Many commenters are calling for a change in or a replacement for the Democratic Party. Isn't partisanship one of our problems? You're either conservative or liberal, right or left. And then there are degrees of conservative and liberal or right and left.
Maybe we should have people without labels who run for office. Taking advice from George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., we should avoid factions and judge candidates on the content of their character. We need candidates who consider the common good above special interests. And we definitely need candidates who can change their minds with new information.
Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/trump-resistance-radicals.html?comments#permid=24540138.
Showing posts with label candidate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label candidate. Show all posts
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Is Donald Trump the ISIS candidate?
No, I don't mean that Donald Trump is a supporter of ISIS. But he is certainly doing just what ISIS wants. His attacks on Muslims bolsters ISIS's claim that the West is at war with Islam. The more Trump rails against Muslims in general, he helps recruit disillusioned or disaffected Muslims to join ISIS or to carry out attacks in the West. The more attacks, the more people like Donald Trump will over-react. The more over-reaction, the more recruits and the more attacks.
The only counter to a vicious cycle is a virtuous cycle. Probably the best tactic is to out-Qur'an ISIS, especially considering some of their camps don't even have copies of the Qur-an. Consider that few in ISIS even know "...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you?” (Qur’an: Surah 24, v. 22)
Friday, March 11, 2016
Raucous Caucus and Other Ruckuses
The Party of One held its caucus in front of my fireplace. Mysteriously, it issued the following results: None of the above, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton. The Party of One caucus called on all of its members to not vote for any Republican except Arne Carlson or Bill Frenzel. Unfortunately, Bill Frenzel died two years ago, but Arne Carlson is alive and writing. See governorcarlson.blogspot.com for what he thinks of Trump, Fox, and MSNBC.
Trump's plurality is not the lock on the nomination that so many news stories imply. Cruz and Rubio could unite as President/VP and have the majority of delegates. Either of the two could run as President but Rubio running as President may have a benefit. This choice defuses the issue of Cruz's birthplace. But if such a duo is finalized, Cruz will more than likely be the Presidential candidate because as of this writing he has more delegates than Rubio. Do you think the same “birthers” that tried to make an issue of Obama’s birth will make an issue of Cruz’s birth?
There is a campaign by Credo Action to get CBS to stop giving so much coverage to Donald Trump. An email from Credo Action quotes CBS CEO Les Moonves: Trump’s campaign “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” The email also quotes CBS’s diversity and tolerance policy: “CBS Corporation, and its divisions are committed to building an environment that values diversity throughout the corporation and in its business practices.”
Personally, I think watching televised debates or even TV news is a waste of time.
I last watched Presidential debates in 2004. I got so sick of John Kerry repeating “in my plan” that I almost didn’t vote for him. I only voted for him because he was better than the alternative. Bush was an angel compared to the angry clowns trying to outdo each other in shouting matches. And Bush as a former governor and a sitting president had far more credibility and experience than an erratic businessman who has made a career of putting people down. Remember “You’re fired!”
Watching TV news is unproductive time. I can read more news items in a half-hour in a newspaper than I can get in a half-hour TV news broadcast. Plus, I can skip ads in the newspaper but it’s hard to skip the twelve minutes of ads in a TV newscast.
My Party of One caucus was a lot less crowded than my wife’s DFL caucus. She spent a lot of time driving around looking for a parking place, then she had to stand in line to even enter the building, and then she couldn’t get into the room for her precinct. The best she could do was write her choice for president on a little slip of paper. She had wanted to submit a couple of resolutions. This is democracy?
I keep wondering why so many states have partisan primaries or caucuses that are open to the public. I think it was Robert La Follette of Wisconsin over a century ago who thought that primaries would make elections more democratic. I think it has had two downsides. People who don’t give time or a dime to a party get to decide its candidates. Second, it makes for much longer campaigns.
Many point to Canada and Britain as examples of “six-week campaigns”, but both of these are parliamentary systems. My deadline precludes doing further research on this, but I think two factors are at work here.
First, elections are not held on a regular cycle. Often, a prime minister may decide to call elections to try to get more support for his positions. These irregular elections have to take place in a relatively short time. If a government does sit for its whole term, people are just in the habit of holding elections in a short period of time.
