South Dakota Politics

Early Voting Is a Corruption of Democracy

A lot of eligible Americans do not vote. This is one of those facts that is perceived to be a great problem, not because it can be correlated with any bad consequences, but because it doesn't fit with how we think people ought to behave. Early voting is one of those solutions that is favored not because there is any reason to think it will remedy the problem, but because we think we ought to be doing something about the problem.

According to a Gallup study, about 70% of those who say they will vote plan to vote on Election Day. Of the rest, 11% have already voted, and 19% plan to vote early. That means that 30% of the actual voters (if everyone does what they plan to do) will cast their ballots before the election campaign is over.

Interestingly, and ominously for John McCain, each candidates' supporters are about equally likely to vote early as on Election Day. In the past, early voting has favored Republicans. But Obama supporters outnumber McCain supporters, so Obama is already leading in the vote tally. Gallup points out something interesting about this:

Obama has been ahead in Gallup Poll Daily tracking conducted while these data were being gathered. Thus, while equal percentages of Obama and McCain voters have voted early, there are more of the former than of the latter, meaning that early voting generally reflects the same Obama lead evident in the overall sample. Thus, if McCain gains rapidly in the days left, Obama benefits, since Obama can't lose votes he has already received. If McCain loses support rapidly, Obama will not have the chance to pick up even more support from those who have already voted.

In a courtroom, with exactly twelve voters, a great deal of care is taken to make sure that all the parties, defense and prosecution, judge and jury, have access to exactly the same information. Early voting invites a significant number of voters to act without having all the information that most voters have. A lot can happen between now and November 4^th. While big surprises might seem unlikely, we might find out something we really need to know about the two candidates. Otherwise, why go on for the next week and a half?

Voting is a civil right, but it should also be a responsibility. Absentee voting makes perfect sense, as many responsible voters might not be able to reach their allotted polling place. But we have are encouraging a lot of voters to think that they needn't bother. This is the culture that maximizes rights while reducing responsibilities to the merest shadow. It has the potential for altering the outcome of elections, and in future races both parties will try to manipulate it. It does not represent progress.

Tim Johnson Ducks Half Hour Interview

When Tim Johnson announced that he was going to back out on an earlier pledge, and would not debate Joel Dykstra, I drew what I thought was the obvious conclusion. Johnson is not, as yet, fit to run for his Senate seat. One may question the value of televised debates, but they are a part of our contemporary election process and a candidate is ordinarily expected to be up that task. Senator Johnson decided he wasn't up to it.

This week, Keloland invited both candidates, Johnson and Dykstra, to be interviewed separately for a half hour. Johnson again backed out. From Keloland:

Tuesday night KELOLAND News aired a special Senate edition of Inside KELOLAND to give voters a better idea of who the candidates are. Joel Dykstra was the only candidate to appear on the program because Johnson cancelled his appearance after accepting our offer to be on the show. Johnson said he was not able to take part because he has to get ready for a banking committee hearing scheduled for Thursday, but Johnson did not attend last week's hearing on oversight of the bailout bill. 

My earlier conclusion is confirmed. Keloland offered to interview Johnson at any time he chose, but he insisted that he was too busy.

KELOLAND TV made repeated offers to tape Senator Johnson's half hour portion anytime between their decision Friday night and his departure Tuesday afternoon. But we were told Senator Johnson does not have time.

In fact he withdrew because he and his staff concluded that he was not up to the interview or, what is the same thing, that his performance in a lengthy interview would undermine confidence in his fitness for office.

Steve Hemmingsen, blogging for Keloland, points out the consequences of Johnson's withdrawal.

I watched Angela Kennecke's interview with Republican candidate Joel Dykstra last night.  Good interview.  Informative and all that.  It was a nice half hour for the glib Dykstra to make inroads against incumbent Tim Johnson.  The problem is that without the other side being present to counter what you're saying even your good ideas don't have much impact, like all those right wing and left wing talk shows where you only hear O'One Side, spun like cotton candy.  Dykstra just took the TV face time, sounded positive, hardly challenged Johnson and why not?  There was no Johnson to challenge him.  He challenged John McCain more than he did Tim Johnson, except for the opening salvo about the no-show and the meeting. I would think even a handicapped Johnson would have been better than no Johnson at all. 

Well that is about it, isn't it? With little money and no recognition, Dykstra is in no position to offer the people of South Dakota a reasonable alternative. That is what the Johnson campaign has made sure of.

There is a lot of warm feeling in South Dakota for Tim Johnson, and I share it. I have met Senator Johnson, and once invited him to speak to one of my classes. He is a decent person, and no doubt a public figure we have had reason to be proud of. It would have been a serious challenge to any Republican to try to unseat him in any circumstances. But in this campaign, he has chosen to withdraw behind his many advantages rather than submit himself to the public. That will no doubt see him through, but this is not his finest half-hour.

