I searched Meetup for Northfield-area groups who support the various presidential candidates but couldn’t find any.
Are there any organized gatherings yet?
If you know of any, attach a comment with the info.
1/31 update: I’ve removed Edwards and Giuliani from the blog post title since they dropped out this week.
2/9 update: I’ve removed Romney from the blog post title since he dropped out this week.
4/17: I’ve removed Huckabee and Paul from the blog post title
6/3: I’ve removed Clinton from the blog post title
281 Comments
There is an active Obama network in Northfield. I have to admit I’ve been so busy with them that I haven’t been on this site recently – my apologies. Anyone who wants to get in contact with the Obama folks can email me at felicity.enders@gmail.com. Tom Hayes and Mary-Lewis Grow are more involved than I am, but I can help make connections. Anyone who wants to lurk a bit and read up on the issues or catch a speech online can do so at http://www.barackobama.com/issues or http://www.barackobama.com/tv/. I was personally inspired to get into this campaign (never having been involved in a campaign before) by hearing Barack speak, so I highly recommend that venue. Also, I do have Obama buttons and bumper stickers for those who are interested; I’ll have some with me while I’m out and about this weekend. I’ll even endeavor to belatedly get a picture posted here so people can find me in public!
Of course, the most important activity is coming out to caucus next Tuesday. The DFL caucus is at 7pm at the new Northfield middle school on south Division. Eligible voters must be there by 8 at the latest in order to participate. Taking part in the presidential preference part of the caucus is easy – you just complete the form and then if you don’t want to get involved with the rest of the caucus you can leave.
Finally, please note that the DFL caucus is binding in terms of delegates, not a straw poll such as the Republican caucus apparently is.
Thanks, Felicity. I found the Northfield for Obama group on his site. I see you and Tom Hayes there and have sent you both requests to pretty puhleeeeeeeease ‘be my friend.’
Are there any F2F gatherings planned for the area?
I’ve removed Edwards and Giuliani from the blog post title since they dropped out this week.
Glad to “meet” you, Griff!
CORRECTION: although the caucus itself does begin at 7 on Tuesday, voting for presidential preference will start at 6:30 and run to 8pm. Again, this info is just for the DFL caucus.
We had one at our house last weekend, and Tom Hayes (I believe that’s his last name) had a gathering a couple days ago. I’m sorry we missed you. I’m not sure where these things are announced, as I was just in charge of the cleaning for our gathering. We didn’t mention anything here because as of a week ago or so, national politics didn’t seem to fit within the purview of Locally Grown.
I’ve also heard a rumor that there’s a gathering “for women” somewhere in town tomorrow. Perhaps my dear friend Felicity might stop by and tell us all where to go to find out about these things?
Hi all,
The gathering for women Patrick alluded to is very targeted at those feeling conflicted about this decision, so the organizer has asked me not to open it up by posting here. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any others between now and Tuesday - the campaign has shifted into a “get out the caucus” mode. That being said, I am planning to attend Sunday’s Politics & a Pint, which seems like a reasonable forum to discuss differences between the candidates (assuming the P&P folks meant presidential candidates as well as senatorial candidates).
Actually, I was focused mostly on presidential first, then senate.
Thanks Bruce. Great timing for this P&P, it’s clearly on a lot of people’s minds.
I just want to say that I would never dislike anyone for their political preferences. I always associate with anyone who is sincere and friendly
towards me and others. At first I am human and then an American
and I can use those as common denominators. I hope everyone can.
Bright- I like your perspective. It really doesn’t matter what our political convictions are if we are not willing to accept one another and live together in the community. I believe that is a choice we can make that goes above our feelings. I like to expreass it this way- “both and”, rather that “either or”. One is inclusive, the other devisive. I highly respect any person of conviction. I may not agree with them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk and come to some type of agreement. I like to think I am more of a pragmatist (although I know I may not always sound like one).
Patrick once had a teacher who used to say “the only thing worse than being dead is not having an opinion.” I absolutely agree with this - even if the opinion is not the same as mine. After all, the world would be a pretty boring place if everyone agreed about everything. More importantly, a diversity of opinions are needed to reach real resolution on problems of enormous complexity, such as those faced by the current presidential candidates.
Johnny B. Good, I like that you like my perspective!
I took these photos Friday — the first yard sign and bumper sticker for the ‘08 presidential race I’ve seen in Northfield.
I don’t know if anyone else from Northfield made the trek to the Target Center yesterday for the Obama rally, but I (and my wife Anne and son Jakob) did. What a fabulous experience! I blogged about it at http://www.sustainablecommunitysolutions.com/index.php/2008/02/03/caucus-on-tuesday-for-obama/.
I hope to see a throng at the Middle School DFL caucus at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday!
Now that Edwards has dropped, I am also in the Obama camp. I just need assurance he will tackle the flawed world trade agreements, NAFTA being the most glaring example. The rush of immigrants over the border was one of the unanticipated consequences. Would I trust Hillary to break from her husband who is largely responsible for the mess? Not really.
Although I like Obama, he is a very good orator, likable smile, and some good morals, I wonder what experience he has to draw upon when he starts talking to heads of state, heads of tribes, and those who may harm the USA interests. No one has been able to answer me, or no where that I research do I get some reassuring answer based in truth. Oh, dear.
Bright- As far as drawing from experience when working with heads of states, etc., take a look at Reagan. His resume was that he was a good actor. He also proved to be a good statesman. If I remember right, it was on his watch that the Iron Curtain fell, and democracy came to the Soviet Union. I may be too pragmatic, but I think a person’s depth of character and ability ablility to work with people of differing viewpoints is most important. I put more stock in actions than words. If a person (leader) doesn’t walk his talk, I really don’t give him much credibility as a leader. I think it is more important to see who a leader’s advisers are, or will be, than to rely solely on his experience or lack thereof. There are many more facets to this whole thing, but I think this is an important one.
Go McKinney
Good points, JG. Reagan was also a uber major student of history.
So who would Obama bring into his cabinet? The reason I wonder so,
is because he is from my old part of town, and I never heard of him
ten years ago…nothing on the street, nothing amongst my neighbors
who may be black and very political. Not a word.
Bright- Interesting first hand insight on your part. Might make for some good conspiracy grist. Illinois seems to have a history of mob controled politics. Wonder who is behind his arising? I haven’t researched this, but it does raise a question in my mind.
Another thing this points out is that not every candidate has grass roots background. Those things always wave a red flag for me. It seems the founding fathers set up our government system so that anyone could serve. Nowadays, it seems that politics has become a profession. Even Paul Wellstone fell prey to this trap.
