Don't Waste Your Vote

With the conventions over, there are now just under two months left to decide which big government, corporatist, anti-freedom warmonger is less objectionable.

Of course, there are more than just the two candidates, but voting for someone with no realistic chance to win is tantamount to "wasting your vote", as the conventional thinking goes. But that ignores the reality of the Electoral College (among many, many other things), which renders all but the most competitive states basically meaningless. And a vote can only be "wasted" if it had value to begin with, so to help you determine if casting your vote for The Lesser of Two Evils might make a difference, I put together this handy map:^[1]

The thing about voting for someone else, though, is that it isn't about winning; it's about making the major parties afraid. It's about forcing them to truly compete on their merits in an open marketplace, and not just against each other. Would the Democrats so coldly dismiss the notion of reforming drug policy if they were worried about losing votes to the Greens or the Libertarians? Would the Republicans so thoughtlessly call for harsher laws against pornography and gambling and whatever else their authoritarian wing deems morally unacceptable? Would either of them be so indifferent to the massive costs—in every sense of the word—of fighting an endless war?

Every single vote for a third party or independent candidate—regardless of what state it comes from—says to the Republicans and Democrats, "you've lost me, and if you want me back you'd better start listening to what I want." Is that not a message worth sending? I say it is, and I hope I'm not alone, because the strength with which it resonates will depend entirely on the number of voters who choose to send it. I'm aware that this number may be rather low, but my vote will make it one higher, and for that reason my vote will not be wasted.

Will yours?

1. The lightly-shaded states are those that, as of September 9, are not forecast by Nate Silver (who's very good at this stuff) as "safe" for Obama or Romney. Many of those states are still projected to lean one way or another by a margin of several percentage points. And even if a state is ridiculously close, it won't matter who wins its electoral votes unless those are the votes needed to secure a majority (or to create a tie), and given that in 2000 a 500-vote margin in Florida was narrow enough for the outcome to be determined by the Supreme Court, the likelihood of Obama v. Romney coming down to a single vote is essentially zero.
    And I'm not even addressing (for now) the question of whether Obama and Romney differ in any meaningful way.

Really, America? Rick Santorum?

Ugh, alright, let's talk about Rick Santorum.

As someone who tries very hard to observe the principle of reciprocity—"we should respect the reasonableness and the goodwill of those with whom we disagree…even if we judge their opinions to be unreasonable and/or their views to be unjust or immoral"—I refuse to simply write Santorum off as a bigot. So I did some investigating, and it turns out he's not a bigot—at least, if you believe what he says when asked if he's a bigot.

Consider these two quotes from Santorum's interview with Piers Morgan last August:^[1]

There are a lot of things in society that are sins or moral wrongs, that we don't make illegal. Just because something is immoral or something is wrong, doesn't mean that it should be illegal, and that the federal government or any level of government should involve themselves in it. . . . If I was a legislator in the state of Texas dealing with the Texas sodomy law [that was overturned by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas], I would've voted against it, because I don't think that's something that the state should involve itself in.

—————

The Catholic church teaches that homosexuality is a sin. I'm a Catholic, and I subscribe to the Catholic church's teaching. But that's not relevant from the standpoint of how I view these issues from a public policy point of view.

And this one, from an appearance on Fox News around the same time:

The bottom line is, we can have a public policy difference about what the proper marriage laws should be in this country and what's in the best interests of society, and not hate somebody or feel ill will toward anybody. As I've said many times, I have friends who are gay, I accept them as they are, but I disagree with them vehemently about what is in the best interests of society with respect to our marriage laws. . . . It's not personal, it's about policy.

Got it? He believes homosexuality is immoral, but he doesn't consider immorality a valid reason for the government to get involved. And because he subscribes to the teachings of the Catholic church (he's careful to point that part out, as if everything that flows from it is somehow involuntary), he believes homosexuality is a sin, but he doesn't consider sinfulness a valid reason for the government to get involved either. All that matters, he says, is what's in the best interests of society—a determination that should not be tainted by the biases of one's own moral and religious beliefs. Santorum, who of course has a healthy respect for scientific objectivity, judiciously examined the evidence on all sides and reached the conclusion that, strictly as a matter of public policy, THE GOVERNMENT MUST PUT A STOP TO GAY MARRIAGE BEFORE SOCIETY IS RUINED FOREVER.

