Rise To Vote, Sir

I voted. You voted. We all voted. We're all great. We're all heroes. Whoop-de-doo. Stickers for everyone.

Now I am obviously for voting and democracy, but frankly the act of voting in modern America isn't all that amazing an act. The trials and sacrifices of people of the past who had to fight for their right to vote is amazing. The trials and sacrifices of people of the present who are fighting for their to vote is amazing. Here in our wonderful modern 21st century democracy, it's all pretty well set up for you if you are eligible and for most people it is about a much an effort as going to the post office. Overall it's just plain something that is expected of you as a citizen of this country. No one gets a sticker and a pat on the back for paying their taxes or sorting their recycling.

All I'm saying is people shouldn't get too high on themselves that they voted. It's a basic thing to do, and if you think about it the bar is really low. There are few activities with as disproportionately high amount of praise for the small amount of work involved. There's just this blind, "Rock the Vote"/"Vote Or Die", emphasis on the act of voting itself. You're not even judged on the quality of your voting. I'm not even referring to choice of candidate, which is obviously beyond critique. However it think it is possible to be an inherently shitty voter. If I remained completely ignorant of the candidates and issues and walked into a voting booth and selected candidates based on how I subjectively felt about their names? Haven't I failed at voting? If I voted against all my own interests based on misinformed half truths and hearsay I vaguely heard about somewhere? If I didn't take the process seriously and wrote myself in as a write in candidate for every position? What if my ignorant voting patterns totally nullified your informed selections? Would I be deserving of a sticker as the rational voter in the next booth?

I always feel like kind of an idiot when I get down to the town council and school board member section of the ballot and I just arbitrarily pick the required number of candidates from the given list.

Actually if someone came out and admitted that they where to busy or lacking in interest to follow any of elections on the ballot and because of that was willing to voluntarily abstain from the democratic process and not vote, thus freeing up resources for other diligent voters and enhancing the power their votes; in a weird way that would be a sort of honorable act of self sacrifice. That might be worth at least some kind of sticker.


On a quick final note: in all my years of voting, I have never once received anything close to a sticker or pin or a even thumbs up. Apparently they keep it pretty bare bones in the my North Jersey suburb.

A Tale of Two Johns (technically Jon and John)

Considering how this blog is so often cited as one of the most trusted and respected sources of breaking political news and commentary, I just wanted to note one particularly interesting pair of developments involving candidates with previous pop culture professions from last night's election results.

Down the parkway in New Jersey's Third Congressional District, former Pro Bowl offensive tackle Jon Runyan running as the Republican candidate defeated incumbent John Adler. If his congressional career is similar to his football career he will prove to be a scrappy yet solid legislator with a reputation for an occasional dirty play or two and will post an impressive consecutive appearances streak, before injuries prematurely end his career. Additionally fellow former NFLer, Representative Heath Shuler, won reelection in North Carolina as well so at least he has someone who'll get his more esoteric football analogies.

Meanwhile in the next state over in New York's 19th District, Representative John Hall, a founding member of 70s rock group "Orleans" lost his hard fought bid for re-election to challenger Nan Hayworth. While the loss was obviously a disappointment for Hall and one of many setbacks for the democrats last night, the fact that anyone involved in that legendarily awful cover to "Waking and Dreaming" could live it down enough to get elected to Congress in the first place is an amazing feat on to itself.

Additional point: While I was writing this I just remembered that current ESPN commercial featuring the a fan of the Eagles (Runyan's signature team) and "Still the One" (Orleans' signature song). Cosmic coincidence?

I Voted for Kodos!

By the end of tomorrow our long national nightmare that is the 2008 presidential campaign will finally be over. Residents of battleground states like Ohio and Florida will finally be free of round the clock robocalls and mailboxes stuffed with glossy campaign adverts. Mario will regain his title as the world's most popular plumber. Undecided voters will be free of the spotlight to go back to their anonymous lives of crippling indecisiveness. Saturday Night Live will have to resort back to writing original, non-political, non-humorous, sketches again.

What this also means is the end of my series of tangentially election related blog entries (at least until the next presidential election cycle). From the Hillary's histrionics in New Hampshire, to the Palin announcement, to the presidential debates, to the rise of Obama, to this meeting on the eve of election day; it has been a quite a ride...quite an increasingly annoying and tiresome ride that I'm glad is finally coming to a conclusion.

