Three Party System

This image may be taking the low road but with Halloween just around the corner I could not resist it. Incidentally, it is a real photo. No playing with the digital image. McCain said he made the face because he once again tried to walk off the wrong side of the stage. Message there?

I will leave that argument for commentators. I was more interested in a statistic I read today about the numbers of Republicans and Democrats in the United States. For European readers we are not evenly split. Nor is everyone in the United States Republican or Democrat.

In 2004 these two parties were evenly split with 37% of registered voters each. Which left 26% of registered voters "Independent". Read "Independent" as none of the above which is sometimes the only choice you get besides Republican and Democrat. There are Libertarians, Green Party, American Communist Party and yes, the American Nazi Party in some states. But few of those "also rans" manage to rally to the primaries. So some people, especially here in the Mountain West, will list themselves on the rolls as Republican or Democrat in order to vote in the primary and have a voice that early on. But I digress. That may be an entirely different blog.

Today the Democrats are 37% of the registered voters (less the newly registered which have not been effectively counted yet) and the Republicans are only 29%. That less than a third of the voters in the US is now radically split between the "educated conservatives" (their term) and Joe Six Pack or the "religious right."

So both parties have been playing the the independents to put their brand over the top in this election. This is just a guess but I think the 9% drop in registered Republicans defected to the Independents because of their unwillingness to be connected with that extreme religious right the Republicans have been courting the last few elections.

Do we have a three party system? No, because independents are just that - independent thinkers. And that is especially true here in the Mountain West. Many of us moved here because we did not like the rank and file of corporate America or big city living. We are very right on some issues - we want state control of our water and other resources. And very left on others - for me that is a woman's right to control her own life, but we are very independent on our liberal issues. Getting independents to agree on issues of importance to them is rather like herding cats.

Can any two parties pull us into their fold? I doubt it. Can McCain find the right direction to exit the stage? I doubt it.

I Have Voted

In part because New Mexico was one of the states investigated in 2004 by the BBC for voting and registration irregularities I drove the three hour round trip to my county seat to vote early.

I drove through the ranch land dominated by McCain/Palin signs on fences to vote for Obama. I had two Democratic candidates I wanted to support and one I decidedly wanted to vote against. I wanted my vote to count. I did not want problems on election day and have to cast a provisional ballot.

I am a registered Democrat but mostly because in this state the Democrats seem to have more people running in the primaries to vote for. If the Republicans have one for every office in the primaries they are doing well. In my youth I even was on the staff of a Republican Senator who was working to end the war in Vietnam. I vote issues and people. Not parties.

Well, until this whole Red State/Blue State crap. I wore blue to vote but I refuse to be so branded. And I think we need serious reform with the Electoral College. States should be able to divide their electors on the basis of percentage of vote. We can divide our Senators and our Congressmen. I voted for Democratic Senator Udall. He has been my US Representative for a good many years and I like his approach to issues and his response to his constituency. His vacated congressional seat is being hotly contested. I don't like the Democrat Lujan or the Republican so I voted Independent. I don't think he has a snowball's chance in the Bahamas but at least I can say I did not vote and am not responsible for either of the other two.

I wish there had been, like on the multiple choice tests of college, a "none of the above" option. There were a couple instances when I would have opted for that. As it was I chose to not vote for a couple choices merely because I wanted it known that I did not approve of any choice offered me.

If either party learns anything from this election it should be that we do not like the electoral college as it stands today. I makes it so possible, as in 2000, for a person not liked by the majority of the people to be made president, and it leads to sharp divisions at a time when we should unite to solve our problems. And negative campaigning just makes it harder and harder to come together after the election.

If the parties are not going to work together for reform on elections, the electoral college, and campaign financing then we need to start a movement for a Constitutional Convention to change it ourselves.

Who was that masked man?

As Senator John McCain sashshays to the left to distance himself from Bush and Obama sidles up to the religious right to emphasis that he has the right moral values it is getting more and more difficult to tell the cat from the raccoons. Or this election from any other.

Wasn't this one suppose to be about change? Didn't us Democrats vote for Obama over Hillary because he was for change and she seemed a bit like the old guard? Wasn't this year the Democratic party was at last going to give us some hope?

Well, I'm not feeling it. In fact I have not blogged here for several days because I was just too stunned at what I was watching happen to all that hope for change. Now McCain is talking about change. But then he was so wonderfully positioned in Columbia when at last the hostages were rescued. Not unlike Bush reading to a kindergarten group during 9/11?

OK, I am a cynic. Seems like I have seen this same song and dance before. But now it seems this may well be our last dance. Because if something does not change one of two things may well happen: 1) we get taken over by another country after we crumble or 2) we finally wake up and riot in the streets.

Any opinions out there on that? Or are we all suddenly silent because we cannot believe what is happening yet again. Well, if it gets down to only a choice between age and beauty I am going for beauty. Got to feel good about something.

