Hunting The Muse

Small Web Project Idea

Here's an idea I'd be coding if I had the time right now:

A dynamic image that can be called with syntax like:

<img src="path-to-program?outputstyle">

The image would generate a graph of each candidate's delegate count, along with a mark indicating how many more delegates each candidate needs to actually win. It may also show how many delegates are available for the upcoming races, and perhaps may even have projections for the next batch of races.

The graph would be generated by a process that reads these values from a database, and then everyone everywhere could include the graphic in their html on their weblog or whatever.

Delegate Details

Blog for America : Counting the Delegates | January 31, 2004

The Dean campaign released an informative explanation of how exactly delegates work. There were some new things I learned here - for instance, even if Dean doesn't get 15% support total in a state, he can still get delegates if he exceeds 15% in certain congressional districts within that state.

The Pledge Of Allegiance

I've been thinking about this whole pledge of allegiance brouhaha... isn't the supreme court still deciding this?

A lot of time when I try to nail down my point of view on something, I really feel like I'm being a politician (in a good way), because I'm trying to understand as many points of view as possible, while also trying to come to a firm decision of what my stance is.

So let's be clear: The Pledge Of Allegiance is a celebration of God and Country. For as tiny the "under God" phrase of the pledge is, those that advocate it are advocating for a reason - it is an expression of recognition of God. The pledge is an expression of national patriotism and also a recognition of God.

So am I in support of that? Sure. It's a popular way to express a very common feeling. That's what free speech is all about. We have a huge amount of people in this country that link God and country together. There's nothing wrong with having a voluntary pledge that recognizes that.

However, requiring the pledge to be uttered goes entirely against free speech.

A much less relevant argument is the whole church-and-state argument, because it cedes the free speech argument. Nevertheless, there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. And so, if we are to allow the government to require a pledge of national allegiance, we can't also allow the government to require our citizens to recognize God.

So am I in support of The Pledge Of Allegiance containing "under God"? Sure. It represents those who believe this country was created in honor and service of God, and frankly, it also represents many more other people who don't want to think about it that hard and only want to express an ambiguous rote feeling of patriotism without caring a whole hell of a lot about the "under God" part.

I'm not in favor of the Pledge being required under any public or government circumstances, however, because there are plenty of other American citizens that don't fit those categories.

And just a talking point for those who want to wrestle with this issue in front of others. If the religious comparison comes up, compare it to communion. For those practicing religions where communion is important, communion is taught and strongly encouraged. However, the whole point of it is for it to come down to a personal decision, reflecting one's personal relationship with God. Most reasonable church leaders would tell you that someone who is forced to practice communion isn't really practicing communion.

In summary... honestly, only the crazies are in favor of an authoritarian hard requirement for all citizens to say the pledge. And folks that want to obliterate the pledge from all of our government historical records are pretty crazy too. The most interesting question is whether you support an "opt-in" or "opt-out" policy with the pledge. The more militant folks are in the "opt-in" camp - "it should not be said unless the group in question all actively wants to." I'm in the "opt-out" camp, because if you're in a group that wants to say it and it offends you... really, they're probably not trying to offend you, so get over it. Respect their desire to say it, demand respect for your desire not to.

For some reason it reminds me of how I used to say no to drugs in college, while not objecting if they did them around me... but I'll leave the catty patriotism == drug-induced-haze comments to others. :-)

Roy Neel's Strategy

Blog for America : Roy Neel: Where We Go From Here | January 30, 2004

The Dean campaign has been looking beleaguered for a while, and the replacement of the campaign manager was a real trigger for that. The question was what difference it would make.

The above post details the first move - Dean's new campaign manager is spelling out Dean's campaign strategy from here on out.

I think it's a good and ballsy move. We'll see what happens. I still think Dean needs to get delegates on 2/3 though, and he has to hope that Kerry looks somehow weakened after 2/3.