In any case, always the great prognosticator that I am here's my completely unscientific, hastily created, projected electoral tally:

I think it's a little more generous to McCain than most of the non-Fox based projections. I'm going with more Bradley Effect over white guilt. Remember everyone, Vote or Die!

Wassup!

I guess there's been a slightly longer than usual down time since the last entry. There's no real reason for the mini hiatus. I have been feeling a bit out of step lately though; a little north of ennui but not quite up to malaise. Oddly enough, despite the missed time, I'm actually slightly ahead of my usual rate of updates for a month. I'll probably top out over my usual ten post Mendoza line if I maintain this current pace. Do I dare even start to dream about matching the 12 to 13 posts a month heydays of January to March of 08'?

It seems like every other day another reflection of the dire problems of the country today makes me more and more nostalgic for those free wheelin' Clinton years. It appears that late 90s advertising sensations, the "Wassup" Guys, also seem to have felt the pinch of the past eight years.

In a bold, public display of outright partisanism by a beer commercial spokesman not seen since Spuds Mackenzie's endorsement of Dukakis in '88, the Wassup Guys have clearly given their verdict on the previous administration and their opinions on the future.

As tongue and cheek the whole presentation was; it was still kind of expectedly jarring to see such a symbol of simple turn of the millennium high school days supplanted and placed right in the worst elements of the present. It'd be like seeing your high school self on the street crankin' dat Soulja Boy. The whole thing felt sort of bizarre and sad (especially when that one guy tried to hang himself). Seeing this relic of the past in a modern context just seemed to magnify how ugly things have gotten. I guess that's the sort of message they were trying to send out.

Also, isn't it a little bit ironic that it's a former Budweiser ad campaign that's strongly endorsing John McCain's opponent? If I were him I'd get the Budweiser Frogs on the horn and get back on the offensive again.

Resistance is Futile

The 2008 presidential campaign is now heading down the homestretch with just a little over three weeks to go. From what the pundits and national polling seem to be indicating, barring the discovery of a Barack Obama and Bill Ayers friendship scrapbook/joint terrorist manifesto, the country is headed towards a historic Obama victory. I don't know, it seems like historic events are occurring just about every other day (the stock market seems to setting new records by the hour).

If Obama does come through on election day it'll cap off one of the most unexpected, spectacularly meteoric rises to power in American political history since Gerald Ford unexpectedly fell ass backwards into the Presidency. Just four years into his first Senate term he is on the verge of becoming the next president of the United States. I think I'm still using the same super sized double pack of Head and Shoulders shampoo I got from Sam's Club since then.

Given the current context, this recent article offers an interesting historical question: "Could Mike Ditka have changed the course of US history?" I do remember that brief period after the Republican nominee Jack Ryan dropped out and in the search for a new candidate the party was throwing out his name as a potential replacement. While nothing eventually came of it; Ditka, with national exposure and a strong in-state support base, would have definitely been a stiffer challenge than Alan Keyes (the one man political equivalent of the Washington Generals). In fact any member of the Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew would have been a stiffer challenge. I do agree though with the article that while there was no guarantee that Ditka would have gone all Super Bowl XX on Obama, it is definitely true that had Obama lost, there would be no way he'd be in this position right now. Perhaps had Ditka ran and won, we would be talking about his current quest for the White House and pondering if Tony Eason could have changed the course of US history?

While the Dikta nomination is definitely a plausible "what if", I think the individual who has had the greatest influence on the chain of events that has led to our current position is none other than everyone's favorite ex-Borg, Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan. Aside from single handedly keeping Star Trek Voyager on the air for an additional four seasons and replacing Deanna Troi as the prime masturbatory fantasy for an entire generation of Trekkies, she was also Mrs. Jack Ryan from 1991 to 1999. Despite the fact that Mr. Ryan had retired from Goldman Sachs at 40 with hundreds of millions of dollars and had that sweet Borg action to come home to every night, it apparently wasn't enough. In what can only be described as a truly epic case of tragic hubris, his desire for Jeri to go to freaky sex clubs and perform public sex acts with him, naturally led to a prompt divorce. Of course eventually all those lurid details oh so inconveniently came out five or so years later when he was running for Senator, causing him to drop out.

