The End of the Act

"So I haven't written in this blog in a while" - I'm sure the most common sentence to appear on the internet. There I said it but didn't say it. In my case I also hadn't read it in a while. I'm surprised at how much the tone of the last post made me sound like I thought Hillary Clinton was a calculated bitch. Regardless of whether I believe that or not doesn't matter because I never intended for the blog to imply that being a calculated bitch was necessarily a bad thing. I just think the calculated bitch persona is better served in the Senate than the white house. I also do not intend there to be any gender distinction at all with the use of the word bitch. Male presidents can be bitches too, but man I have seen some good shit come out of Hillary at 2pm on C-span 2 in the Senate. I know I saw a speech of her flipping out at the audacity of President Bush to consider rushing into a premature war when he had already over spent by 3 trillion dollars in just the last six months. It was almost inspiring. I say lets keep her in the senate. I like her there. Let her do her thing. Let her vote for a war that she didn't believe in but speak up about it loudly in the months leading up to it. I am cool with that. In the meantime I'm going to try to figure out why I am so happy that she is not the presumptive nominee.

WHAT AN ACT!

If we didn't know it already, being a politician is very akin to being an actor.
You've got your campaign staff that resembles the staff of a television production with producers, stylists, and writers - Something tells me that Bush's writers have been on strike much longer than 6 weeks. John Edwards gets $400 haircuts, Guilianni stages accidental phone calls from his wife during speaking events (really what kind of ass doesn't turn his phone off when giving a speech while campaigning for president) Obama appears on Oprah promoting his newest summer blockbuster. Ronald Reagan was such a good actor he seemingly convinced every hardcore Republican out there that he was the best President ever. Well in case you haven't seen it, here it is, the most recent and vivid example of the act that goes into being a politician. Hillary Clinton gets choked up and emotional on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. Just watch and continue reading underneath:





...and the Emmy goes to........drum roll please! Come on. What is she thinking? Why would she do this? Did she think showing emotion might help her gain a few more votes in New Hampshire? If so I'm sure she didn't consider that almost crying during a campaign stop may not illicit confidence in the American people that she won't start crying during diplomatic talks with a hostile country. Is she really so tired and worn out from campaigning that she just can't keep it together long enough to answer a simple question? If so, one might worry about how she planned to keep it together over a 4 year presidential term. Something tells me that running a nation is much harder and more exhausting that running FOR running a nation. Is she truly that emotional and on edge because she sees her chances at being President again slipping through her fingers? I think so. I think this is the sign of a desperate woman. This is her Howard Dean moment. Whereas Howard Dean was pretty calm but broke down into a fit of rage, Hillary took a break from her fits of rage for a quiet moment of calm.

...AND THEY'RE OFF!

With the Iowa Caucus, today officially starts the next race for the White House and I couldn't be happier for these primaries and caucuses to begin.

First, there are too many of these assholes running at the moment. I can only handle so much rhetoric and bs and with about 15 Democrats running and upwards of 18 Republicans I've had enough bullshit thrown at me to fertilize the entire state of Iowa for at least the next four years. Add to that the list of Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Independent, and "Other" candidates and my head feels like its going to explode. My favorite "Other" party candidate by the way, is Cris Ericson from the US Marijuana Party. Now, I quit smoking pot a long time ago but mostly because it is illegal. Elect this gal for president and I would fall off the wagon faster than you can say gravity bong.

The second reason I am thrilled to see the race begin today is that I am quite frankly sick of George W. Bush being our president. I was certain that this guy would never be elected. Then I was certain that after his first 4 years he could not possibly get elected to another 4. Now, 7 years later I am ready for the nightmare to end. So let's get the ball rolling on finding a more tolerable asshole to run our country and in the meantime celebrate the end of an era by visiting Bush's Last Day - my new favorite website.

A LITTLE SUBTLETY PLEASE?

Here's one to wrap your brain around. We all know about the electoral college right? Remember campaign 2000, or have we all started donating boxes of those memories to Goodwill to make room for new ones? The electoral college is the current "constitutional" process by which we elect one to the "most important" office in American politics. If you're not familiar with how this stuff works head on over to How Stuff Works to find out how all this stuff works. Suffice it to say, some of our founding fathers supposedly thought that choosing a president by popular vote was too reckless and some of our other Founding Fathers believed that having congress choose our president was too terrifying. So every state was assigned a number of electors equal to the number of that state's congressman and representatives. In 2000 many voters were shocked to find out that although George W. Bush had not received the majority of the popular vote, he would still be our President. Many supporters of Bush used the constitution to uphold this decision siting that the system was set-up this way and changing it would be unconstitutional.

California holds 55 electoral votes, the most in the nation. Traditionally all 55 electoral votes are given to the candidate that wins the state's popular vote - a Democrat in the last 4 presidential elections. Enter the Presidential Election Reform Act. A ballot initiative that would give one electoral vote to the winner of each of California's 55 congressional districts. If this initiative is passed The Republican Party is poised to receive about 20 electoral votes even if they lose the state as a whole to Democrats. This is equal to winning a state such as Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or Illinois; or even winning in 2 Marylands, Minnesotas, or Arizonas; or winning 1 Utah, 1 Iowa, 1 of the Dakotas, 1 Maine, and a Delaware in a pear tree.

The people supporting the Presidential Election Reform Act claim that it will make the electoral process fairer and more democratic. Which might be true because it seems the Democratic party is up to the same shenanigans in North Carolina - a state that notoriously leans Republican. The Democratic controlled State Legislative branch took up a bill that would restructure the voting process in the same way.
In this example there are a mere 15 electoral votes up for grabs as compared to the behemoth that is California's 55.

What is going on here? Have elections really been turned into an arbitrary scoring system based on statistic and demographics. Candidates choose which regions to campaign in and which ones to not waste their money on based on historical voting outcomes. Talking points and campaign speeches are littered with hot button issues that statistically rally a certain group of voters. Now they're realizing that through clever redistricting they can score a few extra points than usual and "steal" elections.

What makes all of this electoral juggling so easy to accomplish is a 2 party system. Anyone can juggle 2 balls; it takes much more skill to juggle even just one more. Give us Red, Blue AND White candidates and see how hard it would be to shuffle our votes from one side to the other now.