Any resemblance his political views may have to his personal moral and religious beliefs is, apparently, purely coincidental.

One can't help but wonder, then, what is the basis for his political views? The closest thing I can find to an answer came during the January 8 debate:

We know there’s certain things that work in America. The Brookings Institute came out with a study just a few years ago that said, if you graduate from high school, and if you work, and if you’re a man, if you marry, if you’re a woman, if you marry before you have children, you have a 2 percent chance of being in poverty in America. And to be above the median income, if you do those three things, 77 percent chance of being above the median income.

Why isn’t the president of the United States or why aren’t leaders in this country talking about that and trying to formulate, not necessarily federal government policy, but local policy and state policy and community policy, to help people do those things that we know work and we know are good for society?

And again during the January 16 debate:

It’s very interesting, if you look at a study that was done by the Brookings Institute back in 2009, they determined that if Americans do three things, they can avoid poverty. Three things. Work, graduate from high school, and get married before you have children. Those three things, if you do, according to Brookings, results in only 2 percent of people who do all those things ending up in poverty, and 77 percent above the national average in income.

Clearly, that Brookings Institute study has had quite the impact. It's also a common talking point at campaign appearances, and there are implicit references to it on his website.^[2] The upshot is always the same: It has been conclusively proven (by Science!) that there is a threefold path to moderate success—get a job, get a high school education, and get married before you have kids (or is it just that you aren't supposed to have kids if you aren't married? I can't tell, and I'm getting a headache trying to figure out if it matters). Thus, the government should do everything in its power to promote those three things—even if it means depriving gay people of same-sex marriage rights, which has something to do with the third thing, I guess.^[3]

This is the form interventionist social conservatism has taken—say all the right things about condemning bigotry and valuing individual freedom and approaching the issues with an open mind, then reach the same moralistic conclusions as your garden-variety 20th century bigot. Santorum isn't even all that good at it, but, lucky for him, he doesn't have to be. We've had, like, 500 debates, most of which have been hosted and moderated by members of the Liberal Media, and at no point has he been asked any of the following:

• How, exactly, does being married cause a person's income to increase?
• Have you read the Economic Policy Institute's report suggesting you've confused cause with effect?
• Did that possibility honestly never occur to you?
• By the way, even if you're right about the benefits of marriage, what part of that Brookings Institute study makes you think its findings apply only to opposite-sex couples?
• And do we really need to explain to you, Senator, why it is that unplanned, pre-marital pregnancy isn't a huge concern in the gay community?
• Seriously, do you want us to draw you a picture? Because we'd be happy to draw you a picture.
• Wait a minute…that Brookings Institute study was released less than three years ago, but your political views have been fairly consistent since at least the early 90s. How did you rationalize your big-government moralism before 2009?^[4]
• Have you learned to travel back and forth through time, allowing you to read the report decades before it was released?
• Still, wouldn't you expect someone who has mastered time travel to understand at least the basics of how causation works?
• Also, you were recently asked, "as a champion of family values and keeping America strong, would you continue to destroy families by sending nonviolent drug offenders to prison?", to which you answered, "the federal government doesn't do that." Which country's federal government were you talking about?
• Was it Portugal's?
• Or are you actually that obtuse?

Instead, he gets questions that amount to, "are you a bigot?" His answers are simplistic and logically dubious, and they go unchallenged—not because he wins over his critics, but because nothing he says changes their perception that, yeah, he probably is a bigot. But there's also nothing to change his supporters' perception that he's not a bigot—he's just trying to do what's in the best interests of society. And until he's forced to defend his views in a real, meaningful way, I can't say for sure that his supporters are wrong.

In other words, if Rick Santorum wins this election, I'm going to blame the media.

1. Perhaps the most incredible thing Santorum said during the interview:

From a public policy point of view there are a lot of things that I find morally wrong—or, as you would use the term, sinful—that don't necessarily rise to the level that government should be involved in regulating that activity.

