texas Tech and Oklahoma. TT is good and all, but I think a lot of people are forgetting how ridiculous Oklahoma is. I think they're going to put the hurt on Texas Tech, and I think they ought to get into the title game over Texas, even though they lost head-to-head.
This is a small digression, but this would be a great year for a playoff, maybe the best yet. I'm fairly certain there will be no major unbeatens (sorry Alabama), and at least 6-8 legitimately good teams to duke it out, in order of quality: Oklahoma, Florida, USC, Texas, Alabama, Texas Tech, Penn State. Add to that potentially-undefeated Utah and you've got a nice playoff lineup (first-round games: OU-Utah, Florida-Penn St, USC-TT, Texas-Bama. Excellent).

2. There has been a minor controversy online regarding a guy trying to use shady means to prove his theory that Obama was elected because the media covered the race unfairly. First, know that the guy at the center of this, John Ziegler, used to be a conservative talk-radio host, which really is about all you need to know about him. This guy cooked up a survey to show that Obama voters absorbed slanderous news about McCain/Palin better than about Obama/Biden, and that this obviously means that the liberal media played up the Republicans' faults while obscuring the Democrats'. Never mind that Obama is black and therefore belongs to a minority group that hasn't ever been portrayed remotely fairly by any form of media, or the fact that it would take some impressive kind of conspiracy in 2008 to effectively filter info.
Anyhow, I'm not as interested in that part of the debate. I'd like to look at a couple examples of why Ziegler/conservatives are angry about the media's treatment of the election, as found through his survey. People were much more likely to know that Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter and received $150,000 worth of clothes than they were to know about Obama's (out of context and misquoted) comment about the coal industry or Biden's past plagiarism. To any observer, partisan or not, this should come as no surprise. Even accepting Ziegler's general assumption--that this is because the media focused on the former stories and ignored the latter--should not be at all debatable. He--we--everyone, unfortunately--is assuming the media is operating with any kind of journalistic standards in mind, that the media is concerned with reporting honest stories and presenting honest pertinent information. Maybe it's archaic, but the major TV and radio networks are subject to federal oversight because they were originally intended to be responsible guardians of the public's information absorption. This has gone by the wayside, and is only really ever expected out of PBS anymore.
Instead, what we have now in almost all media outlets (and throughout all entertainment in fact) is a constant pandering to a least-common-denominator. The media doesn't give us what we ought to know, they give us what they think we want to know. We're interested in trivial scandal and personal details about politicians, cause lord knows those are the things that affect a person's governance (sometimes I know, they do, but you know what I mean).
I've criticized news and entertainment industries about this stuff before but so many people seem unfazed by this that it bears repeating. Our culture is different now, and not for the better. I don't care that Sarah Palin's daughter doesn't use contraception, I don't care that Eliot Spitzer sees prostitutes, I don't care that Bill Clinton got a hummer in the White House. I care that it's perfectly legal to discriminate against gay people, I care that U.S. leaders don't need to adhere to the same standards we hold to the rest of the world, I care that this country isn't remotely solvent.

3. The other day, I received an email from my good friend David Plouffe asking me for money again. (A reminder, Plouffe was Obama's campaign manager.) It was more or less your standard request for donation, this time to help fund the transition effort, except I noticed a couple lines that hint at something I find--at the risk of sounding naive--wholly remarkable and admirable:

For the first time, transition efforts won't be financed with donations from Washington lobbyists and PACs -- which means we'll need to keep asking for your help. Your generosity during the campaign helped get us here, but building a more transparent and open government means continuing to rely on a broader group of people to do this the right way.