Super Delegates?

Chicago 1968 Democratic Convention

What's that wonderful line? If you can remember the sixties you didn't do them. Well, technically I didn't in that sense. I was this terribly serious student that got involved with the political issues of the time but not the sex, drugs, and rock and roll part. I came very late to that party. So I really remember the 1968 Democratic Convention. The party of inclusion blew it and called out the cops . . . or as we referred to them in those days . . . the pigs.

The end result was long lasting. The Democratic Party ended up deeply divided. Many of us young Democrats defected to the SDS, the Communist party, and later alternatives like the Green party. We are not easy to get back in the fold. I worked for Republican Senator Charles Goodall in the 70's because he was against the war in Vietnam. To this day my party registration depends upon the demographics of where I live. I like to vote in primaries so I register with whatever party gets me the best slate of candidates. Here in northern New Mexico that is Democratic.

But I vote my conscious. Which is a phrase I am sure both the Republicans and Democrats do not like hearing. And I align behind candidates because of issues I am deeply concerned about. Since McCain's stance on illegal immigration effectively nullifies that issue in the Presidential campaign I am in the Democratic camp because of Iraq and the economy and gas company profits.

But I digress. The subject of this blog was to be Super Delegates. After the disastrous 1968 convention and the subsequent lost White House to the Republicans the Democrats, to give them some credit, decided to mend their ways. And that was basically to oust the smoked filled room way of choosing a flag carrier and give more people a voice in picking standard bearer for the party. Ergo our current, and evolving, primary system. Mind you there is nothing in the constitution regarding primaries and they do not have to be democratic, small d. In 1982 the Democrats, capital D, came up with the super delegate concept but it has been largely under the radar until this election.

Last night I tried to explain this to a slightly younger friend of mine who did do the 60's. And is still endowed with that moral outrage that led to the fighting in the streets of Chicago. He wants this whole process to be transparent and democratic, small d. What are super delegates? Personally, I think they are the vestiges of those smoke filled rooms buffed and fluffed to be presentable. Will they ignore the popular vote, elected delegates, states carried, and will of the people? Only if they want 1968 all over again.

And the Democrats have been so great thus far this election. They conducted every primary with paper ballots or machines with a paper trail. The Republicans continued to use the electronic ones with no backup. They have let all the candidates play this out long after it would have once been called up short. And those voting in the primaries have turned out in record (and thus far peaceful) numbers. But as we near the end it is all going back to that smoked filled room of the party bosses - the Super Delegates. The ball is in your court. Are you going to play fair?

My non-political political analysis

The political pundits and talking heads are out in full force giving us their analysis of that the barely two-digit win by Hillary in Pennsylvania means. And blogland is full of finely tuned views too. This is not one of those. This is an artist's view of that this means, so it is very subjective.

One, clearly American Flag lapel pins do not matter (see previous blog), because Hillary has never worn one to my knowledge. Nor does dress for success. Throw that book out because I think she has horrid taste in pant suits. And a woman is suppose to wear a skirt for a job interview.

Two, there was a wide variance between the pre-primary polls which showed the gap being only 5% and the actual vote with 10%. (note: this was way down from the 30% Hillary started with.) But this difference seems to show that once we pull that curtain there are a huge group of white Democrats that are closet racists.

Three, the Hillary camp is probably going to use this little racial blip to say she is the one to go head to head with McCain. But don't buy that, because if the very White Male Democrat is closet racist he is probably also closet sexist (ask his wife and it probably is not that closeted). So when it is Hillary against McCain the white man with the military record will win every time. Just ask the KKK.

Four, and for me this is the really bad news, the old time dirty politics wins. That means the style of campaigns brought to you by Carl Rowe will be up and running in 2008. The Clintons are past masters. So this is the end of substance as we know it. It has been nice to debate some real issues for a change but the last debate proved in conjunction with the outcome of this primary that we are back to such clarifying terms as Flip Flopper.

Nothing is going to change. Hope is dead. Time to start meeting in back rooms and cellars and plan the revolution. Democracy was a nice experiment but it did not work. It can be purchased.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

I noticed yesterday that my intense interest in the outcome of the Democratic primary had not merely waned but vanished.

Perhaps due to our total technocratic world we are all suffering from attention deficit disorder. Make it march. If you cannot sum it up in the opening paragraph you have to at least made me want to search for your conclusions by reading the next paragraph or listening to the next pundit or catching the next speech.

Sorry but you lost me. This has taken entirely too long. And I don't like the direction it is taking because it seems to be veering back to the same old dirty politics I have come to hate. I was with a few friends last night who I generally like to discuss politics with. They are libertarians and while I don't always agree with them I like their ability to openly discuss the issues with some intelligence (unlike Republicans with their catch phrases). But last night we all did the token sentence or two and moved on to other subjects.

