A Los Angeles Times article on the death of John Anderson blames his candidacy for Jimmy Carter’s loss in the 1980 Presidential Election.
These articles rarely, if ever, blame the losing major party candidates for the loss. A more thorough analysis would include the turnout. How many Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Hilary Clinton lukewarm supporters stayed away? I think poor turnout has far more to do with a major party candidate’s loss than anything else.
Showing posts with label Jimmy Carter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jimmy Carter. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 05, 2017
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Be Counted! We the People Are Counting on You!
Election day is next Tuesday. Are you registered? Have you made your picks? Please remember to show up. Without your vote, the candidates you favor least have a better chance of winning.
I’m serious. Time and time again, candidates have won in a “landslide” because far too many people didn’t show up. In 1980 many media outlets reported that Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter in a “landslide”. The “real’ winner was “none of the above”! Ronald Reagan came in a distant second with 27% of the eligible voters; 47% didn’t bother to show up.
In many ways 2000 was a ridiculous election. Because of the electoral college system, George Bush won with 47.9% of the votes compared to Al Gore’s 48%. Some people claim that Ralph Nader gave the election to Bush. Would those who voted for Nader have voted at all? Bush had 537 votes over Gore; 2,912,790 to 2,912,253. Nader had over 90,000 votes, a tiny count compared to the no-shows.
Drat! For years I’ve depended on the Election Project at George Mason University for turnout figures. It is no longer available, and even many of the cached pages are no longer available.
According to the Florida Secretary of State’s office, turnout in 1980 was 70.1%. That is, over 2.6 million registered voters didn’t bother to show up. The de facto “none of the above” certainly swamped Nader votes. We really don’t know if the Nader voters would have voted for Bush or Gore or stayed home.
Ah! I just dug deeper and Prof. Michael McDonald has taken his Election Project to the University of Florida. See www.electproject.org. McDonald claims that over four million eligible Florida voters didn’t show up (he’s counting eligible rather than registered). Both Bush and Gore came in a distant second to “I don’t give a damn.” That’s a helluva way to run a country.
Are you following the polls? I say don’t bother because polls don’t determine elections. You showing up can turn polls on their head. Think about the 1948 post-election headline: “Dewey wins!” The papers rushed to publish based on a telephone poll showing Dewey ahead. However, the pollsters didn’t compensate for many Democratic voters not having telephones.
Even polls that claim to call people on landlines and cellphones may be missing an important clue. Many people have caller ID; if they don’t know the caller, they don’t answer. Have you seen any polls that mention the no response rate?
Another classic example of polls really missing the mark was the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election. The polls had Skip Humphrey in the lead, Norm Coleman second, and Jesse Ventura last. The results were Jesse Ventura winning, Norm Coleman second, and Skip Humphrey last. I think that Jesse Ventura’s complaint about the auto-emission testing stations and the high taxes on his fancy cars resonated with a lot of drivers. You can rest assured that somebody didn’t design their poll well.
Many rightfully complain about all the money in politics. But the high spenders don’t always win. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, former CEOs of major tech companies, spent oodles of their own money to run for office in California, Neither was elected.
Big spenders who lose are not confined to either party. I had the pages up the other day which gave the spending by each party in the Presidential elections. Surprise, the bigger spender wasn’t always the Republican candidate. And when the bigger spender was a Democrat, he didn’t always win the general election, hanging chads or not.
A practice that has really gotten worse in recent years is the attack ads. Candidate Joe will raise your taxes even mo’. Candidate Tom doesn’t beat the drum for the military enough. Candidate Bill didn’t spend enough on infra-structure (never mind that he did vote for a ten percent increase). The silliest I’ve seen is that Al Franken voted with the President 85% of the time. Duh! When Bush was President, how often did Republican members of Congress vote with the President? I would hope it was not 100% but definitely between 75% and 90%.
We can avoid many attack ads by not watching TV but they appear on billboards, in the newspapers and even on web pages. I was surprised to see a silly attack ad on a web page against Stewart Mills who is running for Rick Nolan’s Congressional seat. It was on a web site of a Wisconsin company! The web knows whether you have been naughty or nice.
The purpose of attack ads is not to get you to vote for the attacker but to not show up at all. Gosh! I thought Sen. Foghorn was a great guy, but I guess I won’t bother showing up to vote for him this year.
So, what’s a poor confused citizen to do with all this obfuscation.
First, find all the neutral sources you can for information. I know, there aren’t many of those. About the best we can do is to read the candidates’ own statements in newspapers or on the web.
