Edgewise

The Iraqization Program

But the police have performed poorly in the Sunni Muslim areas in central and northwestern Iraq.... A wave of attacks [in Mosul] on police stations and other government buildings prompted 3,200 of the city's 4,000 police officers to abandon their jobs.

(Washington Post)

DKo: The apparent reliance on former Kurdish militia as backup is explosive, especially with the oil wealth of Kirkuk literally on the provincial dividing line. The Coalition of Willing Allies will be rapidly dwindling in the next few months too. All of which tends to make Moktada al Sadr the tipping point, hence the kingmaker. Will the US accept that? Can Bush sell it as the successs that vindicates the war?

Join the resistance

Cool idea here. I signed up for the list. Perhaps you'd like to as well?

A Wily Adversary

Reuters:

"Hundreds of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and bomb-making equipment have been uncovered inside couches, behind hidden walls and even on top of the city water tower, Marine officers said."

--Glass? Last thing you'd suspect!

Blue Heartland

"We officially no longer give a shit when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters." (The Urban Archipelago, It's the Cities, Stupid., by The Editors of The Stranger (11/11/04))

Whoa Nellie! The heartland isn't as red as it might appear. Take Fresno. Please. The former Raisin Capital of the World is now a city of 457, 652. And they voted blue (54.4%). This heartland of American agriculture where family farms churn out steak and eggs, milk, cotton, rice, almonds, and a hundred other edibles for domestic and foreign markets, is no more a conservative stronghold than is Oakland (pop. 399, 484) in the blue heart of the Bay Area. I don't know how to parse this information except to say that what's happening in the crimson center of the Golden State may be the future of farmland America.

Kerry health care petition

Kerry's bringing a health-care-for-children bill to the senate this year and is looking to get folks to sign a petition in support. I did it and thought some of youse might be interested in giving it a look. Click here for more info.

Why cater to exurbanites?

It's the Greeks versus the Romans. This editorial from the Stranger (The Urban Archipelago, It's the Cities, Stupid., by The Editors of The Stranger (11/11/04)) makes it clear:

The Democrats are party of cities.

The Republicans are the party of the heartland.

Grow our base, say the editors of the Stranger. Press urban issues. If the nation can be ruled from the hinterland, why can't it be ruled by city-states (aka Blue States)?

Target the most urban red states, for example, and grow their activist and voting population in its cities.

Push issues that matter to cities and ignore rural problems, they say, in their cold urban stylee:

If red-state dads aren't concerned enough about their own children to put trigger locks on their own guns, it's not our problem. If a kid in a red state finds his daddy's handgun and blows his head off, we'll feel terrible (we're like that), but we'll try to look on the bright side: At least he won't grow up to vote like his dad.

Political phrases I never want to hear again

OK, I'm just getting started on my list, but I've got the first one:

Kerry is a closer.

Jarvis confused about liberals and conservatives

Quoting from Why conservatives should kill the FCC and...

No one should know this more than conservatives — who have spent years fighting politically-correct speech codes on college campuses and elsewhere. In the end, giving government power to define what is appropriate and acceptable may be as — or more — obnoxious to conservatives as to liberals.

Amen to that. Are you listening, Rebecca?

I don't know where all these freedom-loving "true conservatives" are but I think Jarvis drank the kool-aid when he believed that these right-wing campaigns have ever been anything but selectively applied (just like the love of states' rights and against "activist judges" seems to apply only when conservative culture mores are under threat). I think the people who want more freedom are generally called "liberals" or perhaps "libertarians."

What part of "count every vote" don't you understand?

Phoning in a rant I just posted to the NorCal Democracy for America mailing list in response to a "Republicans busted for vote fraud in Cuyahoga" chain message forwarded to the group:

PLEASE TAKE ACTION, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. PLEASE FORWARD TO EVERYONE.

Smoking Gun
You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes. But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election. In last Tuesday's election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website....

[... snip ...]

The Republicans are so BUSTED.

The official website of the Cuyahoga county election board provides irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere.

I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election. I'd say the game's up. America, it looks pretty much like you've been had.

Sincerely,
Teed Rockwell, Philosophy Dept., Sonoma State University

BUSH HAS NOT YET BEEN CHOSEN BY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. THE ELECTORS MEET AND VOTE ON DEC. 13. QUESTIONS NEED TO BE RAISED ABOUT THE RESULTS - AND RAISED LOUDLY - TO GET AN INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED BEFORE THAT DATE.

SO FAR, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN NOT PICKING UP THE STORY. THEY MOVED VERY SLOWLY AFTER THE 2000 ELECTION. OVER TO YOU.

> --- End forwarded message ---

To: NorCal DFA
From: Christian Crumlish
Subject: Ohio: Cuyahoga County irregularities

A good clearinghouse for recount and potential vote-fraud and vote-hacking information is the dKosopedia (for example, dKosopedia: 2004 Ohio Irregularities, where I found this discussion of the attached matter:

Much has been written about Cuyahoga County, and municipalities having different numbers than townships. This issue seems to have been settled, with the explanation being that absentee ballots were reported as part of precinct totals, resulting in more votes being reported than actually voted at the precinct. --Tunesmith 02:22, 10 Nov 2004 (PST):

More details: the "ward summary" entries are not added into the county vote totals, so whatever their purpose for allocating absentee ballots across multiple municipal jurisdictions, they have no impact on the county returns. This can be proven by adding up the precinct-level votes and the votes recorded from absentee ballots, resulting in an exact match with the 'official' county totals.