The reasons Obama has risen so quickly are simple: he’s an amazingly good orator, and the party really needed some fresh blood.
When I heard he was going to speak for Kerry in 2004, I said, “who”? After I heard him, I said “I want that man to run for President.” He can think, he can write, and he can inspire. Those are very rare things. Bill Clinton had some of that leadership quality. Reagan had lots of it - even though I disagreed with where he led.
If the Democratic Party had other, better candidates for leadership, Obama may not have risen so quickly. But the competition is thin, and inspiring leaders are very rare. Hillary Clinton is the only other decent candidate the party has right now, but many of us wanted an alternative to her.
So that’s why he was encouraged to run. As for actually having a chance to win, that’s the result of who he is, who Hillary is, and what he has done as a candidate.
Thanks to everyone who has replied to my cry for help in understanding these candy dates.
Patrick said:
“I want that man to run for President.” He can think, he can write, and he can inspire.”
Patrick, I am sure you are right all across the board here, and btw good answer!
But here I fear, the description you give for Obama can also be true for
some of the serial killers we have run across.
Are we voting for the these people because that’s all we have been offered?
Where are the great people of this country? Where are the real visionaries with actual dreams to give us and where are our own voices? It’s just seems like the same old circles we are traveling in, with nothing new to move this country forward. Maybe I am just getting jaded.
Patrick- I think you expressed some very good points. If you look through history, there are some really good examples of these qualities. Lincoln, Roosevelt, John Kennedy are some that come to mind (I’m sure there are others I’m missing). It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
Bright,
Of course, I can’t be sure, but I consider it highly unlikely that Barack Obama is a serial killer.
Patrick- That would be especially important to Malto Meal. Oh rats! That’s “serial”!! Thought spell check was decieving me!
Rats? In Northfield?
Is anyone suffering from OCS (Obama Comedown Syndrome) yet? If so, are local support groups forming to help one deal with it?
I just saw Obama on the tube, it was a flash shot, but I could see he looks
mighty tired, and a good chunk older than he did a week ago. I know the newest Hollywood make up is killer, in that in can cover up a whole lot of
what people don’t like to see in a way that has never been done previously.
Maybe this is the first time I see him without make up.
So I hope it’s just that, cuz as people know, the Presidency can cause rapid aging. If someone is that tired just from campaigning, I don’t think they’ll hold up more than a year or two. It may not be true, but the instinct tells me otherwise.
Nope. But then, I merely believe that - among the current Presidential candidates - he has the most potential to be a good leader. Nothing more.
This messianic talk has been more than a little silly, and seems mostly to be spread by his detractors.
Mostly.
What Patrick said. Mostly!
I imagine things will be getting pretty ugly soon (both from the Clinton camp and the McCain camp), with Swift-boating, Willy Hortoning, etc., etc., ad nauseam, as an Obama-McCain general campaign appears increasingly likely.
OCS…maybe I’m getting it. Just too smooth…too handsome…too young… He better choose some old, balding white guy as in a rumpled suit for vp, or I’m outahere.
I’d be glad to vote for Obama (and rather expect to do so, given how things are going). And Obama seems able to write prose that scans, which is almost enough for me after our long national linguistic nightmare.
But … in a spirit of contrarianism … I don’t see others praising Hillary, and that needs doing, too.
The prevailing narrative in the press seems to be that it’s all over, that Hillary has too many negatives, etc. This could be right, or it could be wrong. We’ve still got the same press, after all, that mindlessly dissed Al Gore in 2000, and the press hasn’t gotten any smarter or more diligent since then. Right- or left-wing, they’re mostly parroting a few simple scripts.
Hillary seems to me to be just as smart and disciplined as Obama, and she is arguably a better bet to be able to work the political system effectively to effect change. Obama may be more inspirational, but it’s reasonable to ask whether inspiration or street-fighting political ability will matter more in the next four years.
Hillary’s policy on health insurance, for instance, appears to me to be better designed and is in some ways gutsier and more progressive than Obama’s. Neither O. nor C. is coming anywhere near clean on the real economic problems of the nation, or on what may need to be done about (say) Medicare funding, but again it’s reasonable to ask whether hard practical problems, when they can no longer be denied, are best solved by Obama-esque inspiration or by Hillary-esque political horse-trading. It takes both kinds.
Viva Hillary, too.
One thing you have to give to Bush is that he has never caved when under real, not fabricated, pressure. What other candidate will live up to that?
What do you mean, Bright, by “real” as opposed to “fabricated” pressure? Where does the Harriet Miers nomination fiasco fall on this scale? What about Bush’s (original) adamant opposition to establishing a Dept of Homeland Security?
Steadfastness in tough times is a good thing, but how should we distinguish it from stubbornness in defense of folly? Or willful ignorance?
Or Bush’s opposition to independent investigation of 9/11?
Well, I meant to say “foreign opposition” but I had to let the dog out. He was crying and I only have 20 lbs on him, so I thought I would let it fly and I am glad I did because I like see some more specific focus on our discussions,
especially about the presidential candidates because I am so tired of hearing, oh, he’s so cute, or she’s too predictable, as reasons to vote or not vote for someone.
Fabricated means stuff like what the NY Times did to McCain on the front page no less with no facts whatsoever to back the statement. Real means when N. Korea tries to poke a stick in your eye.
Sorry, Bright, I still don’t get it.
Do you really *know* that the NYT article about McCain’s possible lobbyist entanglement is “with no facts whatsoever”? The article certainly makes many assertions of concrete fact, such as that McCain rode on various corporate jets, etc.
Are you saying that (a) these facts are false or in some sense “fabricated”? Or (b) that we shouldn’t care much one way or the other about implications of the NYT piece? Or (c) that it’s none of our business if McCain is or was shacking up with the lady lobbyist.
If (a), I wonder how you know. If (b), why would you say it makes no difference if McCain cozies up to big corporate donors? If (c), I agree completely.
What I loved about the McCain piece in the NYT wasn’t the journalistic integrity therein, because it certainly was speculative on a number of points and brought up some ethics issues about anonymous sources, etc…, but, at the end of the article the McCain camp responds to the allegations with a bizarre statement, in part:
I say bizarre because McCain himself has repeatedly admitted his involvement in the Keating 5 / Savings and Loan scandal in the early 1990s which was nothing but favors for special interests. Perhaps, his advisers should have released a statement that said, instead: “John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country, the past 17 or so, with honor and integrity…” That would not have contradicted their candidate’s own contrite and published admissions about violating the public trust in that matter.