Mud was big. It is spring here in the high country and that means melting snow and lots of mud. Not the slinging kind which seems to still be going on out there in the political world. Oh, speaking of mud, we did discuss Spitzer but because everyone seems to have missed the point and seems to think it is a sex scandal. Everyone seems to have missed that he was committing fraud by setting up dummy accounts to funnel money into so he could pay for those $4,500 per hour sessions.

And we discussed water. That is a really big issue here out west and not a single political candidate for President has addressed it. Seems St. Georges, Utah wants water out of Lake Powell which is getting even lower than it was before because of the amount of water which has to be released to generate electricity for that energy hog Los Angeles. Seems everyone thinks snow levels this year will suddenly make up for four years of drought which brought the lake level to below 1967 when they were filling it. But snow is not that easy. It depends on which side of the mountain it falls. It didn't fall on that side.

On the good news the levels in the Rio Grande will be much higher but we had that declared a wild river and there are no dams on it for Los Angeles and Las Vegas to use to get electricity. And its water is so legislated with compacts and treaties that even if they want to build the pipeline Las Vegas cannot use its water for their fountains.

In short I think there is such a disconnect between the real world out here and politics as usual as to generate a chasm which I don't know that any party or any candidate is going to be able to bridge. Oh, and by the way, I love this definition of insanity: Continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. There was a point at which I had hope that it was going to be different this year. Wrong. Sorry folks.

Open Letter to the Democratic Party

That's it I am out of here. I am going down to my county office and re-registering as an Independent. The opening forays of the primary process was very encouraging but things have degenerated to the same awful political slime campaigns I hate. And I know where to place the blame.

And if you think the Democratic party is going to come together behind this candidate you have another think coming. I frankly am very closely watching who John McCain picks for his Vice Presidential running mate. And if I like him I am going there. Frankly there seems to be only one really wrong choice he can make; Secretary of State Rice. And not because she is a woman or black but because of her worship of GW Bush.

I think Hillary and her husband have played every single dirty trick in politics that is possible to play. And like GW she seems to have absolutely no conscious. She wants what she wants and she does not care a damn who she hurts. Reminds me a lot of Richard Nixon which historians now agree was a sociopath. Maybe President Clinton was like that too but he hid it better. Maybe all people that claw their way to positions of power are willing to do anything to get there. But what does that say of our leadership?

The more dirty tricks Hillary plays the more I would never vote for her, the more I would vote for anyone but, and the better Obama looks. Maybe this smear campaign she is on will betray her. Women love to rescue underdogs, especially the beaten and abused ones. Hillary is not a nice person.

And where has 12 years of Bush dynasty gotten us? Why would we want 16 years of a Clinton dynasty? I frankly think if Obama does not get the Democratic nod here we should launch him as an Independent candidate. It is about time this sick two party system comes to an end. It does not serve this country well. I don't know if it serves the people of this country AT ALL.

Those are the house rules

When I was a kid we played a lot of board games: Scrabble, Clue, Sorry, and Monopoly. Monopoly was probably are all time favorite at that time. And you quickly learned that everyone had a slightly different take on the game. So you played by the house rules - the rules of the house you were at.

The board would be brought out and the money divided up and the owner of the game would declare the house rules: All Chance and Community Chest money goes in the middle and anyone landing on free parking gets it, if a player lands on a property and does not want it the bank can hold an auction, etc.

The listing of the house rules (these changes to the official rules on the Parker Bros. box) could be lengthy and quite complex and you listened carefully because you had to play by those rules. No changing in mid stream. It was a long game and you stuck by the rules. It was not like poker where the rules and what was wild could change with every hand dealt. Or like George W. Bush where he thinks he can make a signing statement (over 1100 currently) that exempt him and the government from the law he just signed.

Or Hillary Clinton who did not play by the Democrat Party house rules on primaries set out this year. Michigan and Florida did not play by them either. Hillary took advantage of that by not (as all other candidates did) removing her name from the primary ballots for those two states. Now those states that broke the rules want a do-over (only acceptable in kids sandlot baseball or marbles in my opinion). Hillary just wants the results of the illegal primaries admitted to the record. She also wants extra time to produce her banking records (sanitation process?). In other words folks: She does not want to play by the house rules.

I don't know why this should surprise us. Her husband, President Bill Clinton, wanted to re-define the word sex in his impeachment trial. Don't get me wrong, I personally hated that whole process. Sure he lied but so has GW and when Bill lied nobody died. But we are trying to change the horrid political process here in the United States. The Democrats are trying to restore the public faith in the process. We are trying to restore the image of the United States in the world. So do we really want to elect another individual who fails to play by the rules? That thinks they are above the law, human decency, compassion, and inclusion in the world and its problems?

I don't.