Boring!
I don't mean Balz is boring, though, of course, he is.
I mean hooray for boredom in politics.
It's healthy. These people who are incessantly trying to excite us about politics should feel horribly frustrated by our boredom. Our nonresponsiveness to their proddings and ticklings is the best thing we've got. No amount of money spent on advertising can move us. We've seen it all, and we've got lives to live.
Some people don't arrive at enough of an opinion to want to add their tiny bit of weight to one side as their fellow citizens determine which candidate wins. Their nonparticipation has meaning that deserves respect. There are innumerable reasons for nonparticipation, and one should not presume that the abstainers are lazy or numb. They may defer to the opinions of others. They may dislike all the candidates. They may think the candidates are similar enough that it's not worth putting time into teasing out the differences. They may have other things to do with that time. Better things.
We were talking about boredom in politics yesterday in this post about Hillary. Buzzfeed's Ben Smith had been musing about whether Hillary! could get women jazzed up about women!!! and in lust for seeing a — first!!!! — Woman President. And I said:
I'm sick of inspiration and claims of historiosity. We should all be perfectly jaded by now. Inoculated. It's healthful and wholesome. And so what if watching the campaign day by day is "a boring, grinding affair"?The quoted words were Smith's.
That's a problem for Smith, running his buzz-dependent website, but it's a nonproblem for the rest of us. Think of the time you can save not reading the websites that try to make something out of the presidential campaign every damned day. What will you do with all that time? Instead of thinking about how what happened in the last hour might be history, you could, for example, read history. May I recommend the Amity Shlaes biography of Calvin Coolidge?In the comments, Freeman Hunt wrote:
Coolidge was boring. Good boring. Let's be boring for a change. I want a boring President. Stop trying to excite me.
I have paid much attention to these elections in the past, and I see no difference that my attention has made. I therefore plan to devote very little attention to this election until it is time to vote. At that time, I will select the most boring, competent person who aligns with what I'd like to see done.I've started a new tag: I'm for Boring. Like Freeman, I do vote, but I'm not voting because someone has excited me, and I don't think I ever have, now that I think of it. And I don't want other people to get excited. If that means they don't even vote, I respect that. Thanks for not getting excited and impulse voting. Politics should be boring. I want the government to be boring.
The End.
In the comments yesterday, cubanbob said:
I could be wrong but it seems you are hoping for Scott Walker for president. No one ever called him Mister Excitement and he does appear to be reasonably competent and law abiding....And I said:
Walker excited the hell out of people around here.And John Althouse Cohen said...
I think Romney is nicely boring. Bring him back. That would be especially boring.
Maybe the Democratic nominee should be someone who may not be the most exciting politician...John linked here:
पोस्ट्स
७५ टिप्पण्या:
The media need their soap opera women, so there will be soap opera women friendly candidates, presumably an Obama and some villain on the other side, and you'll hear about it all the time.
Somebody will comment on estrogen orgies and he will be ignored.
It's just a business arrangement between Democrats and the media. Democrats need the votes and the media need the eyeballs.
End of story unless a widespread interest in hard news suddenly springs up. Then the media would cater to that instead. But it won't, so soap opera it is.
"And I don't want other people to get excited. If that means they don't even vote, I respect that. Thanks for not getting excited and impulse voting. Politics should be boring. I want the government to be boring."
What Althouse ignores is Clinton's secret weapon -- the exclamation point after her name: Hillary!
Reminder, the media.
40% of women watch, the soap opera fraction.
That's a big bloc of votes.
Ridicule, not exhortation to boredom, is the only solution. Women can't be self-governing without rewiring.
So what you're saying is you'd rather have President Bore than President Gush. We were so close to that choice with Bush/Gore.
So, unlike Chris Matthews who had a "tingle up his leg", a little boring might be good?
Remember that the man who most inspired the tinglies and brought out the vote that way is — of anyone I can think of — the most famous nonvoter.
"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
I always thought this was a wretched statement. Who wants to weigh the political implications over the hamburger on the menu? You buy a hamburger because you want a hamburger or you don't because you want something else or don't want anything. The attitude from that statement above increases our divisions, not put them down.
"... I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."