First, the theme is the same as always, the same as it was since the day Obama rejected public financing and instead decided to raise all his money on his own. Through these constant emails from them, the campaign has been consistently proud of this fact. Although it sets a dangerous precedent toward ever-escalating money spent on political campaigns, I'm inclined to agree with their pride. Why not be supported quite literally from your supporters, and not some taxpayer funds or professional lobbyists? I know my ignorance on this forces such simplicity, but it makes sense. Again, I'd be worried about the path this could lead us down, but in this moment, I like it.
The much more interesting part of the quoted paragraph, though, is this: "building a more transparent and open government means continuing to rely on a broader group of people."
Obama has found himself in a difficult position after managing to somewhat transcend some of the usual politics in the eyes of millions of people. It's a corny cliche word here, but he's given hope that he might be different or run things differently than we're used to. In this task, and given these expectations, he will of course fail. He's a politician after all. He might represent better things to people but in the end he's one of them.
Nonetheless, if there is one thing that I've sorta noticed about how Obama and his people have gone about things, it's that he seems to genuinely be making an effort at transparency and accountability. Of course, after 8 horribly secretive Bush years, this is politically fruitful, but it seems more of an institutional mandate for the future from the future Prez himself, rather than a comment on the past. I'm too lazy to provide specific examples here from his campaign or the last couple weeks, but I'm happy to say that it seems to me at least that he's trying to deliver on a pretty important bit of promise that his victory represents. So good for him. But don't fuck it up.

The Big Republican Problem

This ought to be the last political post for a while, or at least the last one focused mainly on politics. They're fun in doses, and I'm sure I will have had my fill soon enough.

During the last several weeks as I've habitually politics-loaded, I've tried to make sure I get a little of both sides. The problem with internet surfing for legit but opinionated information is that similar-minded sites tend to link to each other but not as much to dissenting ones. To get around this, you have to follow a link where a liberal is making fun of what a conservative is saying, and then once at the other site, to browse around rather than simply read what was linked. For your information, one site that's dedicated to conservative thinking (and no I'm not using that phrase ironically. I think it's terribly stupid when liberals (or any group that might ever drift toward elitism) act like it's impossible to find extremely intelligent arguments from the other side. No one has a monopoly on good ideas.) which I have found to contain plenty of smart, readable content is nextright.com. There are many others but my laziness has limited me mostly to revisiting this one.
Anyhow, in reading some of these Republican sites, I can't help but notice some of the comments to articles. As with any site, the comments are on another planet than the articles, quality-wise, but since I don't have as many righty friends anymore, and I don't see many here in Manhattan, it can be slightly if curiously informative. Being from Eastern Ohio, and raised in a somewhat culturally conservative household, I have some experience with both sides of the political debate. Of course over time I have tended to the left in my own thinking but I can certainly respect and often agree with either side.
Now, there are a lot of conservatives lamenting their performance Tuesday, for good reason, but there may be even more (the more ambitious or enthusiastic at least) that are attempting to lay out how to regain traction and eventually return to national power. Many of the excuses/ideas offered are reasonable, but I've found that my own personal feeling regarding the biggest Republican problem has gone laregly unmentioned.
Somewhere along the line (I'll leave others to decide when exactly), Republicans made a decision that, sure, it's ok if a large portion of our base consists of bigoted, ignorant, uninformed, and homogenous individuals. By letting too many of these types of voters run amok as a big chunk of their base, the Republicans took up residence on the wrong side of history. By consistently doing this, they ensured that no matter what else happened in the present, sooner or later, they were going to fall. I talked about this is my gay marriage post a few back, but it's a guarantee that fairness and virtue will win out in this country in the long run (And let's pause here to note that no matter the flaws of the country or its people, this fact stands high as evidence of its true greatness).
You could probably trace today's versions of the Democratic and Republican parties directly to the civil rights era, when Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act changed the south from a Democratic stronghold to the Republican one it has remained to this day. Starting there, they fell behind (in many cases, to say they "fell behind" is very generous, more descriptive to say they "vigorously opposed.") on racism, abortion, guns, the environment, anything science-related, homosexuality, and pretty much any other progressive social/cultural issue. They took the easy road and pandered to the ignorances, fears, and insecurities of the present, somehow not noticing that the supporters of intolerance would shrink as the years went on and people naturally became more accepting of others' differences. They somehow didn't notice that the national share of white males was diminishing every year as this country continued it's centuries-old tradition of receiving immigrants in high numbers (I don't have a source handy, but it's estimated that in the not-too-distant future, there will be no more majority race).
Of course, not all Republicans favor oppression and intolerance. Most of the leaders of the party and a great percentage of its members nationwide are personally appalled at that behavior. But too many of their base is not, and because it's "the base," Republican leaders have gone to great lengths not to alienate it.
The Democrats are imminently capable of screwing up their current majority (also let's not overlook the poorly educated sections of their party) and they might sometimes consider themselves lucky to have stumbled into their preferred socially progressive positions, but assuming they steer the ship reasonably enough, I predict that the Republicans as we know them will never become a majority national party again until they've accepted this as ground zero and simply cast off their lot of ignorant fools. In consecutive national elections, this base has proven utterly futile, so what good is it to them? They need to rework the party from the bottom up. If their various strategists and thinkers can't see that their uneducated and intolerant base is nothing but a huge albatross, then they don't deserve the status as anything more than a minor third-party. Let their factions form their own parties: the Racist Party, the Homophobic Party, the Creationist Party, the Guns Don't Kill People I Kill People Party. What would be left of the Republicans would be absolutely certain to peel off lots of the not-yet-entrenched newly moderate part of the Democratic party. If they were somehow able to commit to their policy issues in any kind of big-tent way, they would probably stand a great chance to defeat the Democrats again.
But this kind of eschewing of their embarrassing base would take time and result in many failures in the near future, so they are sure not to heed it. It's the easy way out, and it's what got them into this mess 40-some years ago.