I’m not saying he’s a bad guy, and, honestly, I’m not concerned about his sexual past or present, but it seems rather odd for his campaign to issue a statement that so baldly flies in the face of their own candidate’s confessed behavior. We’re left to wonder whether or not McCain and his campaign consider the Keating 5 issue, and McCain’s involvement in it, to be honorable behavior.
I’m not sure how they will talk their way around such an obvious contradiction. Probably, they will ignore it, and hope nobody notices.
McCain’s involvement was so minimal he was actually re-elected by the people. Let’s face it, a lot of people do a little cheating once in a while.
It’s the American way, why it may even be the way of the world since commerce began on the salt trail.
It surprizes me to know that some people think cheating on a spouse is okay though. To me, if you are taking your energy from your family commitments and going off a on little tryst, just for the heck of it, you are a big fat cheater and don’t deserve the love and loyalty of a fine family…although a fine family would prolly give you another chance.
I didn’t say cheating on your spouse was okay, Bright, only that it is not my concern. We should leave politicians their personal lives. McCain’s involvement was not so much “minimal” as much as it was reframed effectively enough for him to be re-elected.
The issue, for me, is that McCain has been in public repentance, anti-lobbyist vigilance mode for years because of that scandal. These new allegations about very close relationships with lobbyists paint a rather hypocritical picture of him.
In addition to his campaign’s boneheaded, contradictory assertions that I detailed in comment #39, I caught this from Newsweek by way of reprint in the Huffington Post:
I’m not sure why his campaign keeps making such easily-confirmed contradictions to their candidate’s own claims and admissions. Looks very bad.
Wouldn’t the better path be to make claims that McCain was contacted (because he was), but that he wrote the letters because of his personal convictions? Sure, it’s a little wishy-washy and gray, but at least your campaign isn’t flat-out lying.
This is why discourse is so good. We obviously haven’t actually been
anywhere where we might have any opinion of our own to develop, and
have to rely on the media which is full of sauerkraut. Do you remember
the term ‘fog of war?’ and do you remember the telephone game from
second grade? This holds true, where there is one intrepretation,
there is one mistake which will be denied. We cannot deny that we
aren’t getting the whole story and we cannot say okay, we are not
getting the whole story, but let’s act like we do cuz we don’t know
what else to do. See, My take on media is to simply throw opinions
into the stew and watch it bubble. Maybe McCains’ camp is purposely
issuing contradictory statements in order to swoggle the mind. Maybe
there are DFLers on his staff.
Cheating on the spouse shouldn’t be overlooked, because it is very
telling of the person’s morality overall. And either we care about how
much money and favors are passed, and how the politician treats the
family, or we don’t care about either. Otherwise you are saying that
the politician’s family doesn’t deserve the same consideration that the
American people do.
Attention to cheating, although it looks like a matter of privacy, it’s
more a matter of the lack of good judgement which we derive from
knowing the public figures habits and follies. Sure, everyone has their
character flaws, but some are more consequential to the running of
nations than others, adn for that reason should not be overlooked, imho.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to you and Anne, and the other February babies
around here, ykwyr!
Bright, Paul, Brendon, the NYT’s own public editor (ombudsman) takes issue with the way his paper handled the McCain article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/24/2170901.htm?section=justin
Curt, thanks for the link. Mr. Hoyt seems to have missed the (or at least my) biggest concern about this article - the timing. How can the NYT justify releasing this after sitting on it until the Republican nomination process was basically resolved? I find it very troubling.
Curt,
Yeah, I saw that. It’s not surprising. As I mentioned in my first post about that article, it wasn’t the merit of the piece I was defending; it was the McCain camp’s obvious contradiction of McCain’s own confessed behavior.
In my opinion, the NYT undermined the credibility of a fairly solid article about McCain anti-lobbyist stance by dropping hints of a romantic liaison with little to go on. They shot themselves in the foot in that regard.
Felicity,
Did they sit on the information for a long time? I got the impression that it was an ongoing investigation that they just finished. Maybe I’m wrong.
I think, in some ways though, it still makes sense. Once McCain becomes the nominee (for all intents and purposes), then he’ll gather more and more coverage, especially long articles like that one which reach into his past to examine how his actual behavior jibes with his professed positions.
I don’t actually know when they had the story ready to go, or if they sat on it, but I would be more troubled if they finished it now, then released it one week before the general election.
SNL did a send up last night on Obama-mania that was really funny.
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=52284
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU
Nice! I liked the “Are you mad at me?” line.
Not the best Obama impersonator, but not bad.
I really loved the Hillary impersonator’s “Losing to Obama in Wisconsin, Virginia, Maryland, etc… has been a life-long dream of mine”… downplaying the significance of her recent primary losses in an appropriately overstated manner.
Brendon (re #46); yes, they were working on it for over a year. However, I consider it reprehensible that they didn’t release ANYTHING until after the Republican nomination process was tied up. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/business/media/21askthenewsroom.html?pagewanted=5&sq=mccain&st=nyt&scp=50 for discussion around this from NYT staff. I understand wanting a story to be backed up by facts prior to release (though one could argue that goal wasn’t realized fully in this story) but any story that impacts a presidential election really ought to come out in time to influence the election if the electorate so wish.
McCain had been trying new scripts lately that included a lot of humility: “I will listen to the American people and and learn from them as I campaign… but___” (But I’ll still be the strong leader you want to see in me, etc.) I had not heard him use that script before so much. It added a nice soft touch. His singing “Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb Iran” was a little over the top for me.
I think Hillary should sing more. Something like the old camp song, “Ya gotta have skin.” Or she should do a campaign commercial in which she sings to her largest contributors that great song from Guys and Dolls, “Take Back Your Mink.” It would be a stitch. It would save her campaign. She has a bubbly, singing side that’s just dying to get out. If politics don’t work for her, she could have that to fall back on.
Felicity,
Okay, I get it. You were saying that it should have been released when they had the information. I thought you were arguing that the McCain NYT article was poorly timed because it WAS influencing the election, and you were actually saying the opposite. It was ambiguous for me, and I interpreted your comments as meaning the NYT should not have printed the article. But, now, I see you were wondering why the article was held until after McCain had sewn up the nomination.
Bright,
I’ve been traveling and so may have missed some twists and turns on the McCain story. In particular, I must have missed whatever led to your impression that ” … some people think cheating on a spouse is okay”.
If my view that “it’s none of our business if McCain is or was shacking up with the lady lobbyist” suggests that I’m among the “people” you refer to, let me hasten to aver, on the record, that “cheating on a spouse” is a Bad Thing, if not a Very Bad Thing, or even Right Out.
