Political Saturday (May 2012): Peoria, Training and Senator Durbin

This is Barbara getting a greeting from Senator Dick Durbin at an event at Bradley University.

Weekly address

Political Training
We attended some political training this weekend; this was “Precinct Committeeman” training. Though I am not one of these, I was allowed to attend anyway.

There were some interesting tidbits on how to establish contact with voters in small areas; much of it involved getting to know people who live in the areas and in establishing a relationship with them. I’d be terrible at it.

There was some training in voter software; this stuff is sophisticated! Basically, the political operations know much more about you than you think that they do.

Politics

One thing that makes arguments tough: we tend to not trust what comes from the other side. What hurts is that political parties tend to “spin” the truth in a way that helps them rather than just attempt to explain what is going on. Understanding isn’t the goal of political communication; getting the vote is.

No: the arena that President Obama spoke at in Ohio wasn’t empty.

It wasn’t capacity either (14,000 in an 18,000 seat arena).

Politics: Romney and Santorum again; Subliminal comparison of Obama to Ahmadinejad

The sane

Now for the Clown Show:

Mitt: the Amorphic candidate…or one who is always in a state of quantum super position of states?
Ask him a question and he collapses his political wave function.

Illinois
How did it end up in Illinois? Crazy Rick won 12 of the pledged delegates:

all 3 in CD 12, all 4 in CD 15, , all 3 in CD 17 (where I live), 1 of the 4 in CD 16 1 of the 4 in CD 18.
The places where Santorum swept were not at all a surprise.

Now Santorum hurt himself with an ill advised line:

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday said Republicans should give President Barack Obama another term if Santorum isn’t the GOP nominee and for a second day compared rival Mitt Romney to an Etch A Sketch toy.

Santorum reiterated an argument he has made before: The former Massachusetts governor is not conservative enough to offer voters a clear choice in the fall election and that only he can provide that contrast.

“You win by giving people a choice,” Santorum said during a campaign stop in Texas. “You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there.”

Santorum added: “If they’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.”

Santorum was referencing Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom’s comment Wednesday that “everything changes” for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said on CNN. “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

The remark reignited criticism of Romney as the type of politician who will say or do anything to win.

Romney, who made no public appearances Thursday, issued a statement expressing disappointment “that Rick Santorum would rather have Barack Obama as president than a Republican.”

“This election is more important than any one person. It is about the future of America,” he said. “Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure.”

Now of course, Santorum is “walking it back” His campaign sent the following out (I got on the mailing list by making a token contribution)

Knowing that their candidate lacks a consistent conservative message, Romney’s spin machine is once again working overtime.

That’s why, even though Rick is busy campaigning in Louisiana today he wanted me to rush this email out to you regarding his comments yesterday about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Rick’s response is here:

“I would never vote for Barack Obama over any Republican and to suggest otherwise is preposterous. This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney’s policies mirror Barack Obama’s.

I was simply making the point that there is a huge enthusiasm gap around Mitt Romney and it’s easy to see why – Romney has sided with Obama on healthcare mandates, cap-and-trade, and the Wall Street bailouts.

Voters have to be excited enough to actually go vote, and my campaign’s movement to restore freedom is exciting this nation. If this election is about Obama versus the Obama-Lite candidate, we have a tough time rallying this nation. It’s time for bold vision, bold reforms and bold contrasts. This election is about more than Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or Rick Santorum – this campaign is about freedom and I will fight to restore your freedoms.”

Please forward this email to your friends and family. Let them hear the truth from Rick, not what Mitt Romney wants them to hear.

Thanks for all you are doing.

Proud to stand with Rick,

Mike Biundo
Campaign Manager

And his campaign released this nasty attack ad:

The key is at 40 seconds into the ad, where Santorum’s campaign puts a super brief photo of President Obama between shots of Iranian President Ahmadinejad; quite subliminal.

