Results tagged “election” from The Morning After

The final stretch of election season is upon us. We've been inundated with election news for almost two years now. We've stayed up late to see primary results, and we've watched every aching minute of every debate and each convention. And we're not sure, but we think our eyes are permanently bloodshot.

Now we know each candidate's positions better than they do. We also know about every piece of gum they stuck under the chair in elementary school, every cigarette they smoked in high school bathroom stalls and every Nazi they ever associated with in college. So what's next?

Predicting the winner, of course.

And at a time when the recent polls show Obama leading by anywhere from three to 15 points, we need to resort to alternative methods.

Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.com suggests each candidate's website traffic could indicate the next president of these United States. His August data showed a close race, but they haven't released the latest information. We at the Morning After hope Kincaid updates the figures before Tuesday. But just in case he doesn't, we have other crystal balls to turn to.

7-11, perhaps sensing pressure to compete with other convenience stores, has decided to diversify. Now they too offer election-predicting services. At the time of this writing, Barack Obama coffee cups have been purchased by 60 percent of participants while John McCain has only garned 40 percent of the vote. 7-11 was able to accurately predict the last two presidential elections, according to their website.

With Halloween coming up, the one method comes to mind: mask sales. Buycostumes.com says rubber Halloween mask sales have been able to accurately predict the winner of the last six elections going back to the Reagan era, USA Today reports.


And then, there's a predictor with a track record. From 1936 until 2000, the incumbent party has won the White House when the Washington Redskins win their last home game before the election. Even with 2004's inaccuracy, this method still retains a 94.4 percent rating. The 6-2 Redskins host the 5-2 Steelers Monday night.

Fellow election junkies, we've been through enough over the past 20-odd months. With all of these tarot cards and horoscopes and voodoo dolls before us, I have one question:

If the Redskins tie, should Nader start writing his inauguration speech?

Commendations to CBS New's Bob Schieffer, for expertly moderating last Wednesday's presidential debate. Rather than follow the model of the other moderators, he decided to serve as more than a springboard for the candidates' talking points. He was tough on both candidates and used independent sources to back up the claims he made in his questioning. He asked questions that the candidates hadn't seen before, and the candid dialogue that followed was new and intriguing, which led to 68% of AOL.com poll respondents choosing Schieffer as the best of the four moderators.

Condemnations to Barack Obama, for continuing to use the race card to his advantage at the debate. John McCain brought up remarks by someone he calls "an American hero," Democratic Rep. John Lewis from Georgia that compared McCain's campaign to notorious segregationist George Wallace. Instead of repudiating the claims, Obama changed the subject. (Appealing to dishonesty, he cited unfounded reports that someone yelled "Kill him!" upon the mention of his name.) When prompted again by McCain, he went no further than saying the comments were "inappropriate." Refusal to condemn false allegations of racism is not the candor of a man who transcends race.

On the other hand, commendations to Obama for being absolutely ready when McCain shot out his most memorable zinger of the night: "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." The Illinois senator replied effortlessly, although , that if he gets Bush and McCain confused, it's because of their similar economic policies.

Condemnations to McCain for continuing to hypocritically play the low-spending angle. As Schieffer pointed out, citing an independent source, McCain along with his opponent would increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars if their policies were all enacted. He accuses Obama of "throwing money at the problem," but in many of his own proposals would do just that. The way I see it, McCain has two choices: stop talking about how he's going to take a hatchet to spending, or actually BE an advocate of low spending and renounce his support of big government programs like the "rescue package."

But in all fairness, commendations to McCain for his persistent references to "Joe the Plumber." He managed to cast doubt over Obama's tax plan and to frame him as a big government liberal. Miraculously, he made America realize that someone who earns $250,000/yr. isn't necessarily sitting on gold -plated toilets. McCain's theme culminated in what may dubbed as the flub of the year: "Senator Government."

