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Grex > Agora35 > #18: The 2000 presidential campaign item | |
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| 25 new of 406 responses total. |
gull
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response 133 of 406:
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Sep 29 02:19 UTC 2000 |
I'm not sure I understand Richard's point. When I'm voting for someone, I
don't generally consider who their slate of electors is while making my
decision.
I also suggest we take up a collection to buy Richard a new space bar.
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brighn
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response 134 of 406:
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Sep 29 02:48 UTC 2000 |
I was going to say something similar to gull's first paragraph, and I'm
likewise confused by Marcus' comments. While technically we vote for the
electors, we don't think we are... The ballot we receive in November will
contain the names Bush, Gore, Nader, Browne, and Buchanen, not the names of
electors.
Two comments in response to Marcus. The first is in response to the verycommon
assumption that no vote = "NO" vote. i'm sure many people who don't vote are
satisfied with any likely outcome. At any rate, the non-votes are abstentions,
not NO votes... *shrug* People who remove themselves from thepolitical process
voluntarily aren't terribly relevant to the political process.
I was gonna say something else, butI forgot. =] Oh well.
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richard
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response 135 of 406:
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Sep 29 03:12 UTC 2000 |
whether you see the electors on the ballot depends on what state you
are in these days
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klg
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response 136 of 406:
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Sep 29 03:33 UTC 2000 |
From where would one get the idea that LaDuke is a practicing Jew?
Everything I've seen, including quotes attributed to her, says that
she is not.
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scg
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response 137 of 406:
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Sep 29 06:13 UTC 2000 |
In which states does the Presidential ballot show the electors rather than
the candidates?
As I think about the Electoral College system, I'm deciding I kind of like
it, despite years of being told that it's rediculous. It requires candidates
to pick up support from a rather broad cross section of the country, rather
than just having some huge concentrations of supporters. Of course, it may
also mean that the majority of voters aren't fully represented occasionally,
but statistically it seems to come out ok.
I'm not sure a parlementary system would do what the advocates of it in this
item seem to want. When a parlementary system forms a coalition government,
that's essentially the members of the minority parties doing the same thing
American voters tend to do, compromising to vote for a candidate who may not
agree with them on everything. It just takes the process a step further away
from the voters.
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polygon
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response 138 of 406:
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Sep 29 06:35 UTC 2000 |
Hmmm, so much to respond to, so little time ...
The names of electors used to be listed on the ballot. Not any more, at
least in Michigan. Most of the electors, even major party electors, are
people you have never heard of. Even *I* have never heard of most of
them.
Generally, they are or can be expected to be party loyalists. Every once
in a great while, an elector votes for someone other than who they were
elected to vote for. Most recent case I can think of was a Republican
elector from Virginia in 1972 who voted for the Libertarian candidates.
However, under Michigan law, attempting to cast a vote for someone other
than who you were elected to support constitutes a resignation, and the
remaining electors can choose someone to fill your vacancy. When Zolton
Ferency (former Dem party chair, booted for opposing the Vietnam war,
later founded the Human Rights Party) was a presidential elector in
Michigan in 1968 and felt he couldn't vote for Hubert Humphrey, he
resigned, and someone else replaced him.
Marcus referred to some points I made about the origins of civil service,
but that isn't what I meant when I referred to the parliamentary system.
I don't want to go into it right at the moment, but in a parliamentary
system government, the bureaucrats behave in a very different way than
they do under a U.S.-style government. It has to do with the enormously
different incentives that are created by the political environment. James
Q. Wilson explained all this in his fascinating book "Bureaucracy." The
differences deserve a new item if people would like to discuss it.
VERY quick summary:
A system with many power centers (like ours) leads to bureaucrats
observing rigid, abstract principles of fairness, imposing many more
fines and penalties, making few exceptions, doing things "by the book"
because of the likelihood that your decision will be questioned later.
In a typical centralized parliamentary system, where there is no
ambiguity about who is in charge, and no possibility that the other
party will investigate and question decisions that were made, the
bureaucracy tends to be much more lenient, imposes few fines and
penalties, and makes many exceptions.
That sounds like a good deal, and in some ways it is. On the other hand,
the only check on the power of the bureaucracy is from above, i.e., from
the prime minister and his/her party in parliament. If you're trying to
stop something, e.g., a proposed dam or highway, or a proposed regulation,
that may be small comfort.
The majority in parliament can pretty much do anything it wants, and since
party discipline is so strong, due to the built-in incentives, that means
the party *leaders* hold all the cards.
In a parliamentary system, there is no concept of "divided government", or
even of the Congress as distinct from the Executive. It is as if we let
the Speaker of the House move into the White House and run all the federal
agencies, with the committee chairmen transformed into Cabinet officers.
Imagine how much simpler that would be -- and how much more powerful such
a figure would be than our current Presidency. Any legislation he wanted
or needed would be passed pretty much immediately.
Many countries all over the world have this system, but as I said, I don't
think most Americans would be comfortable with that much centralized
power.