I would love to see what's on that list. I bet it makes Ned Flanders look like a libertine.

2. From Santorum's "Bold solutions for America’s families":

The family is the foundation of our country. We need to have an economic policy that supports families and freedom and encourages marriage.
…
I don’t believe that poverty is a permanent condition. How do we effectively address poverty in rural and urban America? We promote jobs, marriage, quality education and access to capital and embrace the supports of civil society.

3. Not a whole lot of room for controversy on the first two. That being employed is one of the keys to having an above-median income sounds like something Tim McCarver would say, and it's only marginally less obvious that having a high school education is important, too. We may never reach a consensus on how, exactly, but I think we can all agree that employment and education are to be encouraged.
    Also, it should be noted that Santorum hasn't actually stated a problem here. Even if we come up with the best possible policies for promoting employment, education, and marriage, it's still going to be the case that a single parent without a high school education is more likely to have a below-median income. He's engaging in the fallacy that conservatives often (rightly) accuse liberals of—defining a problem in terms of inequality, which makes it virtually impossible to satisfactorily resolve.

4. I'm guessing the answer to that question can be found in his book, which I assume is readily available at one of those warehouse stores right off the interstate, where you can find entire pallets of generic self-help guides, unfunny joke compilations, and autobiographies of middle-tier politicians for sale at a fraction of their original price.

The Top Ten Fringe Candidates in the New Hampshire Primaries

As a long-time observer of politics and a long-time critic of the two-party system, I've developed a strong affinity for fringe and third-party candidates. We'll have to wait a few months before the third parties start to emerge, but Tuesday's New Hampshire primaries are jam-packed with fringe candidates for the major party nominations—there are 30 Republicans and 14 Democrats on the ballot—and I looked into all of them.^[1]

I'm excluding the major and semi-major candidates we're all already familiar with—though most wouldn't have made the list anyway. The rest were ranked according to a formula that combines the following two factors:^[2]

1. How interesting it would be—and not necessarily in a good way—if the candidate became just prominent enough to get some media attention and participate in the debates (but not popular enough to actually win—that part is important).
   
2. Intangibles.

Before I get to the top ten, honorable mention goes to Democratic contender Vermin Supreme, whose top issues include dental hygiene and traveling back in time to kill Hitler. I declared Supreme ineligible for two reasons: First, he's clearly just trying to be funny, and I'm all in favor of that, but it does distinguish him from the rest of the field (though I have my suspicions about a few). And second, his website starts playing music automatically, which is inexcusable.

Alright, here we go:

10. Timothy Brewer (Republican)
According to the Dayton Daily News, during a recent forum for minor candidates Brewer "vowed that speaking with Jesus through 'afterlife orbs' would solve the world’s problems," which is honestly not the worst idea I've heard in the last few months. The paper also reports that "[a]ttempts to reach Brewer about his candidacy failed." Really? Was he busy?

9. Bob Ely (Democrat)
Ely's website has a list of 24 reasons not to vote for him (for example, "I'll Dream Up Lots of Other Taxes"), but even better is his blog, which contains a single post that says, simply, "Nothing deemed blog-worthy". I'm not sure, but that might be brilliant.

8. Aldous C. Tyler (Democrat)
Heartbreaking news from the Tyler campaign:

I am truly saddened to be forced to announce that my bid for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States must come to a close. Due to a lack of logistical and financial support, I can no longer responsibly ask people to send their hard-earned money or spend their precious time on a campaign that simply has no ability to continue forward.

Yes, now it would be irresponsible for Aldous Tyler to ask people to contribute their time and money to his presidential campaign.

7. Mark Callahan (Republican)
You know how the most vocal opponents of gay rights often turn out to be gay themselves? I kind of doubt a similar phenomenon exists among Birthers, but Mark Callahan decided to take preemptive action anyway:

There has been a lot of news and national discussion about President Obama's eligibility to be President of the United States, based upon where he was born. I can say with absolutely certainty that Americans will not have to worry about this aspect of my eligibility to be President of the United States during my campaign, nor if I get elected President of the United States in 2012. In the interests of full disclosure and accountability, I will state that I am currently 34 years old. I turn 35 on May 11th, 2012, well before the inauguration of the President in January 2013, thus still making me eligible to be President of the United States, according to the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1. I have consulted with the Federal Elections Commission, and they have confirmed that I am eligible, as long as I turn 35 by the time inauguration day comes.