Dean Down

Daily Kos || Polls, polls, and more polls

Lots of talk recently about how Dean is retooling, is not seriously contesting the 2/3 primaries, how he'd be content to get 2nd and 3rd place finishes to pick up some delegates and focus on the Washington/Michigan primaries a few days later.

There was even theorizing that if Dean performs well in the 2/3 states even without winning any of them, then he could still have a really good number of delegates from consistently picking up delegates and being above 15%.

Well, four days before the seven-state 2/3 primaries, and five of the seven states have Dean below the 15% mark needed to land any delegates.

This is enough to officially depress me about Dean's chances.

Someone commented to the polls: "So much for changing the country." It's a bit much, but I'm feeling a hint of that.

Hopefully Kerry will be enough. I did write a long time ago that we couldn't have moderates that were pretending to be liberals, we actually needed liberals that could convincingly seem to be moderates. Kerry fits that bill. I just think Kerry doesn't stand for much though other than being the "electable anyone-but-bush". I think he'll get pounded by the republican congress, while Dean is the only one who has shown up he will stand up for what is right even when it's not popular.

Dean Broke??

Salon.com News | Dean goes bust

Salon is reporting that the Dean campaign is broke. I can't imagine how that would be true. If it is true, then... my god, what did they do with it all? They were in the same race as these other guys, how could they have outspent them by that much.

I'm going to not believe it for now. Just seems too weird. I believe they are conserving funds for future state races, but not that they are broke.

Dean's Strategy

I've been curious for quite a while where Trippi ended and Dean began in the Dean campaign. After hearing stories about how Dean didn't know what a blog was, could barely post on the blog (and only has like five times so far), and was freaked out and thought the blog was hacked when they had way more money coming in than they expected... it started to come across to me like Dean wasn't all that attached to the Dean campaign.

I thought it was a flaw, but hopefully not a big one. But the question remained, what part of "Dean" was Howard Dean, and what part of it was the Dean campaign?

The problem with Iowa is that for a few weeks there, they made the campaign too much about the campaign's existing supporters, and not as much about reinvention and attracting new supporters. They improved this in New Hampshire. It felt to me like Dean was showing more leadership as a candidate again, and that it was slowly becoming more about him again than about the campaign.

However, it was still tough to see what part of it was really him, and what part of it was him following advice from his team and campaign managers.

It's essential in any campaign to feel that when all is said and done, the candidate is the boss. That sense was missing for a long time, and now - for better or for worse - we have our first very clear indication that Dean took action on his own.

The buzz is that Dean's staff wanted him to coast through the Feb 3rd primaries and instead focus on the three states that came afterward, all of which are more friendly to Dean. Trippi wanted this strategy as well. Alternatively, they only want him to focus on a small number of the Feb 3rd states, and not all of them.

Dean disagreed. Dean wants to campaign in every state - he wants to show that his campaign has new momentum and that he can campaign in every state.

Trippi lost his job over the disagreement. That's what it seems like from reading the rumors.

So that's who Dean is. I don't know if it's a good strategy or a bad strategy... and in the stupid blogosphere, most bloggers seem to think it's a bad strategy... but that's who he is. And I like it. Go large or go home.

No matter how it shakes out, people like this sort of decisive action. Others take it as moving furniture on a sinking ship.

I have no idea what effect it will have and I make no prediction. But I do think it's a decision that comes out of his integrity. For all he says about a campaign based off of conviction, and how he's a guy that stands up for what he believes, this action seems consistent with that. And the glimpse of who Dr. Dean really is is refreshing.

(Contrast that with Kerry firing his campaign manager while on the phone, distracted, eating a sandwich.)

Dean Fires Trippi

This is a huge deal for those following the Dean campaign. The Dean campaign was almost more about Trippi than it was about Dean.

Evidently Dean wants to bring in Gore's old campaign manager. Trippi chose to resign in response. It's unclear whether this means resigning from the entire campaign.

