The Independent Senator

Yesterday I sat down to start writing about why I haven’t switched back to being a Republican now that Bush is gone. I did a couple of paragraphs to warm up and figured I would finish over the next couple of day. Before I could sleep my computer and head off to work the news started to break that Senator Arlen Specter was switching parties.

All of a sudden I was back in political news junky mode the likes of which I hadn’t been since the election. On the bus I followed every twitter link that mentioned Specter. I’ve long been a fan of Arlen Specter. I don’t agree with him on every position true but I think that’s true for every voter and politician. What I like about Specter is that he is notoriously hard on the Whip’s office. The man has his own opinions, his own research and damn it he’s going to vote the way he feels is right. I respect that. Hell, I love that.

Reading the reactions across the political spectrum you would think I was alone in that. To the right he is a traitor that should have been tossed years ago. To the left he is untrustworthy. Both sides seemed convinced that he’s going to screw them on card check. Independence in American politics seems to be the greatest vice these partisan day.

Independent, however, is exactly how an American Senator is supposed to behave. The reason 60 is such a magical number is because that’s how many Senators it takes to block a single Senator’s opposition. The Senate exists to give voice to minority opinion. The rules are there to encourage cooperation and compromise. Durbin and Kyl are supposed to have it rough. That’s a good thing.

Tactically I can’t see this as anything but a loss for the Republicans and a stupid one at that. The Club for Growth is starting to look like a super secret left wing establishment designed to cost the Republican Party as much damage as possible. If the party leaders can’t get Tom Ridge into this race and Pat Toomey is indeed the candidate he’s going to get killed by Specter in the general election. A Specter who will probably broker a compromise on Card Check. A compromise that would not have happened if he was still caucusing with the Republican’s.

HRC

Well the news is all abuzz with the idea that Hillary Clinton may be Obama's Secretary of State. I just want to weigh in that I think this is a bad idea. Not that I don't think that she would be an effective SoS, rather that she is far more valuable in the Senate. I think the Senate needs Hillary. I think the country and the institution is well served when there are people on the far ends of the political spectrum that know how do drill down an issue to find common ground. For the longest time the left has had Ted Kennedy to do this job but that may not be for long. I think Clinton is the natural heir to that position and we would all be better served if she stayed put and took that mantle. 

Election Day

Before tomorrow dawns and the 2012 presidential campaigns go into full swing I thought it might be time to weigh in on the present political landscape. 

First the easy prediction: Barack Obama will indeed be elected President. How big will the margin be will decided pretty early. If Indiana is close when its polls close then McCain is in for a very short night of remaining a candidate. Personally I think I'm having a hard time seeing Obama winning Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina or Missouri. The problem for McCain is that he has to win every one of those states plus taking Pennsylvania for him to have any chance. The best McCain can hope for without Pennsylvania is a 269-269 tie in which case the House of Representatives would give the election to Obama. This scenario also counts McCain winning New Hampshire, and Nevada as well as all of the above states which is highly unlikely. Far more likely is Obama winning New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia and cruising to a 291-247 win. Less likely but still possible is more of a blowout with many or all of the swing states going for Obama along with a popular vote of more than 50%. That combined with what will certainly be at least 15 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate will give the new president the first real mandate from the electorate since the Reagan revolution. 

That of course is the segue. Obama is the new Reagan. These are troubled times. We have couple of unpopular wars, who may not be going exactly badly, but show little signs of ever ending. The world economy has found itself in its worst state in decades. The President has proven massively ineffective at dealing with anything and is horribly unpopular at home and even more unpopular around the world. America needs someone that can articulate a populist competent optimism. Shockingly enough it was the Democratic party that ran exactly that campaign. That more than anything else is why they are poised to win big today. 

Not Quite Right

Well, I listened a little too much to the tracking polls and got caught up in a little bit of Obamamania. In typical fashion for me just when I'm thinking about switching allegiances because of electability questions my first choice comes roaring back. Hillary is going to end up beating Obama and Romney is suffering his second straight loss to a different opponent. Romney is on the ropes and the "front runner" in the Republican field still hasn't been able to break 10%. I was disappointed that Ron Paul didn't beat Giuliani. Still not a bad showing from the libertarian side of the party. I think that New Hampshire was probably his last shot to show off. Paul has got some money in the bank so he's not about to disappear but his chances to break into the top three are pretty much over. 