-- Capt. Mal Reynolds
Generally low turn-out should be seen as a positive thing with people relatively content with the way things are going. When they're really upset they get interested and vote. Consistently high turn-out approaching 100% should be seen as a negative thing where people are compelled to vote and face a penalty for not voting (and likely for not voting the party).
Unfortunately, low turnout is used to criticize our system and voter registration "problems". I find it funny that in India with over a billion people, each voter is able to have a free picture ID required for voting. They consider it common sense. Here...racist!
Remember that the man who most inspired the tinglies and brought out the vote that way is
How much of tingle making with Obama was brand and marketing and not Obama the person himself? So don't confuse the circumstances and shenanigans with the person. You want boring? If the prevailing winds tell the marketing geniuses that sold you Obama, they will make some other Obama-like boring. All they need is a complicit media and a crook willing to do it and pull it off. Some of us found Obama to be tingle-less when you and others swooned over him and voted for him, meaning even you could not tell the real from the fabricated, the myth.
Aftre Romney lost, I pretty much gave up on politics. I even skipped the California primary in June, the first time I have not voted in many years. What is the base ? I can predict the next governor of California, the most radical lefty with the best ethnic credentials.
If Romney were to run again, I would be interested. It's probably too late for the country, at least to avoid the collapse.
Sure - we'll just keep having fewer voters like we have only a few media conglomerates - what could go wrong?
The solution to the problem is whites realizing what they've done to destroy the meaning of their system,...
The problem with this approach is that the people who are NOT bored, who are the most partisan and most excited by politics, are the ones who are the most likely to cast votes. The most jaded and cynical will stay home. And that won't end well.
By no definition is Hillary "exciting".
"Sure - we'll just keep having fewer voters like we have only a few media conglomerates - what could go wrong?"
Voters who abstain are still voters. They exist and can vote whenever they choose. They are real and they deserve respect.
Our nonresponsiveness to their proddings and ticklings is the best thing we've got. No amount of money spent on advertising can move us. We've seen it all, and we've got lives to live.
It's easier to get people to change their minds than it is to get them to care in the first place.
Al Gore certainly was boring but he scared the bejeebers out of me (the way Obama does now).
Belligerent Drunk Stand-up Comic says:
So: I'm tired of politics, tired. Promises, promises, always all of these empty promises. If I want to hear about promises that were never kept, I'd just ask my first wife, she'd be more than glad to list mine for me. Again. (sips drink) And that's kinda it, really: it's a hell of a lot easier to divorce a spouse than to divorce your politicians. No matter how much you just want them to go away, they are always there, always there: can't I just pay them alimony and have them go away? Please?
(sips drink)
You've probably heard how the Government pays some farmers NOT to grow things -- and isn't that what we want from our Government, to pay something for nothing, thanks guys -- how about we pay our politicians NOT to make laws? (sips drink) Look: you can keep the perks, the paycheck, the nubile interns: just don't make any more laws, okay? Surf the web, have long martini lunches that would put Saint Ted Kennedy to shame: just put down the pen...
(sips drink)
Do you know who I would love to vote for? (sips drink) A politician in a coma, that's who. Man, woman, black, white, gay, liberal, conservative, horse fucker, horse fuckee -- it doesn't matter, they just need to be in a coma. For their whole term. (sips drink) Wake up, you lose the job, it's that simple. C'mon, Candidate Coma: lessen the damage. America needs you more than ever...
Thank you, you've been a peach...
The problem with low turnout is that it encourages mischief, like getting LaRouchies on a statewide general election ballot or bans on same-sex marriage enacted by initiative.
I've been toying with the idea of not voting. I saw so many shady shennanigans going on in my suburban precinct when I was a poll watcher during the last presidential election, it left me extremely disillusioned with the whole process. Before that, I used to imagine when I went to vote that I was a part of a great democratic tradition. I would stand in line and see around me all the people I knew from my community exercising our right to have a say in what goes on in our government. But, as a poll watcher I saw people I knew from my community bringing in their mentally handicapped charges from the group home to vote for Obama. (I know that was how they were going to vote because they all held cards with OBAMA in big capital letters so they could match it to the voting card.) I saw people come in to vote without ID who got to vote provisionally because they weren't on the rolls who I absolutely know did not live in that precinct. The process has been subverted with lax rules so that it doesn't mean anything anymore.
