Romney: American Voters Are Surrendering in the War on Terror

Mitt Romney's a real piece of work. Here he is on Feb. 7, 2008, explaining why he's dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror." (AP)

Yes, if we citizens elect Clinton or Obama to the presidency, we've surrendered to the terrorists!

Let me put this as clearly as I can: Fuck you, Mitt. I not only prefer McCain to you, I prefer both Clinton and Obama to you, because not one of them has tried to hold me psychologically hostage by telling me a vote for their opponent is a vote for terrorists.

There are few things lower than accusing your political opponents of being the disloyal opposition. Samuel Johnson must have been thinking of the Mitt Romneys of his day when he said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

I Hate the Media

I teach American Government. Every single term. I teach it live in front of living, breathing, (occasionally sleeping) students, and I teach it online. I teach it for two different colleges at the same time. I will teach 8 sections of American Government this calendar year alone. I know American Government.

The media knows shit.

I should be more specific: the blow-dried, primping, smug, self-satisfied, breathless, and cynical prima donnas on Tv don't even know shit. The ones on the radio, even on NPR, don't know shit, either.

There are a few people out there who know something, most prominently David Gergen. David Gergen worked in the Nixon and Ford White Houses, maybe not what you really want on your resume, but he sure as hell learned a lot.

I'm always pissed at the media during campaign season. It's not just that the focus almost wholly on the horserace instead of the issues, it's that they can't even do that well. How often do they fact check what candidates say? A handful of serious reporters do, but it takes time, and the primps on the network and cable news might miss the opportunity for a soundbite if they had to spend time looking up facts.

OK, their general idiocy is the ultimate cause of my disdain, but here's the proximate cause that pissed me off right now. Yesterday on NPR they were talking about McCain's win in Tuesday's primary, and all they could talk about was momentum, and who had won which states.

But here's a news flash: the parties don't count up the number of states won in order to determine their nominees, they count up the number of delegates won, and delegates are based on population, so Florida, for example, has more delegates than Iowa. But that's the easy part (and they even managed to miss that). Because each state sets their own election rules, some state parties give all their delegates to the winner of the primary (winner-take-all), and some divide them up depending on what proportion of the vote a candidate receives. My wife can vouch for the fact that I was yelling at the radio, begging them to tell me how Florida distributed the delegates, and how many delegates each candidate had received. But no, the didn't, and I have my doubts they were even aware of this issue.

OK, yes, I teach American Government, but I didn't know the answer. What I know is that with 50 different states, and frequent changes in state policies, keeping track of what each state is doing on each issue is more than a 1-person full-time job. But at least I know that's the situation, and know it's important. For the record, it appears that Florida usually does allocate delegates by congressional district (win the district, win its delegates), but in response to the Republican National Committee stripping it of half its delegates (again, punishment for moving the primary ahead), it switched to winner-take-all, and CNN.com keeps a running record of delegates won.

They also stated baldly that Hillary Clinton "didn't win any delegates" in Florida, despite winning, because the Democratic National Committee has stripped Florida of its delegates as punishment for moving its primary ahead. Maybe, but I'm always hesitant to predict the future. Imagine Clinton and Obama head to the convention with Obama just slightly ahead. You don't think Hillary and Bill will stage an all-out scorched earth battle to get those delegates, and the ones she won in Michigan, seated?

That's ok, though. All you really need to report politics is a degree in journalism and good hair, right? Right?

Stupid Newsies

I just read an opinion piece from an Indiana high school teacher in which he claims,

because of my own ignorance about national politics, I feel eminently qualified to offer some opinions."

Geez, no wonder my college students come out of high school knowing jack shit.

But the guy also said,

I know as much about national politics as I do global economics. Both subjects have their own gaggle of experts, and they don’t seem to know much, either.

Now this is pure stupidity, too, but I know where it's coming from. The fact is, there are experts in global economics, and they do know what they're talking about--this guy just doesn't know who they are. The same is true of experts in national politics. So who is he really referring to? I think it's the talking heads who dominate the political chat shows, most of whom are like high school students, not knowing Jack Shit.

For example, here's the repeated theme from the New Hampshire Primary--"Clinton, coming off a disappointing third-place finish in Iowa, rebounded to first place...", or "Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, overcoming a third-place finish in Iowa"

OK, for the newsie who's brain has been overheated by too much time in front of a blow dryer, let's clarify this.

1. John Edwards had 30%, Hillary Clinton had 29%. That's called a statistical dead-heat, or a virtual tie for second. A tie for second place ain't that devestating folks.
2. According to CNN, Obama won 16 delegates in Iowa, Edwards won 14, and Clinton won 15! It might seem counterintuitive that Clinton could get more delegates than Edwards, with less of the vote, but here's how it can work: Assume a state with 5 equal size precincts: Candidate A wins 3 precincts with 51% of the vote in each, while candidate B wins 2 precincts with 90% of the vote each. If you just total up all the votes from the state, B appears to have won, but because the delegates are selected from precincts, B has actually lost. In the end, it's not what percentage of the vote any candidate gets, but how many delegates, and on that scorecard, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards finished in a virtual tie for first.
3. There's no reason to think that New Hampshire voters take their cues from Iowa voters. To listen to the media tell it, everyone except Obama might as well have given up after Iowa. Like this already obsolete jewell from teh L.A. Times, "The results were a serious setback for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton." Hell, why bother with the whole primary schedule? Let's just let that 10 or 20% of Iowans dedicated enough to participate in the caucus choose the parties' nominees.

So just because the talking heads chatter about national politics, and just because someone is introduced as the network's political analyst, that doesn't mean they're actually an expert--they just play one on TV.