As for next week, I think the things to watch for are if Dean wins New Mexico, or if he finishes ahead of Kerry in South Carolina. If neither happens, I think he's out of it.

Self-Publishing In Portland

IPRC : the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Portland, Oregon, USA

Note to self... ;-)

NH Republican Primary

Just a trivial note... that hopefully augurs something good. In NH, there was also a Republican primary, where Bush didn't go against any major competition.

It turns out that in that primary, people actually wrote in the names of Democratic candidates, totalling over 5% of the vote.

Dean, Kerry, and Clark got more votes in this Republican primary than Kucinich did in the Democratic primary...

Here's the link.

Kerry, Dean, and New Hampshire

Kerry has beaten Dean handily in New Hampshire, although both have outscored the other candidates by just as wide a margin.

Dean's got his work cut out for him. One thing I found interesting in the exit polls is that 30% of the voters thought the most important quality was someone who will stand up for their beliefs. They preferred Dean by a 2-1 margin. The next most important quality - 20% - was someone who could beat George Bush. They preferred Kerry by a 6-1 margin.

This is the argument I've been making all along, and Dean needs to get out ahead of it now. If someone doesn't stand up for what they believe, they won't be able to beat Bush. This is the whole point of the Dean candidacy. Dean needs to make it about who will fold, and who won't.

There's a large expectation now that Dean won't be the nominee, and who knows... it may be too much to overcome, it may not.

Dean, Not Kerry

The thing that ticks me off most about the Kerry resurgence is the electability thing. I agree that if neither Dean nor Kerry would be attacked by Bush/Rove, Kerry might have an electability advantage, due to the wide variety of people who might, in a vacuum, vote for Kerry's veteran resume.

But, duh, they will be attacked. And who's shown the ability to stand up to attacks, and who's shown the tendency to fold? Kerry sure wasn't all that inspiring back when the war was being debated. The Iraq vote wasn't really even all that important, it was the behavior. Kerry and all those guys were so busy strategizing and running around and trying not to step on their own tails that they couldn't be bothered to actually stand up for anything in the face of opposition. Dean, on the other hand, has taken the worst of what his opponents have given him - all ganging up on him - and an incredibly unfair media treatment, and is gaining support again. He's made his record on standing up for what is right even when it's unpopular.

So given that, who's the one more likely to be able to handle the attacks of Bush/Rove? Which one will get tougher and fight back, and which one is just going to dissipate into a cloud of mist and fog?

One other pet peeve - switching your vote to someone else just because you think it's more likely that guy will win the election you're voting in does not make any sense. You do not get a prize for picking the winner. Nobody cares. Vote for your damn first choice already. There's no reason not to.

OSX SSH Tunnels

Another entry about how OS X's supposed ease of use is not so easy regarding connecting to network servers.

The goal is to tunnel to a samba share. I'm tunneling from OS X to a linux box that hosts the samba share. This way, even though the samba share is on a private network in an office, I can access the fileserver from my home office powerbook.

Samba's port is 139. You can't redirect ports below 1024 unless you have root privileges. So what you do is you redirect a high port to the remote side's 139. So I made a tunnel sending my laptop's port 9876 to remote's 139.

Well, OS X doesn't allow you to try and connect to a samba share using a port other than 139. The command-K dialogue box doesn't allow it, and the underlying technology (mount_smbfs) doesn't allow it either. We're hardwired into port 139. Which is stupid.

So, I guess the answer is to open up a tunnel as root.

Unfortunately, none of the SSH tunnel GUI applications allow root connections.

So the only way to do it is the messy command-line command: 'sudo ssh -l user -i /Users/user/.ssh/identity -f -N -L 139:remote:139 remote'.

Bleah.

Wire Service Crap

MSNBC - Democrats stress own strengths in polite debate

Dean said he was simply trying to have fun with his supporters.

"I lead with my heart and not my head," he said, an explanation that will hardly ease concerns about his ability to lead the nation under fire.