By Tami Rasel

My husband and I live in a small rancher that sits well off the beaten path. Very few people even realize there is a home that sits so far back from the main road. But as a couple we enjoy the privacy of being hidden away from the world back in the woods. We have never had one trick-or-treater knock on our door; we don't ever see Jehovah's Witnesses, door-to-door salesmen, or ambitious politicians on our doorstep. Recently, however, that all changed. One beautiful autumn day down our dusty road came a nervous looking middle-aged man. He shook our hands, introduced himself and began to tell us of his goal to be a member of the House of Representatives. Then he asked if he could count on our vote to get him there. We were both shocked to see him, and even inquired as to how he had found our hideaway. It occurred to my husband and I that this man was desperate to speak with We the People to share his policies and make everyone in our area aware of what he was going to do for us if elected.

Last night as I watched the presidential debate, which was held as a town hall meeting--a term that simply means the politicians speak directly to the audience and not into the cameras--I noticed how each candidate listened intently to the questions asked, even walking up to the individual they were addressing and speaking directly to them. The next day as I saw those same candidates campaigning in different states, they were shaking hands with We the People, promising better times ahead to We the People and speaking within ear shot of We the People. Often as these politicians give their campaign speeches they mention the simple folk they have met along the way. They always tell the hard luck stories that were shared by those folks they met and express their empathy for that individual or family--always assuring the listeners that if they are elected, things will change. Over this past campaign season we have witnessed (via the media) these same politicians speaking in small-town diners with the local residents, going door to door and speaking with the community, offering rides--at their own expense--to the voting booth for those who have no transportation, and even chugging down a drink with the average "Joe-six-pack." During the campaign phase they are truly of the people, by the people and for the people. On Election Day, however, that all changes.

Suddenly that same candidate, who was anxious to shake our hands, kiss our babies and hear about our struggles, is now shut up behind tinted limo windows, guarded doors and a team of agents whose guns strapped at their side scream to the voters, "stay away!" Only a few privileged elite are now allowed to speak directly to the candidate we took the time to elect. This candidate now has "employees" who answer the phone and laugh at the attempt to speak with the President of The United States. They now have "employees" who might take the time to read the many letters and emails expressing an issue, need, or concern, they now have "employees" to deal with, or in most cases, not deal with We the People. Politicians who were so anxious to travel all over this country and spend almost each and every day of their lives campaigning and meeting the locals, hearing their desires for this nation and promising all of us better tomorrows are no longer available.

Many would quickly state this to be an impossible task, the president doesn't have time to listen or address, general public, they have more important task at hand. Many would state that the resident can't answer phones, read emails or answer concerns of, the average American; they are much too busy to hear the little man. Many would even argue that it is too dangerous for the President of the United States of America to mingle with the average middle-class, or, heaven forbid, those living in poverty--they are too busy meeting with celebrities, sports figures, Heads of State, Congress and the occasional rock star--no time for We the People.

History teaches us of presidents like Andrew Jackson (The People's President) who actually invited the entire nation to his home for a party. (Today we would need a bigger lawn.) Many presidents from the past answered the phone at the White House and listened to the concerns of the speaker on the other end. Some of those historical presidents even answered their own mail, actually hand writing their response. However, even with all our technology and speed today, that would be an impossible expectation for the President of the United States. After all, it is not the president's job to deal with the concerns, problems, hardships of the very public who elected them.

Four years later, however, when it is time for re-election, that same president, who did not have any time for the folks who put them in office; that same president who had to be locked up and guarded against the American people for their own safety, is once again out in public shaking hands, kissing babies, knocking on doors, walking down dusty lanes, and chugging another drink with the average "Joe-six-pack." That same president, who was unavailable to all who had voted for them in the past election, is once again available, concerned, and very anxious to deal with issues and make new promises to, We the People.

I know, I know. I'm a writer. I advocate liberty. I'm generally against censorship in all forms. But there comes a time when a man must draw the line, not for the preservation or purification of language, not for the betterment of the writing profession, not even for the public good. The following words and phrases need to become extinct, if not for eternity then at least for this campaign, for no reason other than because they drive me nuts.