).

Personally, I favor making sure every vote is counted, all close elections are recounted, and that all elections are recountable (auditable) and managed in as impartial and open a way as possible.

Rather than being put on the defenseive as sore losers of this election, I seriously doubt the patriotism of anyone who challenges the voters' rights to cast their votes and have their votes counted. I'll be surprised if Kerry could challenge and win Ohio, New Mexico, or any other state, but I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility and either way we need to know how things tallied up, and beyodn all that we have to be aware of the voter suppression activities put in place in advance (consolidating precincts, challenging and discouraging voters) and be prepared to counter them across the country next time.

If we go into 2006 with an equally opaque voting mechanism then I'm afraid we deserve to lose our democracy.

Hey, I think I just figured out my top priority for the next year. Where do I sign up?

Back to you, Teed.

So I'm reading the Oakland Tribune today...

...and the front page headline sez: "Rush to Fill Void Left by Arafat."

And I'm sorry, but I just don't think he's up to the job. I just don't.

half tank full

ok. I confess that since 10 pm pst 11-02-04 I have been under the covers since I began to realize with a giant stomach aching nausea that exit polls ain't what they're cracked up to be and I was living in a dream world. Albeit the dream world of what used to be known as the Republic of Berkeley (which now includes Oakland). Thus ensued the self-imposed news and media blackout under which I remain, somewhat less than blissfully, beneath.

One should spend a solid week listening to The Meters and Brian Wilson. And nothing else. However, a bit of bloggage has made it through the blackout and that is really the message of this moment. My, we are angry. We are outraged. We have lost our sense of reason. The United States of the Stupid we are. I mean They are. The red ones. The Other.

I've seen the maps and read the rant on The South (I did that rant myself two volumes into Robert Caro's Johnson biography). But what sobered me up was an accidental espying of a NYTimes special "election" section with a full-page set of election maps going back to the Roosevelt era. Instructive. Like a two-party system fuel gauge, it showed the country running from Full-of-Democrat to less full, half-full and, finally, Full-of-Republican. That was Reagan. Reagan, Reagon, Raygun. Reagan. Eight years of Reagan, governor. Eight years of Reagan, president. And an eternity of Reagan, god. Then we slowly drifted Democrat-ward, toward nirvana, to Full-of-Clinton.

And now we are half-and-half.

As a nation we are at the moment in opposition to ourselves. Looking out from my mirror is some ex-hippie from Poughkeepsie who has a nephew shipping out to Baghdad soon. Voted red. The jerk in the cherry red Humvee parked in a handicap space in downtown Oakland got the special license from his brother-in-law at the DMV. Voted red. On the other side of the mirror: an ex-peacenik from Palo Alto who got a college deferment from the Viet Nam draft and runs an architectural firm. Voted blue. The twenty-something trust fund baby working for an environmental organization and planning a year-long kayaking trip around the world. Voted blue.

I'm not sure which way this analogy is going but if the tank is half full we've got miles to go before we weep.

Power to the tin-foil hat people

You hear it all the time: "Oh you know, he's a tin-foil hat guy." And "I know I may sound a little tin-foil hat here but...". And "Hey! -- nice tin-foil hat, Betsy. Metaphorically speaking."

And I ask you: What about people who really like to wear tin-foil hats? Did anybody ever stop to think of their feelings?

I mean, I like to wear legumes in various body parts. That doesn't mean it's open season on legumes-in-various-body-parts people. "Oh, you know, he's a legume-in-various-body-parts kind of person..." That's not OK. It's just not.

I'll tell you what it is: It's just another example of the soft bigotry of making fun of people who like to wear legumes in various body parts.

So-called conservatives don't deserve civility

A nonpublic mailing list I'm on is discussing politics, and the subject of maintaining civil political discourse came up. I invested enough time and emotion in my contribution that I want to log it in public view. It's just preaching to the choir here on Edgewise, but it gives me a URL to point my friends to, a place to edit in any URLs I turn up later, and perhaps a spot where likeminded folks can point out the screaming howlers in the midst of my rant.

First I wrote:

That Kerry would be a far better president than Bush is my opinion. That he lost in such a photo finish does not suddenly convince me otherwise or suggest that he was a poor choice to oppose Bush. Such a razor-thin election doesn't tell us anything about the country or about the candidates that we didn't already know. We have no precedent to hold it up to; from 1896 to 1996, we never had consecutive elections where the margin from first to second was less than 6%, but here we are with -0.5 and 3.1 in the two most recent. Remember, America isn't red or blue; it's purple. (Howard Kurtz is a hack, but even a hack gets it right sometimes.)

However, there is a division, and it does have its effects: I admit we need civil discourse, but liberals are not the source of the incivility and so cannot be the solution.

Because I'm a liberal, the right calls me a traitor, the enemy, a cancer in our country, someone who deserves to die. (I am not exaggerating; these are some of the exact words that the current administration's highly paid mouthpieces have used.) My respect and tolerance toward those with differing beliefs, my time spent hearing out people from differing circumstances and opposite assumptions, is all being returned upon me as scorn, hatred, and threats.