His advisers privately acknowledge that Dean needs a victory Tuesday to salvage his campaign. The candidate himself didn't go quite that far but, with his confidence shaken, pleaded for help to keep aspirations alive.

This is another example of a staff-written, no-byline wire article being written with the voice of an opinion columnist. Dean never admitted to the authors of this article that his confidence was shaken. The context of his heart-not-head statement was about how he is on the campaign trail, not about how he would make important decisions on behalf of the nation. This sort of thing makes me sick.

Yet More Iowa Analysis

After sleeping on it, I believe Iowa came down to two main ingredients.

First was the wildcard of Dean's supporters. No one knew how well the polls represented them. Were they a small number of very activist supporters - narrow, but deep? Were they the only visible parts of a vast army? No one knew the answers to this, so the press and pundits felt an excuse to dismiss many of the polls. This is why Dean's finish was considered such a disappointment even when he wasn't in the lead in any poll beforehand. It turned out that Dean was relatively popular, but the supporters were inexperienced, so were unable to effectively horse-trade at the caucuses.

Second was the nature of caucuses. I saw a study that looked at a hypothetical caucus. Say you have four candidates, each with equal support. You need 15% to be viable, but every precinct has only 59 delegates, which mean only the top three for that precinct become viable - essentially random which one that would be.

It comes down to second choices. Two of the candidates have supporters that hate each other and never choose each other as second choice. The other two candidates have second choices evenly distributed.

The end result is that the two candidates that hate each other would end up with 17% apiece, while the other two would end up with 33% apiece - even though they came in with equal support.

A version of this is essentially what happened. Dean and Gephardt went negative on each other. Kerry and Edwards either stayed positive, or in Kerry's case, acted like they were positive.

Combine this with the deal that Edwards and Kucinich had - where if they weren't viable they'd go to the other guy - and you've basically got the caucus. The nature of the caucus basically multiplied the effect of all the negative coverage that happened to Dean. I don't believe that Dean's statewide support is only 18% though.

Moving Forward

Clearly, the biggest loser out of Iowa is Clark. Now he's got a surging Kerry to deal with in New Hampshire, and a surging Edwards to deal with in South Carolina. Ironically, this might end up being the second best scenario for Dean. If Clark and Kerry kill each other in NH, Dean could slip through. Then if Clark and Edwards kill each other in South Carolina, then Dean could slip through there as well.

I wonder though if Clark is going to be weakened enough by the time that South Carolina comes around that Edwards could win with a serious amount of momentum behind him. Then who knows what will happen.

There's also going to be a compelling argument to be made that the press is really who affected Iowa. A media study showed that 51% of the newspaper coverage on Dean was negative, while 75% of the newspaper coverage on all the other candidates was positive. Kerry's campaign in particular went negative on Dean in the backchannels through anonymous leaks to the press, and the press ate it up. The press reported all of Gephardt's misrepresentations on Dean without challenging them (well, I'm being a bit lazy in saying it that way, but it's generally true), and while Gephardt destroyed his own campaign in the process, he almost brought Dean's down with him. Time magazine and Newsweek both had negative covers on him in the last week.

Like it or not, though, in politics, perception is reality. And so for now, among the public, Dean is an angry divider that is being blamed for making too many enemies. I'm not sure how he'll get past that when he's had the "this campaign is about hope" line in his stump speech for months. So this isn't so much about who Dean can blame for the misrepresentation. It's what he does to challenge it.

Iowa Results

Well, that was completely surprising. Not only were the internetties like myself wrong, but so were most of the campaigns and political analysts. The polls showed something approaching the results, but they just made so little sense that most people thought they were wrong or were missing something big.

But instead, we have Kerry more than doubling Dean's support in Iowa. To my eyes, I think a close third place for Dean would have been fine - he would have convincingly been able to spin that as the first step on the road - but, this distant third is going to raise some confusion and doubts.

