| Sep 19 | Vote! |
| Sep 16 | Vote! (Washington State 2006 primary edition) |
| Sep 15 | Friday Shuffle! |
| Sep 14 | September 12 Primary Results |
| Sep 9 | Rememberances |
| Sep 8 | Friday Shuffle! |
| Sep 7 | A Sigh of Relief |
| Sep 6 | From the Unintentional Irony Department |
| Sep 2 | Ned Lamont and Chris Murphy |
| Sep 1 | Enough Is Enough! I Have Had It With these Muthaf[_](|<ing Pundits in this Muthaf[_](|<ing Magazine!, or, Wanker of the Day: Martin Peretz, or, Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps! (Joe & Ann's Defence Weekly Edition) |
The Washington State primary is today, along with Massachusetts. So if you live there, get thee to the polls!
This evening, Bill Sherman will hold his Election Watch party at the Montlake Ale House along with Drinking Liberally. Come enjoy a pint with a potential future State Legislator.
I missed voting in this primary, since I moved right before my registration changed. The Stranger Election Control Board has a decent rundown (PDF) on all city, county, and statewide primary races. Really, any of the six candidates for the 43rd leg are quality folks; Bill Sherman is the Times' favorite, and he'd do just as well. Yes on proposition No. 1, the County Council's request us to reauthorize the money it uses to fingerprint inmates. And vote for all incumbent Washington State Supreme Court Justices.
That leaves Initiative 88, which puts me in a quandry. In general, I vote against initatives, since I like to give our elected leaders the benefit of the doubt. But the School District's finances are not yet under control. So, there are good reasons to vote yes. It's really tough to consider "people who want to spend more money on education" a special interest, especially when the money is not specifically earmarked for any one use and per-student spending is fairly low.
Political Wire has a couple of good wrap-ups.
It's worth remembering that Lamont's August win was the exception, not the rule. In most elections, the establishment candidate wins; after all, favorites are favorites for a reason. The fact that Donna Edwards (D) made her race against Maryland Rep. Al Wynn (D) close is remarkable on its own, and given the number of not-yet-counted ballots, she may still stand a chance to win.
I'm really curious about Carol Shea Porter's (D) campaign in NH-1. Shea-Porter defeated her better financed opponent by a hefty margin, thanks to "an army of 300 volunteers". Given the turnout in the district (24,000 or so votes), and her final tally (12,500), this means Team Shea-Porter had one volunteer for every 80 voters, and one for every 40 that ultimately voted for her. That's incredible! By my estimate, though, she'll need 80,000 votes to win the general election, meaning the size of her field effort will have to increase by six-fold in the next six weeks.
September 11th will never be "Just Another Day" in the same way that the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination is now "Just Another Day", despite the fact that everyone who was alive remembers where they were when they learned of the shooting. But it will eventually depart the forefront of public consciousness, much as the anniversary of Pearl Harbor is no longer a major national event. No one wants to live in the past forever.
But for now, the past is still with us. The White House remains surrounded by barricades and closed to street traffic—the ultimate symbol of fear and the separation it causes between the people and our government—the meaningless color-coded terror alert system is still in place, air travel is close to unfeasible, and so on. All of these symbols are reminders how the 9/11 attacks changed the way many Americans view the world. There's broad agreement that we must change the way we live our lives in this new era, but still profound disagreement about what changes should be made. Therefore we see such polarizing conflicts play out in our national political system, despite the fact that at the end of the day, most of us are interested in the same basic wants and needs—safe streets, good schools for our kids [or grandkids, or hypothetical future kids], and rising standards of living.
In these times, where we don't have the consensus that drove American from the New Deal to the early Civil Rights era (roughly, 1936-1964), it's too easy to think of the political opposition as a demon force that craves power only for the purposes of enacting a sinister agenda. But most voters, even most petitions, are real people simply trying to get by in this world and help make it a little safer, a little smarter, a little more prosperous. Now, campaign season has begun, and there are no rules in this knife fight, and the polarized atmosphere may remain past the November elections. But it will fade away at some point, and our public discourse will once again be a debate about means and not ends. Let's not forget about our opponents' basic humanity in the meantime.