I was writing level-headed op-eds about tolerance back when I was being shunned in my [then] own Baptist circles for campaigning for Carter against Reagan. But in those days they didn't talk about withdrawing my right to speak, vote, or live.

I will not be civil with anyone who believes that people like Norquist, Delay, Rove, Ashcroft, and Dobson should be running the country. If the bare majority chooses as our leaders those who would eliminate me, don't anybody expect me to be polite about it.

At this point, several people on the list asked something along the lines of:

How does it harm you to be civil to them (or those who think like they do)? Doesn't being uncivil mean that they win? They've modified your behavior and made you less than you were.

The harm is, these people want me to be locked up, exiled, or killed. Literally, not some figurative use of these phrases. I can be polite to someone who disagrees with my opinion on whether we should have occupied Iraq, but I cannot do so with someone who believes that concentration camps or execution are appropriate responses to political disagreements.

There are far too many examples to list without a large paid staff. The politicians themselves dodge and weave so they can communicate their contempt for liberals to their right-wing following, while still denying any extremism to the rest of us. (More and more people, fortunately, are keeping us all alerted to this, but David Neiwert is the best.)

It's inexcusible for serious ordinary citizens to equate political dissent with treason. But for the [just departed] Attorney General to say that opponents of the administration "only aid terrorists" and "give ammunition to America's enemies" is a step toward fascism.

It's disgusting, but legal, for ordinary Americans to say that everyone should get their religion, or at the least simply give in to those who believe in a ghost in the sky. But it's worse--evil and frightening--for a Supreme Court Justice to ignore "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" and write instead that governments are anointed by God and that "people of faith" should combat claims to the contrary "as effectively as possible."

In far larger quantities and far more explicit language, propagandists such as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly--far too many to name--label liberals as traitors, the enemy, the cancer, and are praised by Republican politicians for it. They all want to eliminate liberalism, and it seems easiest to them to do so by eliminating liberals. Most carry their bloodthirst overseas as well, wanting to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Many in government agree with Michelle Malkin, who argues that opposition to the so-called war on terror justifies roundups and concentration camps like those in WWII. James Dobson believes that opposition to "most of the things that conservative Christians stand for" means you hate those people. (Dobson and other notable rightists stood on the same stage and applauded Jimmy Swaggert's announcement that he would kill any man who looked at him funny; who's hating here?) Human Events Online, "the national conservative weekly," says it's time to expel California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware from the U.S. (An appropriate response, full of vulgarity but also full of useful hyperlinks, is here.)

Thousands of private-citizen conservatives publically call for the execution of liberals, and they go uncriticized by conservative politicians. Famous right-wingers who make the same call ("My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.") are justified by the right-wing mainstream media with the lie that it's all in jest.

A vote for George Bush was a vote for all of this. I know that voting for a candidate doesn't mean agreeing with 100% of what that candidate stands for, but death threats against political opponents are a category that may not be written off.

People who vote for this pogrom-to-come don't deserve a patient hearing-out. I'd love to be polite, and I can be so long as politics doesn't come up. But when someone—even my relatives—suggests to me that they're breathing a sigh of relief because Bush skated by again, I say damn you and the hateful horse you rode in on. When you come to imprison me for my liberalism, be prepared for my rage.

51/48

51% Bush + 48% Kerry =

"

from jwz

Press more embedded than they realize?

In PressThink: Not Up to It, Jay Rosen predicts a sea change in the journalism's ability to explain itself.

Conservative label poised for stigma

Liberals often complain that the liberal "brand" has become sullied by its relentless tarring from the right as the philosophy of weakness, equivocation, elitism, wastefulness, and self-delusion.

This is nothing new. Kennedy had to defend the term liberal long before Dukakis danced around it. Kerry ducked it and couldn't resist the liberals' favorite sophist tactic: "You're not even really conservative." (OK, he actually said "'compassionate Conservative' ... what does that really mean?" but his point was the same)

In Yes, These Are Conservatives at MyDD, Chris Bowers turns the whole thing on its head at last.

Stop saying "these people are not true conservatives." Stop trying to sell liberalism as the natural response to honest bedrock conservatism. Accept that the meaning of the label conservative has also changed, and that it's poised for ruin.

Conservatives now control two branches of the federal government, a majority of statehouses, and a plurality of state legislatures. Their grip on the judicial branch has strengthened.

Over the course of the next two to four years (and beyoond), the liberal opposition headquartered in the Democratic party should be prepared to point out the weakness, equivocation, elitism, wastefulness, and dishonesty of the ruling conservative ideology.

How Different Are We?

"...a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11." (NYT 11/04/04.) Not only that, according to the original report, they also thought this was the belief of "experts" in the field. We've all seen similar numbers, both before and after the election. What to make of it?

The politics of Kerry voters were generally that the war in Afghanistan was a proper response, but the war in Iraq was unjustified. Why was Afghanistan justified? Roughly because Afghanistan "either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11." If that had been true of Iraq, we would have felt differently. So Kerry's half of the vote, plus three-quarters of Bush's half were in "substantive" or "political," agreement. That's 87% of the total vote, a very nice majority.

Does that change who's in the White House? No. But it might change something.