Second, even though voting for a member of parliament may be a proxy for the prime minister, the members are possibly only willing to campaign for a short period of time. Few are the times that we have two-year-long all-out campaigns for local and state governments.
I do wish our so-called “debates” were debates in the classical sense: rather than moderators posing questions to each of the “debaters”, one of the candidates would speak for a certain amount of time on whatever topic he or she chose. The other candidate (or candidates) could either rebut the first candidate’s remarks or go on to another subject. Assuming only two candidates, the first would have a shorter period of time to rebut the second. This is more or less how the Lincoln-Douglas debates were held. Unfortunately, few people today would be willing to stand the hour-plus time of a single debate, or even sit that long.
It is ironic that the party that thought the federal government should work to abolish slavery is now the party that promotes segregation. “Because we think it a wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong.” - Abraham Lincoln, Quincy, Illinois, 13 October 1858.
Whatever your choices are in November, be sure to vote. Your vote always counts. You only throw your vote away if you stay away.
Also posted in the Reader Weekly of 2016-03-10 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/10/6854_raucous_caucus_and_other_ruckuses.
Trump's plurality is not the lock on the nomination that so many news stories imply. Cruz and Rubio could unite as President/VP and have the majority of delegates. Either of the two could run as President but Rubio running as President may have a benefit. This choice defuses the issue of Cruz's birthplace. But if such a duo is finalized, Cruz will more than likely be the Presidential candidate because as of this writing he has more delegates than Rubio. Do you think the same “birthers” that tried to make an issue of Obama’s birth will make an issue of Cruz’s birth?
There is a campaign by Credo Action to get CBS to stop giving so much coverage to Donald Trump. An email from Credo Action quotes CBS CEO Les Moonves: Trump’s campaign “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” The email also quotes CBS’s diversity and tolerance policy: “CBS Corporation, and its divisions are committed to building an environment that values diversity throughout the corporation and in its business practices.”
Personally, I think watching televised debates or even TV news is a waste of time.
I last watched Presidential debates in 2004. I got so sick of John Kerry repeating “in my plan” that I almost didn’t vote for him. I only voted for him because he was better than the alternative. Bush was an angel compared to the angry clowns trying to outdo each other in shouting matches. And Bush as a former governor and a sitting president had far more credibility and experience than an erratic businessman who has made a career of putting people down. Remember “You’re fired!”
Watching TV news is unproductive time. I can read more news items in a half-hour in a newspaper than I can get in a half-hour TV news broadcast. Plus, I can skip ads in the newspaper but it’s hard to skip the twelve minutes of ads in a TV newscast.
My Party of One caucus was a lot less crowded than my wife’s DFL caucus. She spent a lot of time driving around looking for a parking place, then she had to stand in line to even enter the building, and then she couldn’t get into the room for her precinct. The best she could do was write her choice for president on a little slip of paper. She had wanted to submit a couple of resolutions. This is democracy?
I keep wondering why so many states have partisan primaries or caucuses that are open to the public. I think it was Robert La Follette of Wisconsin over a century ago who thought that primaries would make elections more democratic. I think it has had two downsides. People who don’t give time or a dime to a party get to decide its candidates. Second, it makes for much longer campaigns.
Many point to Canada and Britain as examples of “six-week campaigns”, but both of these are parliamentary systems. My deadline precludes doing further research on this, but I think two factors are at work here.
First, elections are not held on a regular cycle. Often, a prime minister may decide to call elections to try to get more support for his positions. These irregular elections have to take place in a relatively short time. If a government does sit for its whole term, people are just in the habit of holding elections in a short period of time.
Second, even though voting for a member of parliament may be a proxy for the prime minister, the members are possibly only willing to campaign for a short period of time. Few are the times that we have two-year-long all-out campaigns for local and state governments.
I do wish our so-called “debates” were debates in the classical sense: rather than moderators posing questions to each of the “debaters”, one of the candidates would speak for a certain amount of time on whatever topic he or she chose. The other candidate (or candidates) could either rebut the first candidate’s remarks or go on to another subject. Assuming only two candidates, the first would have a shorter period of time to rebut the second. This is more or less how the Lincoln-Douglas debates were held. Unfortunately, few people today would be willing to stand the hour-plus time of a single debate, or even sit that long.