New Hampshire

Last night I got into my first political fight of the season. It made me feel horrible and reminded me that I had promised not to pay too much attention to this presidential race. Yea, I'm doing a good job keeping that promise. Anyway that fight plus the results in Iowa and what's going to happen in New Hampshire have got me taking a new look at Barack Obama. I've always liked him but I lean a little more towards the center and the Clinton candidacy. But I'm finding more and more that I'm alone in the center with that attitude. Iowa got me looking at an electoral map again. Obama makes the Republican's unable to take the south for granted. They will have to spend time and money there. Not so if Hillary is the candidate. Barack wins some midwestern states that Hillary will have some trouble competing in. I am still hoping that they join forces it's just that now I'm wondering who I really want at the top of the ticket. 

Anyway this was supposed to be about New Hampshire so here are my predictions now that the polls have opened. 

Democrats

1. Obama
2. Clinton
3. Edwards
4. Richardson

Republicans

1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Huckabee
4. Paul
5. Giuliani
6. Thompson

We'll take a look in 24 hours and see how I did. 

The Iowa Caucuses

So my pledge to stay out of the political mess so much in the new year was tested by tonight's Iowa Caucuses. The pundits are going to be all over this one for awhile but here is my limited take. 

First I think a 3% showing in any state from the supposed front runner is pathetic. Whether or not Rudy Giuliani spent dollar one or even set foot in the state you would expect someone that is trying to carry the banner for the party to show better than that. Compared with the overall turnout and excitement generated on the Democratic side makes me feel pretty confident about throwing Iowa in the blue column if Giuliani gets the nomination. 

Second, I'm not buying into the Clinton on the ropes theories. Obama is from a neighboring state. He's supposed to do well and Edward's might as well have changed his mailing address to Iowa for all the time he's spent there since the 2004 election. Unlike Rudy, Clinton may have finished out of the top two but she did so with nearly 30% of the vote. She's still got money and momentum. I'll reevaluate if she does poorly in New Hampshire but I'm still calling her the candidate to beat. 

Speaking of New Hampshire Romney needs to show up big time in New Hampshire because not only did he spend a lot of time and energy in Iowa for a second place finish it looks like he's not going to knock anybody out. Thompson and McCain finishing in a dead heat for third place is probably enough to keep them going for at least a couple of more states. And there is no way that Ron Paul with his twenty million dollars and army of fanatic supporters is going away anytime soon. So the Republican's remain divided with six candidates splitting up the ticket for the foreseeable future. It sounds like I'm probably writing about politics again on Saturday. 

Early News

I did not do what I was supposed to, what I had been prodding myself to do lately this morning. I did not open up Scrivener and start writing before checking to see if anything horrible had happened to the world since I went to bed. Predictably something had and I spent the first part of my morning refreshing the front page of the New York Times watching as Benazir Bhutto had been attacked, was fine, was injured, was critically injured, may be dead, was killed, and finally was assassinated. Television does updates better because it is a very now medium. It is strange to watch the reports come in in the printed media. For a little while I was refreshing the Google News feed by time which laid out the speculation before giving in to the facts. As for the murder itself, what can I say?  The winners are those whose only god is named pain and chaos. More people are going to die.  More suffering is on the way. Freedom from oppression, corruption, fear and uncertainty are farther away for all Pakistanis. An unstable country in an unstable part of the world slips closer to chaos and lawlessness. 

Money Bomb

So today was the second major Ron Paul money bomb. You may recall that the first one was on the fifth of November in order to commemorate Guy Fawkes night. That first one yielded almost four million dollars. Tonight it looks like he's broken some more records having raised six million dollars from online contributions. Combined with the nearly 5 million he started the quarter it is becoming more and more likely that Ron Paul's candidacy has got the money to start raising it's voice and being heard. I'll tell you the truth I like his chances in New Hampshire. Let's see how the Granite State's notoriously independent voters react. 