There was a lot of eye-rolling at the FEC that day, I'd imagine.

6. L. John Davis, Jr. (Republican)
Davis appears to come from the "this problem will be easy to solve once we figure out how to solve the problem" school of problem-solving, and his website is a masterful exercise in using a lot of words to say nothing. Here's a highlight:

What makes a United States president? Does a mold make a president? If we had a mold, we could mold a president. But which mold would we choose? Would we all agree on the same mold? . . . What color should he be? I know the answer to this one. It’s the great American color: red, white and blue.

5. Randy Crow (Republican)
Alas, www.randycrow.com is currently unavailable, but I was able to find some information at Project Vote Smart. There's some fairly dull biographical stuff, and a questionnaire with dull revelations like favorite author (Hemingway), favorite color (blue), and favorite musician ("none jumps out"), and some dull political views, and then just as I gave up hope of finding anything interesting, there it is:

Flight 93 was inteded to crash into WTC-7 cover up the fact that WTC-7 had bombs placed in it, as did the other two buildings, to bring them down.

Well, alright then. Keep that in mind, potential Randy Crow voters.

4. Hugh Cort (Republican)
Cort's website has "2008" in its URL and Google tells me it may harm my computer, so I'll let that one remain a mystery, but I'm guessing it has a lot to say about Iran and bin Laden and nuclear terrorism, because that's pretty much all he talks about. He runs an organization called The American Foundation for Counter-Terrorism Policy and Research, and he wrote a book called The American Hiroshima: Osama's Plan for a Nuclear Attack, And One Man's Attempt to Warn America. The entirety of his platform, as far as I can tell, is that we need to destroy Iran before Iran destroys us. So he's like Newt Gingrich, but with a more sensible approach to judicial review.

3. Randall Terry (Democrat)
Most candidates convey their views by simply talking or writing about them, but Terry won't be reduced to such a simplistic method. Here's the introduction to his 11-page platform:

Randall Terry addresses 30 issues facing our nation. Mr. Terry has assigned a number value for each question/issue; sometimes he assigns two differing values, depending on the interpretation of the question at hand. In addition, for each position, he provides an explanation.

What follows is a strange hodgepodge of views that could easily have been chosen at random. He's in favor of amnesty, opposed to gay marriage, in favor of US involvement in the UN, opposed to environmental regulations, in favor of marijuana legalization, opposed to gun control, opposed to both the Patriot Act and civil rights for suspected terrorists…and on and on. I couldn't make sense of it. And at several points he expresses uncertainty over the meaning of a question, which is just…mind-boggling, because it's his own platform. And here's where I stopped trying to figure it out altogether:

I think everyone who loves freedom should drive a great big, safe, SUV…and everyone who wants us to be slaves to the socialist state should drive an ittybitty Hyundai.

2. Joe Story (Republican)
He calls himself "The Average Joe", and his website is www.theaveragejoeforpresident.com, so you pretty much know what you're getting here. Probably just a bunch of conservative talking points—fiscal responsibility, family values, etc.—watered down so as to make the basic ideas virtually impossible to disagree with, and some vague platitudes about the American way of life, right? Well somebody needs to tell Joe Story what "average" means, because holy crap:

"WE THE PEOPLE" must decide what our founding fathers meant by "Freedom of Religion". Could they have meant secular humanism "freedom from Religion" where anything goes or Islam the strictest cult known to man? The USA continues to remove the Judeo-Christian biblical laws that define the nations existence from the court houses and embrace Sharia law. How much longer before we look like London in flames or one of the Stone Age countries of Islam?

Yeah, so that's who this guy is—a hyper-Christian, anti-Islamic fanatic—and once that much is established there aren't really any more surprises, but I still enjoyed the misdirection.