Second, show up and vote. The only votes that don’t count are the votes not cast.
If you believe in democracy, you must be part of the demos, that is the people.
Mel hopes that he has to wait in line to vote.
This also appears in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/10/30/4267_be_counted_we_the_people_are_counting_on_you
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Shale Oil - Bad then, good now?
When I read "U.S. Energy Independence Could Be Here Before We Know It", Tim Sprinkle, The Exchange, Yahoo! Finance, 2013-03-20, I thought of Jimmy Carter being slammed for his efforts to promote shale oil. I did a search on "Jimmy Carter" and "shale oil" and found "The Great Shale Oil Swindle, What Happens When the Boom Goes Bust", Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, 2013-03-18.
His points are that companies are overstating the amount of oil and gas available, shale and oil production drops quickly, the "glut" of oil is depressing prices, and global oil demand may be dropping. Adam Smith warned of capitalists deceiving the public; often they deceive themselves!
His sources include some credible newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London!!
Jimmy Carter was lambasted for looking at shale oil and now Republicans think we have energy dependence because of shale oil.
"Well, the truth is, no one in America did more for oil shale development and other alternative fuels development than Jimmy Carter and his Synfuels initiaitives. If you want some of the history, and why Carter's investment and tax incentive strategy failed, read here. Basically, Reagan gutted energy research Carter started, including how to economically convert shale into oil. When the Iranian crisis ended and Saudis flooded the market with cheap oil, Exxon shut down its $5 billion Colony Oil Shale project in western Colorado, and the industry lost interest in oil shale. "
- Oil Shale and the ANWR: Stretching the truth, Charlie Quimby, "Across the Great Divide", 2008-07.
How often does politics boil down to "If we think of it, it is a good idea; if you think of it, it is a bad idea."
His points are that companies are overstating the amount of oil and gas available, shale and oil production drops quickly, the "glut" of oil is depressing prices, and global oil demand may be dropping. Adam Smith warned of capitalists deceiving the public; often they deceive themselves!
His sources include some credible newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London!!
Jimmy Carter was lambasted for looking at shale oil and now Republicans think we have energy dependence because of shale oil.
"Well, the truth is, no one in America did more for oil shale development and other alternative fuels development than Jimmy Carter and his Synfuels initiaitives. If you want some of the history, and why Carter's investment and tax incentive strategy failed, read here. Basically, Reagan gutted energy research Carter started, including how to economically convert shale into oil. When the Iranian crisis ended and Saudis flooded the market with cheap oil, Exxon shut down its $5 billion Colony Oil Shale project in western Colorado, and the industry lost interest in oil shale. "
- Oil Shale and the ANWR: Stretching the truth, Charlie Quimby, "Across the Great Divide", 2008-07.
How often does politics boil down to "If we think of it, it is a good idea; if you think of it, it is a bad idea."
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
"A Grand Unified Theory of the Jobless Recovery"
The Atlantic Monthly published an article with the above title by Derek Thompson on 2010-07-26.
He gave some explanations that I was only vaguely aware of. One of course was high executive salaries, fewer employees, more money for the honchos. Thompson added that the pay in stock options increases the executive incentive to keep the price of the stock high, the less money going out to employees the happier stock traders will be (my spin about stock traders).
Quite a discussion follows.
One point was that "Reaganomics fostered the entrepreneurial activity that made the technology revolutions of the PC, cell phone, and internet happen." Let's see, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer on 1976-04-01 before Jimmy Carter was even elected. A whole bunch of other computer manufacturers sprung up about the same time. The IBM PC was introduced on 1981-08-12, about seven months after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. That probably means that the plan to create and sell the IBM PC was well underway before Reagan was elected. Maybe we should credit Jimmy Carter with the IBM PC:)
What people who credit a president with the success or lack of success of the economy fail to recognize is that many creative people are going to go ahead with their ideas regardless of who is president and what the "economy" is like. Look at the success of the iPad and iPhone in this "slow economy".
He gave some explanations that I was only vaguely aware of. One of course was high executive salaries, fewer employees, more money for the honchos. Thompson added that the pay in stock options increases the executive incentive to keep the price of the stock high, the less money going out to employees the happier stock traders will be (my spin about stock traders).
Quite a discussion follows.