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jerryr
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response 139 of 406:
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Sep 29 13:20 UTC 2000 |
our system of government sucks....except when compared to all other systems
extant.
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mooncat
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response 140 of 406:
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Sep 29 14:15 UTC 2000 |
Okay... the electoral college makes a little more sense now, and I
guess I can see it's usefulness.
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brighn
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response 141 of 406:
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Sep 29 14:35 UTC 2000 |
Reagan received one electoral vote in 1976, from a rogue Republican assigned
to Ford.
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richard
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response 142 of 406:
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Sep 29 15:20 UTC 2000 |
hey polygon, do the methods for choosing electors vary from state to
state? how does one go about becoming an elector if one aspires to
that duty?
and since electors are techinically "elected", that makes them eligible
for the political graveyard right?
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polygon
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response 143 of 406:
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Sep 29 15:58 UTC 2000 |
Re 142. I think the methods for choosing electors vary not only from
state to state, but party to party. For Michigan Democrats, the electors
are nominated by district caucuses at the state party convention. I
thought about becoming a candidate this time, but I didn't think about
it early enough. Julie Trudell was nominated by the 13th District
caucus. Naturally, two additional electors were nominated by the state
convention as a whole.
Absolutely yes, electors are eligible for the Political Graveyard, and I
have quite a few listed. However, I want to change the formatting, so
that each party's slate is listed together. That's on my programming
Things To Do list. :-)
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jp2
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response 144 of 406:
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Sep 29 17:11 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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polygon
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response 145 of 406:
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Sep 29 18:52 UTC 2000 |
Re 144. Thank you. Send submissions to polygon@potifos.com. See the
biographical checklist (for whatever info you might have available)
at http://politicalgraveyard.com/inqa.html#Submit
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janc
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response 146 of 406:
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Oct 1 05:44 UTC 2000 |
(Evolution is a lot closer to being an "observed phenomenon" than most
people think. For an excellent, award-winning book on this, read "The
Beak of the Finch". It takes careful observation, but lots of
evolutionary change has been observed in bird and fish species in
response to environmental change, quite rapid, likely to be only a few
millimeters of changes in sizes and proportions, and likely to be
reversed by later environmental changes, but real nevertheless. There
have even been near-specization events observed - populations splitting
into two non-interbreedings subsets with different behaviors and
characteristics, persisting this way for several generations, and then
starting to interbreed again as conditions change. And the evidence for
evolution among micro-organisms is substantially better. They evolve
fast. Did you think God separately creates a new flu strain every
winter? I think the evidence for evolution is simply overwhelming.)
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jazz
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response 147 of 406:
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Oct 1 16:26 UTC 2000 |
There's another book, _Children of Prometheus_ that does a good job
of explaining to the layman what happens when there's strong selection
pressure on a species, and some of which is easily observable in a human
lifetime.
Bit of a non-issue though, since most serious Creationist apologists
differentiate between what they call micro-evolution (evolution within the
possible current genotypes for a species) and macro-evolution (change in the
possible genotype sets).
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russ
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response 148 of 406:
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Oct 1 23:08 UTC 2000 |
Evolution has much more evidence than Jan says; speciation has
been observed (as in documented by researchers in the lifetimes of
people still living) in animals as advanced as wallabies. Check
http://www.talkorigins.com (I think) and look through the FAQs.
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wyrefall
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response 149 of 406:
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Oct 2 01:42 UTC 2000 |
re41 By all means NO. Unfortunately, this nation is one of two parties,
regardless of what certain optimists may like to believe. In all actuality,
the US was not supposed to besubject of a partisan government, but it is, and
now all that can be done is to chose best between those options. ATM, the
prevailing parties are the Democrats and Republicans, and each has presented
one candidate. I, honestly, do not like either option particularly, however,
this is not a situation of optimal possibility, it is one of chosing a lesser
evil. I was merely saying, that I feel the American people (by pop poll, and
the electoral college) will not elect a democratic candidate.
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drew
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response 150 of 406:
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Oct 2 01:55 UTC 2000 |
Can't let the even worse lizard get elected.
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polygon
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response 151 of 406:
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Oct 2 18:59 UTC 2000 |
As to the video and briefing books that were sent from Austin to the Gore
campaign, the FBI has turned up an Austin Post Office security video of
Yvette Lozano mailing an Express Mail package. She has claimed it was a
pair of pants she was returning for her boss, but it turns out that the
label on the package received by Downey (Gore's guy) corresponds to the
date and time Lozano was caught on tape by mailing a package.
The Bush campaign had angrily attacked the investigation's focus on
Lozano, but it appears to be backing off a bit, pointing out that Lozano
is not directly a campaign employee.
My theory is that Bush strategist Karl Rove arranged for the material to
be sent to the Gore campaign and assumed they would use it. Later, after
Bush bombs in the debates, Rove would "discover" that Gore had "cheated"
and make this revelation the focus of the debate postmortem rather than
the actual performance of the candidates.