My Thoughts: Illinois Primary Election

My take: if Rick Santorum can get his people to the polls (church goers, households making 100K or less per year, downstate voters), he might beat his poll numbers again and win Illinois. In any event, he should clean up on delegates downstate.

The local downticket elections are boring, at least on the Democratic side, though the Illinois Supreme Court (Cook County) has an interesting race and some Illinois Congressional primary races might be competitive.

There is an IL-17 race, but Cheri Bustos has the backing of the party heavyweights and should win easily.

I couldn’t make myself vote Republican in the Primary

Cross posted: Daily Kos.

Yesterday I went and blustered at how I was going to take a Republican ballot in the primary and vote for Rick Santorum:

(here is the link)

I even made a video:

Then it came time for the deed…..
I. COULD. NOT. DO. IT.

Today started off nicely; I am on spring break and had a pleasant 6 mile (9.8 K) run on a dirt trail with my department chair…..sort of. After 4 miles I had to slow down and he continued on his regular pace; the 6 miles took me 57:53 (9:34 minutes per mile). Ah, 10 years ago, my marathon pace was 1 minute per mile faster than that! Age and entropy….

Then, after a quick breakfast, I went to the polling place with my wife. We showed our ID’s (required for early voting) and then we were asked what ballots we wanted. She said “Democratic”. I opened my mouth……

and I just couldn’t say “Republican”. I just couldn’t.

I didn’t want people thinking that I thought that trickle down economics was either effective or moral.

I didn’t want people thinking that I thought that evolution and climate science were hoaxes.

I didn’t want people thinking that I thought that the separation of church and state was a bad idea; I didn’t want them to think that gay and women’s rights should be decided by theology.

I didn’t want people thinking that I think that this country is a Christian nation.

I didn’t want people thinking that I believed only certain US citizens were “REAL AMERICANS” and that others who lived in different social settings were somehow faux Americans.

I didn’t want people to think that I want the United States to be a bully on the world stage, or that making some concession to the rest of the world was “apologizing for America”, or that offering an apology when we were clearly in the wrong was a bad idea.

I didn’t want people to think that I believe in social Darwinism or that compassion is a weakness.

I sure as heck didn’t want people to think that I think that the outrageous amount of disrespect shown to our President and the First Family is at all acceptable….especially disrespect shown by educated political leaders.

I sure as heck didn’t want people to think that I found racist stuff like this to be acceptable:

I. Just. Could. Not. Do. It.

My life in a social bubble….

A couple of events made me realize what a bubble I live in. One was a women’s basketball game (university); it was a Komen “pink-out” type of event. The other was the Peoria County Democrats Dinner (Senator Dick Drubin and Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach spoke).

Yes, I enjoyed both events and plan on doing more of them. But I was reminded of a few things.

As far as the women’s basketball game: the Komen “no longer going to fund Planned Parenthood” was a big deal on the internet sites that I routinely visit AND on the facebook walls of the people I usual talk about social and political events to. So I felt that there would be less enthusiasm for the Komen themed basketball game. WRONG. It was as if the “dust up” had never happened; in reality only a small percentage of people were even aware of it and an even smaller percentage cared one way or the other.

The Democrat Dinner: the local Democrats are very labor oriented. All Democrats are welcome, of course, and President Obama is popular with this crowd, mostly because he is from Illinois. But as to the type of people who were here:

The event started with a “in the name of Jesus” prayer; it was about as non-ecumenical as it gets. And while I enjoyed both Senator Durbin’s and Senator Erpenbach’s speeches, some of the jokes made by the MC were, IMHO, in poor taste.

Sure, Senator Durbin poked fun at Willard “Mitt” Romney; he joked that he was going to get the name “Not” added to his name so as to get more votes in the Republican primary. But that is a joke that is specific to a political situation.

The joke made by our MC was “ha, ha, Romney is a “horse’s ass”" which is a very non-specific insult; you can make that joke about anyone you don’t like.