Take A Break From The Vaniety Fair

One of the reasons I cut back on blogging is that in the blogosphere the ratio of dreck to truly thoughtful pieces is not encouraging.  The blog format encourages, it seems, short pieces that overly simplify arguments and do not reward prolonged consideration of well-reasoned thought.  Readers want it short, unsubtle and the more angry the better.  Just take a look at the typical post in the South Dakota blogosphere.  The blogosphere is to thought what pro-wrestling is to Shakespeare.

That's why we should take the time to read those pieces that come along that are thoughtful and well reasoned.  Give Charles Kessler's piece on Barack Obama a read.  You may agree, you may not. But Kessler is smart and he shows it. 

I'd encourage going to Patrick Deenen's site every day, but here is a typical example of Deneen's iconoclastic thought.  Deneen consistently rewards the time we put into understanding his thought. 

One reason to read these pieces.  Barack Obama is going to win in a couple weeks.  Democrats will sweep Congress.  That is almost a given.  Now let's start thinking about how we will govern.  Kessler and Deneen help us in that direction.

Oh, and while you are at it, read my colleague Art Marmorstein's thoughtful piece in the abortion initiative.  It gets past the stale abortion rhetoric to give a new perspective on the abortion culture. 

If Obama Buys the White House, then He Earned it

When Barack Obama rejected public financing he revealed two things.  One is that he was not about to let a deep and long-held commitment to principle on his part or that of his party stand in the way of political power.  The second was that he is the kind of serious player who deserves a shot at the Oval Office.  There is nothing illegal or immoral about being a tremendous fund raiser; and as politics is almost as serious as baseball, good management means exploiting every rule of the game. 

The result is that Obama is now flooding the airwaves with his message, outspending John McCain at least three to one.  Predictably, Obama's critics now accuse him of "buying the White House."  Here's Richard Baehr from Real Clear Politics:

Barack Obama is well on his way to buying the Presidency. …The state where the Obama campaign has been carpet bombing the airwaves most vigorously this past weekend was West Virginia. If you watched TV over the weekend in the Mountaineer State, you could not have missed the Obama ads -- an extraordinary buy of $1.2 million per day for 5 days, with ads running in every media market in the state. The McCain campaign, had it spent all of its $84 million for the general election on TV ads, would have had $1.4 million to spend per day for campaign ads for the last two months for all 50 states. Obama has just spent almost that much per day in one state with fewer than 2 million people and but 5 Electoral College votes.

Now Baehr presents a lot of evidence that Obama has played very dirty politics in his previous campaigns, and there is a lot to ponder there.  Consider this:

In essence, we do not have a fair fight. Obama has always liked it that way when it comes to his campaigns. Obama said at one point that if the McCain campaign brought "a knife to the fight, we would bring a gun" -- revealing that he did not care about a level playing field . Anyone familiar with his campaign against Alice Palmer in 1996, where he used challenges to nominating petitions to completely eliminate all his challengers in the Democratic primary for the Illinois State Senate, should have realized this aspect of Obama's campaign style.

Those who think that Karl Rove is an evil genius should consider whether "evil" means anything more definite than "Republican."  But to say that this isn't a fair fight is nonsense.  Obama is raising a lot more money than McCain because he has convinced a lot more people with money to back him.  There is nothing the least bit unfair about that.  Politics in a Republic is not the same thing as a business market, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a market.  It manifestly is a market. 

I would note something more.  When Obama began his campaign, he was surely one of the least qualified candidates to pursue the presidency in living memory.  That didn't stop a large part of the Democratic core from attaching themselves to him.  But it precisely that fact that puts an end to questions about his qualifications.  In the end, the only qualification for the presidency that matters is winning it.  Obama has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that he is as qualified as McCain, or Clinton, or Bush, or Gore, or anyone else who has come close. 

Of course, all this means that Republicans were right about campaign finance restrictions, and Democrats wrong.  But that will be cold comfort, I suspect, in a couple of weeks. 

None Of The Above

My latest in the American News:

John McCain spreads the fiction that the budget can be balanced by cutting pork barrel spending.

Barack Obama is right. This spendying represents a tiny fraction of government spending.

McCain advocates an “across the board” spending freeze, excepting defense and veterans spending. The reason for an “across the board” freeze is obvious; it liberates McCain from advocating any particular spending cuts, protecting him from the inevitable voter backlash.

On entitlements, McCain argues pathetically that reforming Social Security is as “easy” as mouthing platitudes about bipartisanship. This fools voters into thinking no tough choices need to be made regarding Social Security. Similarly, McCain advocates forming a commission to reform Medicare. Again, this gets McCain off the hook from suggesting anything specific.

