Electoral Maps
Those of you who haven't known me for four or eight years don't know of my obsession with electoral vote-counting. I developed an electoral map in which the area of each state is the same as its electoral votes, and I color-coded it to show the current polling data from each state. Using the altered map gives you a much clearer idea of where the
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The gender-thing in politics, well. Palin is hardly a substitute for Hillary, is she? I mean, it took the Republicans only 24 years after Ferarro to nominate a female VP candidate. I don't know much about PUMA, but I do know that there are people who believe that every criticism ever leveled against Hillary was really about her sex, and that ultimately she lost the nomination because she was female. If you believed that, and you were angry enough...
About a week ago, when I learned of the Biden choice, I told my wife theat if McCain were smart he'd pick a female running mate. It's the obvious thing to do, and yes, it's pretty cynical. My fear, as a Democrat, was that he'd pick a northeastern moderate, someone the Hillary supporters might get enthusiastic about -- your own senator, for example. Naturally he couldn't name Snow, because that would have been the last straw for the right wing of the Party.
Let's see, I've already covered trusting me. (What a concept.) Why pay attention to this? Two answers: (1) it's interesting. (2) I think the outcome matters, and that it's not fixed. I think Clinton was a good choice in 1992, even though, like you, I was disappointed by much of what he eventually did. I think that a Gore presidency in 2000, which we almost had, would have been vastly different than what we got. One cannot guarantee eventual outcomes even with the "right" candidate -- what did John Lennon say, "Don't push off the responsibility onto leaders and parking meters?"
The problem I have in elections is that most people don't vote on the issues that are important to me. They vote the economy, or they vote their fear of [pick one: Soviet Union, Al Quaida, Russia, China...]. (Or sometimes, in 2000, they vote their ire -- a lot of the votes for Nader that year were disgust at Clinton's personal behavior; Clinton wasn't running, so they took it out on Gore.) I typically vote social issues from the left, although this year I'm pretty much all about carbon; I want us to stop burning stuff.
Ireland's a very nice place; I especially like Galway. I like British Columbia and Prince Edward Island too.
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