But I am left with the nagging feeling that if I don't vote, it will just make it that much easier for the cheaters to succeed.
Ok, I won't criticize the non-voter for not voting, but then the non-voter doesn't get to complain about the results.
I'm sure I won't bother to vote this fall or in '16. I just don't see the point.
"WaPo's Dan Balz bawls about low turnout"
Just read the comments posted at the WaPo website and then thank God for low voter turnout.
"In the comments yesterday, cubanbob said:
I could be wrong but it seems you are hoping for Scott Walker for president. No one ever called him Mister Excitement and he does appear to be reasonably competent and law abiding.... And I said:
Walker excited the hell out of people around here."
Did he really excite people up in your neck of the woulds or is it a case of a massive allergic reaction by the public sector union leadership and the progressives to a boring but reasonably competent Republican antigen? For what I gathered from reading your blog was the folks in WI were really excited, indeed aggravated by the anti-Walker movement and not at all jazzed up by Walker himself. But I could be wrong.
"I think Romney is nicely boring. Bring him back. That would be especially boring."
True indeed. Reminds me of the first president Bush. I could vote for him again (Romney) provided he gets a stiffer spine and does not allow himself to get played the Democrats and the media.
Like Bush 41, a nice guy, trustworthy, not prone to scandal, wont go out of his way to hurt the middle class and won't steal the china from the White House. All the same he had his chance so for now lets see what happens in the Republican primaries.
As for Hillary, she is only boring in her predictability, other than that a second Clinton Administration will be full of excitement: horrible policies, horrible implementations, foreign affairs disasters, bimbo eruptions, graft and payola scandals and whining and shrill hectoring to the point of the driving a large part of the country into either homicidal rage or suicide.
When I was younger, I was far more liberal, but I voted far less often. This wasn't due to any lofty principle about abstaining from the political process, but was mostly because I was lazy and there were better things to do......I think if immigrants and young people tended to vote conservative, Democrats would have a different view on rocking the vote. Maybe voting should be a bit bothersome.
Ann Althouse,
"Voters who abstain are still voters. They exist and can vote whenever they choose. They are real and they deserve respect."
Sure - I'm one of them - but it's because the system's wrecked, not because I think it's a good thing.
Until white supremacy is broken, fuck it,...
I think part of the problem here is that a lot of very low information voters got excited about a different sort of candidate, and elected a guy whose sole positive attribute seems to be his ability to energize and excite low information voters, and has little interest, and even less expertise, in actually running our country. He is off doing what he likes to do (fund raising), while Rome burns around him. We thought it odd that he ignored the American consulate in Benghazi because of his scheduled fund raising flight the next day, but that turns out to be the rule, and not the exception, with nothing about governing or leading this country being allowed to interfere with his fund raising, many vacations, and record number of rounds of golf.
So, yes, maybe it would be better if low information voters were not enticed to vote.
Conservatives never seem excited on election day. You don't hear a lot of "GOTV!" "If you're in line you can still vote"
Of course conservatives have never been down with the whole democracy thing to begin with.
"Hooray for boredom."
So it's time to banish emotional appeals and instead celebrate the Spirit of Reason -- make it all ever-so-rational, a perfect pitch to purest intellect, with all the pizzazz of an economics text? Why, we could even rename the seasons and the months, and start the calendar again in celebration of the new era. What could go wrong?
There's no special virtue in boredom (or excitement). Better if politics engages the whole person, emotions and intellect, with all the attendant highs and lows, but kept in harmony, balanced and steadied. It's an old idea that still makes sense.
The last time a group of people (the Tea Party folks) got excited about politics in the US all it earned it them was such epithets as violent, extremist, racist and dangerous.
I guess they were wrong type of people who are supposed to get excited about politics in America.
Only Dems are flapping about voter turnout because their voters don't vote in midterms
Crack, Would you explain how you think white people should act? How would this make life better for you? What's the justification for getting and using power (over others) in your world? Here's a thought experiment: What would the US be like if everyone was black (I mean descendants of Africans). Assume for argument's sake that Africans colonized North America and was somehow kept racially pure. I'm trying to understand whether you think there's a better competing political philosophy than Classical Liberalism in the Constitution, (Forget Progressivism for now) that is inherent in blackness as opposed to whiteness.
