Warming Up For The Main Event

 Posted by  2008 Election  4 Responses »
Jan 252008
 

At the Republican Nominating Convention four years ago, speaker after speaker rose to the platform to attack John Kerry. He was the most liberal man in the Senate. He changed positions constantly. (I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how both of those can be true at the same time.) He was friends with Ted Kennedy. The convention gift shop even went so far as to sell flip-flops and bottles of “Bush” ketchup for delegates to wave around on the floor. (Kerry’s wife was the widow and heir of the Heinz Ketchup fortune.) Those delegates, party leaders, and pundits then spent the next three months spreading each and every one of those accusations as far as they could. And that was before the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” went after the decorated war hero for having the audacity to question our involvement in Vietnam, and accused the man of treason. It was nasty, harsh stuff, but that’s presidential politics for you.

So let me tell you how the RNC will look this year.

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Debate Coverage

 Posted by  2008 Election, The Media  1 Response »
Jan 242008
 

Did you know that at the South Carolina Democratic Debate last week, the candidates had interesting discussions in which they differentiated their opinions on health care, NAFTA, Social Security, and economic stimulus packages? If you watched the debate, or read the transcript, those things are pretty obvious.

If you read the aftermath of the debate in the newspaper or watched the clips and summaries on the major news networks, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

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Presidential Experience: Fun Facts and Conclusions

 Posted by  2008 Election, U.S. Politics  6 Responses »
Jan 232008
 

I’ve been collecting a bunch of data on the experience of past presidents. I’ve got a spreadsheet and everything–my wife just thinks I’m dorky. Anyways, here’s some of the things I’ve found:

Total Presidents: 42. Yes, I know, that one took a lot of work to find. Seriously, though, it’s useful to keep in mind. And before anyone complains that George W. is the 43rd president, that number includes Cleveland twice (for serving two non-consecutive terms).

Lawyers: 24. That includes Woodrow Wilson, who almost immediately went back to school after passing the bar and got a doctorate in Political Science.

Mayors: 3. Andrew Johnson, Calvin Coolidge, and Grover Cleveland. Mayors haven’t exactly kicked butt as president. Maybe Rudy should find a different profession.

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Presidential Experience

 Posted by  2008 Election  5 Responses »
Jan 232008
 

A big topic lately in the presidential elections has been experience. Does Hillary’s experience count? Is it possible to have both Washington experience and fresh ideas? Does business or gubernatorial experience translate? Is legislative experience useful?

Mitt Romney had my favorite comment on this topic, during a post-Nevada interview. He was asked to compare his own experience to the rest of the candidates. He explained that Washington experience was bad, which eliminated Thompson and McCain, and claimed that Giuliani’s experience marked him as too much of an “insider”. Wolf Blitzer noted that Huckabee had no Washington experience, to which Romney quickly noted that Huckabee lacked real world business experience that counted the most.

No one ever said Romney wasn’t creative enough.

In any case, I thought it would be interesting to look at the best, and worst presidents to see what kinds of pre-election experience they brought to the table. To spoil the ending: I can’t find any correlation at all between presidential quality and political experience of any kind.
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Two Paths To Success

 Posted by  2008 Election, Abortion  15 Responses »
Jan 182008
 

Imagine that there is an issue that you really care about; we’ll say American adoption of the metric system. Right now, neither party supports adoption of the metric system, but to be fair neither party has taken a stance against it either. Now, you’re first job is to go out into the public and mobilize a few million people to take a strong stance on the issue. This will be a lot easier if you can convince one or more pre-existing social networks to join your cause: unions, churches, the AARP, etc. Alrighty, so now you’ve gotten your millions of people ready to march on Washington and demand the implementation of the metric system. Here comes the tricky part: the politics. In particular, you’re faced with a basic fork in the road that will determine all of your future political strategies. One path is to stay non-partisan, fight to convince people of both parties to support the adoption of the metric system, lobby everyone in Washington equally (with the understanding that some Congressmen and maybe even some parties will be more friendly than others), and use your votes to try to swing legislators in your direction. The other path is to incorporate the metric system into the party platforms of one party–with the understanding that pro-status quo forces are likely to line up against you in the other party–and spend your resources trying to get members of your party elected in large enough numbers to force change on the issue.

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