It is ironic that the party that thought the federal government should work to abolish slavery is now the party that promotes segregation. “Because we think it a wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong.” - Abraham Lincoln, Quincy, Illinois, 13 October 1858.
Whatever your choices are in November, be sure to vote. Your vote always counts. You only throw your vote away if you stay away.
Also posted in the Reader Weekly of 2016-03-10 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/10/6854_raucous_caucus_and_other_ruckuses.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
General Ization’s power grows
Despite my warning in the Reader Weekly of 2007-04-26 (General Ization Battles Truth), people keep enlisting in his armies and misleading others.
The latest is the sweeping generalization that this or that candidate “won” in the Iowa primaries. Figuring out the Iowa caucus results is a bit of a slog, but looking at the result summary in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/iowa), you will see that one candidate “winning” and the others ‘losing” is a serious over-generalization.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had 49.9% and was effectively awarded 23 delegates. Bernie Sander had 49.6% and 21 delegates. I would hardly call this a Clinton win, because Sanders received almost as many delegates as Clinton and who knows what will happen in the state convention when delegates are selected for the national convention?
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz had 27.6% of the vote and eight delegates, Donald Trump 24.3% and seven, and Marco Rubio 23.1% and seven.
These five candidates were all “winners” in the Iowa caucuses. But how will these results translate into actual votes in November? Iowa is a caucus state, not a primary state. My guess is that a lot fewer people show up for caucuses than do for primaries, and a lot fewer show up for primaries than do for final elections.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s registered-voter list has 586,835 “active” Democratic voters and 615,763 “active” Republican voters. But it lists 727,112 “No Party Active” voters. The Republican caucus turnout was 186,874 or less than a third of the “active” Republican registered voters.
I would say that the biggest winner, based on the large number of “no-shows” in the Iowa caucuses was “None of the Above”, and that means the biggest loser is democracy.
“New Hampshire Embraces Trump’s New York Bombast” (New York Times Online 2016-02-07). Really? Did all the voters in New Hampshire really embrace Trumps bombast? If we look at the figures of how many thousand New Hampshire voters actually turned up for Trump’s speeches, maybe the headline should read “New Hampshire Rejects Trump’s New York Bombast”.
Closer to home, the Duluth News Tribune has had headlines that imply all of Duluth is involved in something or other.
When a student died of exposure on Woodland Avenue, the News Tribune had a headline similar to “Duluth should be ashamed.” Did each and every person in Duluth know she was outside freezing to death? Was each and every driver passing by her house in any position to know that somebody was outside in need of help? Were even any of the very few pedestrians in a position to see somebody huddled at a door? Her death should never have happened, but only a few people were in any position to prevent this or come to her aid.
A recent headline was “Duluth feels ‘the Bern’”. How many Duluthians showed up for Bernie Sanders’ rally in Duluth? I think it was about 4,000. That is a rather good turnout, but that also means that about 76,000 Duluth residents didn’t show up for Sanders’ rally. How many would have liked to attend but didn’t for one reason or another? How many didn’t even want to consider going? We don’t know the numbers for either of these possibilities. But considering that probably more than 4,000 Duluth voters would not vote for Sanders, we could also have the over-generalized headline: “Duluth rejects Sanders”. If Sanders wins the Democratic endorsement, we will have to wait until November to find out if “Duluth rallies for Sanders” or if “Duluth rejects Sanders”. Either headline will be a generalization because there will be a large number of people who voted for the Republican candidate. These voters are also “Duluth”.
Since my previous column on General Ization, I’ve learned he would not have all this power without the able help of his lieutenants, Xavier Aggeration and Ms. Direction. You can detect some of X. Aggeration’s contributions above.
Ms. Direction has been spreading the notion of “value voters” embracing the Republicans. But don’t most voters have values? Besides anti-abortion and Biblical literallism, aren’t there the values of peace and justice? I find it strange that these “value voters” align themselves with supporters of “greedy corporations” who hold no values except “shareholder value”.
Ms. Direction, like her boss General Ization, doesn’t play favorites. She spreads the idea of “greedy corporations” as if all corporations treat their workers as serfs and cheat their customers as often as they can. There are many corporations that value their employees and often tell the regulators that something went wrong in the production of some product. And we find many corporations that are changing their products to suit their customer’s wants.