Thanks for not getting excited and impulse voting
Except they do.....what do you think the whole "war on...." strategy of the Democrats is all about?
Of course conservatives have never been down with the whole democracy thing to begin with.
Neither were our Founding Fathers....nor anyone else with half a functioning brain.
Most of our modern problems are the result of attempts to become more democratic.
I remember lots of excitement from the Professor around the time of Obama's election. She was almost giddy.
Same with the Scott Brown election. Althouse's excitement was contagious, I caught it, and in the end I was amply disappointed.
If your child is constantly disobedient, constantly seeking trouble, constantly behaving irresponsibly... then eventually, as adolescence and adulthood take hold, you give up and just love him/her and accept that his/her life is their own to live.
Politics is like this, without the love.
...
Or:
You start to know too much and you can slip down into the rabbit hole of intrigue. Eventually you realize that the only way out is to sing out that whatever will be, will be... and you hope that those you care about will hear and that you will be able to carry on in tranquility.
The Crack Emcee said...
-=* insert racist non sequitur here *=-
President Brain Damage's Inaugural Speech:
I thank you, the American Piehole, for... for... in addition, I am thanks for ice cream. I like ice cream. And as Presiment I will resent -- represental, excuse me -- all of the American Penile in their Purses of Happiness, their striving for... ice cream: you can have cherries on top, that is OK, cherries are as General Washington as Apple Pie. I believe in an America where we can all.. where we can all... that thing, together, do it. That American Thing, that is what I am trying to sedate to everyone. Um. I was going to say something -- it might have been some things, not something, it went back and forth a lot, I recanember -- anyway: about Justice. I can't recall what it was, but it was for everyone, I think. Everyone, together, justice: these are good things, I have that written down. No longer will our Country, together, yes. My head hurts. Puffy clouds up there. Thank you.
What we need is an activist politician with the vision to turn the entire world into a low income housing project, so it can be torn down as a blight.
Shootings would be the entertainment.
The problem of low turnout is due to the failure of local media to do its job. When people who are relatively informed on political issues open up their voter guides to find that they have never heard of most of the candidates, what are they supposed to do?
The "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality is ruining us.
Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney,Gore, Kerry, Obama, Dole, and Clinton aren't boring enough for you? If you crave less excitement, might I suggest a medically induced coma?
I remember lots of excitement from the Professor around the time of Obama's election. She was almost giddy.
Not half as giddy as she is over Scott Walker. See here. It doesn't seem possible to watch that until the end?
First question: who are the people who don't vote?
Answer: people who don't care about politics enough to make the minimal effort to vote tend to be people who also don't make the greater effort to become informed about the issues, candidates, etc. IOW, they're people a rational person wouldn't want voting.
Second questions: who is it that gets most upset about "low turnout"?
Answer: the left. Why? Because their ideas suck, and the more informed you are, the less likely you're actually going to vote for them (unless, of course, you're one of the people on the left wing gravy train).
Result: low turnout is good. If your vote isn't important enough to you to get off your ass and vote, it's not important to the rest of us, either.
President Brain Damage's State of the Union Address:
I appreciate this oppertime -- tunity, yes -- to... tunity to America, yes. Although we face challengicals we are a strong Nation, nationally, we are, together, everyone. Neighborhood, community, those words are in here, help our brothers and systems. And the Children: the Children will inhibit the Country we leaf, so Good Things, people: children like bicycles, children riding bicycles, smiling, not me -- them -- and try to create a positival image in the listeners' mine. This includes black children, I renember that. There are many in this Country who are hurting, this includes white people, that was written down. Middle-class, some kind of ladder I think. Another paragraphical. Freedom does not come from trees, there are many trees in America and that is still good. Sturdy oak. My head hurts. I want to take off my tie now. Thank you.
Hmmm, seems like I heard the other day on the radio an Australian or someone (Kamarck? some other panelist?) referencing an Australian mentioning that compulsory voting works well for Australia because it increases participation so much that the candidates spend more time explaining what they stand for and less time trying to excite their base into voting. In other words, the more people are rewarded for voting (or not punished for not voting), the less candidates will strive to be not boring. So if you want boring campaigns, maybe you actually should want laws to encourage high turnout.