Had Jeri been a bit more Adina Howard-like in her sexual boundaries and gone along with Jack or at the very least been discrete about it during the divorce proceedings, then this entire mess would have been avoided. Without a tabloid scandal crippling the campaign, the state party apparatus could have mounted a strong and effective effort rather than scrambling with a sudden fill in solution like Ditka or Keyes. Interestingly Ryan's credentials were almost exactly like that of Obama: young, good looking, political neophyte, successful, local roots, and a Harvard JD (in addition to his Harvard MBA). And as blue leaning as Illinois was, the Senate spot they were competing for was vacated by a Republican, so it wasn't unprecedented. In addition, sharing the name with Tom Clancy's ass kicking super agent is second only being named Jack Bauer, so the election really could have gone either way.

In Star Trek terms it's kind of like that classic episode of original Star Trek where Kirk and the gang end up in depression era United States and they realize that the women he has just met and fallen in love with needs to die to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II...except this one involves sex clubs with cages and whips. Regardless, if you end up finding yourself the following morning after Election Day, awash in the historic news of a Barack Obama victory, just remember: all this could have very well been determined by the less than freaky sexual tastes of Jeri Ryan.

Debatable

Another presidential debate season has now come to an end (I still can't believe they held it at Hofstra) and the patriotic themed debate backgrounds with giant passages from the Declaration of Independence transcribed on them will be going back in the cellar for another four years. Overall, it was obvious to anyone watching that McCain was clearly taking a more aggressive stance to boost his trailing campaign:

A little loose with the moderating rules there, Bob.

R.I.P. The White Dude Ticket

If you haven't heard already, earlier today, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, announced that his running mate will be current Alaskan governor (and total Tina Fey doppelganger) Sarah Palin. While this unexpected selection of a young political maverick and America's top GILF (just ever so slightly above Michigan's Jennifer Granholm) does immediately deliver the all important Alaskan hockey mom vote to McCain, only the coming months will tell if this surprise choice was a successfully savvy maneuver or just the sad first signs of oncoming senility.

Predictions for the future aside, with both major party tickets set, at least there is now one thing that is now certain. Due to the unprecedented racial and gender make up of the two tickets (black dude/white dude for the Democrats and white dude/white chick for the Republicans) the nearly 220 year streak of a white dude presidency and vice presidency will finally come to an end. Yes technically there is a theoretical chance that the all white dude Libertarian Party ticket of Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root may somehow prevail on Election Day, but barring that (hey I guess that's a pun!) it'll be one of the two major parties.

While I'm not really shedding a tear for the end of the white dude era, it is still a significant event and (like Linda Loman said) attention must be paid. It's not every day that a fundamental way of life that has existed without any change since the founding of the country is toppled. Slavery had a good century or so run, powdered wigs made it at least to the 19th century, and I guess we still like toting guns, but I can't really think of any other American tradition that has lasted for this long. I mean, people went nuts when Michael Phelps beat Mark Spitz's gold medal record and that's only been around for 36 years, so this is absolutely huge.

So in honor of this inevitable date with history that looms on inauguration day next year regardless of who wins, I thought I'd make a quick, hastily prepared tribute to the end of the white dude era at the top of the executive branch, Oscar Death Montage Style:

For any lazy middle school social studies students out there, I give full permission to pass this off as your own for your history project.

Political science a la Mr. Lee

Your eyes are not deceiving you! Yes, this is another political entry! While this is quite an unexpected turn of events, a much more unexpected one would be the recent comeback in New Hampshire by Hillary Clinton that prompted it. As it turned out, I called it wrong, the events following Hillary's Muskie moment went exactly the opposite of what I thought might happen. Perhaps this will lead to a rash of weepiness all across the primary field with candidates bearing their fragile vulnerabilities and once sheltered sensitivities all over the campaign trail and C-Span appearing more like Lifetime (although I'm sure Chuck Norris will refuse to let Mike Huckabee cry). So since I did call it wrong, I felt people coming across the previous most recent entry might have wanted to know what my response to the results were. I would have done the same thing if I had written an entry last week that miserably handicapped the NFL playoffs. The days after I would have given at least a brief word on why I might have gotten it so wrong, maybe explain myself a little if possible.

Well, if it was a well reasoned, throughly researched, nuanced explanation you were expecting prepare to be inconsolably disappointed. You're probably just as qualified as me (perhaps even more) to have an opinion on what went wrong. It might have been an error in polling, a late surge of sympathy, a bunch of random people who suddenly had an urge to vote Hillary, or an evil President Hillary Clinton from the future committing electoral fraud on behalf of her younger self to assure her future success. Who knows? It's the chaotic, opera of uncertainty that we call American politics.