Veepstakes
Don't get me wrong, I love wordplay. The whole veepstakes/sweepstakes thing would be plenty cute if not for three agonizing reasons: 1) Its first component uses an obnoxious abbreviation...of an abbreviation. Veep. Not to mention, it sounds like some sort of slang word for a sexually transmitted disease. "Hey bro, I think I caught the veep." Ugh. 2) The word it's based off of already has a sharply negative connotation that conjures images of a sweaty guy, in a suit with dollar signs on it, promising a small fortune or a ticket to see the Backstreet Boys if you just send him enough money for him to stealthily leave the country before anyone has the chance to say, "I want it that way." 3) And most importantly, I think I heard the word this summer about five times for every person that saw Barack Obama speak in Germany. Enough said.

Despite John McCain's surge in the polls and Joe Biden's suspicious gaffe calling Hillary Clinton more qualified than himself, this word should be gone for a while. I hope.

[Anything]-gate
Once again, wordplay surpasses its nauseating limit. The Nixon administration's Watergate fiasco was colossal, and for good reason it filled the role of quintessential scandal. But people, it gets old. Bill Clinton's Monicagate. The New England Patriots' Spygate. Sarah Palin's Troopergate. Where is the originality? Or, more frighteningly, where is this heading? How close are we to the days when disgruntled wives give their husbands the cold shoulder over Toiletseatgate?

Heartbeat away
This charming phrase has equally charming implications. If the McCain-Palin ticket gets elected, Heartbeat Away whispers under its breath, McCain will limp through inauguration only to die seconds later, ceding power to some good-looking lady from Alaska and making William Henry Harrison's presidency of nearly one month seem like a century. The even deeper implication is that American's shouldn't vote for the Republican nominee because he'll die.

How morbid can you get? There are plenty of reasons to suggest the senator from Arizona will survive a full term, his mother of 96 years and his doctor's clean bill of health among them. Why are people so willing to hint about the inevitability of McCain's death by natural causes, but not the possibility of Obama's by assassination?

Out of touch
The voices from both sides are absurd. John McCain is out of touch with Americans because he's old, doesn't know off-hand how many houses he owns, and he's been in Washington for decades. Nuh uh, Barack Obama is out of touch with Americans because he bowled a 37, is elitist, and is really a Kenyan-born Muslim!

With the occasional exception of specifics, both sides are correct. McCain and Obama don't live like the rest of us. Most of us know, without even having to think about it, that we own zero, one or, if we're especially lucky, two homes. Most of us can bowl at least double Obama's score when we're drunk. Most of us work instead of legislate for a living. Most of us don't even know what arugula is. Of course both candidates are out of touch; it's a moot point. But it's character and political philosophy that matter, not whether a candidate orders the same value meal at McDonald's as we do.

Change
Again, the left and the right squabble over a superlative unearned by either party's national ticket. In the 2008 yearbook under Most Likely to Bring Change, you'll find neither Obama-Biden nor McCain-Palin. All four people are career politicians. For the Democrats, you have a man who has voted in the senate straight party line a reported 97% of the time. For the Republicans, you have a man who has voted with the Republican incumbent a well-publicized 90% of the time. For the Democrats, you have a VP nominee who has been in the senate since the pre-Disco era. For the Republicans, you have a VP nominee who as governor stands by her requests for $200 million of federal earmarks for her state.

None of the four are breaking the mold by any means. Regardless of who wins, Americans will get what they've gotten for years--higher inflation, more wars, and bigger government.

In the numbered days to come before the Most Important Election Ever (as they all are), the dueling senators will hit We the People hard between viral advertisements, tedious debates and more campaign speeches than we can shake a tire-pressure gauge at. We can expect snappy one-liners, we can expect smears lower than low, and we can expect heartbreaking stories. But we'd better not hold our breaths for either candidate or the media to talk about the most important issue at all.