On the other hand, in a non-compulsory voting country, caring enough to vote more suggests an unselfish civic-mindedness, a good thing in a voter (though it also suggests that voting is convenient).
I think the best change would be to increase the number of congresspeople, so that they'd be harder to bribe or lobby. Or better yet have citizens vote on appropriations more directly.
I feel a little nauseous around election time when the Vote! bumper stickers are freshly applied. All the civic duty horseshit. It's civic religion.
There's a sound argument against voting. More than one, actually. To take two, it's a fixed game that you validate by participating, and no election is ever decided by one vote so no single voter in a winner-take-all election matters.
I don't doubt that most non-voters are simply indifferent, giving no more consideration to why they don't vote than they do to voting. I'm fine with that. Take your civic religion and stuff it if you think apathy is somehow sinful.
I began awhile back to realize that we weren't as lucky as I had thought to get the constitution we have. And that's without it being subverted. I don't know if any possible document could prevent concentration of power. Stick a fork in the one we've got because it's done.
Civic true believers, be careful what you wish for. Democracy was never the prime value of our system nor should it ever be. Freedom is.
Ann,
"I think Romney is nicely boring. Bring him back. That would be especially boring."
It would also be a losing candidacy of epic proportions,...
I remember being depressed for two reasons when the media were fawning over Clinton hamming it up, playing sax with Ray Bans on late night TV. (As I've said before, first term Clinton was my first vote.)
A. I didn't want an essentially dweeby president who secretly wanted to be Elvis/Paul McCartney. The dweeb aspect was his positive, imo. The inner rock star was a problem waiting to happen. Very boomer, though.
B. He was clearly a wannabe on that playing field, so it was awkward to watch.
I'm big on boring for a chief executive, but I've accepted that it won't be happening. Additionally, any kind of real, desperately needed change would require some level of emotion from the public, which should not be confused with the need to create false enthusiasm to market the same old.
Bush 2 was boring essentially, but it didn't work out like Ike would have because the need for boring assumes sound structural underpinnings. We're likely long past the Romney option since it is unlikely that we can be well-managed and finessed out of our current trajectory. We actually do need competent root level changes.
President Brain Damage's Speech to the NAACP:
Thank you for this opportinal to speak with you. As Presiment I realize you are black, and there are black conditions, black people experiencinging community, racism: black people still exists. Our Great National was built with the help of your incestuals, hands of many colors and something about a plow, I renember that, it was a cymbal. There is still a lot for our National to do to fulfill the Premise to its black citizonals, that was in bold typewriter, make sure to say it. Money can never repay the debt we owe so I am avoiding any talk about money and using words like heart, that was in the notes. Our Hearts are how we heel our soles but this is not about shoes, they explained that to me: not about shoes. I like my shoes, they are very comfotable. My head hurts. Also: I have black friends. Thank y
It is ironic - Romney was an incredibly boring candidate. But also may have been our best chance at a real "Mr Smith goes to Washington".
But we crave celebrity. So we get the malignant narcisist who happens to be a marxist diversity hire.
"So it's time to banish emotional appeals and instead celebrate the Spirit of Reason -- make it all ever-so-rational, a perfect pitch to purest intellect, with all the pizzazz of an economics text? Why, we could even rename the seasons and the months, and start the calendar again in celebration of the new era. What could go wrong?"
That's the wrong criticism to pin on me, and I know you're a longtime reader. I've written a hundred times that I don't believe human thought occurs without emotion. Just within the last few days I said something like: Rationality fans are so emotive.
Try again.
Crack, Una vez más, me recuerdan donde todos esos distritos electorales fueron los reportados 140% para Obama ...
"I remember lots of excitement from the Professor around the time of Obama's election. She was almost giddy."
Nope. You're wrong.
I challenge you to go back to the relevant post and try to find what you believe you remember. I guarantee you won't find it.
It seems to me that two factors relating to voter turnout can be mapped on a bell curve.
The X axis is empowerment.
The Y axis is engagement.
