Vote April 7th.

UPDATE: I voted today (April 3). The reasons I voted for these two should be obvious, but in case one is confused, let me spell it out. Their opponents are liberal whose views do not match mine.

OK, I had to come out of retirement to post my vote-getters next Tuesday.

Filed under: Education, Elections, Wisconsin , Department of Public Instruction, election, Randy Koschnick, Rose Fernandez, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Supreme Court

Two fine candidates

Our friend capper at Cognitive Dissidence lets us know of two bloggers, one definitely and the other most likely, who will be running for public office.

Zach Wisniewski announces that he is in the race for the South Milwaukee school board. I can certainly recommend Zach, as even though he’s somewhat to the left of me, this is less important on a local level. According to capper’s post, Zach has a passion for children and a commitment to fiscal restraint. These are  two good qualities for a school board member.

Here’s his campaign site.

capper also tells us about Janet Evans running for school board in Franklin. Janet posts at In the Race (a CommunityNOW blog) and Righty Blog.

Janet would certainly be a good addition to the Franklin school board.

Best of luck to Zach and Janet.

Filed under: Education, Elections, Wisconsin

The future of the electoral college

We seem to have this debate after every presidential election and it doesn’t get much further than talk.

If it didn’t get changed after the 2000 election, it’s not going to get changed in the near future, barring a tie.

Why?

There’s not enough support. Small states are unwilling to give up their relative power.

Even if there was a change to a congressional district method of appropriation like Maine and Nebraska, there is no significant change in election results. In the last three elections, for example, Republicans would get about 25 more electoral votes using that method than in the regular electoral college vote.

And if we changed to a popular vote method, most candidates probably would not leave the heavily populated areas.

I don’t see it changing in my lifetime.

Filed under: Elections , Elections, Electoral College reform

11% of voters’ records didn’t match at election

This is comforting. From JSOnline,

One out of every nine Wisconsin voters in November whose names or personal ID numbers were checked did not match the state’s master list, a new report shows.

Wisconsin’s mismatch rate under the Help America Vote Act – or HAVA – for November was 11%, Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said in a report to the board, which will meet Wednesday.

The 11% mismatch rate in November was much lower than estimates before the election. In August, the mismatch rate was 22%. It was the first time the numbers were made public.

So do we get a “do-over?”

Filed under: Elections , Elections

Colin Powell takes on Rush Limbaugh

Tim Cuprisin on his blog links to a CNN report on an interview with Colin Powell to be aired Sunday at 1pm ET, in which he talks about what Republicans need to do and wonders whether Rush Limbaugh serves the party well.

Cuprisin doesn’t much go for the “sqwakers” anyway, so this fits in his meme.

Powell, of course, supported Obama over McCain, whom I suppose was too conservative for him.

There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don’t object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority.

The thing that surprised me was that Powell considers himself a Republican. I must have missed that.

Any way here’s what he said about Limbaugh,

“Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?” Powell asked. “Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?”

I’m not a big fan of talk radio and hardly listen to it, unless I’m in the car, but doesn’t Air America do the same kind of thing? It didn’t seem to hurt the Democrats.

But I guess he’s saying Republicans should become Democrats.

That should give the country a choice.

I guess some Republicans feel like Powell and Emil W. Henry Jr.

who wrote in the Washington Post about infrastructure spending, which was not bad, but he started with this,

In the wake of the recent electoral rout, we conservatives must redefine ourselves in a world that has changed since the birth of the Reagan Doctrine.

Rout? Oh, it was a convincing victory and we should learn some lessons from it, but a rout? I guess his definition of a rout is different from mine. And Republicans have won twice since the election–hardly what you would expect from a rout.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, Republican, conservative , 2008 election, Colin Powell, conservative, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh

I’m a map geek

The best way to get my attention is with a map. I explore maps; I pour over maps; I collect maps.

I just love maps.

So here are some electoral maps I’ve run across.

The Washington Independent has a group of maps which answers the question, “What would the 2008 electoral map look like if the election were decided by [Fill In the Blank]“

The Electoral Map uses the first of a series of maps from the New York Times to state that the country is turning blue, but if you use the comparison from ‘92 and ‘96 we’re turning red. Obviously we’ll have to see what the next couple of elections tell us.

The USATODAY.com has a time lapse of when counties were declared one way or the other.

Frontloading HQ has a map of the 2012 projected Electoral College votes.

And last, but not least, Christopher Healey from the Computer Science department at North Carolina State university has a series of maps which subdivides each congressional district into four quadrants and visualizes

“four elections of interest: President (upper-left), U.S. Senate (upper-right), U.S. House (lower-right), and Governor (lower-left).”