My point is that personal behavior of this sort is, in my view, none of the voters’ business as long as it isn’t illegal and doesn’t materially affect parts of the job that *are* the voters’ business. True, there’s not always a bright line, but IMO we should err, if at all, on the side of enlarging rather than reducing the zone of *personal* privacy that candidates deserve. I want a candidate to do the job well, not to validate or reinforce my views on personal morality.
It’s often said that a candidate with a crummy family life will probably mess up the country, too, but it just doesn’t follow. I’d just as soon believe that the candidate with the perfect spouse and well-scrubbed kids will be so addled with marital bliss that he or she can’t think straight.
This has been a great campaign so far and by far the best thing about it is the political engagement of the formerly disengaged. African-American voters, Hispanic voters, and young voters, are turning out in record numbers for the primary elections. These are groups that in the past have been under represented at the polls. It would seem to bode well for democrats if this enthusiasm for voting carries through to the general election. If these folks vote near the per centage of core republican constiuencies, democrats should win the general election. Republicans count on apathy and alienation in order to win elections.
All this momentum will be lost if Clinton manuevers to take the nomination away from the choice of the voters. I don’t put it past her. I hope there is a clear cut Clinton loss next Tuesday, so she can drop out and Obama can begin making his case to independents.
His most important decision will be the selection of a VP. I think he needs someone with a good bit of foreign policy experience…I would not look forward to a campaign where both Obama and his running mate were portrayed as inexperienced. And someone who is more of a ‘traditional’ candidate…i.e. male, and for all intents and purposes…white. (Please don’t get me wrong…I would be happy to vote for the ticket if he added Asian lesbian…with foreign policy experience.) The goal is to improve the chances of getting elected. Move toward the center. The country is still very conservative in many ways…that is… adverse to change. Obama is a heck of a change. His VP choice should mitigate that fear of change not exacerbate it. I like Bill Richardson…I know he’s offically Hispanic…but he’s also ‘for all intents and purposes…white’. And he is more of a centrist politically. There is absolutely not reason to move the ticket to the left by making a choice like John Edwards.
Don’t even think about the ‘Dream Ticket’ of Obama and Hillary…that would be playing right into the republican’s hands.
William,
I agree with a lot your posting #53, and I’ll vote enthusiastically for Obama if that’s the choice.
But why the anti-Hillary animus? I expect it from Republicans, but I don’t understand what drives it in Democrats.
How would Hillary “maneuver to take the nomination away from the choice of the voters”? If you’re thinking of the superdelegates and their role in the nomination, then maybe there’s a discussion to be had about what policy is correct, fair, wise, etc. But the system, good or bad, has been in place for both candidates from the beginning, and it seems harsh to castigate Hillary for what could be construed as playing by the rules.
Paul,
I think these newly engaged voters (and many usually engaged voters), would perceive it as ’stealing’ the nomination if the popular vote and elected delegate count were ignored by super delegates in favor of Clinton. And no amount of explaining the ’system’ could overcome these voters’ disillusionment after that happened.
And then there is the question of Florida and Michigan delegates…
Let’s just hope her campaign ends Tuesday, so all those possibilities become moot.
Paul Z.:
You write, “But why the anti-Hillary animus? I expect it from Republicans, but I don’t understand what drives it in Democrats.”
This is an interesting comment, in part because I hear so many Democrats expressing dislike for Hillary. What I’m hearing:
Many Democrats (and independents, and some Republicans) worked to elect a Democratic majority, in part to bring better oversight to a Bush administration that walks on the constitution, and in part because of Iraq.
To them, Hillary represents betrayal of their hopes and endless political compromises; doing things in a calculated way because of how they appear, or might play, for harvesting votes rather than for principles, etc. She is viewed as positioning herself toward what is assumed to be the center, but is viewed by many as a kind of Republicrat, a sell-out to special interests. Expand health care so more are covered, but for God’s sake, even if a majority of US citizens want single payer, save the insurance companies, accept the contributions, protect the status quo.
This contributes to the perception of some Democrats that “Republicans are the party of bad ideas, and Democrats are the party of no ideas.” Vote for more Iraq spending, or to approve wiretapping, or to approve the new Attorney General in spite of his views on torture and the unified power of the executive. Democrats hear elected Democrats being described as “Dumb-o-crats,” and it sometimes seems to fit. And sometimes, Hillary seems to fit all that. Votes on Iraq and Iran, etc.
Even Ann Coulter says (jokes?) she may campaign for her instead of McCain.
So to some, she appears to be the kind of leader who would lick a finger and check which way the wind is blowing, always, before stating a position. (In other words, she is a politician, which to some extent means a liar: Slick Willie, Slick Hillary, Tricky Dick, etc.).
And she represents one form of the recent status quo. She’s also a kind of revisitation of her husband’s years: Bill Clinton had fairly high ratings, especially compared to the Bushes, but he had the affairs, that impeachment thing, lying under oath, equivocations, etc. Many of us who voted for him, when he was the last Democrat in the running in ‘92, were not pleased with various aspects of his legacy.
So we can say, well, give them privacy. But people also look at Bill and Hillary and wonder, is this marriage all show, no substance? And if that’s what these people are, then are the politics all show too? In the end, will important values be betrayed but explained away as necessary compromises, the harsh realities of politics? Make sure you protect the profits of the health insurance companies, and the Exxon tax breaks, before you work for the common good?
Whether Hillary deserves this kind of characterization she receives is another matter, but that seems to be the way many view her.
Yet there is another view one hears now and then: The view that even FDR would not have done many of the best things he is remembered for if not for pressure and circumstances, so one occasionally hears that Hillary could turn out to be much less a Republicrat, and more an FDR. If faced with the challenges of climate disasters, recession or depression, rising oil prices, economic upheaval, what if she ended up stopping some of the runaway privatization and profiteering? What if she ended tax breaks for the rich, because the times — and an aroused eletorate — demanded it? She could out-FDR even FDR.
If the superdelegates end up reversing the will of the people, expressed in primaries and caucuses, and if she were elected in spite of that, she may have even greater challenges. Saying “Obama and Hillary both knew about the system and the superdelegates” is, in a way, like saying “Al Gore knew Jeb Bush was the Florida Governor, and the Republicans there might fix the vote, and/or the recount.”
It may be true, but it doesn’t make either situation right.
They also both know that, if they use the superdelegates to reverse the will of the people, expressed in elections, they deserve the consequences that follow (perhaps loss in the general election).