Of course, they only know what some customers want. Maybe other customers don’t want change, or if they want change, they want change back to products they could buy some years ago. Hopefully, the customers that want certain changes are those who volunteered the information, not those who were coerced into agreeing to a desired response in a focus group.
This leads us into the worst generalization: “The People”. It would be great if “The People” were a majority of all eligible voters. Unfortunately, election after election it is a “majority” of those who actually show up to vote; this too often means that a minority of eligible (and too often registered) voters “decided” the outcome. I hope you, dear reader, are going to be one who shows up and shows General Ization, X. Aggeration, and Ms. Direction that they are wrong.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-02-11 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/11/6703_general_izations_power_grows.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/02/general-ization-battles-truth.html.
The latest is the sweeping generalization that this or that candidate “won” in the Iowa primaries. Figuring out the Iowa caucus results is a bit of a slog, but looking at the result summary in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/iowa), you will see that one candidate “winning” and the others ‘losing” is a serious over-generalization.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had 49.9% and was effectively awarded 23 delegates. Bernie Sander had 49.6% and 21 delegates. I would hardly call this a Clinton win, because Sanders received almost as many delegates as Clinton and who knows what will happen in the state convention when delegates are selected for the national convention?
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz had 27.6% of the vote and eight delegates, Donald Trump 24.3% and seven, and Marco Rubio 23.1% and seven.
These five candidates were all “winners” in the Iowa caucuses. But how will these results translate into actual votes in November? Iowa is a caucus state, not a primary state. My guess is that a lot fewer people show up for caucuses than do for primaries, and a lot fewer show up for primaries than do for final elections.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s registered-voter list has 586,835 “active” Democratic voters and 615,763 “active” Republican voters. But it lists 727,112 “No Party Active” voters. The Republican caucus turnout was 186,874 or less than a third of the “active” Republican registered voters.
I would say that the biggest winner, based on the large number of “no-shows” in the Iowa caucuses was “None of the Above”, and that means the biggest loser is democracy.
“New Hampshire Embraces Trump’s New York Bombast” (New York Times Online 2016-02-07). Really? Did all the voters in New Hampshire really embrace Trumps bombast? If we look at the figures of how many thousand New Hampshire voters actually turned up for Trump’s speeches, maybe the headline should read “New Hampshire Rejects Trump’s New York Bombast”.
Closer to home, the Duluth News Tribune has had headlines that imply all of Duluth is involved in something or other.
When a student died of exposure on Woodland Avenue, the News Tribune had a headline similar to “Duluth should be ashamed.” Did each and every person in Duluth know she was outside freezing to death? Was each and every driver passing by her house in any position to know that somebody was outside in need of help? Were even any of the very few pedestrians in a position to see somebody huddled at a door? Her death should never have happened, but only a few people were in any position to prevent this or come to her aid.
A recent headline was “Duluth feels ‘the Bern’”. How many Duluthians showed up for Bernie Sanders’ rally in Duluth? I think it was about 4,000. That is a rather good turnout, but that also means that about 76,000 Duluth residents didn’t show up for Sanders’ rally. How many would have liked to attend but didn’t for one reason or another? How many didn’t even want to consider going? We don’t know the numbers for either of these possibilities. But considering that probably more than 4,000 Duluth voters would not vote for Sanders, we could also have the over-generalized headline: “Duluth rejects Sanders”. If Sanders wins the Democratic endorsement, we will have to wait until November to find out if “Duluth rallies for Sanders” or if “Duluth rejects Sanders”. Either headline will be a generalization because there will be a large number of people who voted for the Republican candidate. These voters are also “Duluth”.
Since my previous column on General Ization, I’ve learned he would not have all this power without the able help of his lieutenants, Xavier Aggeration and Ms. Direction. You can detect some of X. Aggeration’s contributions above.
Ms. Direction has been spreading the notion of “value voters” embracing the Republicans. But don’t most voters have values? Besides anti-abortion and Biblical literallism, aren’t there the values of peace and justice? I find it strange that these “value voters” align themselves with supporters of “greedy corporations” who hold no values except “shareholder value”.