First, there's the "Iowa is weird" theory - people will complain about Iowans just simply being contrarian. Then there's the strongly-independent idea. That the Iowans were turned off by all these people outside of Iowa writing them letters and telling them what to do.

Me, I'm lending more credence to the theory that the internet thing is still a bubble/echo-chamber. Including the blogs. That doesn't mean that we're not RIGHT, but right doesn't matter if you can't convince over half of the nation. It's just a big silent majority that votes off of things like who is tallest.

What are the good things about Kerry? He's presidential-looking. He's senatorial. He's got a foreign policy resume.

But bad? In my mind, he's also not a leader - he's way too reactive and doesn't set his own agenda. Plus, he's one of the most negative guys in the bunch. It pisses me off how he's managed to release all this negative information through "anonymous sources" while being able to convince Iowa that he was above the fray. One of the most common things said about him there is that he hasn't gone negative and has remained above the fray.

The things you can pull on people that aren't paying attention.

US Debt Index

Daily Kos || US worse off debt wise than Mexico, Colombia

This is admittedly a tough table to understand at first glance, but the conclusion is pretty scary.

First, they take USA's total debt, and figure out how much debt that is per person.

Then they take USA's Gross Domestic Product, and figure out how much GDP that is per person.

Then they figure the ratio.

In 1995, our ratio was 0.082. Now it's 0.712. The only Latin American country that is higher is Argentina, and we're clearly in the same ballpark. More ammo for Krugman's view that our deficit could be leading us into a latin-america-style fiscal crisis... go take a look.

In short, deficit very very very bad.

MLK in Birmingham

I don't recall if I've ever read Letter From a Birmingham Jail before. But this excerpt challenges my still-unformed views on protesting.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...

Dean's Beginning

I had heard about this speech - the one that really launched him as a viable candidate, the one that really got him rolling and had people thinking, "Holy Moly - this guy isn't just a vanity third-tier candidate, he's got something." But I had never seen it.

Here's the quicktime of the first part of that speech.

This is really the main reason I support him. He was standing up when it was HARD to do so. These other guys that are talking tough... they folded when it mattered.

Iowa Caucus

So, tomorrow is the big day - the Iowa caucus, the first state to go on record for who should be the Democratic nominee to beat Bush.

The history is that Gephardt led for a long time, and then Dean started his letter-writing campaign. Right around the Gore endorsement, Dean had a huge leap and led convincingly. Kerry was tanking in New Hampshire and decided to focus his efforts on Iowa, and has experienced a resurgence. Edwards campaign has had a resurgence also, but since he's supposed to be strong in the South, his campaign wouldn't be judged to be doomed if he came in third or fourth in Iowa.

All the late polls show everyone bunched up together, with Kerry having a lead. It looked like Dean was losing support midweek, even being in third place for a time, but has since built up support again and is now a close second.

Now, these are the polls. And that's where it starts to fall apart.

Most polls are done by focusing on probable and likely voters. And here's the key - they all make judgments on who these voters are - previous caucus attenders, registered Democrats that obviously have registered long enough ago that the polls know who they are. The assumption - the idiotic, ignorant assumption - that the press keeps on making in their headlines is that Iowa's population as a whole will vote in a way that relates to how they voted four years ago.

So the obvious question is... why wouldn't this be true? How is 2004 different than 2000?

Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean.

Dean has spent months writing letters to undecided voters. Close to 300,000 of them. Record turnout in the Iowa caucuses is 120,000. The polls focus on past caucus voters. Dean's lists - both for letter-writing, and for the huge vote-canvassing drive he's organized for out-of-state visitors - is from the Secretary Of State's voter rolls, both Democrats and Independents.

There's one more statistic here. Campaigns rate their voters on a one-to-five scale. Ones are those that have communicated to the campaign that they are definitely going to vote for their guy.

The Dean campaign let slip that 60-65% of their Ones are people that have not caucused before.