Chinchilla Blogging has been postponed while I wait for my camera to come back from repairs. And the Latin American roundup ... well, once all the home improvement projects are done, I'll give it another shot. Shuffle!, however, is here to stay.
Hotline on Katie Couric's first CBS Evening News broadcast [emphasis added]:
The “Free Speech” segment featured “Super Size Me” director Morgan Spurlock. He addressed grandstanding on TV. Spurlock: “Today’s news has become just like professional wrestling.” After the package Couric announced Rush Limbaugh will be on Thursday.
Senate candidate Ned Lamont (D-CT) is now raising money for House candidate Chris Murphy (D). On the face of things, this appears to be an odd choice. Let's review the lay of the land. Connecticut currently has three Republican House members.
Perhaps, then, Lamont's campaigning has something to do with this map. Murphy's district was much more pro-Lamont in the primaries than either Farrell's or Courtney's. And the challenger may get more bang for his buck here—the other challengers are already within "striking" distance in the money race, while Murphy needs some more money to get there.
I tried to cut The New Republic some slack, perhaps for longer than was healthy. The time for such behavior has passed.
Here's Martin Peretz decrying the weakness of the United Nations in the face of genocide in Sudan. Because of the structure of the U.N. Security Council, it's difficult to advance any real peacekeeping force in the region. China is a permanent member of the Security Council, and would veto strong action against the Sudanese government. They have a substantial stake in Sudan's oil reserves, and always try to vote against interference in a sovereign state's "internal" affairs for fear that the U.N. may one day interfere in their own [say, by taking real action against China's persecution of dissidents]. Peretz is understandably frustrated at the U.N.'s lack of urgency. I have no problem with any of that.
What I do have a problem with is this [emphasis mine]:
One might think that Afro-American organizations in the States and African-American politicians might raise their voices against this infamy. But no. You see, George Bush has actually done this. And he certainly can't be in the right. I wish he would go further and, as our editorial in this week's TNR hard copy edition urges, with the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Australia and, yes, Israel, deploy the troops necessary to save the lives of those whose lives have not yet been taken or simply destroyed.
This is just too rich.
First off, what priority does the Sudanese crisis really have with the Bush executive? Right, they farm it out almost all public statements on the subject to the U.N. Ambassador, who has no power inside the White House. Just checking.
Second, and more importantly, it appears that Mr. Peretz can't be bothered to read any of Barack Obama's news clippings, where he'd read about Obama's trip to Chad to meet with Darfuri refugees, and where he was denied an entry visa to the Sudan for criticizing the government. Nor does he bother to pick up The Washington Post, where he would have read the headline "7 House Members Arrested in at Sudanese Embassy", which feature the very public protests of several African-American politicians, including the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Nor can he find the NAACP's International Affairs priorities. Maybe he missed the first 2004 Presidential Debate, where Kerry outbid Bush's support for Sudanese refugees, pledging to give logistical support to the African Union [search for "Sudan"] while Bsh recounted his minor commitments. Or perhaps he just thinks that the U.S. Army, which has many members who've spent two and three tours in Iraq having difficulty in peacekeeping and counterinsurgency operations, is rarin' to head out to the Sudan for more peacekeeping and counterinsurgency operations.
Words fail me.
The "right answer" here, as much as there is one, is for Europe to step up to the plate and provide a peacekeeping force and/or logistical & training support to the African Union. At some point in the future, the EU will want to engage in military operations that the U.S. won't, or at a time when the U.S. Army is already stretched thin [such as today]. Why not get some practice at it now, and stop genocide as an added bonus? The proper response is not for Europeans to whine about American inaction; it's to get over their fears of repeating the mistakes of colonialism, and do what's morally responsible by committing military aid to protect Darfur.
Who is the only national politician who's figured this out? Howard Dean.
Last
updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 07:09 02 October 2006
