Eric The Blue

Pissed off white guys and the Republican vote

The Republicans are taking some heat for their cavalier disregard for the truth in Tampa.  There are exceptions to the general rule, however.  Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina:

The demographics race we're losing badly.  We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.

He's right, they're not.  It used to be the party of the country club and the board room but where would it be now without the pissed off owners of all-terrain vehicles?  In the Twin Cities, first Kerry and then Obama carried the quintessentially affluent suburbs of Edina and Minnetonka.  I hope Graham is urging a change of course, not a doubling down on the Caucasion provocation strategy.

Money, money, money: Money

At the supper table this evening, the 9-year-old asks: Who makes more money, you or mom?  Well, I do, of course, what kind of wispy conception of my manhood would cause you to ask?  (Plus, mom's a few months into a new career, and I'm more than 25 years into mine.)

It made me think, though, about the connection, if any, between one's salary and the value of the work performed.  Maybe if I was trained in economics, it would make more sense, but more likely I'd just have long, unsatisfactory answers instead of none at all.  A nurse gets this much, a teacher that much, I earn a certain amount less than my boss but a certain amount more than the people who report to me, Mitt Romney made gazillions at Bain Capital, the author of Moby Dick is buried in a pauper's cemetery, and on and on.  Who can account for it?  If you are a hunter-gatherer or a subsistence farmer, the connection between what you do and what you get for it is fairly clear and the work therefore acquires a certain dignity.  For a middle-manager, however, the compensation seems entirely arbitrary, which converts the work into a kind of servitude while the paycheck is an inscrutable charity.  It shows on the faces of people using public transportation during the rush hours.

John Hinderaker's night with Romney

The pugnacious John Hinderaker, who, in response to the Akin debacle, composed on August 22 a post with the title "Are the Democrats [sic] Delusional on Abortion," on August 23 drove out to the Lafayette Club, on Lake Minnetonka, for a Romney fund raiser.  Here are some highlights of his evening.

• As he pulled into the parking lot, he noticed "a ragtag group of leftist protesters" chanting "We are the 99%!"  He wanted to confront them, but alas "security was tight," and he had to console himself with what he would have said: "If you are the 99%, why are there only 11 of you?"
• In addition to these leftists, there were "conservative counter-protesters," but John could not tell which group was bigger.  (There must have been around 11 counter-protesters--too many to count!)
• Romney was about an hour late, which pressed the warm-up mediocrities, such as Norm Coleman, into "heroic service."
• When John had his handshake with Romney, he said: "Governor, you and I overlapped at Harvard, but you were more successful later in life."  This provoked "a cordial laugh." 
• Romney was "sensational" and "impassioned." 
• How "sensational"?  If only you could have been there! "[T]he Romney campaign needs to film him before audiences like tonight's."
• Listening to Romney, John and "two of Minnesota's most dedicated conservative activists and donors" considered the question: "what better spokesman for conservative ideas have we had in recent years?"  Answer: none.  (After all, his pro-life record is unimpeachable, and he brought socialized medicine to Massachusetts!)
• Compared to Romney, Reagan was "cerebral."
• Fans of Power Line should dig deep, like John, and contribute to the campaign of the next president!  "Private polling" shows Obama's lead in Minnesota is one point!  (These polls are so private that they haven't made their way to the Romney campaign, which, as John points out in his second sentence, will not be returning to Minnesota.)

 

Addendum

In yesterday's post, I should not have suggested that Republicans succeeded at writing "forcible rape" into national legislation so as to limit access to abortion for victims of sexual assault.  They only tried.  Hendrik Hertzberg:

Last year, Paul Ryan and Todd Akin were co-sponsors of a bill that would have specified a pregnancy resulting from "forcible rape" as the only kind that Medicaid or a health savings account could pay to end.  A middle-school girl impregnated by her uncle or a sophomore coed subjected to the carnal aggressions of fraternity boys after a night of binge drinking would have to settle for the comfort that her rape, like the baby the G.O.P. would oblige her to have, was illegitimate.

I just scrolled over to the Power Line site and was greeted by the following headline over a post by John Hinderaker: "Are the Democrats Delusional on Abortion?"  After Akin opened his craw, but before John composed that headline, the Republican party's platform committee voted to adopt the following language for its abortion plank: "Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life that cannot be infringed." 

Like I said, Akin is not an outlier.  There is however a lot of evidence that he is delusional.