There are many ratios we do not know here. We do not know what a "normal" percentage of new caucus goers is. But we do know that 60-65% made serious buzz in Iowa. But the implication of these polls is that there is a ratio of predictable voters (past history) to new voters, and that this ratio will be the same for all candidates.

We already know this to be untrue in Dean's case. We already know that Dean will outperform his polling numbers, and we already know that the polls are not attempting to take this into account.

We know that the record caucus turnout is 120k. We know that Gephardt is saying that his Ones numbers 35k in number. We know that Dean is saying that his Ones number between 40k and 50k. And we know that they are polling around 20% apiece.

I think we are in for a huge surprise tomorrow night. I hate predictions because it's so easy to look like an idiot later, but I think Dean is going to win convincingly. My prediction over at dailykos is:

Dean 36%

Gep 24%

Ker 22%

Edw 19%

This was made a couple of days ago, and if I adjusted it today, I'd say it probably won't be THAT wide a margin, but I still think the press and polling outfits will be stunned at how much they missed.

Is It Dean's Campaign? And, Clinton's 9/11 plan.

Aaron writes about George Lakoff's "Moral Politics" book, which I've read too. He's yet another person that has put his finger on something about the Dean campaign that has bugged me. Dean actually seems too distant from the campaign. I agree that Dean would get more mileage if he would start calling it "our campaign" instead of "your campaign".

And, he points out that Time is finally printing a welcome exploration of the warning that Clinton's administration gave Bush about Al-Queda, after which the Bush administration ignored it, planned how to invade Iraq, and then used 9/11 as justification for the invasion.

Dean's Rolling Stone Interview

Man. Dean has really polished his rhetoric.

Rush And ACLU

This article (scroll down) makes the point of Rush, historically anti-privacy and anti-ACLU, agreeing with the ACLU when it comes to fighting his own drug conviction case.

There's a lot of clucking in the blogosphere about this issue and how Rush is a hypocrite, etc. I think the problem is that people stop there and believe that proves more of a point than it does.

I have been reading George Lakoff's Moral Politics recently and he makes a good point about morals and power that can be applied here. Rush is probably very much aware that the two attitudes are contradictory. It's not the same thing as cognitive dissonance or him being insane. He just feels no need to reconcile the two. To folks like him, and frankly to many of those on the left, it's simply all about power, not fairness. I think a lot of politically naive people see these inconsistencies and think, "My god! Does he even realize he's doing that?" They imagine some huge blind spot, that Rush can be saved or turned, or that the experience will soften Rush up and make him more tolerant to the viewpoint in the future, etc. It's naive, because of course he realizes. He just doesn't care. After he uses the right to privacy and the ACLU to defend himself, he's going to come right back to the radio show and continue to trash the right to privacy. He's not interested in consistency. Hypocrisy is irrelevant to him. He's got an agenda to promote.

Short And Sweet: Bush And War

Dave Johnson makes a good point, and the shorter the better. A former member of Bush's administration says that they used 9/11 to accomplish a pre-existing agenda of invading Iraq.

Just say that aloud a few times. Then repeat it to friends.

After all, it is true.

Update: This leak invalidates the counterclaim that the effort was merely continuing Clinton's efforts.

Gold And Dollars

Daily Kos || What's wrong with a gold standard?

I never realized there was so much to learn about gold and the economy.

Edwards Gaining In Iowa

Edwards is my second choice candidate. He passed Clark a long time ago as my distrust for Clark built.

Edwards is evidently gaining quickly in Iowa, and today Iowa's largest paper endorsed him. Right now Dean leads Gephardt, there's a gap, and then Kerry is in third, with Edwards closing in.

I think this is bad for Dean, because Kerry's strategy would change from trying to overtake Gephardt, to fending off Edwards. This frees Gephardt up to focus on Dean.

The caucus math is really interesting in Iowa because voters show up, but if their first choice doesn't look like they'll reach 15% - on a precinct level - then they go to their next choice, until everyone is supporting someone who's over the 15% mark.