Ms. Direction, like her boss General Ization, doesn’t play favorites. She spreads the idea of “greedy corporations” as if all corporations treat their workers as serfs and cheat their customers as often as they can. There are many corporations that value their employees and often tell the regulators that something went wrong in the production of some product. And we find many corporations that are changing their products to suit their customer’s wants.
Of course, they only know what some customers want. Maybe other customers don’t want change, or if they want change, they want change back to products they could buy some years ago. Hopefully, the customers that want certain changes are those who volunteered the information, not those who were coerced into agreeing to a desired response in a focus group.
This leads us into the worst generalization: “The People”. It would be great if “The People” were a majority of all eligible voters. Unfortunately, election after election it is a “majority” of those who actually show up to vote; this too often means that a minority of eligible (and too often registered) voters “decided” the outcome. I hope you, dear reader, are going to be one who shows up and shows General Ization, X. Aggeration, and Ms. Direction that they are wrong.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-02-11 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/11/6703_general_izations_power_grows.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/02/general-ization-battles-truth.html.
Friday, August 08, 2014
Is business experience a qualification for government office?
Some Republican candidates are running for statewide office in Minnesota. See
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/270538031.html and http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/270412441.html. They claim that their business experience makes them better qualified for government service.
Adam Smith seems to have thought differently. He said that those who live by profit are not to be trusted because they have often “deceived and oppressed” the public.
See “The Invisible Adam Smith” for more about this.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/270538031.html and http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/270412441.html. They claim that their business experience makes them better qualified for government service.
Adam Smith seems to have thought differently. He said that those who live by profit are not to be trusted because they have often “deceived and oppressed” the public.
See “The Invisible Adam Smith” for more about this.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
I still don't believe the polls
… and I don't really have any well-based predictions of my own.
Consider that our phone rings several times a day. We don't answer and very few leave a message on the answering machine. Those who do leave a message have some meaningful connection to us. Given the approaching election, these "empty" calls are
1) Robo-calls for a candidate or a party
2) Person calls for a candidate or a party
3) Poll calls
Also consider that many people have cell phones but no land line. Although some pollsters say they are calling both land lines and cell phones, many cell phone numbers are not in any directory. My cell phone has few calls and the two recent unknown calls may have been misdials or random spamming. Besides, I generally have it off.
Which way will those who are not reached by a poll lean? I can't really say. Will too many younger voters stay away because they didn't think Obama didn't do enough? Are those who don't answer more likely to lean toward Obama? As I write this yet another call came in that stopped after three rings.
How likely are those who respond to actually vote? One of the questions is if the respondent is a likely voter. Many people say they are likely voters because they are embarrassed to admit that they don't plan on voting.
I think the election will be determined by the balance of unhappy people, which group will stay away in larger numbers - Tea Party types who don't think Romney is "conservative" enough or "liberals" who don't think Obama did enough. My inclination is that the latter will be the larger group.
I hope you, dear reader, will not be a stay-away on election day. Please remind your friends to vote.
Consider that our phone rings several times a day. We don't answer and very few leave a message on the answering machine. Those who do leave a message have some meaningful connection to us. Given the approaching election, these "empty" calls are
1) Robo-calls for a candidate or a party
2) Person calls for a candidate or a party
3) Poll calls
Also consider that many people have cell phones but no land line. Although some pollsters say they are calling both land lines and cell phones, many cell phone numbers are not in any directory. My cell phone has few calls and the two recent unknown calls may have been misdials or random spamming. Besides, I generally have it off.
Which way will those who are not reached by a poll lean? I can't really say. Will too many younger voters stay away because they didn't think Obama didn't do enough? Are those who don't answer more likely to lean toward Obama? As I write this yet another call came in that stopped after three rings.
How likely are those who respond to actually vote? One of the questions is if the respondent is a likely voter. Many people say they are likely voters because they are embarrassed to admit that they don't plan on voting.
I think the election will be determined by the balance of unhappy people, which group will stay away in larger numbers - Tea Party types who don't think Romney is "conservative" enough or "liberals" who don't think Obama did enough. My inclination is that the latter will be the larger group.
I hope you, dear reader, will not be a stay-away on election day. Please remind your friends to vote.
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