Todd Akin: not an outlier

If you take the view that a fetus is a person in the same sense as my 4-year-old, it follows that abortion should not be available to women who have been sexually assaulted.  Making an exception, in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape, to a general abortion prohibition is tantamount to permitting a homicide if the victim's father is a criminal.  That makes no sense.  Nor would it make any sense to permit abortion when the pregnant woman's health requires it, which would amount to a health care professional killing one person to save another.

When a premise (a fetus is worthy of the same legal protections as anyone else) leads to outrageous conclusions (women who have been raped must not be allowed to have abortions), some people subject the premise to scrutiny.  But that is not an option for someone like Todd Akin, Republican candidate for the US Senate from Missouri.  Thus, asked about rape and his unqualified opposition to abortion in all cases, he naturally rejects the whole notion that women who have been raped might get pregnant:

First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare.  If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

Yes, it's all nonsense, and one wonders about the doctors with whom he speaks, but why is everyone shocked, shocked?  What Akin said is well within the Republican grain, where thoroughgoing opposition to abortion is practically necessary if you want to advance.  Did he say a single thing with which Rick Santorum, the silver medalist, disagrees?  As for "legitimate rape," which seems to have been a flashpoint, it isn't any more incongruous, or outrageous, than the concept of "forcible rape," which congressional Republicans have written into national legislation that seeks to restrict federal funding for abortion even in cases of rape.  (For the ban not to apply, the rape must be "forcible.")  Akin says he meant to say "forcible rape," but "legitimate rape" slid out, and I believe him.  But I don't comprehend why he and a million others seem to think the one is controversial, a fit topic for civil discourse, and the other a scandal that disqualifies him for high office.

Andy Borowitz has more.  He thinks Akin is dangerous and that the people of Missouri should elect him to the Senate, where they can monitor him via C-Span, rather than just release him into the general population. 

Color Me Obsessed

Saw Color Me Obsessed, Gorman Bechard's documentary on The Replacements, Friday evening at The Parkway.  Bechard was onhand to take questions afterward.  His film is a fan's-eye view of the band: no music, no band members, just interviews with fans, from the famous (Tom Arnold) (but not Pat Sajack) to the unknown.  Among this latter group, the star of the show, I thought, was Robert Voedisch, identified as a "writer."  Rooting around now on The Internet, I find his web page and his Facebook page, where his music "likes" do not include The Replacements.  ("The Replacements--Band" is listed among "Other" with the helpful descriptor, "Local Business.")  He is a short story writer, an instructor at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, and a fan of John Cheever, Alice Munro, and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton: an all-around solid citizen, it would appear, as well as a quirky, articulate, gesticulating, slightly nervous, engaging Replacements obsessive.  The enthusiasm for a politician, however, is not something you will find in the oeuvre of the Replacements.  The closest any of them has come to political involvement is the  job Paul Westerberg held as a janitor in the Minnesota office of then-Sen. David Durenberger.  Here is part of the lyric to "Someone Take the Wheel":

The windows are dirty;
Let's hope it rains.
Add another newspaper,
Something to do with my change.
I see we're fighting again
In some fuckin' land:
Throw in another tape man.

Judging by the questions Bechard took after the screening, I wasn't the only one taken by Voedisch, who apparently had a lower percentage of his interview cut than any of the other "stars." I'd highly recommend Color Me Obsessed to fans of The Replacements.  All others might feel like Mr. Voedisch at a mixer of the College Republicans. 

National Popular Vote: I beat the drum

Reading along in another humdrum article ("Medicare issue put to test quickly in Florida") concerning the presidential campaign, one comes to this graf:

The implications extend beyond Florida.  Elderly voters are significant forces in Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia and Pennsylvania, all states that could help determine the outcome of the election.

This list of states that "could help determine the outcome of the election" is not evidently intended to be comprehensive.  It is, rather, a subset of all the states that "could help determine the outcome of the election"--namely, those states that "could help determine the outcome of the election" in which there are substantial numbers of elderly voters. 

Nevertheless, it's startling that people aren't startled by these cliches of political journalism.  That there are states that "could help determine the outcome of the election" indicates that there are other states that will not help determine the outcome of the election.  Here are a few of them: California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma. . . .

To be a little more accurate: these states will, strictly speaking, help determine the outcome.  They do have electoral votes, and their electoral votes will count in the final tally.  But, since the race isn't close in any of them, and because the candidate who's going to win the state gets all the electoral votes allotted to that state, everyone who prefers the candidate who's going to lose is for all practical purposes disenfranchised.  All the Republicans in California, New York, and Illinois.  All the Democrats in Texas and Tennessee.  Millions and millions from all over the country.  They're suckers if they believe their vote has any impact on the outcome of the presidential contest.  Moreover, if, like me, you prefer Obama, and live in a state that Obama is going to win, your vote is, if not exactly worthless, heavily discounted.  Ditto for those who prefer Romney in the crimson states.