Paul F.,
Thanks for the litany of problems some Democrats have with Hillary. As you observed, some question remains as to which perceptions are valid and which aren’t. One could also ask which of these perceptions, valid or not, represent legitimate campaign issues. It seems a bit … well … illiberal … to hold Bill’s personal peccadilloes against Hillary, or to speculate as freely as seems the rule about the Clintons’ “marriage of convenience”, etc.
What continues to puzzle me is not that some Democrats disagree with Hillary’s votes, policies, etc. — I dislike some of it myself, and see a lot of it as opportunistic — but rather the level of venom (”Republicrat”) and *personal* invective she seems to attract (not necessarily on this listserv, but see Stanley Fish’s blog on the NYT if you have the stomach for it). I normally hate pop psychology, but this tempts me to rethink. (Yielding to the temptaion for a moment, I fear that canonization of Obama and demonization of Hillary are two symptoms of the same illness. OK, enough of that.)
What puts all of this in a different light for me is that (the Iraq war authorization aside) I know of little difference, in terms of *policy*, between Hillary and Obama, either looking forward or in terms of their former service in the Senate. So why doesn’t the Republicrat schtick stick to Obama? On health coverage, for instance, is there some reason to think that Obama would kowtow less than Hillary to the big bad insurance companies?
Both O. and H. seem to me to advocate basically similar policies, but would bring very different style and political skill sets to the table.
Paul F and William S (and others) seem to hate the Democrats’ super-delegate system, fearing that cynical, crafty pols might somehow twist it to thwart the “will of the people”.
That’s a heavy charge, to be sure, and there is certainly precedent for political machinations under almost any system. But …
1. It’s not axiomatic that a fair, will-of-the-people-respecting system could never include some type or number of super-delegates. It seems perfectly reasonable that some party professionals and insiders, with various sorts of special knowledge and experience, might play some special role in selecting a party’s candidates. How many and what role is certainly debatable.
2. If indeed super-delegates should play some voting role, then it makes no sense to *require* that they go along with whatever the non-super-delegates decide; that would be tantamount to disenfranchisement. Were such a requirement in effect the only reason to be a delegate would be to wear funny hats and get free booze. (I’d still take the deal, I admit.)
3. The “will-of-the-people” may be the Holy Grail of politics, but it is far from clear that the present primary/caucus system detects that will with perfect fidelity. Throwing some superdelegates into the voting mix could just as well improve as degrade the reception.
4. The devil is probably in such details as the number of superdelegates, when they vote, and the “weight” of their votes. No particular setting of such dials is likely to be perfect, but that’s a far cry from chucking the whole idea — especially in the middle of the process.
Paul Z:
You write, “I fear that canonization of Obama and demonization of Hillary are two symptoms of the same illness.” Good observation.
You asked how people criticize Hillary, but we have heard questions about Obama too: If Hillary is carreer-political, always checking the wind direction before calculating her discourse, Obama is certainly calculated at times via the vagueness in his message (be vague so as to seek a broad, general appeal). If Hillary has been criticized for accepting large campaign contributions from various individuals and sectors, Obama has done much of the same (while, on the other hand, Obama seems to be attracting more small donations from a wider spectrum). Neither one of them agreed to the contribution guidelines Edwards agreed to so as to qualify for the matching public funds, etc. They don’t talk about single-payer health-care, lest they get the health insurance lobby against them. They both have warn, but are now arguing about, wearing international tribal/cultural garb, etc.
What is the illness? Campaign funding? The founding fathers never would have thought it a restriction of free speech to limit the ability of the ultra-rich (individuals or corporations) to influence elections through campaign contributions.
Is the illness also the way mega-corporate media has too much control of defining converage and issues?
Paul, you also speculate about super-delegates: I’m a bit torn. One part of me likes the idea of a simple democracy and majority vote. If we don’t have that within the Democratic party, it’s hard to complain about Florida, etc.
The other part of me, at times, wonders if the crowd (which some describe as lemmings at times) needs some elite shepherding (pardon the mixed lemming-shepherd metaphor) for their own good.
But then I’m back, hearing the voice of George W. and Dick Cheney, the elite leaders, telling us again and again that we can’t have the answers to certain questions because everything is an elite thing, a state secret:
- We can’t investigate 9-11 because it would take elite people away from the war on terror.
- Why did the White House start taking the anti-anthrax drug, cipro, right after 9-11, but not the legislative and juciciary branches of government? A non-partisan group that sometimes gave Bill Clinton a hard time, Judicial Watch, petitioned or sued the White house for answers to that. Response? National security secrets. So the anthrax went to two Democrats, no Republicans, and meanwhile, the White House was taking cipro, just in case. Now that’s elitism in action.
I think it’s hard for people who have been tracking the news to put much faith, for now, in the argument of a need to have some elite group in the government — or in the Democratic party as well — watching over us and re-directing us from, in this case, possibly the huge mistake of electing Obama. After all, he has so little exprience.
That’s why we didn’t elect Kennedy (inexperienced senator) or Carter (inexperienced governor) or Reagan (inexperienced gov/actor).
Oops, never mind.
Want experience? We elected George H. W. Bush, who was a CIA/Washington insider and a Vice President, and no matter what some fringe people say about the links of the Bush family to the kid who tried to shoot Reagan, GHWB certainly had experience. Did it help us? During the GHWB years, when we didn’t have enough support for going to war over Kuwait, there was that PR firm that was hired to rehearse with that young Kuwaiti girl who claimed that Iraqi soldiers were taking premature babies out of incubators and leaving them to die. It was fiction. Great political theater, but total fiction. Yet it worked, and US public opinion shifted in favor of war, so GHWB got a war.
Now that’s elite leadership, and experience. You don’t wait around for the winds of public opinion to shift in your favor when you’re a leader. No, you change the direction of the wind, as progressive evangelical Christian Jim Wallis says. But unlike Wallis, in the case of the Bush family, you change the wind not though truth-telling and having an authentic claim to a moral high-ground, but by manipulating public opinion, hiring PR firms to tell elaborate lies, etc. This helps convince the little people that being against war is silly, and the elite know better, so they’ll lead you there.
Jimmy Carter may have started the Russio-Afghani conflict covertly, but I don’t think he would have thought of a trick like the Kuwaiti baby thing. GHWB was fumble-mouthed, he had some prescription drug problems, but he had his people hire (or recommend the hiring of) the right PR firms. That’s elite. If he had only drawn out the Iraq conflict somehow, he might have beat Clinton. His son W (even more elite) learned from that mistake of his father’s and did his dad one better.
My tongue is so far inside my cheek it’s coming out my ear.
So after all that elitism, even though the Democratic elites may seem a different breed than the Neocons, it’s hard not to be inclined toward wanting to give the popular vote a chance instead of democracy with an elite group of babysitters (yeowch, did I use that metaphor? I guess I did).