Aristotle distinguished (very roughly, it's been a while for me!) two kinds of acting from ignorance:
--I run over your leg and break it, because I didn't know your leg was there. Negligent perhaps, and therefore culpable, depending on the circumstances. We find a way to make sure that next time they see the leg.
--I run over your leg and break it, because I don't think that is wrong to do. That kind of ignorance is what is called being a bad person.

So let's say only 13% of all voters fell potentially into the later group. (I understand many of the 87% would have favored the war, even with the facts. And this arithmetic overall is fundamentally absurd. This is just--hopefully--perspective, not science.)

So one thing it might change is we don't have to feel perpetually, unbridgeably isolated from a politically incomprehensible 53% of the nation. Indeed, in many respects, even the voters' differences over "moral values" look quite different when broken down and examined in this way. But that is a longer story (maybe later).

Meanwhile, for the sake of imagination, it would be very interesting to see a media study comparable to the "outcomes" studies done in medical procedures. In reality, the news directors at the major networks and newspapers, when pinned down, were were never all that far apart on the facts. They could, in principle, be brought to a negotiated consensus-statement of what the facts were about the relationship between 9-11/Al Qaeda and Iraq/Hussein.

Then, using this consensus-statement, a public-opinion survey could be done of how people's beliefs on this subject (and others) match up with what the consensus has stipulated to be true. Finally, the results could be correlated with each respondent's major source of news.

So you'd get a kind of Consumer Reports rating of how competent the truth-telling institutions in American life have been. We could even have an Academy of Media Award for Best Achievement in Competence and Truth.

Organizing principles

I ported my last entry (What do Democrats stand for?) over to my diary at Daily Kos and added a poll asking people what single principle most unites the Democratic party.

If you'd like to vote over there, visit the poll there and help me sort it all out. Of course there's an Other category since my list of choices is probably for from exhaustive and biased and limited by my own perspective. If you choose Other, post a comment over there to say what you think the unifying organizing principle of the Democratic party is (or should be).

What do Democrats stand for?

I suspect that we (Democrats) don't have an organizing principle but instead a motley set of strongly felt ideals. Because of this, we are rarely able or willing to sacrifice specific issues because we don't have a common goal (aside from opposing Republicans) that we are all willing to sacrifice to achieve.

What is the organizing principle of the party? Social justice? Economic fairness? Liberty? Peace? I'm not sure we'd all agree.

If the organizing principle of our party is winning, then to what end? Right now I think we're a coalition of freedom lovers and nurturers whose commonality is that culturally we are comfortable with questioning authority and believe the world to be nuanced and subtle.

The other coalition harkens to old-fashioned authoritarianism and paternalism and certainty, order and discipline.

But the issues are spread unevenly among the parties. The economic libertarians are allied with the Republicans because they think not paying taxes makes the economically freer. Few of the leaders of either party are true economic populists (hence the Nader critique).

I used to feel we were overdue for a realignment, but along what lines? I'm neither a libertarian nor a socialist. I think I'm a moderate on most of these axes but I'm alarmed that in most cases the orthodox / authoritarian / right / masculine end of the spectrum is overpowering the rest, so I've found myself more closely attached to the center-left Democrats.

I don't know if we can get a majority as the "anti-party" and I'm afraid that 9/11 gave a real edge to tough-guy paternalism, so organizing around nuance and subtletly and cooperation and questioning things is also going to be tough until bullheaded certainty crashes and burn, unfortunately to the ruin of us all.

I saw the party try to woo responsible Republicans (guess what, nabbing Daniel Drezner didn't do the trick) behind a responsible facade but ironically Clinton sold responsibility behind his irresponsible charm and Bush sells irresponsibility behind his. The grownup, do-good, middle-of-the-road sensible technocracy that Kerry (and, yes, Dukakis) represented doesn't seem to have enough flash to sell.

Again, I feel like we need to hone our cherished principles to the few we can't do without, and then figure out how to gather a majority who can work together. I don't know if this is a social justice / economic justice majority that cuts across the cultural divide or a cultural progress majority that cuts across the fairness / inequity spectrum, but right now we're neither and we're losing.

I think Republicans are losing too. I don't hate those voters - but I do despise who they are willing to let represent them.

The Lakoff stuff is important. You have to make people who don't like you and who you don't like still trust you and you have to appeal to people's self-interest and their deeper drives.

If my top priority were equal rights (and maybe it is), perhaps I should try to bring out those issues on both sides of the Dem/Republican divide, pitching liberal culture to Democrats and libertarianism and economic equal opportunity to Republicans. This would include gay rights, women's rights, fighting racism, and getting the government out of our bodies and minds.

If my top priority were economic reform, perhaps I should be in a PIRG type organization and appeal to working people on the basis of limiting the rampages of capitalism with a strong safety net and capitalists on the basis of making the system function well. This would include worker's rights, workplace democracy, transparency, checks on the financial system, accountability, and so on.

If my top priority is changing the way we relate to the world and trying to bring about an end to violence as a problem-solving tool, perhaps I need to be in a Kucinich-inspired teach-peace movement that again lobbies both parties, but then it's an uphill battle all the way. I have no idea how to make that work.

Instead I'm in coalition that doesn't agree on any of the above principles in all cases. Somehow, the Republicans are grabbing the bigger piece of each of these axes.