One point was that "Reaganomics fostered the entrepreneurial activity that made the technology revolutions of the PC, cell phone, and internet happen." Let's see, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer on 1976-04-01 before Jimmy Carter was even elected. A whole bunch of other computer manufacturers sprung up about the same time. The IBM PC was introduced on 1981-08-12, about seven months after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. That probably means that the plan to create and sell the IBM PC was well underway before Reagan was elected. Maybe we should credit Jimmy Carter with the IBM PC:)
What people who credit a president with the success or lack of success of the economy fail to recognize is that many creative people are going to go ahead with their ideas regardless of who is president and what the "economy" is like. Look at the success of the iPad and iPhone in this "slow economy".
Monday, August 10, 2009
A book review: Iran, A People Interrupted
Hamid Dabashi, an Iranian-American professor of Iranian Studies, has written an interesting 200-year history of Iran, its culture, and its politics, both geo-political and internal. I find his writing in this book to be arrogant, opinionated, full of big words, extremely interesting, and very important. Sometimes I wondered if I would even finish it when I got lost in some of his concepts. But I read several pages most nights and made it through and I'm glad I did.
I will return it to the Duluth Public Library 2009-08-11. If you are interested in borrowing it, its call number is 955.05 D11i.
For starters about arrogance, he writes in his introduction:
"I promise you by the end of this book, you will know more about Iran than the U.S. Department of State, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and five other neocon think tanks–not to mention the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Islamic Culture in the Islamic Republic of Iran–all put together. I know things they do not know, or do not care to know, or would rather forget, or never learned, or would not tell you." (p. 11)
But considering the arrogance of the people in these institutions who pretend to understand a complex history and a complex people, I feel he is justified. Do I know more than they do after reading his book? In some respects, yes. I do know that war, torture, and execution are not going to do the Iranian people and a lot of other peoples any good. But many of the so-called experts think that these undemocratic and irreligious actions will bring greater glory for their causes.
As an example of the complexity that these experts do not understand, Dabashi writes:
"Iranian political history is a Trojan horse. Inside its belly is a hidden force never noted either for what it is or for its catalytic effect on that political history. The hidden force is the power of the imagination, the force of defiant intellect. Any attempt to reduce the cosmopolitan pluralism of Iranian political culture to an Islamist, nationalist, or socialist absolutism is at once analytically ludicrous and politically catastrophic. More than anything else, such lame and lazy reductionism distorts the inner grace and overriding power of a thriving culture that outsmarts its tyrant rulers and career opportunistic observers alike." (p. 125)
Geopolitics often damages the ships of the high and the mighty. With their grand designs treating others as mere pawns, they do not recognize that the pawns are icebergs. So it was with the U.S., first overthrowing an elected prime minister of Iran, then treating the Shah as a great ally, then using the Afghani resistance to fight the Soviets and to contain Iran, and finally then having the Afghani resistance turn against the U.S. and having the Iranian mullahcracy turn inward.
As part of this grand design of geopolitics, the high and the mighty indulge in demonizing those who oppose them, for example, George W. Bush and others calling any resistance to their grand design "the enemy". Is it any wonder that many of the rulers of Iran are paranoid about the U.S.? Especially when Bush included Iran in the "Axis of Evil". His and his advisors' ignorance of internal Iranian politics undercut reformers who had been making gains. Now these reformers were considered traitors.
BTW, Dabashi wrote this book in 2007, two years before the recent election in Iran. An election followed by the resistance of a culture that was often outsmarting its tyrant rulers.
Dabashi predicted the current turmoil as one of two possibilities of failure with the election of Ahmadinejad. "At worst, he will abuse the hopes and aspirations invested in him and resume an Islamic reign of terror over those young yuppie voters with their stylish hairdos, chic scarves, and sexy sunglasses–in which case he will turn them and their innocent semiotics of resistance into the real inheritors of the moral authority of Shi'ism. ... [Shi'ism] is alway on the side of the tyrannized and discredits those who are in power..." (pp. 233-234)
I have many more notes, but I'll finish with Dabashi's last sentence:
"...the only way that Americans can help promote democracy in Iran and anywhere else in the world is by first and foremost restoring and safeguarding it in their own country." (p. 263)
I will return it to the Duluth Public Library 2009-08-11. If you are interested in borrowing it, its call number is 955.05 D11i.