Then again, to be fair, Bush-Bush and Cheney are not the only ones who have been a manipulative elite: FDR seems to have believed that when it came to war, the little people could not be trusted. The little people were against the prospect of war after the Great War, and polls showed that many Americans wanted Europe to handle their own problems. So FDR, elite Democrat that he was, based our Navy at Pearl Harbor, and he put in place various policies to provoke Japan to attack (according to documents released in the late 90’s via Freedom of Infromation Act requests). Some of the details are still debated, but it seems FDR wanted to get into the world war via the back door. Why? Because Hitler was that evil? Or because, if he hadn’t gotten in the game, he would not have had the right to help cut the global pie afterwards? (Global US economic empire rising from the dust of the crumbling British Empire?) Or both?
If FDR had not provoked Japan to attack, what would it have taken, what kind of elite PR, to convince the silly average American war-weary fool of the wisdom of getting into yet another war (after that first “War to End All Wars” was still so fresh in memory)?
If we had not gotten into that war, what kinds of evils would have unfolded in Nazi Europe, and in Japan’s war with China? Was WWII really a “good war,” and a necessary one? Or do we just tell ourselves that stuff, to justify our militaristic legacy in hindsight?
(How necessary were the “elite” decisions FDR made? He was his own super-delegate….)
When do we need to trust democracy (fairly often? always? or just for show?), and when do we need the elites to step in and manipulate things the average person might not comprehend, or might not be interested to know?
I don’t know about you, but I’m still leaning in favor of democracy, in spite of its flaws.
(Sorry, perhaps by talking about uber-delegates and elites, we’re contributing to thread-drift….)
Paul… I don’t hate the super-delegate system. I see the rational behind it…in a real deadlocked situation.
My point was about how newly engaged voters would perceive a nomination that did not reflect the results of primary elections and caucuses.
There are about 4049 democratic convention delegates. Let’s say that in primarys and caucuses Obama has won 1750 pledged delegates and Hillary has won 1550. (This is not a deadlocked situation to me.) But Hillary gets 500 superdelgates and Obama gets 250. Hillary becomes the nominee.
No amount of explaining the system will reignite the enthusiasm of these new voters in the Obama camp. They’re gone and they ain’t coming back. Hillary already trails McCain in head to head polling…when these ‘likely voters’ become ‘unlikely’, democrats can hang it up.
Paul F and William S:
Lots to enjoy in Paul’s … substantial … posting #59, including the memorable image of elite shepherds directing lemming traffic. Did you envision the canine or the human variety of high-class shepherds? And were they pointing toward or away from the coastal cliffs?
Seriously, though, I think Paul overstates, big time, the risk to democracy supposedly posed by the presence of superdelegates. The choice is not really between ideal democracy on the one hand and surrender to fascism on the other. All representative government involves delegating (oops, almost said super-delegating) *some* powers to others, and I don’t hear much call for ending that plan. Sure, the superdelegate thing is debatable as regards many details, but (IMO) it poses little threat to basic big-D Democratic principles, and even less to the small-d variety. We have much more to worry about in this area coming from the (big-R!) Republican direction.
William S., are you saying that superdelegates might be OK but only in tie-breaker situations (like the veep in the Senate)? I guess that makes mathematical sense, but then we’d need just one superdelegate, who would almost never vote. Is this what you’d prefer?
And why, William, are you so pessimistic, about the behavior of the “new” Obama-preferring voters? Are they more likely to stay home and pout if they don’t get their way than, say, Clinton-preferring voters? How do you know this?
As for Hillary trailing McCain in head to head polling … that’s a real problem. Alas, Obama shares it. Things could change, of course — for either candidate.
Paul: I’d better go with canine, just to be consistent re: furry quadrupeds. (Thanks for “…substantial…” — you are gentle and kind….)
You overstate to describe my position as a choice “between ideal democracy on the one hand and surrender to fascism on the other.” We never get ideal democracy. If we simply trust popular vote, yes, the masses will make mistakes. Nothing ideal There. And if it’s true that FDR, GHWB and GWB (and/or their administrations) each had a hand in manipulation to get us into wars, this alone doesn’t equal fascism. There is no ideal choice, but it may be preferable to risk the mistakes of the masses, and adjust later as needed, than to risk some of the worst consequences of elite intervention.
More evidence of how Dems articulate reservations re: Hillary:
“Clinton squanders support with inept, unseemly campaign” - Thomas F. Schaller
February 27, 2008
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-op.schaller27feb27,0,5213173.column
can anyone tell me what would have been the proper action to take after
the destruction of the world trade towers and the 6 plus thousand people
who were lost to us?
Paul…Maybe some would stay home and pout…but many of these young black, white and hispanic voters would just figure that the ‘winning’ candidate had been manipulated out of the nomination. These are not groups that have turned out well in the past. I don’t think a candidate chosen by super delegates rather than the democratic process will inspire them out of their usual apathy.
As to the roll of super-delegates…I understand how they could play a roll if the ‘elected’ delegates are extremely close in number…and no…one delegate would not serve the purpose. The point is that these delegates should consider the states and districts that they come from, along with their personal accordance with the candidates’ platforms, their sense of the relative electability of the candidate, their input on the running mate…etc., etc. Not to mention which candidate might appoint their brother postmaster.
I also understand that the way states porportion delegates is not always strictly democratic. And super-delegates can have some sway in addressing that.
Regarding head to head numbers…average of 7 polls
Obama leads McCain by 3.7% (6.7% undecided)
McCain leads Clinton by 1.5% (6% undecided)
Bright: Regarding your post #64, at risk of thread drift, I’m curious what you think would have been proper.
Many options:
1. As with Pearl Harbor, JFK assasination, shuttle disasters, etc., have an investigation to see what went wrong and how we can do better to avoid it in the future. If anyone inside the US government, or issuing visas overseas is found negligent, hold them responsible, fire them, etc. Have a full investigation, not a cover-up or whitewash.
2. Once it’s determined who did it, who financed it, who organized it, go after ‘em:
- If it’s found that Osama did it, find him and bring him to justice (Osama got away; some within the US military and CIA claim we * let * him get away. What gives?).
- If it’s found that it was a conspiracy financed through Pakistan, funded by some from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, instigated by some inside the US government so as to advance some geo-political agenda, then bring charges of treason against ‘em.
3. Skip the investigation and assume you know who did it, and look outside the US for people to blame and go after, especially if they have oil in their country, or opium, or an oil pipeline planned.