I've gone on too long. This is a glimpse of the turmoil in my mind lately. I still feel like I'm missing a big piece of the puzzle.

What's the vision?

I'm going to quote Jeff Jarvis at length below the fold. I disagree with him as often as I agree with him but I think he's got a mouthful of something important in 'Whose Values II?' from his BuzzMachine blog.

I'm not sure why he thinks Hillary Clinton would be a better candidate then the others he dismisses. He says she is a centrist with a vision, but what's the vision? I'm not trying to be provocative here. I sincerely hope Jeff sees this entry and posts a comment to clarify what vision Clinton represents.

I suspect she'd do more than enrage the fringe. I think the mushy middle would go against her too either as a woman, as a New Yorker, as a Clinton, or as a very intelligent person. Sure, she's positioned herself in the middle politically, which is smart for taking power, but again to what end? In the service of what vision? I'm ready to be convinced but I don't know what Jarvis has in mind or what he's implying.

I just wrote something on a mailing list I'm on and I'm going to post it next because I think it pertains to this same process of soul searching that we ineffectual bloggers seem to be convulsing through this week, on both sides of the partisan divide, on both sides of the economic-theory divide, on both sides of the culture-war divide.

: The NY Times op-ed page today reflected the post I wrote Thursday on the bogus impact of "moral values" on the election as measured by the bogus exit polls (proving only that print punditry has a helluva lead time):

: Gary Langer, head of polling for ABC News, said he fought against including the "moral values" question in the joint exit poll because it was so vague and it was the ultimate mom-and-apple pie question: Who's against moral values here?

Pre-election polls consistently found that voters were most concerned about three issues: Iraq, the economy and terrorism. When telephone surveys asked an open-ended issues question (impossible on an exit poll), answers that could sensibly be categorized as moral values were in the low single digits. In the exit poll, they drew 22 percent.

Why the jump? One reason is that the phrase means different things to people. Moral values is a grab bag; it may appeal to people who oppose abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research but, because it's so broadly defined, it pulls in others as well....

Moral values, moreover, is a loaded phrase, something polls should avoid. (Imagine if "patriotism" were on the list.) It resonates among conservatives and religious Americans. While 22 percent of all voters marked moral values as their top issue, 64 percent of religious conservatives checked it.

: David Brooks, on whom I tend to be binary, writes a very good column on the bull that is "moral values" as an issue.

If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

It's a simple and clear analysis. He then says, "The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry." I disagree there. That assumes that terrorism is the only issue. If it were, he'd be right (and I'd have voted for Bush). But there were many issues and each of us weighed them differently. That's why all efforts to explain an election over one issue are wrong. So he's oversimplifying the opposition, slightly. But he's also right about the opposition oversimplifying the victors:

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

This is why I wrote my post-election peace pledge and my letter to Democrats: Insulting the people who voted for Bush is no way to win the next election.

: Nick Kristof says it's time for Democrats to be more open and he's right. He also says our model should be Labor under Tony Blair and he's way right. He's way wrong in a minute....

As moderates from the heartland, like Tom Daschle, are picked off by the Republicans, the party's image risks being defined even more by bicoastal, tree-hugging, gun-banning, French-speaking, Bordeau-sipping, Times-toting liberals, whose solution is to veer left and galvanize the base....

Mobilizing the base would mean nominating Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 and losing yet again. (Mrs. Clinton has actually undertaken just the kind of makeover that I'm talking about: in the Senate, she's been cooperative, mellow and moderate, winning over upstate New Yorkers. She could do the same in the heartland ... if she had 50 years.)

So Democrats need to give a more prominent voice to Middle American, wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting centrists. (They can tote The Times, too, in a plain brown wrapper.) For a nominee who could lead the Democrats to victory, think of John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh, or anyone who knows the difference between straw and hay.

He's way wrong in thinking that Edwards, Richardson, or Bayh are the people to re-energize the party. They are dull and safe. They don't have vision. Clinton (Hillary) is a centrist who has a vision and can energize the party. She'll piss off the opposite fringe, but that won't matter.

He also says that the Democrats need to work hard not to be the obstructionist party over the next four years. Again, I agree. I disagree with his particular prescription for how to do that, but that's all a matter of politics. The moral to the story is the same.

: Finally, Steven Waldman of Beliefnet looks like a bit of a fool quoting the "moral values" poll results as if they mean something, surrounded by those who show how it doesn't.

: The Democrats must find the path to:

1. Not insult the victors by acting as if they're all a bunch of right-wing religious nut jobs if they voted for Bush. They are your neighbors.
2. Not obstruct progress in the country by insisting on only attacking the administration instead of finding ways to work with it.
3. Not hold to ideology and become the (small) party of exclusion. I know what that felt like during this election; just because I supported some of what Bush did, I was seen as a disloyal unDemocrat and I swear there were some who would rather have held onto their orthodoxy than get my vote. That's no way to win elections.

OK, so if it's not ideology, what is the unifying principle of the Democratic party?

So what can you do?

For starters, visit this site. I've stumbled on two excellent interviews with these people today -- Air America Radio was hyping the hell out of them. If you're concerned about voter fraud, these folks appear to be on the front line. How much is your democracy worth to you? I gave a little money, and I bought the book on amazon.com (it's ranked #83 right now).