This was definitely not the Prius driving, Birkenstock wearing crowd; this was the type of crowd were people frequently went outside to take smoking breaks.

This was a very different demographic than, say, the Daily Kos crowd.

If you want to open your eyes some more, volunteer to walk a route on election day to do a “get out the vote” sweep. Most of the time, you’ll get a bunch of “broken sidewalk” type neighborhood in which the porches are often full of junk (or trash) and the houses reek of cigarette smoke. This is NOT the “hiking at the nature center” or the Unitarian congregation crowd.

The reason I am saying this: the “hot issues” that are deemed so important at my internet hangouts are often completely off the radar screen with many (most?) people, including many (most?) who tend to vote for the same party. It is wise to remember that when you listen to our politicians speak.

Romney vs. Santorum, Frogs and Hilarity…

Workout notes yoga, then a slowish 6.25 (10k) run along the water; I started at the lot, ran to Hooters, back through the gateway and out to the dam; then I went to the factory entrance, back and twice around the gooseloop; back to the I-74 bridge and back to the car. It took 1:05; when I was headed out to Hooters my doctor (did my colonoscopy) blew past me as if I were standing still; he is in his early 60′s and can still turn over a 3:3x marathon.

I’ll NEVER be like him.

At yoga, my teacher gave me a nice correction to “down dog” (my arms were bent).

As far as running: I might have to add a 2-4 mile run to get to 4 runs a week; my body isn’t adapting on 3 runs a week.

Posts
Frogs
Atelopus coynei, a small “harlequin frog” which lived in Ecuador, was thought to be extinct. It isn’t!!!! That is always good news…

Click on the thumbnail too see this handsome creature in a full size photo. Yes, this frog is named after biology professor Jerry Coyne.

Religion/Humor
Right now there is “this is how others see us, this is how WE see us and this is how we really are”. I passed along the professor one. Here is a Unitarian Universalist one; note that I was a member of the local UU church for a long time.

So, this is how I will address the photo: the social one (the protest signs) is pretty close; also many UUs work in organizations that care for the poor or for those who have AIDS, battered women, etc. So there is no denying that aspect of UUs. But as far as the “how New Atheists view UUs”: no, not really. I see them more like this, or this:

Just throw in a few science words and some Eastern religion words, mix in a word salad, and you’ll have a whole congregation of UU’s nodding in agreement..or at least in approval. Just leave out “Jesus” and “God the FATHER” (“Mother Goddess” is ok).

Politics
Is Rick Santorum really less electable than Mitt Romney? Well, probably a little; then again Mr. Santorum runs stronger in key areas in key demographics (working class whites in the Midwest) so….still I find Mr. Silver’s “possible Santorum map” to be farfetched. But yes, his point is that there is more to electability than national poll numbers. The point is that whereas Mr. Romney would do better in many states, many of these are those that Mr. Obama isn’t going to win anyway, and Mr. Santorum does better than Mr. Romney in some Midwestern states.

And, no I do NOT approve of the Daily Kos “operation hilarity” which is supposed to have us spending money and voting for Mr. Santorum in open Republican primary states. Evidently, I am not alone in objecting (here, here, and here)

I want to make this clear: I can understand voting in a Republican primary if it is legal to do so in some circumstances; in fact I considered it in 2008. Here is why: I live in IL-18 (I will be shifted to IL-17 in the upcoming cycle due to redistricting). The Republicans have a lock on IL-18; only once in 100 years has a Democrat won. Hence the winner of the 3-way Republican primary for US Representative was a shoo-in for the general election. Hence if I wanted a chance to elect our Representative (currently Aaron Schock), I had to vote in the Republican primary. The rules allowed for you to register as a Republican or as a Democrat on the day you voted.

I ended up NOT doing that as then Senator Obama was in a close contest with then Senator Clinton and we had a contested race for the Illinois House seat (IL-92). So I voted in the Democratic primary, as always.