4. Revenge: Kill as many of “them” (who? Terrorists? Muslim civilians?) as “they” did of us (already done that, many times over.)
5. Reform the way we issue visas, etc.
6. More protection and security at airports, harbors, other resources, etc.
Take a poll: You’ll find that 3 and 4 are popular, but so are 1 and 2 in some circles. It’s a hard call. People would often rather hear and believe what they want to believe rather than seek a potentially painful truth. It’s just human nature.
This may not be totally unrelated to the presidential elections: If there isn’t another catastrophe before they are held, or an assassination, some might call for a new investigation to bring to light those things the first 9/11 commission ignored or glossed over. At least one (perhaps two) of the “also ran” candidates have raised this issue.
Brendon might support a new investigation (see post 35 on this thread).
Paul F. Thank you for your response to my earnest question. I’ll tell you all I seem to know, seem to know, seem to know about 9/11.
I have heard on CNN book channel that there were weapons of mass destruction that were buried and disassembled, that Saddam Hussein
(Aka - It’s a damn shame but whose sane?) I have heard also that Saddam did not have any weapons, but made it a point to send out that rumor so that he would be feared even more than he was…and then he would refute the rumor to keep his enemies, of which he had many, guessing.
A short time after the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon and the PA flight disasters…I refuse to call them all 9/11 for convenience or whatever….I saw a video of Osama Bin Laden and his right hand man, you know the one whose name I cannot think of, but was supposedly the mastermind and Doctor who engineered the offense, well,
they were sitting in their cave, being recorded by a US spy, unbeknownst to them. The voiceover the video said that OBL was saying that he did not know the buildings (tall towers) would melt down like they did, that OBL was only trying to make headlines with a much smaller strike, and then, he laughed in what seemed to be sheer delight in his surprize and results.
After that, I heard from an astute friend that the reason OBL was allowed to be uncaptured (I know, I know, it’s not a word, yet) is because the reprisals and repercussions from his capture would be much more than anyone wanted to deal with as he would be considered a martyr for the cause, and given his state or his position or level with the people would
be out of control. The last thing the Saudis want is a few million young
men who have no jobs or no future hope for jobs be set up behind a cause like that.
Given all that, and that Dubya wanted to continue his Dad’s Kuwait war, for
repletion of US status ,and oil, I suppose, as Big George did not leave that
in such prudent shape.
As for trying to work it out, I think there were attempts. Who is to say if the attempts were enough. It was a long time I think before anyone got
that we weren’t dealing with the familiar western mind. The middle eastern people are very, very different from anyone else around in that they do think in things in terms of hundreds of years and longer. Not to mention the fact that there are so few interpreters of their languages.
While we can barely hold onto one thought blah blah blah…now what was I saying? Oh, many haven’t shifted one paradigm in 1200 million days, I am certain.
Their salt roads and silk roads are still actually made of salt and silk respectively. I hope your eyebrows stay on your heads. And I will admit
to being completely wrong, but then I just don’t know cuz I wasn’t there.
I don’t have a clue as to what to do. I think George W is doing the best he knows how to protect American interests, be it oil, or democracy. I don’t think there is a good way to handle war, cuz it’s like I said about using food for fuel, when you start with a bad premise, you promise yourself a bad outcome in the end.
I do know that I am still here and still using oil for fuel and for heat, like most of us are. I’d say that’s a good thing til we get something better going
full time. But don’t hate the Bushes because they gave you what you needed or wanted or wouldn’t do without…blame that on the industrial revolution. Who voted for that?
Bright,
Re #67 (about 9/11, OBL rumors, etc.): Are you proposing some connection between all this and the present election?
Paul, not exactly sure what you mean, so I guess no, but I was thinking about how
when Bill Clinton as the ex-President, was touring around the country
and on CNN, I saw him practically beg the American people to allow
phone tapping and credit card information because he said that the men involed in the tradgedy of
the World Trade Center, the PA plane crash and the Pentagon destruction where thousands of people were
killed and injured, had been using credit cards and phones openly and that we should have been able
to avert the whole disaster if we had watched those areas closely. Everyone is down on Bush
for the Privacy Act stuff, but no one has actually read the thing, yet Clinton went all out
for that sort of thing as well. I am just trying to line up the truth so that people will
see to vote for the most deserving of the candidates and not for any other implied contrived
or petrified reason. Personally, I am not all that enamoured of any of the candidates, and
can only hpe that what they say is true about how the Office uplifts the President-elect.
I am sure both sides of done their share of blustering and wrecking our country.
Also, please don’t forget Clinton knew about this terrorist stuff early on, and could have worked on it
but chose to ignore it so that his presidency wasn’t damned by it. Furthermore, we had been in
Afganistan a long time ago when the Russians were getting sent home from there in shoe boxes.
This isn’t new stuff.
And, two more things and I am all out, and that is that the economy is the number one reason
people are going to elect or not elect some one…or so say polls in double digits.
Usually the party in power at the time gets the boot, but I just wonder how people are going
to like it when taxes go up again in an economic correction cycle.
And that the war will be secondary in determining voting preferences, as it is over there and not so much
here, my prayers and gratitude going out to the soldiers and families as I speak.
That’s about it for me, cuz, as I have said in other threads I am no political whiz, I just want
to do my part as best as I can to help people see alternative views.
Paul F:
In ref to #62, in which we were discussing the degree to which “elite” superdelegates in the Democratic nomination process compromise democratic principles. You wrote:
… We never get ideal democracy. If we simply trust popular vote, yes, the masses will make mistakes. … There is no ideal choice, but it may be preferable to risk the mistakes of the masses, and adjust later as needed, than to risk some of the worst consequences of elite intervention.
As a card-carrying member of “the masses”, I certainly agree that we (well, everyone but me) sometimes make mistakes. We mass folk elected W (in 2004, anyway … ) and Jesse, for instance, and apparently we’re reluctant, in our group wisdom, to elect folks with too many X chromosomes, the wrong racial or ethnic characteristics, the wrong religion or — worst of all — no religion at all.
But what stumps me, Paul, is your preference for “adjust[ing] later as needed” as opposed to “elite intervention”. Who, if not some “elite”, decides when and how to adjust? I can hardly think of a better definition of “elite intervention.”
PS. Concerning membership in the masses, I treasure the memory from my college years of attending a political event put on by a Maoist or perhaps Trotskyist organization. (I was politically clueless, but food was promised.) When the event started one of the organizers explicitly welcomed various subgroups of the (very small) crowd, including “intellectuals” and “lumpen.” I was certainly nobody’s idea of an intellectual, but chafed a bit to be thought “lumpen.”