They also have an interesting looking forum where folks can volunteer some time to the cause. Will I step up and volunteer? Will you?

Tinfoil hat back on

jwz's much smarter than I am and he's got some suspicions about statistical variances in our ever-so-tight race (election rigging). In some weird sense I just want people in the future to be able to know for sure what really happened in 2000 and 2004.

[T]he mainstream media has been saying that there were a "handful" of "glitches" with the voting machines this time around. Well, the first-hand accounts being posted on blackboxvoting.com (syndicated on LiveJournal as bboxvoting_rss) are pretty extreme, e.g., "Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct."

I've also read many reports where people said that they clicked on "John Kerry", and when they got to the confirmation screen, it said "George Bush", which they then corrected. I have not read a single report of someone having the opposite problem (trying to vote for Bush and having the machine try to vote for Kerry.) Have you?

...

And in Florida, some numbers and graphs: districts using electronic voting machines tended to skew Republican, while those without electronic voting ran even with predicted ratios.

"Here's your 'mandate', right here."

You don't steal an election with a landslide, you steal it with 3%. You stay within the margin of error across the board so that it's not obvious.

So, I believe this vote was rigged.

I also think it's entirely possible that Bush would have won anyway without the rigging (since Rove is clearly better at mobilizing fundamentalists than the Kerry people were at mobilizing anybody else.) But I think the fix was in.

But like I said, the fact that it was even close is disturbing enough.

The Mediocrity of Bush's Campaign

Xian called the election a "blowout". I call it a poor performance by George W. Bush.

This was no blowout. Bush and his minders will yell over and over through the so-called liberal media that he has a real mandate, that this was a landslide, that the middle of the country's road is conservative. But that's Newspeak, not science. The science is as follows.

Bush increased his share of votes by less you'd expect of a two-termer. He moved the popular vote his way by only 3.6 percentage points from 2000. Here's a complete list of every pair of consecutive presidential victories since the Civil War (i.e., omitting Grover Cleveland's campaigns); this is a list from worst performance to best. Bush's improvement in proportion of the popular vote is only average—or, more accurately, the median:

1. 1940 F. Roosevelt -14.3%
2. 1916 Wilson -11.3%
3. 1944 F. Roosevelt -2.4%
4. 1900 McKinley +1.8%
5. 1996 Clinton +2.9%
6. 2004 G.W. Bush +3.6%
7. 1956 Eisenhower +4.6%
8. 1936 F. Roosevelt +6.5%
9. 1984 Reagan +8.5%
10. 1872 Grant +11.8%
11. 1972 Nixon +21.9%

Bush won less of the popular vote (51.1%) than all but two repeat winners. Again, looking at elections since the Civil War: Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton each got 49.2% in his second victory. As it happens, those men beat two of the strongest third-party candidates in that time; the two-party pie was smaller in those races. Everyone else in the list above—Grant, McKinley, FDR three times, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan—had a bigger share of the popular vote than Bush. Among all presidential winners since 1872, that 51.1% figure is—you guessed it—the median.

Bush has lost one popular vote outright and won another by a historically slim margin. Among presidents since the start of the 20th century, he owns the smallest and fifth-smallest PV margins of victory. If we extend the view back as far as the Civil War (35 elections), he's still completely in the Top Ten list of "squeak-by winners." Again, "lower" rankings here are undesireable:

1. 1876 Hayes -3.0%
2. 1888 Harrison -0.8%
3. 2000 G.W. Bush -0.5%
4. 1880 Garfield 0.0%
5. 1960 Kennedy 0.2%
6. 1884 Cleveland 0.3%
7. 1968 Nixon 1.1%
8. 1976 Carter 2.1%
9. 1892 Cleveland 3.1%
10. 2004 G.W. Bush 3.1%

Outside of Texas, the House of Representatives is right where it was last month. The Republicans gained 5 House seats in Texas by gaming the political system to create an unprecedented second redistricting. Apart from that maneuver, an incumbent won in 388 out of 391 races! (The only incumbents that lost outside of Texas were Crane in IL-8, Burns in GA-12, and Hill IN-9.) I haven't crunched the historical House numbers, but I seriously doubt that we've ever had that high a percentage before. The problems of the Democratic Party in the House are dwarfed by the challenge all Americans face: defeating gerrymandering.

OK, I'll grant that the Republicans swamped the Democrats in the Senate. (If Daschle hadn't lost his race, he would have been tarred and feathered by his caucusmates anyway.) And yes, liberals could do a much better job of promoting our plans and philosophy, and of shining a police floodlight on the lies and harm done by the right. Saying that Bush just got by (similar to his academic style) doesn't mean we can be complacent. He still won.

But this ain't no mandate. This ain't no blowout. This ain't no foolin' around. We're in Rutherford B. Hayes territory, not Reagan/Mondale. A friendly Congress and the lack of a big-time third-party candidate should have produced results for Bush that didn't look so much like ... Bill Clinton's. Democrats, don't whistle the Republicans' "mandate" tune for them.

(A couple more explanations of the ways that Bush's campaign outcome is, well, pathetic are here and here. They look more at raw numbers than percentages so use those if you prefer things like, "He will have won the three states that put him over 270 [...] by only 161,989 [...]")