A completely empowered electorate would be one where the government absolutely mirrors the will of the people. In such a situation, voting is ceremonial -- the government KNOWS what the people want already, so there's really little point in turning out for an election. (Welcome to Singapore.)
As empowerment decreases and moves left on the X axis, engagement increases as the electorate seeks to steer the ship of state on a different course. Moving further left on the X axis, the tiller gets heavier and heavier, but the electorate still believes it can change things -- up to a peak point of optimal hope.
Further left on the X axis, people start to lose hope that voting will lead to change, and become less and less engaged in the political process. The bell curve slopes downward until voting is regarded as a charade, and your personal integrity is best demonstrated by NOT voting, rather than taking part.
The United States is a little bit on the left side of the bell curve. You commonly hear people say that there is no difference between the parties, that voting doesn't matter, that the situation won't get better. Faith in Congress' ability to do the right thing is below 10% and has been for a long time. This is not a good place for our country to be in.
I remember when Clinton was re-elected. The usual droning voices of NPR were absolutely giddy with excitement. They could not hide it. I actually remember where I was when I heard it. I was on my way to work listening to Morning Edition.
If I lived in the upper 50 I doubt I would even register. I think most US elections are farcical.
1) No voter ID. Here in the deep southern US (Puerto Rico) everyone has to have a govt issued voting card. Indestructible, pretty tamper proof, issued by the govt.
Can ONLY be used for voting.
Simple to get, lasts forever (I've had 2 in more than 40 years) and 85% of the voting age populating has one.
2) Absentee voting. Very hard to get an absentee ballot in PR. I think less than 5% of the vote is absentee.
3) Early voting. Polls in PR are open on election day from 10AM to 2PM. If you don't show up in person, you don't vote. Exceptions for emergency personnel, polices, shutins and others but again, a very small percentage of voters.
4) Voting machines. Here we mark paper ballots with a pencil and count them by hand. Hard to tamper with those. Not impossible, but hard. We have unofficial election results by 8PM. Official results take another week or so but are almost never different.
We have somewhere around 80-85% of registered voters voting.
Up north jokes about ballots in trunks, voting in cemetaries, vote early and often and so on are commonplace.
I've never heard any here.
Want better turnout? Have trustworthy, serious elections.
John Henry
We still get world class scumbag politicians. I don't know what the cure for that is.
At least we get them in a trustworthy voting process.
John Henry
Will the sun rise in the west tomorrow? Crack and I agree on something.
The solution to the problem is whites realizing what they've done to destroy the meaning of their system,...
Not just whites, though. Blacks, by allowing themselves to be used as goat in fighting voter ID laws and more trustworthy elections have plenty of guilt as well.
John Henry
AA: I challenge you to go back to the relevant post and try to find what you believe you remember. I guarantee you won't find it.
Update: The hard drive containing those posts just crashed...unexplainably.
Voters who abstain are still voters. They exist and can vote whenever they choose. They are real and they deserve respect.
If they go to the polls and cast a blank ballot or write in a bunch of nonsense names or none of the above, I agree.
If they just don't go, they are not "abstaining" from voting.
They are shirking. That behavior should never be respected.
And no, I am not in favor of mandatory voting.
John Henry
I challenge you to go back to the relevant post and try to find what you believe you remember. I guarantee you won't find it.
Ugh... a puzzle... I look at archive... The words "melancholia" and "indifference" come to mind. And I find the goldfish getting excited while the shark does not.
Yes, you are correct, and I am corrected!
But... wtf? Really... WTF? It's an enigma wrapped in metaphysics. IF you are bored... then why do you do this, Frau Professor? Why so much diligent daily attention to things that bore you? Didn't you still post when you crashed y'er TT? Didn't you still post when you eloped with the gardener? Doesn't all the effort take... ummm... effort? Do you care about this stuff? Do you own a fish bowl because it matches the decor of your living room?
Would you be so kind as to follow your correction with a bit of education?
Unfortunately, the partisans of both sides have become convinced that there is a lost tribe of their voters who are wandering the desert, waiting for a true conservative/ unashamed liberal to lead them to the promised land. Unfortunately, the suits in the party always manage to get some namby-pamby moderate nominated.
Women let their emotions wander.
Men give their emotions a pilot.
