It’s not exactly the message you would expect to hear on election day. For those who know me it’s not a message they would ever expect to hear from me. As I drove to work this morning after casting my vote I got thinking about how destructive an uninformed vote can be. I won’t claim that there is a definable standard of what constitutes being informed. I think that is a decision that must be left to each potential voter, but for those who know they are not informed (those that can’t even see past the party label enough to recognize the party platform for example) not voting just might be your patriotic duty.
Tag: elections
Now that both running mates have been announced I can share my reactions. In both cases I think that the candidate made a good pick for their individual positions. I have previously written positively about both of the running mates. I said that Sarah Palin, with a record of standing up to politics as usual, was the kind of candidate I would like to back (even though she was not among the presidential candidates). I said that Joe Biden had proposals that showed pragmatism and promise of rational thought.
Biden offers an image of experience for Obama. Palin offers an image of youth and augments the faded image of independent thinking that McCain once had. Some people complain that Palin is too inexperienced to be in line to succeed an aging president – that line of reasoning backfires on the Democrats since Biden is not at the top of their ticket.
The fact is that Obama and Biden appear to be well suited to each other and to complement each other in their individual strengths. Likewise, McCain and Palin appear to be well suited to each other and to fill the gaps in their respective resumes. Truthfully, by June of next year both the President and the Vice President (whoever they are) will have more experience in foreign policy than any of the candidates do now.
I agree with what some analysts have said – that the VP selection is more important in this election than in most – but even so I don’t vote for the vice president unless I can support the president.
Two weeks ago I suggested that our tendency as voters is to vote against the subject of any given election. This morning my brain supplied me with a possible explanation as to why that might be. Scott Hinrichs has written on various occasions about the fact that we expect more from our president than could ever be met by one person. When my brain connected those two ideas I began to wonder if the reason we tend to vote against whoever is in our focus is because the more we focus on someone the easier it is to see that they could never do all that we expect of them as President.
Thoughts?
I really wish I could find the article I glanced at yesterday postulating that the presidential race is not looking like a blowout for Obama because the contest has been framed as a referendum on Obama rather than a referendum on Bush and the Republican party.
The thought that struck me is that when an election gets framed as a referendum on a candidate that candidate or party usually loses. I think that the reason that Gore did not receive enough support in 2000 to overcome the Nader voters is that the voters were fatigued by the emotionally charged Clinton presidency. In 2004 the vote got framed as a question of whather Kerry was really presidential or if he was just another politician. I think that 1996 was 2004 with Dole in the place of Kerry.
The exception seems to be 1988 which was a referendum on Reagan in which Bush I won.
What do you think? Is this how the outcome of our elections is decided – by voting against whoever the debate is centered on? (If so I would predict that 2010 will be a bad year to be a Democrat seeking election – regardless of the outcome this year.)
As a perpetual proponent of incresing voter turnout, I enjoyed considering the story on NPR about Rethinking The Tuesday Vote. I’m not sure when voters would be noticable less busy than Tuesday – especially considering that we would not want the vote to be on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday as each of those days is sacred to one major religion or another. If we ever find an easy way to increase voter turnout that would not cost lots of money we should do it. (I thinkthat changing the day of the week would be easy to implement so long as there is advanced warning.)
I’m always interested in ways to open up government to the average voter so I was interested when I learned about GOOOH (Hat Tip – Mark Towner). Their mission is to change the way we elect representatives and try to make those representatives more accountable to their constituents.
Because GOOOH is a process for selecting representatives (not an agenda-based party platform) we expect a very liberal candidate to be selected in San Francisco and a very conservative one in Colorado Springs — but it will be up to the GOOOH members in each district to decide.
They obviously recognize that some of their ideas will generate some friction:
The most controversial part of GOOOH is that the founder, Tim Cox, has proposed excluding politicians, actively prosecuting attorneys, and individuals with family assets over $11.5 million (250 times the median income) from the process. They are excluded not because they are bad people, but because they are overly represented in government today and, generally speaking, no longer seem to represent the common man.
Personally, as I have spent lots of time thinking and discussing the issue of term limits, I also have a problem with their current stance of promoting a limit of two terms (4 years) in the House -that seems excessively strict to me. On the other hand, it sparked an idea that I would like to explore sometime about the possible ramifications of having a bicameral legislature where one house is term limited and the other is not – allowing voters to be the term limiters in one house and forcing voters to seek fresh faces regularly in the other.