By the way, I’ll be voting in the Democratic primary again; this time it will be for Cheri Bustos for the IL-17 nomination.

26 July 2011 post political fight edition

Workout notes: 82 F, 76 percent humidity. I ran my 4.2 mile course in 41:21 (10:03, 9:31) (first and last 1.03 mile segments). I died out there; the course was a bit slippery due to recent thundershowers.

Twice, I encountered a gaggle (5-6?) of MILF/GILF’s dressed in shorts (bluejean or workout shorts) and halter tops. I joked the second time: “you ladies are tough” and one of them replied “so are you.” It was fun, but it reminded me that I have different responses to women when they are dressed differently. Spandex/bikini women affect me in my “let’s reproduce” part of the brain; women dressed in this manner affect me in the “hovel” part of the brain; I like both reactions but they are different types of reactions.

Science
No, individual photons can’t violate the speed of light limitation from relativity theory

Physicists have confirmed the ultimate speed limit for the packets of light called photons – making time travel even less likely than thought.

The speed of light in vacuum is the Universe’s ultimate speed limit, but experiments in recent years suggested that single photons might beat it.

If they could, theory allows for the prospect of time travel.

Now, a paper in Physical Review Letters shows that individual photons too are limited to the vacuum speed limit.

That means that photons maintain the principle of causality laid out in Einstein’s theory of special relativity – that is, an event’s effect cannot precede its cause by traveling faster than light. It is violation of this causality that would, in principle, permit time travel.

While the limit in vacuum is a fixed number – some 300,000km per second – the speed of light can vary widely in different materials.

These differences explain everything from why a straw looks bent in a glass of water to experiments in cold gases of atoms in which light’s speed is actively manipulated.

Some of those experiments showed “superluminal” behaviour, in which photons travelled faster than the speed of light in a given medium.

It remained, however, to determine whether or not individual photons could exceed the vacuum limit.

So, no time travel for me.
(hat tip: Richard Dawkins)

Politics
Why I find Republicans so frustrating:

As negotiators in Congress squabble over the size and scope of spending cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year, Democrats and Republicans outside the Beltway differ dramatically in how they want their leaders to handle the budget stalemate, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

In a contrast that illustrates why the standoff has pushed the federal government to the verge of a shutdown, the poll finds an overwhelming majority of Democrats wanting the leaders of their party in Congress to compromise, and a majority of Republicans wanting theirs to stand firm.

According to the poll, 68 percent of self-identified Democrats, as well as 76 percent of political independents, say they want Democratic leaders in the House and Senate to make compromises to gain consensus in the current spending debate.

By comparison, 56 percent of self-identified Republicans — and 68 percent of Tea Party supporters — want GOP leaders to stick to their position, even if it means the inability to achieve consensus.

Full poll here.

So how did we get in this economic mess? Yes, it is primarily the fault of Republicans:

Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-
defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.

The first graph shows the difference between budget projections and budget reality. In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.

The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.

A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect. If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels. Second, a healthy budget requires a healthy economy; recessions wreak havoc by reducing tax revenue. Government has to spur demand and create jobs in a deep downturn, even though doing so worsens the deficit in the short run. Third, spending cuts alone will not close the gap. The chronic revenue shortfalls from serial tax cuts are simply too deep to fill with spending cuts alone. Taxes have to go up.

In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now.

Of course, if you show this to the Republicans they will claim that you are lying.

You’ll hear a lot about Europe. Well, get a load of this:

More detailed analysis shows that the remaining gap comes from lower employment rates in Europe for the young and old; prime-age workers, especially men, are if anything more likely to be working in Europe.

And you should note that this European performance comes despite the fact that tax levels and levels of social benefits are vastly higher than they are here. Any US politician proposing even a partial move in Europe’s direction would be accused of being a job-killer. Somehow, though, the jobs survive.

Oh, and as many people have noticed, America now has European levels of joblessness without a European safety net. We’re definitely leading in the misery race.