For starters about arrogance, he writes in his introduction:
"I promise you by the end of this book, you will know more about Iran than the U.S. Department of State, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and five other neocon think tanks–not to mention the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Islamic Culture in the Islamic Republic of Iran–all put together. I know things they do not know, or do not care to know, or would rather forget, or never learned, or would not tell you." (p. 11)
But considering the arrogance of the people in these institutions who pretend to understand a complex history and a complex people, I feel he is justified. Do I know more than they do after reading his book? In some respects, yes. I do know that war, torture, and execution are not going to do the Iranian people and a lot of other peoples any good. But many of the so-called experts think that these undemocratic and irreligious actions will bring greater glory for their causes.
As an example of the complexity that these experts do not understand, Dabashi writes:
"Iranian political history is a Trojan horse. Inside its belly is a hidden force never noted either for what it is or for its catalytic effect on that political history. The hidden force is the power of the imagination, the force of defiant intellect. Any attempt to reduce the cosmopolitan pluralism of Iranian political culture to an Islamist, nationalist, or socialist absolutism is at once analytically ludicrous and politically catastrophic. More than anything else, such lame and lazy reductionism distorts the inner grace and overriding power of a thriving culture that outsmarts its tyrant rulers and career opportunistic observers alike." (p. 125)
Geopolitics often damages the ships of the high and the mighty. With their grand designs treating others as mere pawns, they do not recognize that the pawns are icebergs. So it was with the U.S., first overthrowing an elected prime minister of Iran, then treating the Shah as a great ally, then using the Afghani resistance to fight the Soviets and to contain Iran, and finally then having the Afghani resistance turn against the U.S. and having the Iranian mullahcracy turn inward.
As part of this grand design of geopolitics, the high and the mighty indulge in demonizing those who oppose them, for example, George W. Bush and others calling any resistance to their grand design "the enemy". Is it any wonder that many of the rulers of Iran are paranoid about the U.S.? Especially when Bush included Iran in the "Axis of Evil". His and his advisors' ignorance of internal Iranian politics undercut reformers who had been making gains. Now these reformers were considered traitors.
BTW, Dabashi wrote this book in 2007, two years before the recent election in Iran. An election followed by the resistance of a culture that was often outsmarting its tyrant rulers.
Dabashi predicted the current turmoil as one of two possibilities of failure with the election of Ahmadinejad. "At worst, he will abuse the hopes and aspirations invested in him and resume an Islamic reign of terror over those young yuppie voters with their stylish hairdos, chic scarves, and sexy sunglasses–in which case he will turn them and their innocent semiotics of resistance into the real inheritors of the moral authority of Shi'ism. ... [Shi'ism] is alway on the side of the tyrannized and discredits those who are in power..." (pp. 233-234)
I have many more notes, but I'll finish with Dabashi's last sentence:
"...the only way that Americans can help promote democracy in Iran and anywhere else in the world is by first and foremost restoring and safeguarding it in their own country." (p. 263)
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Am I important or is a third party working harder?
I just had a personal call, not a robo-call, from Dean Barkley, the 2008 Minnesota Independence Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was asking for donations to the party.
I told him that I had been thinking about sending email to the party about having gimmicks in its party platform, namely instant run-off voting and unicameral legislature. He said he would pass my thoughts on.
I suggested that a key word to use was "appropriateness"; for example, the question is not that taxes are too high or too low, but are they appropriate for what we as a society need done. He said that he was a believer in infrastructure and that he thinks a bit before driving across a bridge.
What I didn't tell him that I had been the "Party of One" columnist for the Weekly Reader. For years I have sometimes donated to candidates I particularly liked, but I can't remember when I last contributed to a party. Maybe it was 1981 when my term ended as a precinct finance chair for the Republican Party in Plymouth MN. I had wanted John Anderson as the Republican candidate in 1980 and did contribute to his independent campaign. Too bad people threw their votes away voting for the "major" party candidates:)
I told him that I had been thinking about sending email to the party about having gimmicks in its party platform, namely instant run-off voting and unicameral legislature. He said he would pass my thoughts on.
I suggested that a key word to use was "appropriateness"; for example, the question is not that taxes are too high or too low, but are they appropriate for what we as a society need done. He said that he was a believer in infrastructure and that he thinks a bit before driving across a bridge.
What I didn't tell him that I had been the "Party of One" columnist for the Weekly Reader. For years I have sometimes donated to candidates I particularly liked, but I can't remember when I last contributed to a party. Maybe it was 1981 when my term ended as a precinct finance chair for the Republican Party in Plymouth MN. I had wanted John Anderson as the Republican candidate in 1980 and did contribute to his independent campaign. Too bad people threw their votes away voting for the "major" party candidates:)
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