Finally, from a personal standpoint, can you imagine this country with the various intolerant groups having been marginalized politically? I'd say that's as close as a large society like the US could get to eutopia.

This is slightly unfair for its generalism, but do you want to see where racism lives in America?
Take a look at what is my favorite election map so far (it's my favorite for two reasons, just one of which is racism). Click on "Voting Shifts" on the left, and just leave the "Compare to" button over 2004 for simplicity, and because the farther back you go the more and larger political variables you encounter. That is one ridiculously blue map. It shows how each county voted as compared to 2004. Things to remember when looking at the map:
1. Nationally, the number was red +2 in 2004, blue +6 in 2008, so on average those counties should be 8% redder in 2004 (or bluer in 2008).
2. Campaigning and thus exposure to both sides is hugely disproportionate to the battleground states, so those should have smaller swings.
3. Many states overall flipped red to blue in 08: VA, NC, FL, OH, IN, IA, NM, CO, NV, so these states should include bluer counties than other states on average.
4. Indiana and Arizona contain home-state advantages to consider. This is why Arizona holds 8 of the 10 counties to go more red in the entire Mountain and Pacific time zones, and also why Indiana is the bluest state on the whole map.

So, absorbing all that, what does the map tell us, besides the obvious and instant fact that the Democrat did much better this time? Or, given the 8 point swing from 2004, plus the more inclusive nature of this campaign's advertising, leaving us to expect a generally bluer map all over, what would be the reason for the clustered deep red on the map?
John McCain received his greatest disparity of support over what Bush received primarily in one congruent area of the country centered over Arkansas but running from East Texas and Oklahoma across Tennessee and up into Eastern Kentucky and far western Virginia and West Virginia. The national vote (from D perspective) went from -2 to +6, but Arkansas managed to go from -10 to -20. Softening the national swing because Arkansas is a deep Republican state, we still should have expected something more like -6 for the Democrat this time, not -20, and that is a huge difference.
Outside of this corridor of increased Rep support, look at one of the blue flip states, Ohio. As I said before, we might expect some of the margins in this massive battleground state to be smaller than nationally; however, the vote there almost exactly mirrored the national in 04 and 08: -2 and +4. So why did 13 of its 88 counties vote more red in this election? Those 13 mostly reside in southern or eastern parts of the state.
I think it's clear that there is one possible answer to all of these questions, the one I mentioned at the beginning: racism. It's always controversial to accuse people of racism but sometimes the truth is hard, and problems will never be overcome if they are kept hidden. (I'm obliged to say that I'm no expert on local politics of the Ozarks, so there might be some mitigating factor that causes the region to buck the national trend. My perhaps lazy conclusion just seems fairly likely. At the very least, it's a large part of the whole answer.)