(Also: I was going to include something about the small number of states that switched sides (3, ties the fewest ever), but there are way too many variables for me to draw conclusions. I will say this: I know several people being swayed by the "sea of red" on EV maps, especially when they're drawn by county. That's useful as a way to confirm the Dem/urban, Repo/rural split that we all intuit, but it's not useful as a way to gauge the relative strengths of the two parties. We don't weight votes based on square miles or population density; always rely on EV maps that resize the states based on the number of electors; the NY Times has one here; once you get to the page, click to View Map According to Electoral Votes. Remember: the country isn't mostly red, as most maps would imply; it's really a purple country.)

We're on the right track

Josh Koenig at Music for America has compiled this map debunking the whole "the kids didn't show up" meme that was going around the web on Wedneday (Looking Into The Future...).

If these trends hold, the map shows a bright future for a more progressive America. Let's not write off any more generations and any more states, m'kay?

Freedom's just another word for "let me tell you what to do"

As I was laying in bed last night counting Republicans, I started thinking about the whole "moral values" thing. What I realized--and maybe this should be filed under "bleeding obvious"--is that the two main issues, gays and abortion, are both classic cases of "I should be free to follow my values, and you also should be free to follow my values." In other words, "I don't believe in homosexuality or abortion. So you homosexuals, quit gaying it up, and you women, no abortions for you."

You might be tempted to call this un-American. Then again, you could equally well argue that in America freedom has always been a code word for "I get all the freedom I want, you get all the freedom I feel like giving you." (See also: indentured servitude, slavery, women's rights, civil rights, etc. etc.)

The United States of Canada are looking better and better.

No one ever said saving the world would be easy

Every generation has its challenge. We've had it fairly easy till now. Sure, it was rough when "Happy Days" got cancelled. But, you know, we perservered.

This is our moment. This is our generation's challenge. How we respond will define us and determine history.

I don't want to be the good Germans, the ones who saw it coming but failed to stop it. It's time for us to step forward and become the greatest generation -- the ones who show up in our country's time of need, and bring America back to its senses.

Some questions for all of us this morning:

• What more can we as individuals do next time that we didn't do this time?
• What can we all do starting tomorrow -- not just giving money, but what concrete actions can we take - that will help win back congress in 2 years?
• And what can we do between now and then to limit the damage this Republican government inflicts?

We're grown ups now, right?

It's our turn.

Johnny, we hardly knew ye

Nice speech by Mr. Kerry - positive, thoughtful, inspirational even. At one point he appeared to shed a tear. Funny how candidates always seem to be at their best when the campaign is over - especially, for some reason, in concession speeches. I remember watching Gore when he (finally) conceded and thinking, "Wow, he's an actual human being! This guy would have gotten a lot more votes than the guy who's been campaigning all year."

Could it be the secret is to campaign as if you've already lost?

America, You Ignorant Slut

That phrase has been running through my head all morning. It makes me laugh, and I need to laugh, because this election has been a stark reminder of just how backward we are as a country. Not stupid, but gullible, easily manipulated, ruled by fear, and still in possession of a whole laundry list of 19th and 20th-century prejudices. Also, there was a nice item on CNN Headline this morning about how fast the Arctic ice is melting, a little hint of the repercussions to come if we don't get our heads out of the middle ages and start dealing with the real issues of the modern world.

Now, off to watch the concession speech.

Bush's war

I gather that the next 11 to 90 days may end up as a three-ring circus after Democrats wake up and start sifting through any possible signs of discrepancies in Tuesday's apparent Republican blowout (popular vote advances, gains in both houses of Congress, and so on).

I suppose there is some possible future in which Kerry claims Ohio and then tries to govern for four years with a tide of Republican fury (hypocritical or not) about the electoral college and lawyers and such.

But it is sadly looking likely that the country has ratified Bush's tactics of governing from the base of his own party and putting the nation on a permanent war footing. The "incumbent rule" may have succumbed to the "khaki election" rubric that says we generally don't change presidents in time of war.

To the rest of the world, we'll no longer be able to use the excuse that "we didn't really elect him." We will have to live with the consequences of Bush's foreign policy and the blowback from overweening confidence as the dominant power in a unipolar world, unless the EU gets its act together and decides to confront us more assertively, which would probably cause grief and woe in equal measure to any benefit derived from a counterbalancing player on the world stage.

Something tells me Canada is cringing right now too.

On the other hand, I sense that the Bush administration has been frantically sweeping issues under the rug, postponing an avalanche of reckonings till after election day. There is the CIA's 9/11 report, the Plame affair, the disturbing trends in Iraq, problems with Halliburton, and any number of other scandals small and large that might now have four years to play out in full. Should Bush take a second term, will his administration be plagued with investigations and full-scale opposition? Perhaps not, as his party has strengthened its hold on the branch that most directly checks the executive (and is now likely to set the course for the Supreme Court and the lower courts as well for a generation to come).

Had Bush been defeated handily, the Republicans would have been in for a bloodletting. With his victory looking more likely, it remains to be seen whether the party will do any internal soul-searching about the direction it's heading in. Winning, even winning ugly, tends to reinforce whatever techniques led to the victory. On the Democratic side, it's hard to see what another round of self-recrimination will accomplish but it's harder still to explain how an unprecedented mobilization of the liberal half of the country could fall so short of success or to derive a lesson from this that will yield some kind of growth for the party by 2006 or 2008.