In addition,

“saturation [of color] represents the winning percentage (more saturated for higher percentages); the small disc floating over the state shows aggregated state-wide results; incumbent losses are highlighted with textured X’s; the height of the state represents the number of electoral college votes it controls.”

Whew.

These maps also dispel the notion of Red State-Blue State, for the most part.

Filed under: 2008, Democrats, Elections, Republican, presidential , 2008 presidential election, Democrat, Electoral College, maps, Republican

Youth vote: Democratic movement, or fad?

At Stateline.org, Louis Jacobsen’s “Out There” column has this

In a normal election year, the two precincts serving the bulk of students at California University of Pennsylvania attract a total of about 400 voters, according to election watchers here. But on Election Day 2008, that number more than quadrupled to a combined total of more than 1,700. And in those precincts, Obama crushed Republican nominee John McCain by margins of between 2 to1 and 3 to1.

[snip]

Obama managed to sweep the 18-to-29 vote in some of the most deeply Republican states in the union. They include not just North Dakota but also Alabama (50 percent), Kansas (51), Kentucky (51), Mississippi (56), South Carolina (55), Tennessee (55) and Texas (54).

Should the GOP be worried? Sure. But note,

Overall, the trendlines for young voters do not look good for the GOP. As political journalist Ron Brownstein has noted, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry carried 54 percent of voters younger than 30. In the 2006 midterms, 60 percent voted Democratic in House races. This year, Obama trounced McCain among voters under 30 by a 2-to-1 margin.

As some contacted by Jacobson admitted, the GOP needs to be concerned that their message is not getting across (or, perhaps, getting lost in the static?) But is this insurmountable? No. He noted these things:

1. Many Republican candidates in red states did well on Election Day. We have no further to look than Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, whose district went for Obama.

2. State Democratic parties are not always able to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.

3. Are Democrats winning future loyalists to the party as a whole, or are young newcomers mostly attracted to the new president?

Time will tell.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , Barack Obama, Republican Party, youth vote

Conservatives and McCain

Conservatives had, at best, a rocky coalition with John McCain during the recent campaign and now afterwards, too.

In retrieving an old e-mail account, I found this post at Boots & Sabers and wondered how many of the conservatives who were neutral or against McCain wound up voting for him.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, conservative, presidential , 2008 presidential election, conservative, John McCain

Quick Hits

Suzie-Q How Many People Voted For Obama?

Overall, that means turnout will be up by about 2% over 2004 levels. But the real story is that while the Democratic vote will have increased by a bit over 10% from 2004, the Republican turnout will have dropped by about 7%.

Omaha.com – Obama may win Nebraska’s 2nd District votes. Nebraska, for those who don’t know, allocates their electoral votes by congressional district.

McClatchy Washington Bureau – How will President Obama deploy his Internet army?

Trippi predicted that Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge “one of the most powerful presidencies in American history.”

Politico.com – The next president. Minute by Minute. Seems like overkill to me. For example, the 9:30AM entry for November 6,

Obama heads to gym for 90 minutes.

Oooookay.

Politico.com again – The 2010 campaign is now under way Written by Phil Singer who has worked for Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Hillary Rodham Clinton and John F. Kerry presidential campaigns, most of this article’s suggestions would work for the GOP also.

Jonathan Martin’s Blog at Politico.com – Lobbyists in Obamaworld

With the campaign over, lobbyists are out of the dog house and helping with the White House transition team. But they’re also being asked to sign a document pledging to not lobby for one year the department or agency they’re helping to staff, according to Democratic sources.

Filed under: 2008, 2010, Elections, presidential , 2008 presidential election, 2010 election, Barack Obama, Nebraska

Vitriol

I hate to write posts like this; it’s probably one reason I hardly do it.

Peter from Texas Hold ‘Em blog has written some pretty harsh things, both on his blog (which he has deleted) and at Boots & Sabres about the election results. Wendy and Owen both called him on it and perhaps his frustration has led him to delete his blog.

I like Peter. He’s a sharp guy. Unfortunately sometimes that sharpness was hidden by name calling and bitterness.

But hoping this country gets attacked repeatedly and wanting to put a bounty on the head of the president goes way beyond reasonable to me.

Again I like Peter. He has his style of blogging; I have mine. I won’t take him off the blog roll. I don’t blog roll that way.

But I had to write this. And I hope Peter understands.

Filed under: 2008, Blogging, Elections, Politics, presidential , 2008 presidential election, Politics