The other striking thing about the map is how it illustrates the comprehensive nature of Obama's performance relative to Kerry. As per my usual, I'll use numbers: 22 states saw every single one of their counties with increased Democratic numbers. Four more had all but one county, and three additional had only two counties show Republican increases. 29 out of 50 states had two of fewer counties give more support to Republicans. That's amazing. It wasn't just pockets of strength that gave the Democrats the edge, it was across the board. That would be ominous news for Republicans. They better hope that most Americans view Obama as a transcendent figure and crossed idealogical lines just to vote for him personally, rather than his party.

Some notes on voting this morning, but first a couple follow-ups to my last post:

1. I read my post again, and I notice it seems naive, almost precious. What can I say, the guy does that to you. I do not rescind anything.
2. I would be seriously remiss to mention my Obama-vote without placing it in the context of my life with Sara. She is as intense a supporter of her home state/home city-man as any I've encountered. She's such a staunch liberal/Democrat that she gets physically upset when watching anyone from the Bush administration speak. Democrats could nominate Karl Marx and she might question his moderacy.
Anyway, when I said I was researching the candidates last night, I was doing this (at least initially) while sitting on the couch next to her. She asked me what I was up to, and I said I was deciding who I was going to vote for. She said "For President?" and I said "Yeah." The utter disappointment/horror across her face as she said "You're not voting for Obama?" was striking. I followed with my standard reminder of my no D/R position, but even though she has heard this screed before, it did not serve to placate her much. Shortly after she left and went to bed I resumed my skull session in earnest. I think had it not been for her bluntly honest reaction to my intents I might not have come to my relative epiphany regarding what I see as the true and transcendent nature of Obama's candidacy. I mean, I've known all along from a historical standpoint that this is really a big deal, but it hadn't much trickled down to me personally.
I don't think that we will always vote for the same people--far from it--but in certain special cases, I think it's important to note the inevitability, spawned by our closeness, of our one mind.

3. Voter turnout, particularly among blacks and youths, has been a point of discussion throughout this campaign. But I'd like to state from eyewitness report (albeit a pathetically small sample sized-report) of my experiences voting this morning, the turnout this year could be spectacularly large, so much to cause potentially big problems in some states. I've never taken more than 3-5 minutes total to vote in any NYC election, including for governor and for mayor. Of course these are far less attended than a presidential election, but a respectable 30% of the electorate voted in the 2005 mayoral election, which is roughly half of what's expected to be something near 60% turnout nationally in this year's contest. Anyhow, it took me almost 90 minutes to get through the line this morning, and I arrived at 7:50AM. The line was distinctly longer when I left. Also, in NY this year there is only one ballot proposal, and no other race above the US Congress-level. Of the perhaps 8 races in NYC this year, plus the proposal, it couldn't take even a complete dunce more than 30 seconds to finish voting (an assumption I can confirm from my time standing in the long but fast-moving line).
So I'm going to predict that turnout for this election blows away the expectations, which is clearly a good thing in general but a bad one specifically:
4. There are going to be big problems in some swing states, problems that will invariably end up in courts, something that will do huge damage to what would otherwise surely turn into an easy and triumphant night for Obama. I'm not suggesting something like 2000 where it's December before we can confirm a winner, but turnout will overwhelm polling places to the point that perhaps we will finally get some reform on the matter. How there is not some tiny temporary % tax increase initiated to upgrade voting systems on a comprehensive scale is borderline criminal. The machines we at least still use in NYC, with their pathetic punchcard results, would barely be suitable in a third-world country.
5. It's really just about time we declared Election Day a national holiday and got the day off work. I say this not lazily, but more as a way of reforming the polling place voting experience. Of perhaps 20 people working my location this morning, maybe 6 were remotely competent. This is unsurpising because who would take time off to volunteer to work the polls? A memory from my childhood is tagging along with my parents when they voted and spending maybe 30 minutes there with my grandmother, who worked the polls every year. That's right, a 4 year old was playing inside the polling place while his aggressively and menacingly Republican (75 year old) grandmother acted as gatekeeper to democracy. Today there was a man with one eye (one bad eye, he was in charge of reading people's cards to ensure they were where they should be. I saw he squint and lean in to try to read a card given to him. He struggled for 4 seconds before realizing he was reading the back--blank--side of the card.), two women too obese to stand up, and several people unable to direct as many as ten people into two lines.
If everyone had the day off, you would get intelligent and competent people volunteering. I would even make it mandatory of poll workers to attend two rehearsal sessions: one to organize the team and space, and another to do a full walk-through. This stuff need not be difficult. Lord knows it's important enough to devote some energy to trying to get right.