So I like the general idea and I figure that if I want to have any impact in massaging the positions of the group now is the time to act. In any case it’s worth looking into and I would recommend that anyone who is interested in improving our government should go have a look and decide if this is worthy of their support.
When we recognize that most “news” is really entertainment it’s easy to see that politics is really a sport. John Florez is absolutely right in saying It’s time we all join the game and back some rookies. Assuming that more people actually join the game sometime before election day John suggests:
Maybe this time voters will elect those candidates who will work in the public’s interest rather than being influenced by special interest money; and who will concentrate on exercising their “oversight responsibilities” — monitoring and enforcing the laws they pass — that incumbents have ignored. Maybe they can do “take-aways” regarding outdated and cumbersome laws that now fatten government at taxpayers’ expense and bog it down with process and no results.
Until voters stop reading incumbent’s mailings and start rooting for those who really believe government belongs to the people, the lobbyists will continue making their “drops” and make government work for them. Unless voters consider legislative candidates who take their oversight responsibilities seriously, rather than allowing them to write more laws, our government will get fatter. Voters who keep voting for the same team without looking at the player’s performance become part of the problem. Accountability is trash talk unless someone is there to make sure things get done and there are consequences.
Even if many voters take the time to get informed and participate in the process it’s possible that many incumbents would win and return to the seats they already hold. It’s all too easy for each incumbent to blame “the system” or their fellow legislators (especially those in the other party) for any existing problems that the voters see. That is why the invitation to “back some rookies” is important. In Utah that generally means that you should support a democratic party candidate. The only exceptions would be if there is some reason why the democratic candidate is not qualified for the position they are running for, or if there is a rookie on the Republican side of the race. If there are two qualified rookies then any vote you are comfortable with is a good vote, otherwise give preference to any rookie who looks like they are up to the job they are seeking over any incumbent.
We need to establish a pattern of voters kicking out incumbents (it’s not good enough to just have a regular turnover of incumbents retiring) so that candidates who win (thus becoming incumbents) will have a large incentive to be responsive to the voters rather than the party or anyone with deep pockets.
Seeing all the recent commentary on the Democratic Primary contest I have seen the pattern of less and less substantive discussion and more and more trash talk (by trash talk I’m not referring to the tone of the “discussion” but rather the way that it looks just like trash talk in sports – it has nothing to do about athletic ability and everything to do with getting in your opponent’s head).
Democrats have been saying for most of the primary season that they were thrilled to have such a large slate of well qualified candidates. Now that their contest has been narrowed to two candidates and no room for substantive discussion I’ve decided to quit paying attention to the primaries. Once we get into the general election I’m sure I’ll have some opinions to offer on the candidates, the issues, and the election process. Until then – I’ll focus on more local politics.
Kip, at the Wide Middle, invites others to share Questions for the Candidates. This comes the very day that I have a question that I would ask any congressional candidate.
What part, or parts of the Change Congress movement would you pledge to support (if any). The four principles of the movement are that:
- Candidates and congressmen should accept no money from lobbyists or PACs
- Congress should vote to end earmarks
- Candidates should agree to run publicly-financed campaigns
- Congress should support reform to increase Congressional transparency
Candidates and citizens can pledge to support any combination of the above principles and citizens should hold candidates responsible for their campaign promises (this pledge and others).
I was pleased to read from Phil Kerpen on Earmarks:
An amendment to the budget sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been collecting some unlikely cosponsors over the past couple of days, including both Democratic presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The amendment would establish a bold loophole-free ban on earmarks for one year. After the election, the new president and congressional majority would face a choice of bringing back earmarks under some reformed process or extending the temporary ban. Either result would be a major improvement. . . The loophole-free moratorium embodied in the DeMint-McCain amendment would actually end earmarking for at least one year.
Not mentioned there is that this amendment is being opposed by the Senate leadership of both parties. What would draw all the presidential candidates together in opposition to the leadership of both parties? My suspicion was that all the presidential candidates are facing an election but the party leaders in the Senate are not. The reason that would make a difference would be explained by the majority of Americans favoring an end to earmarking.
My confidence in that hypothesis fell when I discovered that Mitch McConnell (the minority leader) is facing re-election (although his 30 point win in his last election might mean that he’s not very worried about his re-election chances). Despite my lowered confidence, that is the best theory I have right now.
Whatever the reason for this consensus, I hope that the amendment passes and is signed by the president.