I think this might actually be an advantage to Dean because he's been campaigning over the entire state rather than focusing on particular regions.

Bush's 2004 plan

So, as part of his 2004 strategy, he has released sweeping plans to enable corporations to employ illegal immigrants in a legal way. He has also released sweeping plans to return to the moon and set up a permanent base.

I think it's all part of his sweeping plan to send all illegal immigrants to the moon.

Update: - looks like the media has picked up on this. ;-)

Dean And Religion

Man. The press is going to have a field day with this. Let them. It's been far too long since we've had these discussions in the press.

"Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised," said the former governor of Vermont, "people who were left behind. He fought against self-righteousness of people who had everything. He was a person who set an extraordinary example that has lasted 2,000 years, which is pretty inspiring when you think about it."

You see? Jesus was a liberal.

"Let's get into a little religion here," he said at one meeting with voters, "Don't you think Jerry Falwell [a fundamentalist Baptist minister] reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus? And don't you think this campaign ought to be about evicting the money changers from the temple?". He was referring to a group of high priests and sacrilegious money markets in Jewish temples during the time of Christ

(via pandagon)

There's been a lot in the press lately about how Dean is saying that he is gradually getting more comfortable talking about religion. So, you know, he's a little bit shy, a little bit awkward about it, right? He'll probably be cautious? Right? Dip his toe in the water, say something uncontroversial?

Right.

"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people."

Dean comes out and says that his faith is what swayed his decision on the civil unions bill. Not in spite of his faith, because of it.

This is delicious.

I am absolutely convinced now that Dean is a master, an absolute master of the feint attack. I honestly think that most of his "gaffes" are deliberate. He says something, makes his opponents sputter and overreach at his supposed clumsiness, and then he deftly leaves them without a foundation. I wouldn't be surprised if his goal all along was to try and reclaim religion as a liberal underpinning, planning it for a long time.

Slanted Media; News At Eleven

I've long felt that media bias was a real problem, but this last week has just been ridiculous. Atrios over at Eschaton has been railing against this most consistently. Earlier this week there was an article by Nedra Pickler on the AP wire that invented a quote for Dean which was precisely the opposite of what he actually said. I (among with hundreds of others I guess) wrote to complain, and actually got a reply when the AP issued a contraction. You can read the details over at my diary on dailykos.

Another entry of mine focuses on an article I found myself, but in the comments someone else pointed to another article - again, issued over the wires by the AP - which is nothing short of an editorial. The Associated Press is not supposed to be releasing editorials disguised as hard news. Looks like a lot of people are writing about this too.

Much of this is anti-Dean bias. This is all an example of the bias in the media - it's not so much liberal or conservative (read rhetorica for details) as it is their bias for an exciting story. The last thing they want is for Dean to make it not even a contest. So they pound on any made-up flaw they can until they can make the case that it's close again.

Really, they should just call it what it is and report on the horse race between the leading candidate and the press. "Will the press's latest misrepresentation cause Dean to stumble in the eyes of the public? Stay tuned!"

The Daily Show tonight made the point that they knew that Dean was "angry" because the media told them so. Plus, they heard the rumor that he ripped the head off of a goat. :-)

Voting UI

This is a brainstormed mockup of a voting UI. It's a roughdraft. (Click for a larger picture.)

Basically each candidate is a column that you can pull up for more support or down for less support (or no support, as with G). The vertical scale can be seen as the most support the voter can give, to the least support the voter can give. That line that separates red from green would be the line of neutrality. Any candidate above the line is a candidate they want, and below the line a candidate they don't want. The voter could even pull the line higher up if they wanted more room to disapprove of all the candidates, or lower down if they want more room to approve the candidates.

The votes could be recorded within a 100 point range, with the line of neutrality always being zero.

Analyzing the votes is an entirely different matter. So far I haven't found a way to calculate intensity of support that actually works well. So this UI could just be a way to help a voter feel like they are being listened to, until the counting system just reverts to Condorcet. heh.

