If you’re into really good music, regardless of genre, you owe it to yourself to check out Rodrigo y Gabriela. As a couple of metal heads from Mexcio, Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero drifted to Dublin, Ireland and began playing high energy Spanish influenced guitar. They count among their inspirations everything from Salsa to Black Sabbath – their latest album even includes covers of Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and Metallica’s One.
I’ve made comments on a number of occasions that I’m not sure whether I’ll end up voting for McCain or Bob Barr. When I have, I have received DMs via Twitter, e-mails, and text messages with much the same comment, “If you vote for Barr, you’re just giving the election to Obama.” True enough. That is essentially the reason I’m still undecided. I’m not sure that I want to help tip that particular scale.
Making that argument to someone like me, however, is kind of a goofy thing to do. I’ve been involved in campaign politics for almost twenty years now. I’ve worked in politics at just about every level. If I’m looking at a third party, I fully understand the implications of that.
Further, I think anyone who watched the elections in 1992 and 2000 knows full well what that means. Even if I didn’t, however, it’s still a lame argument. It assumes you know more about what I want than I do.
When I decide to vote Libertarian (and that day will come soon, I suspect, though maybe not this year), It should send a signal that on my set of issues, I have determined the GOP has completely abdicated it’s support. Yet the best argument you can offer is I should vote for the guy that’s giving me nothing because it’s a better option than the other guy who will give me nothing.
The other rejoinder is, “you should vote GOP for no other reason than the possibility that liberals will retire from the Supreme Court.” Well, neither Republican nor Democratic appointees have done a lot for me lately. I have jokingly said, “the Constitution’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we’ve got now.” By that I implicate the Supreme Court as bit players in the larger partisan manipulation of society. Yesterday’s 5-4 decision on the rights of detainees is exemplary of that.
Look at the attempt to deny habeas corpus to the detainees held at Guantanamo and the GOP’s willingness to toss that out for at least one set of people. The Constitution seems pretty clear on trials:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Now, admittedly, I’m not a legal scholar, but I don’t see any reference in the the sixth amendment that carves out military tribunals, Guantanamo Bay, and enemy combatants. That almost half the court (the conservative appointees no less) would toss out long held Constitutional protections in an overtly partisan manner is discouraging. Add to that the willing treatment of these detainees as somehow less than human and you’ve got a court that makes me more nervous than thankful.
With that precedent set, what would stop another Congress from deciding that Republicans did not deserve such rights if we protest? Based on the anti-militia group fever that ran rampant in the mid 1990s, I could see a Democrat political machine rounding up the most activist Republicans and holding them without trial as enemy combatants because “they might belong to militias.”
That also argues that the five liberal members of the court were not exactly acting with pure motives, either. The fact that the majority’s decision read like it was written from DailyKos talking points was not lost on me. The Supreme Court has become as partisan as Congress and now makes decisions based on prevailing partisan views, not based on the Constitution.
Why would your best argument against my third party vote be, “We’ll give you even more reactionary judges willing to set dangerous precedents for partisan reasons?”
So here’s what I’m trying to say… Don’t talk to me as if I have no idea what a third party vote means, and don’t talk to me as if you come from a position of moral authority when warning me against it. If either of the political parties stood for something beyond winning in the next election, I’d vote based on that. Unfortunately, I see no evidence that’s true.
On my way to work this morning, I received the following note from our HR folks:
Subj: Police Activity At Our Building Last Evening
The police activity which prevented many parkers in our garage from leaving last night was due to a couple of young men trying to elude the police. Those being pursued jumped the fence on one side of the [building next door] and then scaled the fence on the other side … only to jump to the grate over the garage and then onto the ramp of the garage where they were stopped (injured) due to the height of the jump.
One of our staff was a witness and reported the activity to me after giving his statement to the police. I apologize for the inconvenience this caused many of you as you tried to leave for the day.
I actually find the last line amusing. I was always taught to apologize for things that are your fault and move on when they’re not. I would count “Perp jumps a fence, falls very far and breaks leg thereby blocking garage entrance” as something firmly outside of your control. But I do appreciate the apology…
With regard to the actual incident let me say one thing. The jump referred to above is high… like, really high… bordering on crazy high… This is a story that should go down in the “stupid criminals” file simply because anyone dumb enough to think they could make that jump and not get hurt is just fooling themselves.
On this blog, I have spent considerable digital ink discussing the things the GOP is doing wrong, and calling out the more egregious acts of folly in which the right’s infrastructure engages.
For my inaugural post at The Next Right, I thought I’d take a closer look at some of the incremental steps I see in the right direction. A recent e-mail exchange with a colleague pointed out one such item I had overlooked – John McCain’s “McCain Report”.
While I still must point out some of the things I find awkward about McCain’s blogs (not the least of which is that he has two of them that seem to compete with one another), I will note that Goldfarb’s content seems to be vastly superior to what is ostensibly their flagship blog – titled simply the “McCain Blog”.
The McCain Blog is largely the sort of press release and dull e-mail fodder we’ve come to expect from campaigns. It recaps the latest rally and pimps “new eco-friendly items” available in the McCain store. It gets updated every few days. The one upshot is they do allow discussion.
Goldfarb’s McCain Report, on the other hand, is actually good. It’s not full of PR fluff and cheerleading. It’s updated several times a day and it contains substantive material. It is what campaign blogs should be (save for the fact that McCain should occasionally author posts, which he so far has not).