No, I don't mean the economy. I don't mean the energy crisis, Iraq, or health care. I'm talking about the issue that was most important in 1776 and ever since, and likely the most oft ignored. The issue that fueled the abolitionist movement. The issue at the root of all others:

Freedom. A word said by many and understood by much fewer. The radical idea that a government's legitimacy is gained only through the consent of the governed--that the individual rights to life, liberty and property are inalienable, that these rights don't come from governments, that instead the protection of these rights is the sole responsibility that governments have.

Sure, Barack Obama and John McCain, following the status quo in their parties, pay fleeting lip service to a vague idea called freedom. But what does that idea mean to the powers that be? A nation suitable not for the monument currently on Ellis Island but rather the Statue of Entitlement.

Democrat-filled crowds lauded Hillary Clinton when she said health care should be a right. The sentiment is echoed by her former opponent and their party when they repeatedly justify entitlement programs. But positive rights--like the "right" to health care or the "right" to financial support--can only be legitimate in a universe where something can come from nothing; otherwise, every entitlement is matched by the obligation to provide the entitlement, an obvious violation of liberty. We the People don't live in that universe.

On the other side of the increasingly narrowing aisle, Republicans are talking about entitlements as well. These positive rights, they say, are essential, whether it be to an aggressive military that wages wars irrelevant to protecting the rights of those who fund them, to an airline safety administration that violates more people's rights in one day than it will ever protect, or to any other of the policies based on the idea that one should and must concede liberty for the sake of security. With little if any disagreement coming from the Democratic Party, the Republicans score a hat trick: the forced providing of these entitlements violates the right to liberty, the forced funding of them violates the right to property, and the enacting of them occasionally violates the right to life.

The intended purpose of government is to protect the freedom of its people, but the only way either major party operates is by violating legitimate, negative rights--rights that don't require anyone to do anything against their will.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nominated a candidate running on the inalienability of the rights to life, liberty and property. What does that say about We the People, who keep voting people into office who aim to provide freedom by denying it?

"In a democracy," it is said, "the people get the government they deserve."

John McCain's unexpected pick of celebrity lookalike Sarah Palin for VP has been spinning heads for days. The move comes off at first as a blatant ploy to get disaffected female Clinton supporters after Obama snubbed her in his own veepstakes. Some no name first-term governor from the third-least populous state in the Union?

A second look reveals the more impressive facts about Palin. She left her post as Ethics Commissioner of Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in protest of the corruption she saw there within her own party. Her journey to the governorship included defeating the incumbent Republican in the primaries and defeating the former Democratic governor in the general election. She's campaigned against members of her own party because of their corruption. She's used her power to cut government waste.

(Of course, to be fair, she has no experience on a national level, and her dealings with Canada and Russia aren't the kind of foreign policy experience that voters are looking for.)

VP picks don't usually matter too much to voters, but Palin does affect the way Obama can run his campaign.

• They can't bully her.

Palin won't necessarily secure the roughly 50% of Hillary voters that aren't committed to Obama, but if either he or Joe Biden are perceived by that group as bullying Palin or attack her gender, whatever amount of unity created at the convention will dissolve. A lot of former Hillary supporters have qualms with perceived misogynism exhibited by what they consider the "prO-bama" press and the DNC. Obama's campaign would do wisely not to fuel the fire, even if it means occasionally walking on eggshells. 

• He can't count on the shallow vote.

Let's face it--some Americans vote based on which face they would prefer to see repeatedly on TV for the next four years. That thinking has been credited for the wins of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. Before, Obama had that vote locked up. Women are more attracted to a fit man in his 40s than a fit-for-his-age man in his 70s.

But now the country has taken a look at Sarah Palin. And according to a Google search for "sexy Palin" yielding about 175,000 results, they like what they see.

• She takes the fire out of "change."

Obama began his campaign promising to bring the sort of change actually embodied in Palin. She's a Washington outsider who has led a movement for ethics reform and bipartisanship. Even now as Obama's change has morphed from anti-"old politics" to anti-Bush, his more-of-the-same charges don't stand against Palin. Her unflinching use of the veto to cut government spending stands in stark contrast to George W. Bush, whose greatest economic failure is his excessive spending.