The other possibility, of course, is that Lozano and/or her boss are not
really loyal members of the Bush team.
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brighn
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response 152 of 406:
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Oct 2 19:01 UTC 2000 |
From Whitewater to Watergate...
C'mon, boys, play fair, or let someone else play.
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richard
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response 153 of 406:
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Oct 3 03:27 UTC 2000 |
okay, the first debate is tomorrow (or today if you are reading this on
tuesday) in Boston. Leiberman and Cheney debate on Thursday.
The moderator for all the debates is Jim Lehrer of PBS. Good choice in my
book-- I actually know , or knew, Jim Lehrer's daughter Amanda. We worked
together for the Dukakis campaign at the1988democratic convention in
Atlanta. I cant fault a debate moderator whose daughter is a liberal
democrat (which doesnt mean that he is though). Lehrer is probably a
"registered independent", just like Ted Koppel, whose two daughters
also worked in that campaign (though I never met them)
Debate's on at 9 pm...turn on, tune in....
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bdh3
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response 154 of 406:
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Oct 3 05:44 UTC 2000 |
re#151: Interesting 'spin'. There are a few problems. One, I doubt the
security cameras TOD is synced with the postal computer terminals so you
are now looking at all the people who shipped 'around' the same time.
Two, GAP confirms the story as does Lorenzo's boss although one wonders
why he didn't have her take the pants to the local GAP outlet...so you
got a hard time 'proving'.
I wonder if in fact these folk were in fact the "GOP mole" refered to by
the Clintonista working on Al-the-pal's campaign - dude was a Carvile
protege I understand? Now maybe the GOP is getting cleverer, but more
likely if the folk the FBI think did it, actually did it, they were
actually intending to help Al-the-pal's team, not W's. Occam's rule.
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swa
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response 155 of 406:
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Oct 3 06:11 UTC 2000 |
Am I the only one a bit bewildered and frustrated at the way politics has
gotten mixed up with government in the first place?
I'm voting for Nader. No, I don't think he'll win. (As a random
interesting tangent, though, Michael Moore wrote an interesting essay
recently pointing out that if all the people who generally *don't* vote
registered and showed up and voted for Nader, he *would* win. I don't
exactly expect that to happen, but I find it an interesting commentary on
the state of this country.) I'm voting for him because he seems actually
willing to talk about how fucked up this country's attitude towards health
care, the environment, etc., are, whereas everyone else seems to think
that if you slap a band-aid on a problem it will go away. What I hope to
"accomplish" by voting for Nader does include objectives such as
better recognition and funding of the Green Party and forcing the major
parties to realize that people care about the "issues" (God how I hate
that word) in question. I guess. But mostly I'm voting for Nader because
I *want* him to win, and I thought the point of democracy was to vote for
the person we thought would do the best job. You may call me an idealist
if you like, and I'll answer gladly. It's my belief that what this
godforsaken country needs is a hell of a lot more idealists.
(Special note to Richard: I don't know how to say this nicely, but I find
it a *little* hard to take your arguments seriously after reading, "Its an
entire branch of government you are voting into office, not just one
person!" and "Whatever you think of Leiberman, he's just one person, one
of many, who will work in a Gore administration." *in the same response*
(#36). I don't mind that you disagree with me, but some logical
consistency while you're doing so might be nice.)
Yes, I am familiar with Nader's running mate, Winona LaDuke. She's a
Native American and environmental activist, who has written on the
importance of leaving behind a world that we would want our grandchildren
to live in. She kicks ass, as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, the idea of Bush as president frightens me, but the idea of Gore as
president frightens me only slightly less. Others have said this more
eloquently, but they strike me as two heads of the same beast. As for
abortion -- yes, I am firmly pro-choice, and yes, I am aware that Bush
isn't. I'm also aware, however, that access to abortion has dramatically
*decreased* during Clinton's administration, that Roe vs. Wade was written
by a Nixon-appointed judge, and that reducing a campaign to one single
issue and then trying to force that issue with fear tactics is a little
silly.
Like Mary, I will be voting for Nader so that I can respect myself in the
morning. I respect a great deal of what he has to say, and I haven't been
able to say that about any politician in the five years I've been able to
vote. My conscience won't let me vote for someone I don't respect when I
have the option of voting for someone I do.
<hops off soapbox to let someone else have a turn>
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bdh3
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response 156 of 406:
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Oct 3 07:37 UTC 2000 |
And you are voting for Nader? No offense ment but about the only thing
that can be said for Nader's views on things is that he (as far as can
be proved) doesn't benefit from them personally in the bank account
kinda thingy. He's a nut. Look at _Unsafe at any Speed_, its a auto
design that is the same as the VW and had been used for 40 or so years
after WW-II - the VW is in fact far more 'deadly'.
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ric
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response 157 of 406:
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Oct 3 12:39 UTC 2000 |
Thank god the WB doesn't show the debates - I'd hate for "Angel" to be
pre-empted.
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