1. Andy Martin (Republican)
Martin has a website, but I didn't link to it because there isn't much there, and also because he's a terrible, terrible person. Here are some excerpts from his Wikipedia page:

• His 1996 run for the Florida State Senate came unraveled when it was revealed that he had named his campaign committee for his 1986 congressional run "The Anthony R. Martin-Trigona Congressional Campaign to Exterminate Jew Power in America."
• Martin has filed numerous lawsuits, and has been labeled as a vexatious litigant by several jurisdictions. . . . In a 1983 bankruptcy case, he filed a motion calling the presiding judge "a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race." . . . When later pressed in an interview about his remarks, Martin claimed that the anti-Semitic comments were inserted into his court papers by malicious judges.
• On October 5, 2008, Martin was featured as a "journalist" on Hannity's America of the Fox News Channel. According to The New York Times, "The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government."
• Martin issued a press release shortly after Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that he had evidence Obama "lied to the American people" and "misrepresent[ed] his own heritage." Martin claimed that Obama was really a Muslim, was possibly hiding this fact "to endanger Israel,"
• On October 17, 2008, Martin filed a lawsuit in a state circuit court of Hawaii against Governor Linda Lingle and health department director Dr. Chiyome Fukino seeking to verify the state's official birth certificate of Barack Obama.

Basically, Andy Martin is the infamous Ron Paul newsletters, in (more or less) human form.

1. In case it doesn't go without saying, no, I didn't try all that hard to get a thorough sense of who these people are, because that would be as pointless as it is impossible. We're talking about nearly three dozen candidates, virtually none of whom have received any significant media attention. So if Timothy Brewer turns out to be eminently reasonable other than the "afterlife orbs" thing, good for him, but he doesn't have a website, so the afterlife orbs are all I have to go on.

2. The specifics of the formula will be kept secret, so as to preserve the illusion that it exists.

A Rational Majority

This week has been downright lousy with conservatives crowing about the election, and there's no respite in sight. It was a rebuke of big government, a triumph of common sense, a return to reason, a resounding victory for the American people, and so on. The Democrats, after all, have spent nearly two whole years tinkering with the economy and most of us aren't self-employed millionaires yet, so out with them! And since we refuse, for whatever reason, to allow ourselves to be represented in Washington by a truckload of inanimate carbon rods, the duty falls to the Republicans.

But despite my sarcastic skepticism (not to mention my skeptical sarcasm), I can't help being cautiously optimistic (that is, when I'm not being aggressively pessimistic about the election's implications for immigration reform, gay rights, marijuana legalization, and other issues I won't get into here). I give conservatives a hard time, but, when it comes down to it, I do sincerely believe this country would benefit from a government with more of a laissez faire approach to the economy. In the two-year-old words of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Will:^[1]

Conservatives rightly think, or once did, that much, indeed most, government spreading of wealth is economically destructive and morally dubious—destructive because, by directing capital to suboptimum uses, it slows wealth creation; morally dubious because the wealth being spread belongs to those who created it, not government.

And yet, when it comes to the conservative movement itself—rather than the philosophy in the abstract—Will and I are no longer on the same page. A line in his most recent column nicely illustrates why (emphasis added):

This was the serious concern that percolated beneath the normal froth and nonsense of the elections: Is political power—are government commands and controls—superseding and suffocating the creativity of a market society's spontaneous order? On Tuesday, a rational and alarmed American majority said "yes."

So, if I've got this right, here's what George Will is saying:

1. A free market economy is the smoothest road to prosperity.
2. Therefore, it's rational to support free market economics.
3. In this week's election, a vote for Republicans was a vote in support of free market economics.
4. Therefore, Republican voters are rational.