Maybe we need proportional voting? And/or voter qualifications?
In his 1955 book "In the Wet" Nevil Shute looked ahead to the England and Australia of the 1990s. Pretty good, as all of Shute's books are.
One of the plot was "The Seventh Vote". In 1990s Australia each adult could get up to 7 votes.
Everybody got one but then you could get additional votes for graduating HS, graduating college or holding a professional license (like an electrician), serving in the military, working for the govt and some other things. The Seventh Vote was awarded by the queen, like a knighthood os such.
How about in the US all adults (age 27 and over?)gets one vote.
Then perhaps an additional vote for every thousand dollars of income, property, SS or other taxes they pay.
Let the people who are pulling the wagon have some say in the direction it is heading. The people riding don't like where it is going, they can get out and help pull in another direction.
John Henry
One could argue that in a high-turnout election the other side would have to disinter more dead voters or manufacture more absentee ballots -- making it marginally harder/riskier/more expensive to cheat.
B-b-but...voter ID is RACIST!!
Dear Crunchy Frog,
The racial non-sequitur you are looking for is:
Black is beautiful, white is shite. The Troll's entire repertoire.
Boring is beautiful.
I always advise people to stay below the radar to avoid problems.
If people are to STUPID to go to the polls, then they don't deserve to vote.
Simple as that.
I've turned into a one issue voter. Not any particular issue. Just the one that comes knocking at the moment.
Every candidate who has ever run for every office that has been listed on a ballot that I've been given to mark is tediously wrong on almost everything.
But usually there's an issue that one candidate gets spectacularly wrong. That tells me to vote for the other.
Examples: In 2000 both Gore and Bush were tediously wrong across the board. I voted for the Libertarian candidate, whoever it was. I would have voted for Nader if no Libertarian was listed. In 2004 and 2008 the Democrats nominated candidates who were spectacularly wrong on Iraq. In both cases, the Republican candidate remained tediously wrong across the board, but neither Bush nor McCain managed the level of spectacular wrongness attained by Kerry and Obama.*
By 2012, Obama had managed to make himself spectacularly wrong on almost everything. That call was easy.
*This is despite the fact that by 2004 Bush had spectacularly failed in Iraq. You can vote for the future or against the past. Kerry presented a spectacularly wrong-headed future, which was how I made the call. McCain, in 2008, can be coupled with Obama as the worst presidential candidate in my lifetime. In any sum of intelligence, political vision, coherent policy, and executive capacity he was a horrible choice. But he was absolutely right on Iraq -- as history has unfortunately proven.
"It [Romney] would also be a losing candidacy of epic proportions,..."
Not if the latest CNN poll is accurate.
"Try again."
OK. Comments here (mine, anyway) are not a criticism of a body of work, but instead a response to a particular bit of text that seems interesting or provocative. Blogging at its best -- yours especially -- has a sharp, in-the-moment quality, the antithesis of "boredom-inducing." But the flip side is that individual posts stand on their own. This one, suggesting that "hooray for boredom" is a sensible way to approach politics in general, and more specifically the lesson to be drawn to avoid falling for another inadequate leader claiming the mantle of history, missed the mark.
Crack said:
"Ann,
"'I think Romney is nicely boring. Bring him back. That would be especially boring.'
"It would also be a losing candidacy of epic proportions,..."
You are right! I think it's the first time, but I may have missed another. You can quit now. Have a good life. Bye bye.
Doesn't the CNN poll say Mitt would get crushed by Hillary, proving the point of commentators stating Mitt would get crushed?
Or can we start assuming Obama will be on the ballot for a third term?
I'd love to have a boring, competent president. But boring can't get you elected president today (unless your opponent is a kook and the press is in the tank 4 u.)
How about this for starters? States will have to set their own regulations for statewide office, but for federal offices (Pres, VP, Senator, Rep):
No person shall be allowed to cast a vote in any federal election who did not pay net income tax in two out of the previous four years, and whose net tax for the four years did not exceed zero; nor shall any person be allowed to cast a vote in any federal election whose total income for the previous four years (direct employee or contractor) from federal-government sources exceeds his total income from non-federal-government sources.
No Representation Without Taxation.
The barbarian at the gate is not bored.
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