But, if you really want to know what happened, you ask my dad, Mr. Lee. Now Mr. Lee wasn't born in this country or grew up here, and has only been a US citizen since 2004. His English may be a little broken and he watches more Korean period dramas than CNN. However, Mr. Lee pays his taxes, works hard, votes, and has opinions which makes him as valid a pundit as Lou Dobbs or John McLaughlin. So when he heard about the results of the primary he gave me his expert analysis (roughly translated): "Although white people say they're going to vote for Obama; they're not because they don't want a black president. They would rather have a white woman president than a black one."

Now some may view this as overly simplified, too generalized, perhaps overly cynical, maybe uninformed, maybe even racist. I myself wrote it off as just standard Mr. Lee talk. However, earlier today I was idly roaming around wikipedia at school, hopping from link to link, and somehow I came across this interesting article on the Bradley Effect. I'm sure this is something most political science majors and political junkies probably know all about. In short it's basically a phenomenon where opinion polls in elections between white and non-white candidates have the non-white candidate leading but then differing drastically with the actual results. It's named after black, former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley who narrowly lost the California governor's election to white (St. John's Law alumni) George Deukmejian despite consistently leading in the polls. At the core of all the analysis and case studies in other such elections, what the Bradley Effect is kind of suggesting is:"Although white people say they're going to vote for [the black candidate]; they're not because they don't want a [black candidate]." It's something to consider in a state with a 96% white population.

While Mr. Lee's word is far from completely validated, it does make you think a little bit. I guess if there's a message in all this is, "everybody's views should be considered and you shouldn't write off people's opinions". Well, at least that's better than, "New Hampshire voters may be secretly racist."

There's no crying in electoral politics!

"Victor Sells Out" is a pretty apolitical blog. My take on showcasing my political views is that it's about the equivalent of posting lurid pictures of myself in a thong. In the end some might be supportive of me, some might be disappointed with me, some would have preferred I didn't share it, and basically in the end, despite all the awkwardness, probably nothing will have really changed. It's only when the politics absurdly spill over into the realm of the pop culture (i.e. Larry Craig's mens room hijinks or the guy from Orleans being elected to congress) that I may throw in my two cents on the issue. Aside from that, it's the usual, rambling post about some esoteric minutiae in my life.

So, don't consider this an endorsement or a condemnation of any particular issue or candidate (lest I unfairly give that all important "Victor Sells Out" endorsement boost to certain candidates) but merely an observation when I say, "Hillary, what's with the near crying?" Someone running for president can make numerous gaffes, but aside from engaging in extra-marital monkey business, or being associated with people with mental health issues, crying has got to be one of the worst things you can do.

When people are looking for the next President of the country, they're generally looking for someone who can keep it together. If some horrific national disaster strikes, or we're plunged into war (again), or if terrorists have hijacked Air Force One, or we have to send a team of rag tag astronauts to blow up a doomsday meteorite, the one thing the President has got to do is keep it together; if not behind closed doors but at least when addressing the press and the American people. Say what you will about Bush, but at the very least he kept it together (perhaps even a bit suspiciously too together) from when he first heard the news to when he addressed the nation on that frantic Tuesday in September. So yeah, when you're starting to well up because the polls may be indicating your campaign isn't going so well, it's not sending a good message. She's also not going to get a lot of sympathy from a state that prides itself on being a bit of a bad ass with the whole "live free or DIE" state motto (in contrast New Jersey has the incredibly trite and lame "liberty and prosperity").

Did I also forget to mention that she's carrying the historic burden of becoming the first woman president and she just played into a major anti-feminist stereotype? It'd be like if she showed up to the next debate with an apron on and asked that before the debates started she'd distribute fresh baked brownies for all the other democratic candidates. You're Hillary freaking Clinton, you were probably the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to have done stuff outside of picking the curtains for the White House, you gotta be tougher than that.

In conclusion, I think Hillary done fucked up. Whether this'll be a minor blip that'll fade into obscurity or it's the kind of minor issue that snowballs and derails entire campaigns a la Howard Dean, only the coming weeks will tell. My suggestion, Hillary should immediately schedule a press conference and then punch the first reporter that makes eye contact with her, that's how you do it in prison when you want to show everyone right off the bat you're hard. I think voters in a state known as "the Granite State" who until recently worshiped some sort of pagan mountain god will appreciate that kind of hardness.

Now to go back to writing about which Darren was better on Bewitched.