Bright: Beware thread drift, but as far as 9/11 relates to the presidential election, I know that Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich have openly supported new investigations of 9-11, but this does not mean they explicitly claim it was an inside job; Ron Paul claims it was more bungling and negligence, for instance, but some of these second-tier candidates have been explicit about the limitations of the initial investigation, and in favor of a new one.
When heckled at a campaign event by people claiming 9-11 was an inside job, Bill Clinton responded firmly, “…inside job? How dare you. How dare you.” Some might expect that Hillary would not favor a new investigation. Or maybe Bill was just pandering to the anti-conspiracy-theory folks.
Obama has responded to the 9-11 question this way:
“While I do not believe the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks, I do think it should be held accountable for the unacceptable mistakes it made in the run-up to that terrible day. The blunders that occurred prior to the 2001 attacks were inexcusable and often outrageous. The series of clear warnings about the potential use of hijacked planes as weapons is just one example of why the “surprise” of 9/11 should have been anticipated. In my view, proof of government complicity is not necessary when making the argument that the U.S. should accept some responsibility for what happened on 9/11.”
Regarding Saddam, that’s not really a 9-11 issue. No substantive connection to 9-11 was uncovered, and Bush admitted as much, after misleading many to believe there was a link (at one point about 70% of Americans believed we were attaching Iraq because of a link to 9-11). But it is a presidential campaign issue. Candidates might be asked: If you wanted to go to war, and the polls were against it, would you manipulate intelligence, as Bush-Cheney did with the office of special plans, or work with countries that hired PR firms to tell lies, as GHWB and Kuwait did?
Regarding video of Osama after 9-11, the first reports showed that Osama claimed no involvement in 9-11. Then a video whose authenticity is disputed showed a man claimed to be OBL, who looked remarkably unlike OBL in a number of key ways, conveniently claimed knowledge or reponsibility. It’s probably as fake as the yellow-cake documents. Some key CIA and military who were involved in certain operations to get OBL as he fled to Pakistan have gone on record saying they believe certain scape routes were intentionally not covered so that OBL could escape. Kissinger, who was first chosen to head the 9-11 commission, and the Bush family, have ties to the bin Laden family. The press in the rest of the world is all over this kind of stuff, but the US media is relatively silent because it just doesn’t sell well, or because it goes against the grain of corporate advertisers, etc.
About two months before she was killed, Benazir Bhutto claimed that OBL had been murdered by a man with connections to the Pakistani military and intelligence community. But even after he’s dead, OBL continues to make tapes and videos. These may be creative productions by others to manipulate US opinion or policy.
Yes, this is why I spoke of the “Fog of War”, the Telephone game, and now, ‘The calling for a new investigation makes me look like I would be a good President ploy.”
Bo states, as you said,Paul, In my view, proof of government complicity is not necessary when making the argument that the U.S. should accept some responsibility for what happened on 9/11.” I wonder what that really means.
I think we have noted that we had blundered as a nation, and as many nations have, you can always find blame. Blame for being too trusting, blame for being lax in security measures, blame for not recognizing the truth when it looks so much like other truths and untruths. Good grief. People, we are the government, men and women just like us run this country…in both little and small ways. The same people that err on my insurance payouts, that take phone numbers down from me, me, myself not even being able to interpret my own dh’s simple sentence to me correctly. Maybe it is so much more about appearance than one can even
imagine. So, back to Hill and Ob…
When Hill says something, she looks all bent out of shape, when Ob says something he looks like that’s exactly what he should be saying. Why is that? Hill is from a suburb of Chicago. We talk fast and say what;s on our mind. Ob’s been brought up on the midwest farm-africa-hawaii connection with some preacher thrown in there for effect.
Anyway;
Iraq was chosen for the war theatre stage due to it’s readiness for change,
due to the fact that we realized we should not have installed Saddam in the first place and had to correct that error, and because of it’s geographical location that would make it easy for terrorist or insurgents to get to on foot and such. Bush has admitted the error. We have admitted the responsiblity to having allowed the terrorists to invade our country and attack us in a brutal and terrible way. Whether or not OBL is still alive,
I care not. If it wasn’t him, it would be another and another until they are wiped out, surrender or they all start worshiping Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie and playing the lotto. Gotta go.
Paul Z.: You write,
Hmmm…. So if the electorate finally wakes up and decides (after 6-7 years) that, even if elections were stolen or electoral fraud committed, perhaps too many made the mistake of voting for Bush, then this process of waking up could be described as citizens becoming more enlightened and elite?
So why not have some elite folks just meddle early on, instead of waiting that long? Is that where you’re going?
Well, one risk is that if you let the DFL leadership be the meddlers, why not let the folks in Italy who arranged for the forgery regarding the yellow cake be the elite meddlers? Etc.?
My point: If you start having the elite meddle, and if you design systems by which an elite can meddle, then you might get a system in which you can’t always choose what kind of elite are meddling. You might get the elites in the Bush White House deciding that, starting on 9/11, the White House staff needs to start taking that anti-anthrax drug, cipro, but not the legislative or judiciary.
In other words, having the elite meddle is fine as long as you have a benevolent elites. But you can’t always choose your elites once you surrender that power to them systematically.
The choice is not between foolishness and facism, but the choice may be (in part) between the risks of those extremes. Does that distinction make sense?
And more than all that, I think the choice involves much more. We don’t operate on a single, linear scale between the risks of popular vote and those of elitism:
- We also live in a materialistic culture of excess and distractions;
- we live in a country where, too often, we view politics as a spectator sport and expect the “experts” (the elected officials, the elites) to do all the work while we watch or stay home.
Consider the record-attendance at NFLD caucuses; it took seven years of GWB to wake us up this much. If more of us would be this active, and less distracted, more of the time, we might not be pushed around lemming-style.
Might not. But I watched a documentary recently called “Uncounted,” which included the story of a software programer–a conservative Republican–who was asked by some Republicans in FL to design a program that would make it possible to “flip” the results on a voting machine; if Harpo got 567 votes and Zeppo got 321 votes, you click the right (non-intuitive, hidden) spot or character on the screen, and suddenly the results are flipped, and Harpo gets 321, while Zeppo gets 567. For those comfortable being labeled “conspiracy theorists,” one could believe that, at least in some cases, the citizens may have made a wiser choice (or at least a different one), and had their will overturned.
But anyone who raises questions of voter fraud or sham investigations is quickly marginalized, sometimes by those who were not following the stories very closely, sometimes by insiders. If even Bill Clinton condems and marginalizes those who claim 9/11 was an “inside job,” this speaks volumes.