Nope. Not how it works. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt on propositions 1, 2, and 3—as I'm inclined to do—there remains all kinds of room on the free market bandwagon for the least rational among us to jump aboard.^[2] I'd be a lot more comfortable with proposition 4 if it looked something like this:

4. Therefore, Republican voters may or may not be rational, because, while rational people support free market economics, irrational people support whatever the hell causes their semi-functional neurons to light up, including but not limited to Michael Bay movies, Scientology, bi-weekly Powerball drawings, the New York Mets, and, yes, free market economics.^[3]

But still, flawed logic aside, who am I to say that Will isn't (accidentally) right about Republican voters? Maybe they are, indeed, (by sheer coincidence) uniformly rational. If that's the case, then it must've been a bunch of deceitful liberals—as Will points out, they'll stop at nothing to portray conservatives as angry, uninformed morons—who adorned his column with the following comments (edited for brevity, but, obviously, not for content):^[4]

Leftist Lie: "Two never ending wars=republican"
Actual Truth: Iraq war is over.
*****
Leftist Lie: "hate Muslims=republican"
Actual Truth: Republicans hate terrorists, leftists want to give them a safe haven.
*****
Leftist Lie: "Hate gays=republican"
Actual Truth: Republicans value the tradition of marriage. Leftists want to destroy its meaning.

—————

[Obama] is a pseudo intellectual who has been programmed by a series of communist and revolutionary associations. Collective Salvation is a key incite to his programming and whence it came. A perversion of Christianity by communists. Traditional Christians like POPES consider collective salvation as a political teaching as DEMONIC. There is no telling where an Unstable Obama will take us or what he will do. After he scolded us for going to Los Vegas he is taking a 2 billion dollar trip to India. Is the man sane?

—————

We have a Communist sociopath as President.

—————

[Obama] surrounds himself with Tax Cheats, Chicago thugs, incompetents, radical loony perverted Czars and has Democrat accomplices in congress that can't even READ the trillion dollar pork packages and Obama/Pelosi Government Crap Care they put their X on and inflict on Americans…

—————

And now the investigations will begin. I can't wait for the one that Obama will try to explain how he is legally qualified to be president when he can't product a certified birth certificate and neither of his parent were qualifying US citizens.

Finally, my favorite (because really, you do need to be aware):

The intelligence of the Liberals is stunningly low.They lack the ability to see what Obama and the PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS are doing to this country…If you have money in the bank,you might want to pull it.Another piece of advice,watch GLENN BECK, THURSDAY,FRIDAY he has been warning for a year and a half about OBAMA ,everything he has said is happening.The man loves this country,he is warning us.The media,OBAMA,SOROS has been boycotting his show because he has been exposing them,WATCH,YOU NEED TO BE AWARE !!!!!

Alright, that's enough for now (check this article's comments for some more gems, if you're into that sort of thing). Internet commenters, as always, prove nothing, except that stupidity is ideologically-neutral.

So, are intelligent, thoughtful, and rational conservatives out there too? Sure—plenty of them. Is voting Republican, in and of itself, proof of intelligence, thoughtfulness, and rationality? No, of course not,^[5] and if conservatives like George Will are as smart as they seem to think they are, they should understand that.

1. Also from the 2008 column (but not relevant to my point, which is why it's stashed away down here in this footnote):

Hyperbole is not harmless; careless language bewitches the speaker's intelligence. And falsely shouting "socialism!" in a crowded theater such as Washington causes an epidemic of yawning.

Well said.

2. I assume the Free Market Bandwagon, for the sake of comfort, fuel efficiency, and durability, would be a foreign model. Or, for the sake of irony, a GM.

3. Does that sound mean-spirited? I feel like it sounds a little mean-spirited. Oh well, I'm just trying to be funny. I really don't mean to offend Transformers fans, Scientologists, lottery players, capitalists, or…yeah, that's all.

4. For what it's worth, I tried to avoid picking out comments that are simply poorly-written. My intent is not to mock those with a shaky grasp on the language (or, to put it in PC terms, those with a "unique voice"), but to mock those who have proudly and openly severed ties with reality—though the latter is hardly a stranger to the former. Anyway, in the interest of fairness, here’s one of the good ones:

George, with all due respect, a wave of rational and concerned voters did not really come into it. You and I and a fairly small minority live in an informed and rational world, but the vast majority of the voting population votes purely from the hip. Happy? Yes – vote for incumbent, no – vote for challenger.

And one more, just because I like it:

We demand to see Boehner's birth certificate! He's orange. No human is orange. Is he American or Alien? Release his college records now! We want proof he attended college. We want our country back!