One thing's for sure, though. If Bush is reinaugurated in January, he will gain sole credit for the Iraq war and its aftermath. Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule that Kerry had so much trouble getting right ("you break it, you bought it") comes fully into play, and the Bush team will spend the next four years living with the ramifications of a first term that seemed geared more toward eking out a reelection victory through targeted political tactics than prosecuting a coherent agenda at home and abroad.

Now that we've lost...

Where do we go from here? How do we begin to reclaim secular democracy?

The most disheartening thing I'm hearing on all the networks is that "moral issues" rather than economic issues were the deciding factor. How can we possibly convince American voters - over the next decade or two, for it will surely take that long - that stealing money from poor people to give to rich people is a moral issue? How do we reclaim morality from Bible-thumping?

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming

Joshua Marshall says Republicans have taken to the courts to steal the election in Ohio.

Zogby projects it for Kerry

Zogby is projecting a slight popular vote margin for Bush but gives the electoral college to Kerry by a projected margin of 311 to 213.

Looks like record turnout

According to McLehrer, Republicans are spinning that the high turnout today isn't necessarily bad for them. Meanwhile, George and Laura Bush were making a statement and W. seemed to have a bit of a resigned air, like a man who'd taken his best shot and was about ready to retire.

Ray Suarez quotes the Republican handlers thusly:

"The president gave it everything he had. The president did what he had to do. Now it's up to the voters." ... None of that overarching happy talk.

A pollster on the show had just mentioned that voters who dislike both candidates are breaking for Kerry. "Better the devil we don't know," was how he put it.

Fingers crossed.

Voting for change

I dragged my wheezy lungs up to the school on the hill to cast my ballot. I've never missed an election and I always think it's important to vote, but even in this decidedly non-swing state (California) I felt like my vote counted more than ever this time.

The poll workers told me they had a huge turnout in the early morning before-work hours. Here in California where we know we aren't deciding the election ourselves, people still feel an urgent need to stand up and be counted this time around.

I hope everyone reading this votes, regardless of your political leanings. The more involvement we have the better for our democracy.

I may have mentioned this already, but my cohorts and I at Personal Democracy Forum will be blogging the election all day, looking for the online / technology / wired angle.

Enjoy it

I was listening to Air America on the way to work and Al Franken and company were singing a lopsided song oompah song "bring a book, bring a book, when you go to vote" and it was so sweet and I thought "this is what it sounds like to win."

At our east bay (CA) polling site, everyone was commenting on how this was the first time any of us have seen more than a 2-minute line in the 9 am shift.

It was a nice 20-25 minute wait. I know this is small compared to the waits we're hearing about in battleground states. But we savored our little line. We waited for years to wait in this line. The air is fantastic today.

WOW!

http://www.gnn.tv/content/eminem_mosh.html
Here's the Eminem Mosh vodeo. Blew me away. (Big file, 32MG, downloads in four minutes broasdband, but you can also click for a dial-up version.)

Giblets for president

Fafblog! (the whole world's only source for Fafblog) says Giblets will win, unless he is sandbagged by the media bias:

But if - as some scurrilous rumors and half-mad acid-eating anti-Giblets propagandists have suggested - Giblets loses the election to John Kerry, it will be clear why. It will be because of the bias of the liberal media.

The liberal media, who again and again painted John Kerry as a weak-willed pandering flip-flopper, knowing that Americans appreciate the supple pliabilty of a flip-flopper's ever-shifting positions over the hard resolve of Giblets! The liberal media, who represented Kerry's every position as an incoherent one knowing full well that Americans would be helplessly seduced by a convoluted, byzantine rambler instead of a straight-shooter like Giblets! The liberal media, who entertained the notion that John Kerry was a traitor to his country who had deliberately wounded himself to get out of Vietnam and besmirched the reputation of his fellow veterans, knowing that Americans love a quick-witted spineless coward over a heroic anti-terror crusader like Giblets!

Shameless self-promotion department

An all-new, all-free mp3 political-shtick awaits you over on ye olde Monkey Vortex Radio Theater today -- John, Paul, George, and Ringo. In which John Kerry and GWB attempt to join the world's greatest rock band, with decidedly mixed results.

"Wheelchair accessible hot tub"

I'm about ready to take up fingernail biting to alleviate the anxiety of the next 24 hours but meanwhile decided to check out the election eve activities around my neighborhood conveniently provided in an e-mail from MoveON. There were over 40 phone parties listed within ten miles of my house and in the brief invitation blurbs one got the full flavor of Bay Area kulture....

"Take breaks in the hot tub!"

"Just Me and the Phone (1 person is attending)"

"Chicken soup on the stove"

"Bagels and coffee"

"A cat and a cockatiel" (a standard Bay Area warning to guests concerning potential allergens)

"Three dogs who are Kerry supporters and one independent cat"

"Throw the Bum Out (Please sign in with the doorman)"

"Finger food and tea"

"Grapefruit tree in the front yard" (are you sure they're not lemons?)

"We have Guinea pigs"

"Wheelchair accessible hot tub" OK. I'm there!