Voting Methods

I'm once again thinking about voting methods.

I've managed to further narrow down people's resistance to certain voting styles. Mainly, when there are situations where someone has a lot of first place votes, but someone else with broader consensus support, they are uncomfortable with the first person losing.

It's like they believe that the first candidate should get a "bonus" for the first place votes.

The reason they think that first place should get a bonus is because they imagine their own preferences. Usually when you have a first choice, it's because you don't care as much about the placement of the other choices.

In other words, imagine this hypothetical set of preferences:

Dean

Yes..x....................................No


Clark

Yes..................x....................No


Edwards

Yes......................x................No


Gephardt

Yes...........................x...........No


Lieberman

Yes...................................x...No


There's a bigger gap between the first choice and any of the other choices.

Here is where I want to point out to Abstract Person, however, that the gap is there because the voter wants it to be there. Not because there is some general rule that first place should always get a bonus.

What happens if someone is torn between their first two choices or only prefers one by a little bit, but knows they want either more than any of the other candidates? Giving a bonus to first choice and nowhere else would disenfranchise their preferences.

So I think the first-place bonus concept is a load of hooey. But, it brings up a lot of thinking about "intensity of preference".

More on this later.

Bush The Pseudo-Progressive

Pandagon: Imposter Progressives

See, this is why I love blogging. Every once in a while someone writes something insightful that I've honestly never thought about before.

Dean's Thinking

TIME Magazine: Inside the Mind of Howard Dean

"The way I think is, if you give me information, I tuck it back somewhere and work on it and work on it and work on it without being aware of it. All of a sudden, 10 months later, something will pop out, based on a whole series of things that I've learned in the last 10 months. And finally, all of a sudden, it falls into place."

Hey! That's how I think!

Building Support in 2004

Daily Kos || 2004: Marketing Our Arguments

A lot of my recent thoughts have come together in this entry over at dailykos. I write about the need to build new support in 2004 by proving that duplicating the 2000 vote isn't good enough, and that to do so we need to avoid negative arguments and instead focus on our moral conviction.

Wars

I'm regularly participating over at dailykos, and I'm surprised at how many people are opposed to the Iraq war because it contrasts with the first Gulf war. "Well, we had an international coalition for the first war, so that was okay, unlike this one." I didn't think there was so much support for the Gulf war among Democrats back then.

It's interesting to think of Democrats and what wars they have supported or not supported. I'm not exactly an isolationist like a lot of the ultra-left people are. But I think if you asked any Democrat to explain their stances on the Gulf War, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the Iraq war in order, while also fully reconciling their moral war code among all of them, it would require a lot of nuance. I'm interested in hearing more of that nuance because I'm not sure a lot of people have that nuance. Such as much of the GOP supporting Iraq while being against Kosovo when Clinton was in power.

Kosovo is the one I know the least about - I just was not paying attention to either that or Rwanda, although in Rwanda's case it's easy to be in favor of intervention. I think the best way of reconciling Kosovo with Iraq is to focus on two things:

• In Kosovo, the governmental body that recognized an imminent threat against them (and actually had one) was the one that took action: NATO. In Iraq, if there was an imminent threat at all, it was only against the region, and yet it was the U.S. taking action.
• In Kosovo, they were (arguably) able to make the case that there were no more options other than force to use. In Iraq, they didn't really even try.

Obviously, those aren't facts, but are opinions that a Democrat is likely to use to reconcile their opposition to Iraq with their support for Kosovo.

I personally wasn't in support of the Afghanistan war either because it honestly seemed like that focusing on an international police/detective action might have had even better results. The force seemed more like it came out of a desire for vengeance.

Automated Democracy

Escapable Logic has more theorizing on using internet/weblog technology to make democracy more participatory. It's right along the lines of my thinking of the discussion-board/action-item/living-document system I've been spec'ing out, and the direct democracy system I've been working on.