5. Is engaging in a Q&A with myself a lazy, overused stylistic device? Absolutely, but screw you—I'm doing it anyway.

Midterm Election Thoughts (Or Lack Thereof)

Here it is—the long-awaited (I assume) What I Think of the Tea Party article. Well, naturally, I think they're a bunch of racist homophobes who don't know what they're complaining about and don't have any real solutions.

Oh, wait—that's what the liberal media tells me I should think. Or maybe it's what the conservative media tells me the liberal media tells me I should think. I can't keep track anymore.

So what's left when you look past the mountain of nonsense about these people being hateful idiots, and the adjacent mountain of nonsense about them being patriotic freedom-fighters? I don't know—not much, as far as I can tell. They say a lot of the right things,^[1] and they say a lot of the wrong things,^[2] and I can't think of anything to say about them that hasn't been said elsewhere.

For all the reasons mentioned on this blog (and then some), I have little to no confidence in Republicans. Granted, these particular Republicans insist they'll do things differently, which is nice, but I'm not holding my breath.^[3] Still, godspeed, you noble outsiders. I look forward to watching you find fascinating new ways to screw things up.

Meanwhile, I'll be voting for Side of Hash Browns:

1. Hope and change—keep it vague enough, and it's the perfect all-purpose political credo.

2. Virtually everything they've said about immigration, for example.

3. Like most humans, I lack the lung capacity to hold my breath for more than a few minutes, much less several months.

The Senate Candidacy of a Bearded Marxist

Twenty-five years ago, an Amherst University senior named Chris Coons wrote an article on a subject that hits pretty close to home: How conservatives drove him away.

It's a well-written, thought-provoking article, in which Coons, who describes his pre-Amherst ideology as a product of his "sheltered, privileged, and politically conservative background," discusses the semester he had just spent in Kenya. A country like Kenya, it seems, is in many ways an extreme version of America. Wealth inequality is staggering, and the key to success most often cited by the rich—hard work and perseverance—is perceived by the poor as a load of fantastical nonsense. Granted, there's no doubt that America's image of itself as a "land of opportunity" has a more solid basis in reality than Kenya's, but we still face many of the same blah blah blah CHRIS COONS IS A COMMITTED MARXIST AND HE'S TRYING TO INFILTRATE THE U.S. SENATE!!!

That last paragraph just got a lot more interesting, didn't it? Probably because of the subtle tonal shift toward the end, which was my impression of what happens when Fox News latches on to a story:

On his September 16 show, Sean Hannity said "some unpopular Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to support Delaware's 'bearded Marxist' "—without mentioning that the title was based on what Coons called a joke that his friends made. On his radio show that day, Glenn Beck called Coons a "Marxist" and a "staunch anti-capitalist." On The O'Reilly Factor on September 17, both Beck and Bill O'Reilly claimed that Coons is "a Marxist" and "admitted it." On Fox & Friends on September 18, Eric Bolling said O'Donnell's "opponent now is a self-described Marxist."

It'd be a waste of time to go through all the reasons why this is absurd,^[1] so I'll just mention my favorite: Coons is only in the news because his opponent is in the news, and his opponent is only in the news because virtually everything about her is insane.^[2] I suppose Fox News, in accordance with the latter half of its famous slogan, just feels the need to balance things out.

Still, it should be noted that Fox is in a tough spot here. If they treated both candidates fairly, the coverage would be unbalanced, and if they focused on the actual issues, the coverage would be boring. So priorities have to be evaluated and compromises have to be made, and when that happens "The Democrat Senate candidate is a Marxist!" is going to win out every time.

1. The most obvious being that the "bearded Marxist" thing is a joke, and that we know this not from Coons's answer to a reporter's question, or from a campaign press release, or even from common sense speculation—we know it because the joke is explained in the article itself.

2. A quick top-seven list: (7) "Barack Obama...is anti-American," (6) pretty much everything to do with her personal finances, (5) "homosexuality is...an identity disorder," (4) her campaign's attempt to spread the rumor that her primary opponent is gay, (3) "there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting" creationism, as there is for evolution, (2) "I dabbled in witchcraft," and, of course, (1) "the Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."