As Ben Smith reported yesterday, the Obama campaign recently brought Jason Furman on as a senior economic advisor. Smith notes that Furman wrote a lengthy defense of Wal-Mart in 2005, titled “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.” In it Furman denies that Wal-Mart is suppressing wages, or exploiting their employees. The fact “that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates that its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives,” he says. And he adds that ‚Äúthe available data is consistent with the premise that Wal-Mart pays wages that are comparable to the retail sector.‚Äù
His new boss takes a different view. In 2006, Obama told Fortune that “Wal-Mart is making enormous profits, and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits.” And in 2007, Obama told union members that he won’t even shop at Wal-Mart because of their exploitation of American workers. Has Obama moderated his views on Wal-Mart or will Furman and he just agree to disagree?
Today, John McCain addressed the threat of global climate change and outlined his strategy to lead America to meet its obligations as a steward of this planet. The centerpiece of his plan is a market-based system designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy.
I’m actually very pleased to see the McCain camp doing something well. In fact, what impresses me most is the superior quality of the McCain Report when compared to the Obama blog.
Senator Obama released the following statement today in response to the news of the trade deficit increase:
Today we learned that the trade deficit jumped to its highest level in 13 months. This is not an accident. This is yet another sign of the failed economic policies of the Bush administration that John McCain seeks to extend – policies that reflect unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility and borrowing from abroad. Rather than get America’s fiscal house in order, Senator McCain is proposing $300 billion more in tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and he hasn’t explained how he’d pay for them. Just this week, John McCain reaffirmed his commitment to special interest-driven economic policies that will widen the trade deficit, but won’t help American automakers secure fair treatment in South Korea, and won’t ensure that China stops devaluing its currency and tilting the playing field against American workers. As President, Barack Obama will stand up for fiscal responsibility by restoring fairness to our economy, investing in a renewable energy future, and adopting a trade policy that serves the interests not just of multinational corporations but of America’s hardworking families.
You can learn more about Barack’s stance on trade here.
That is a stark contrast. The Obama team (vaunted as they are for their superior web skills) is running a dry boring blog, while McCain’s team have at least begun to get it. It’s nice to see.
(As a side note, I’d like to offer two suggestions to Team McCain. First, look into search engine friendly urls. Second, optimize the meta tags on your blog posts to actually include the specific content of the post. Especially with this new stuff critical of Obama, it’s going to be important that people can actually find it.
When I was 10 years old, I discovered politics. I was glued to coverage of the 1980 Carter/Reagan race and began asking my folks a lot of questions about politics. One of the first questions I asked – and I suspect one of the first questions anyone asks about our system – was “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?”
Dad explained that Democrats believe in the power of the federal government and think that providing for the general welfare requires a large central authority with weaker subservient state governments. (Before you Democrats who are reading take issue with the definition, you should now my Dad is a life-long Democrat and that’s the way he described you then at 46, and the way he describes you today at 74).
Republicans, he said, have always believed power should begin at the state level with specific authority given to the federal government to handle issues that involve transactions between states and “common welfare” activities. Little else should be the duty of the fed, and general welfare projects especially should be undertaken by the states alone.
That response worked for me for a long time. It may not have been true in 1980, but lately I have become absolutely convinced it is no longer true today. While most within the GOP still believe a small federal government is the best route to effective government a split is clearly emerging with those in the party who increasingly look to the fed as the solution (especially to values issues.)
It amazes me that someone who sought to carry the mantle of the Republican Party in the presidential election would a) argue that government’s really not that bad, b) suggest that we need to figure out a way to pay for it (i.e. raising taxes), and c) claim anyone who opposes this view and believes that government is not the solution is somehow a great threat to Republicanism.
This is why I fundamentally believe we are on the verge of a fundamental shift in electoral politics, though I’m not sure how long it will take to come to pass. As the ‘compassionate conservative’ wing of the GOP turns more and more often to the federal government as a source of funds for their ‘conservative spending’, the libertarian wing of the party will pull away from the coalition more and more. As the pursuit of religious tenets leads to more and more constitutional amendments to implement theologically based bans, more and more of the center will sour on the GOP.
At the same time, the progressive wing of the Democratic party, as it exerts more and more control over the levers of the left, will alienate what I call the “Colorado Democrats” – the moderate Democrats that simply want to be left alone. They, too, will start to drift from the far-sided ideology of the parties. I firmly believe they were represented by a large segment of the 50% of the Democratic party that didn’t vote for Obama.
Together with the leave-me-alone wing of the GOP, they will unite in the middle and form a new, more pragmatic, socially tolerant, fiscally conservative voting bloc. You will see the emergence of a third tier in American politics – united by the simple desire to keep government off of their backs, out of their pocket, and out of their bedroom.
I still have several questions regarding how I see the final shakeup playing out. Will the social conservatives looking to the fed and the progressive community form a new coalition of big government believers? If so, will that lead us back to a simple division in politics based on the size/scope of federal powers? Or will their conflict over issues like gay marriage and abortion keep them apart? If they remain separate, and the electorate splits into three distinct groups, what sort of coalition policies will be born of the resulting mix?
I do believe that one thing is for sure – the formation of a third party will not be born of an egomaniacal billionaire or the rabid ideology of the political extremes. It will be born from the common minded ideology of those who have seen their parties abandon them and believe there is a better choice than two flavors of vanilla.
A psuedo-reformed political hack takes stock of his life, family, community, and living in our nation's capitol. If a good writer writes about what he knows, expect me to cover politics, technology, telecommunications, consumer gadgets, pop culture, the constant struggle that is parenting, the two best kids in the known world, the wife that makes me crazy, the odd moments I get to enjoy my hobbies, and a big goofy mutt named Kobi.
The thoughts expressed here are mine and mine alone and do not represent the views of anyone else. If your offended by anything you read here, then stop reading and don't return. It's not likely to get any better.