A Different Kind of Obama Voter

Many of you know that I've boycotted the Democratic and Republican parties because I feel that there should be more than two parties in this country, and that the repressive nature of the current two-party system leads to uninspiring (at best) or whore-to-party (at worst) candidates. This has led to a series of elections only interesting for their closeness; the candidates themselves have always seemed so unimportant or ultimately indistinguishable.
In the last NY gubernatorial election, I voted for a member of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. I did this without fear of consequence.(1) In 2006 I spread my various votes around the spectrum of Third Parties: one for the Socialists, one for the Greens, one for the Libertarians, one for the Constitutionists. It felt good to make a choice for something other than the status quo. It felt good to support other voices, even if the candidates themselves were not truly qualified for the task with which my vote would charge. Unfortunately, none of the third parties ever had any chance to win and so my votes were merely symbolic, and therefore not as irresponsible as they might otherwise be.
So now I found myself today with what seemed like a more serious choice for president, though not really serious for the normal reasons. Last night, I was doing my final familiarizations with the third party candidates appearing on the ballot(2): Roger Calero (Socialist Worker's), Gloria La Riva (Socialism & Liberation), Cynthia McKinney (Green), Bob Barr (Libertarian), and Ralph Nader (Independent).
At this time, I found myself eliminating candidates(3) and was left with only Nader as a realistic choice. Now, it's not like I have anything against Nader, but I had to stop and consider what I was debating in my head: Nader over Obama. What was I doing? On the one hand we have an actual independent with a strong record, and on the other we have a Democrat, and a pretty classic one at that. But while Obama is still in my mind "just a Democrat," he's also something more than that. He's something we haven't seen in presidential elections in many years. He's someone that people really truly connect to and respond to, not just a product of partisan hype and enthusiasm, or so it seems to me. I am truly interested and excited to see what he might do as President, how he might lead. He seems to transcend the simple politics of at least the last 40+ years, and for that reason alone it's exciting to see how the country will react to him.
I've got nothing really against John McCain. He's a largely inoffensive candidate. Reminds me a lot of John Kerry actually, and GWBush in 2000, and any number of candidates before him. He's someone I'd never vote for. In a race with two of him, I'd surely have gone with Nader. But there aren't two of him. There's a guy who seems just different enough to me, so my vote this morning went outside of my tendencies and to him.(4) Godspeed sir.


1. No, Eliot Spitzer resigning in the wake of a sex scandal does not count as a consequence. Not even close.
2. I've never seriously considered casting a write-in vote, for a couple of reasons. First, I've never felt so strongly about a person to so definitively cast a vote "for" that person. Second, my votes have been more about dissenting from the current system than specifically identifying with a marginal sector of it.
3. Calero--not even born in the US. Come on, people.
La Riva--interestng, but not my cup of tea.
McKinney--kindof a joke, almost certainly in it only for the exposure. In other words, no better than Ds or Rs.
Barr--I don't mind Libertarians but this is not the right guy. He led the impeachment effort of Clinton. No, that wasn't at all partisan. Also, it was because he banged someone and lied. I'm what you'd call a cultural liberal, like a crazy-far-left kind, so indignation at Clinton's action is confusing to me.
The guy who I might have considered had he been on the ballot was Ron Paul but even there we miss on several of the issues. Of course he's also just a Republican, but I respect the defiantly outsider stance.
4. Just for the record, I didn't officially vote for a Democrat. In New York state, third parties are allowed to nominate candidates from the two major parties and still get their party's name on the ballot. This year, McCain was nominated by the Conservative and Independence Parties, as well as the Republicans. Obama was nominated by the Working Families Party in addition to the Democrats. I checked Obama's name in the Working Familes column. So there.