Dictator (Not Quite) For Life

It’s rare that the news can surprise me. Politicians lying, socially conservative Senators involved in gay orgies, economic collapse, French strikes, Russian journalists committing suicide by handcuffing themselves and shooting themselves in the back of the head, violence in the Middle-East, Africa, Oakland are just par for the newspapers. This morning however the newspaper floored me. Hugo Chavez lost his bid to change the Venezuelan constitution in a narrowly defeated referendum and then reacted by saying that, “He wouldn’t have wanted that Pyrrhic victory.” The man was looking for a mandate and instead lost a squeaker of an election 49 to 51 percent. The changes would have changed the Presidential term to seven years and removed it’s term limits. There were however signs that this wasn’t the last word on the subject. At his post election press conference Chavez called the setback “…another ‘for now’”, referring to his reaction when he lost his first coup attempt in 1992. Chavez knows that he has until his present term expires in 2012 to ram these changes through. Still I never expected him to allow this outcome to happen in the first place so who knows what the future brings for Venezuela and it’s oil-rich effect on us all. Besides term limits don’t necessarily mean an end to power. Just take a look at Russia. 

Election Day

I'm going to the polls in San Francisco for the first time today. Last year I forgot to file a change of address so I trekked down to Redwood City for my Congressional Vote. In what is supposed to be record low turnout in San Francisco I'll be voting on a variety of citywide issues. Here is my scorecard. Of course, it may be December before we know the results.

A - No
B - No
C - Yes
D - Yes
E - No
F - Yes
G - Yes
H - No
I - No
J - Yes
K - No
Mayor - Yes
District Attorney - No
Sheriff - No

San Francisco Pride Parade

I took the day off to take pictures of the Pride Parade. The first 15 are up on my Flickr page with more to come. I took over 400 pictures and about 10 short videos. I'll be spending the next week or two working on getting more posted.

My camera proved to be a little annoying with all the action going on. The processing delay seems to be over a second so it was difficult to get multiple shots. I've already got my eye on next year's tax return for a new camera. This year will be all about figuring out what features I want and need. A better auto focus comes to mind. I thought for sure that I had got this shot of my California State Senator, Carole Midgen (I-80 Pinball Wizard). My camera decided to focus on the building behind her. Disappointing.

I Love Gridlock

The conservative side of me is always happier when our government is divided. As long as the branches are fighting themselves and each other they are doing less to screw up the country and the world. That's why my heart was warmed when I read this article from yesterday's The Hill on the Republican bid to stop changes to the earmark process. Frankly, I have no opinion on the rule change itself. When it comes to money I have long given up trusting either party. The whole purpose of earmarks, no matter when they are slid into the budget, is to hide spending in a document that is too massive for anyone to read before it is voted on. All I know is that slowing down the legislative process in a congress as deeply divided as this one before presenting bills to a president of a different party is going to make it unlikely that they are going to be able to do much of anything. So the Libertarians win without having much of a caucus. Not bad in my opinion.

A Nice Take on the Republican Debate

Here is a nice take on some of the foreign-relations quotes in last night's Republican debate, from Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

My First Political Contribution of the Season

Hillary may be my personal front runner at the moment but my first dollars went to a Republican candidate. From Texas. I can hardly believe that I just wrote that but frankly I like where Ron Paul is taking the debate. I think the longer he can stay in this thing the better the rhetoric on all sides. So I slipped him $10 and hope he can keep a campaign going as long as possible. This is probably the closest we will ever get to a viable Libertarian candidate. Check him out on The Daily Show.

Tough Week To Be a Politician

It is a tough week to be a corrupt politician (redundant?) Scooter Libby gets 2 and a half years and may not be able to avoid prison on appeal. The feds finally catch up William Jefferson but may not be finished handing out indictments to congressmen. The CHP thinks my own State Senator should be charged with reckless driving for getting into two accidents that she doesn't even remember. President Bush got trashed by members of his own party. Still that's all better than Senator Thomas of Wyoming who didn't even survive the week. I'll leave you with some video of Scooter, well, scooting.