The electoral college is responsible for this sorry state of affairs.  There is a remedy at hand, however:  National Popular Vote.  It deserves your support.

The electoral map takes shape

 

Writing at the Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky argues that Obama's grip on the Electoral College is such that Romney, to win, "has to draw an inside straight like you've never seen in a movie."  He wrote that on August 4.  A few days later, Romney picked Ryan as his running mate, which I think indicates his campaign agrees with Tomasky's analysis.  Either something has to change--and Ryan is more apt to change the dynamic than, say, Portman or Pawlenty--or else the Mittster has to carry a lot of states in which he currently appears to be trailing.

Look at the four states Romney toured with Ryan immediately after adding him to the ticket: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio.  George W Bush won all four in both 2000--I'm not going to mention what happened in Florida that year--and 2004.  It's another tacit admission that Romney is behind and flailing.  He needs to win all of them and he's ahead, barely, only in North Carolina.  If he were in as strong a position as he says he is, he'd have picked Pawlenty, and his travel itenerary would feature Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. 

I've said it before:  it's time for Republicans to get on board with NPV!

Jorgensons go on vacation; Romney makes his choice

Back from Jorgenson Family Vacation, which this year bulked up to a five-day tour of northern Minnesota.  Do not tell our children that some people consider five days "a long weekend," not a "family vacation." 

High point for me was probably the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids.  Does that tell you what you need to know?  Yes, probably.  My most enjoyable moments in five days came as I trailed behind and listened in as an earnest mother of three oh-me and oh-myed her way through the exhibits detailing the husbands, the drugs, and the early death.  That's not what she'd expected, and it's not what I'd expected either.

Oh, and this morning our two older girls caught some fish off the end of our friends' dock near Alexandria.  Caught them, but wouldn't touch them.  If they don't turn out to be fisherwomen that is okay with me.  I don't mind sitting in a boat or contemplating a bobber, but it is a real nuisance when a fish gets on your line.

While we were gone, I understand that Romney picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate.  Since I much prefer Obama, my interest in the campaign is mainly the horse race, and the Ryan selection suggests to me that Romney is behind and knows it.  If he wasn't trying to change the game, he'd have picked someone else.   

"As Rochefoucault his Maxims drew"

I've been perusing some of the Gore Vidal obits and tributes that have appeared since his death last Tuesday.  One--"Gore Vidal quotes: 26 of the best"--includes some familiar items:

It is not enough to succeed.  Others must fail.

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

Envy is the central fact of American life.

When I say "familiar," I do not mean that Vidal is one of those aphorists whose mind is known to legions who've never heard of him.  More like Vidal, without attribution, disseminated the wisdom of the gimlet-eyed Frenchman Francois de LaRochefoucauld (1613-1680), whose maxims include:

Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplaît pas. ("In the adversity of our friends we often find something that is not exactly displeasing.")

You perceive an affinity of thought and expression.  Here's some more, without the original French.

1. We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.

2. We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

3. Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.

4. To succeed in the world we do everything we can to appear successful already.

5. If we judge love by most of its results, it seems more akin to hate than to friendship.

6. Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples. 

7. The mind is always the dupe of the heart.

8. Usually we only praise to be praised.

9. The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.

10. It is better to set one's mind to bearing the misfortunes that are happening than to think of those that may happen.

11. Our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have done as a fear of the ill that may befall us.

12. Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually just inertia or lack of will-power.

13. The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.

14. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

15. We confess to small faults only to persuade ourselves that we have no great ones.

16. Mediocre minds usually dimiss anything that extends beyond their own understanding.

17. Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.

18. Our enemies come closer in their judgments about us than we ever do about ourselves.

19. We would scarcely wish zealously for things, if we really understood the things we wanted.

20. All the passions cause us to make mistakes, but love causes us to make the most ridiculous ones.

21. We would often be ashamed of our finest acts, if the world were aware of the motives behind them.

22. Ridicule hurts our honor more than does dishonor itself.

23. There are those who would never have been in love had they never heard about it.

24. We would hardly ever enjoy ourselves, if we never flattered ourselves.

25. Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over philosophy.

26. No matter how many nice things they say about us, we never learn anything new.

I don't know what's magical about 26, but, there, you have it: at least half a deck of the honest truth about us.