McCain must know that his proposals do not approach the comprehensive entitlement reform necessary to balance the budget. Yet he says he will balance the budget. What does one call someone who says things he knows to be false?

Mc- Cain's foreign policy is a continuation of the idealistic belief that nations can be made democratic by force coupled with wishful thinking. McCain correctly perceives the inability of government to plan our complex lives. So why does he think it can create democracy out of whole cloth?

If McCain's proposals are inadequate, Obama makes McCain look like a noble statesman. When asked in a debate about entitlement reform, Obama ducked the question, avoiding anything approaching addressing the entitlement problem.

Obama actually aims to add to the entitlement problem by offering an unimaginably expensive national health care plan that even in the short run will add hundreds of billions to our national debt.

When asked about spending cuts, Obama responds by citing the spending he will increase. He promotes massive spending increases on health care, alternative energy, infrastructure and education. Independent estimates indicate that Obama has proposed close to $900 billion in new spending, but just $80 billion in new revenue. Yet he claims he will balance the budget.

Obama knows that the country cannot simultaneously pay for his proposals and balance the budget. Yet he continues to claim that we can. What does one call someone who says things he knows to be false?

Obama's foreign policy is based on the na•ve belief that all peoples of the world want the same thing and the only thing preventing world peace is for the eloquent Obama to explain this to us all. Obama lacks any appreciation of true evil or the necessity for a nation to display power in the world.

Obama's candidacy is based on demagoguery, flattering the people that “we are the change we have been waiting for” while blaming all of America's problems on “greed” and George Bush. Obama is winning based on making promises that he cannot hope to deliver on. The coming disappointment will only add to our cynicism about public affairs.

Political philosopher Patrick Deneen has recently written, “[O]ur laws and lawmakers ultimately follow the public will. Deficits, indebtedness and profligacy emanated as demands of the culture. When confronted with limits, people demanded the fealty and expansion of government.” Our major party candidates have said nothing to suggest they will demand any self-restraint on our part.

Both candidates advocate taxing and spending policies sure to drive our public debt even higher. Both candidates are making us a deal. Indulge ourselves now and let future generations pay for it. I haven't met the person who doesn't like being given stuff and letting someone else pay for it. The fact that we will accept this deal says as much about us as it does about the politicians.

But we don't have to agree to this. Perhaps this is an election to vote “none of the above.”

Anyone Who Criticizes Obama is a Racist

That, at least, is a current meme being broadcast by the liberal intelligentsia.  Here are the now well posted statements of Representative John Lewis:

"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing today reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

Wow!  Did Palin vow to stand where Jefferson Davis once stood?  Did John McCain belt out "Segregation now!  Segregation forever!"  Well not exactly.  What McCain Palin did was to criticize Obama's alliance with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.  Now a reasonable person might well think that the Obama/Ayers alliance doesn't matter, or that McCain has similar skeletons in his own closet.  But does criticizing Obama's political actions in the past really equate to murdering little girls in a church?  So far as I can tell, the only bomber in the equation is Ayers. 

And then there is Dianne McWhorter, writing at Slate.  Her attack is much cleverer than Representative Lewis's. 

Any comparison between George Wallace's program and the current Republican campaign must acknowledge the truth reflected in the fact alone of a black presidential nominee: The country today is a long way from the America of 1972. By the same token, that stunning achievement is the very fact that gives this debate over Wallace's legacy its urgency.

The most obvious tactic shared by Palin and Wallace is their cranky assault on the "elite" national news media. Wallace would often single out reporters at his events from "the Life magazine," "the Time," and "the Newsweek," but he thoughtfully assigned them bodyguards in case his "folks" got too riled up. When Palin deprecated Katie Couric at a rally, the crowd shook thunder sticks at the press section—and one supporter told a black network soundman to "sit down, boy." Like Wallace's base, Palin's "true Americans" owe their authenticity to their rebellion against American institutions.

That acknowledgement of the obvious truth about America is good strategy.  The fact that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, and that he looks to be the next President, surely means that race is no longer a bar to any office in the United States.  Nor can McWhorter come up with anything vaguely resembling racism on the part of McCain or Palin.  So how is Palin like George Wallace, as the post title says?

Well, Palin is a "cranky" anti-elitist.  I think I follow the logic here.  Palin attacks the elite.  Anti-elitism was a theme of George Wallace.  Therefore, Sarah Palin is George Wallace.  I will let my readers measure that sophism on their own.  But look at what has become of the Left!  They once stood as the challengers of the elite, the enemies of the status quo.  Now, poised on the lip of what looks like victory, they want to make sure that no challenges to their regime will be allowed. 

Racism is a terrible thing.  The cynical use of anti-racism as a weapon against innocent parties is damning.