And yes, Krugman talks about the frustration many of us feel:

At this point, we just have to accept it as a fact of life: Obama doesn’t, and maybe can’t, do outrage — no matter how much the situation calls for it. The purpose of last night’s speech, if there was one, was to rally the nation against crazy Republicans. But there were no memorable lines, no forceful statements of the very stark reality. “Now, now, that’s not reasonable” isn’t going to move multitudes.

It turns out, I’m sorry to say, that he wasn’t the one we were waiting for.

Meanwhile, Boehner’s reply was as vile and dishonest as you might have expected.

And yes, I wrote to Aaron Schock (my current Representative; thank goodness the redistricting moves me into IL-17 and out of the right wing IL-18 district) and to Mark Kirk (junior Senator):

Mr. Kirk, I know that you are a conservative and I am a liberal.

But please work with the President on taxes and economic matters. There is nothing wrong with the top tax rates that were in place during the Clinton years; in fact, I wouldn’…t mind if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire all the way down to and including our household income (lower 100′s).

If there are spending cuts that are part of a package (even with tweaks to social security and Medicare), I admit that I won’t like it but will admit that such compromise might be necessary.

We are all in this TOGETHER.

Regards

Ollie Nanyes

I am not holding my breath.

On the road in just a bit…

It looks as if I’ll have good driving weather.

My Letter to the Editor got published…with a headline that says what I did NOT say:

PEORIA —

Re. Edward C. Murphy’s Spotlight letter of May 29, “Politicians must stop pandering to perceived needs of poor … and rich, too”:

I’d like to start out by agreeing with Mr. Murphy on the importance of education and of proper parenting. However, I notice that he was born in 1933. This means that Mr. Murphy grew up and spent his young adulthood during a time of substantial governmental intervention in the economy!

While I don’t know if he was directly involved in a New Deal or other type of program, the entire economy benefited from the fact that more people had money to spend, and at least some of that was directly related to government spending. I’d also point out that the tax rates on the affluent were much, much higher then.

This is the letter. Notice I said “government intervention”; this includes regulation, tax rates, WWII spending and basic New Deal programs (many which worked; some did not)

But the headline (not written by me) said:

New Deal and other programs led to improved economy

It did say “other programs” for which I am grateful.
But of course, one commenter focused on “New Deal”.

Bottom line: people who did get out of poverty had some assistance whether they new it or not; businesses can’t flourish if there are no customers with money to spend.

Illinois Politics
Here is an excellent Daily Kos article on the new redistricting. Personally, I love the new map; it puts the wealthy parts of Peoria into the solid Republican IL-18 and takes the downtown/university/working class neighborhoods and puts us into a potentially Democratic one; or put another way I am leaving a district that McCain narrowly won (by 1 point) and that Bush won by 17 points into one that went for Obama by 60 percent.

2 June 2011 (early am): Bring on the US House Election!!!

Workout notes: probably a medium swim over lunch followed by stretching. Nothing yet.

Politics The Illinois State Senate passed the new Congressional map yesterday which puts me in IL-17 instead of IL-18. We have a tea-party nut-job in this district which went R for the first time in a long time; but this district has been Democratic in the past and now we have a promising, “really does have a chance to win” candidate:

I’ve just head from a very reliable source that State Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, will run for Congress in the 17th District. He would face freshman U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling, R-Colona. Schilling, a Tea Party candidate, defeated Phil Hare in 2010. [...]

Koeher will face opposition from Matt Woodmancy, who has stated his intention to run for Congress as a Democrat.

So, there go my plans to vote in the Republican primary (for a Palin, Bachmann or Gingrich, etc.) This will be the first time in my life that I actually have a competitive candidate to vote for in a US House race; even when I lived in Texas we had Jake Pickle (who I mostly liked) as a long term, “no competition” incumbent.

Aaron Schock (R) stays in the 18′th and has a good chance of reelection; probably better than a “good” chance.