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When the pundits cite polls showing how few voters change their minds based on a VP nod, it doesn't mean the selection doesn't matter. The choice of Palin won't directly gain or lose a significant amount of voters for McCain, but the way Obama's campaign handles it can decide the election.

We've all heard the comparisons between John McCain and George W. Bush. "McBush." "McSame." "Bush 44." The list goes on. And despite key differences in opinion on government spending--McCain has vowed to veto all bills with earmarks--the senator's voting record in consistent alignment with the president makes the charge difficult to refute. (Besides, the short lifespan of campaign promises is no secret to voters.)

 

So if McCain will be Bush's third term, for which president does Barack Obama serve as a reincarnation? His supporters tend to point to JFK, citing the youth, the oratorical prowess and the ability to inspire with which both are credited. But those hoping for an Obama loss may suggest Jimmy Carter, whose perceived failures domestically and abroad led to an abysmal reelection attempt in which the incumbent only pocketed six states plus Washington, D.C. But another possible answer to this question, one most Americans should fear, would probably be mistaken by most for a compliment: the ill-revered Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

 

The 32^nd president's legacy among historians and the public alike stretches beyond impressive; neither senator in this race dare even dream of earning posthumous accolades akin to those Roosevelt earned, ranging from his likeness on a US coin to a Gallup poll naming him the sixth most admired person from the 20^th century. He won four elections by vast electoral margins, never yielding even 100 electoral votes to his opposition.

 

And yet the late president is the man responsible for the prolonging of one of the most formidable tragedies ever to hit the nation. Worse than the Vietnam War, worse than 9-11 and perhaps even worse than the Civil War, Roosevelt's greatest accomplishment--not in terms of virtuosity but rather in scale and depth--is turning the spark of the 1929 market crash and ensuing economic crisis into the inferno of the Great Depression.

 

No, Roosevelt didn't "fix" the Depression. In continuing the interference-based policies of President Hoover, whom Roosevelt handily defeated in 1932, FDR fostered the Depression's ongoing existence for a decade. His administration's antics were numerous and nearly uncontested by his yes-Congress. For years, one man functionally made up two-thirds of the federal government.

 

Unfortunately, he ignored how the market works. Roosevelt's schemes included ordering reduced production to raise prices in banking and agriculture (under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933), giving the government the legal right to "confiscate"/steal privately owned gold (essentially a tax), a slew of regulations put in place by big businessmen hoping to squelch competition (under the National Industry Recovery Act of 1933) and a laundry list of other such acts.

 

Any serious student of the economy knows that nothing is healthier than high production, low taxes--keeping money in the people's pockets--and high competition. It should come as no surprise that, under policies in direct contradiction with the logical laissez-faire capitalism on which this country was founded, FDR managed to make a career out of "fixing" the economic crisis that he inherited, nurtured and grew.

 

So where does Obama fit in? Like Roosevelt did, he is poised to inherit an ailing economy. Like Roosevelt did, he is attempting to capitalize on voters' emptying pockets with promises of government handouts and redistribution of wealth (his $1,000 stimulus plan, his health care plan, his proposal for increased taxes on the rich).

 

And most gravely, like Roosevelt, his every response to economic disparity is more government interference. He wants to increase key taxes, most notably on capital gains, which will undoubtedly lead to significant decreases in investments--the worms hiding in that can are too numerous to count. He wants to enact a list of measures using the government's fist to give workers unfair advantages over their employers. He wants to enact measures stressing "fair trade" rather than free trade. Translation? Loads of economy-crippling government interference.

 

Come January, McCain or Obama may not be the next Bush or Roosevelt, respectively. But the stakes in this race are as high as ever. In the voting booth this fall, Americans need to know the severity of the threat and that not even our country, with its vast economy, is fully protected against another depression of untold proportions.