babbling blue

The Top 5 Reasons To Vote In Illinois*
Or: Why It Still Means A Thing Even If It Ain’t Got That Swing
*Or any non swing-state

1. Big margin = big mandate. The popular vote doesn’t put anyone in the White House, but it effects what presidents can do when they get there. Want Obama to be able to actually do the stuff he’s been talking about? Pass universal health care? End the war? Then we need a landslide.
2. The other things on the ballot matter! For example: Congress. Without more support in the House and Senate, Obama will have a hard time getting progressive laws passed. Plus, there are other important local races and ballot questions in some places.
3. If you don’t vote, everyone can find out. Voting records are public. (Not who you voted for, just whether you voted.) Pretty soon, finding out whether you voted could be as easy as Googling you.
4. Help make history. You could cast one of the votes that elect the first African-American president. If we win, we’ll tell our grandchildren about this election, and they’ll tell their grandchildren. Do you really want to have to explain to your great-great-grandchildren that you were just too busy to vote in the most important election in your lifetime?
5. People died so you’d have the right to vote. Self-government—voting to choose our own leaders—is the original American dream. We are heir to a centuries-long struggle for freedom: the American revolution, and the battles to extend the franchise to those without property, to women, to people of color, and to young people. This year, many will still be denied their right to vote. For those of us who have that right, it’s precious. If we waste it, we dishonor those who fought for it and those who fight still.

For information on how, where and when to vote: www.voteforchange.com

(Blatantly ripped off from MoveOn.org.)

If you didn’t vote early (and I did not), get your butt out there tomorrow and cast your ballot! Or else I’ll kick it.

I haven’t been blogging much about politics, or at all really. I have just really lost all my enthusiasm for this election. I was a firm Obama supporter, but I am not any more. I will most likely vote for him in November, but being in Illinois it doesn’t really matter. I still think he’s better than McCain, but . . . well, I was really hoping to not have to choose the candidate that I thought was less bad for the first time since I started voting. Now, that’s how I’m feeling again. Obama has demonstrated himself to be a standard politician in reformer’s clothing, and not even a particularly shrewd one.

At some point Obama started drifting (or some say veering) to the right. That made me nervous. Then he did something that really turned me off. After saying he would vote against it, he turned around and voted for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. I don’t want to go off on a tangent on FISA 2008, but suffice it to say there were a number of bad things in there, not just retro-active telecom immunity. That’s for another post.

Anyway, Obama has been called pragmatic (most recently by Joe Biden, I believe), and some would argue that his vote was politically necessary. I argue that as Americans, our civil liberties are not pawns to be sacrificed on the political chess board. They are the foundation of this country. Voting for the amendments upset a lot of people. There is a group on my.barackobama.com with more than 23,000 voters, created to urge Senator Obama to vote against telecom immunity in FISA.

And now we know his Veep candidate. Joe Biden. Biden has been called a blowhard, a wind bag and a number of other things. While he’s probably not a bad guy, he his enamored with the sound of his own voice and is–as such people often are–inclined to say some pretty stupid things, and get recorded doing it. Biden is known as Credit Card Joe and Senator MBNA because of his support for that wretched bankruptcy law written by the credit card industry, and more. And last but not least, he’s been in the Senate for 35 years. Hardly the symbol of CHANGE that Obama is trying to promote. In many ways, Joe Biden epitomizes the D.C. establishment that so many of us believe is FAILING this country so miserably.

After all that build up, the Biden announcement was a total disappointment. When the press leaked it late Friday, I hoped beyond hope that it was a fake out, and someone better would be announced soon. But I woke up Saturday morning and saw a text message from the Obama campaign that Biden was indeed his running mate. Blah.

So you see, I’m just finding it hard to care. I don’t want to just write bitchy blog posts, but I’m hard pressed for any other material.

This just in. . . a leaked copy of Barack Obama’s V.P. short list, scooped by blogger Lee Camp.

Check it out

Somebody’s asleep on the job…

John McCain’s last Senate vote: April 8, 2008
Before that: March 13, 2008
Missed votes since April 8: 42

Barack Obama’s last Senate vote: May 13, 2008
Before that: April 23, 2008
Missed votes since May 13: 9

Hillary Clinton’s last Senate vote: May 13, 2008
Before that: April 24, 2008
Missed votes since May 13: 9

Interesting numbers, but they only start to tell the story.
Since the January 3rd Iowa caucus, there have been 135 recorded Senate votes (excludes possible “voice votes”) as of May 15th*. Of those 135, this is the number of “Abstains” from each candidate. (If there is a record of whether or not the Senator was present and Abstained or just didn’t bother to show up, I haven’t seen it.)

Barack Obama: 75 votes “missed” = 55.6%
Hillary Clinton: 80 votes “missed” = 59.3%
John McCain: 99 votes “missed” = 73.3%

I wonder if these Senators, particularly Mr. McCain, realize they are still getting paid to be Senators and serve the constituents that got them where they are today.

To put this into perspective, here are a few Senators that weren’t campaigning for something:

Arlen Specter (R-PA): 2 votes “missed” = 1.5%
Ben Nelson (D-NE): 4 votes “missed” = 3%
Russ Feingold (D-WI): 0 votes “missed” = 0%

Whenever someone brings this stuff up (I’m by no means the first), their spokemonkeys will usually give the canned response that being a Senator is more than just voting. While that’s true, voting and being a legislator in general is very big part of it. Sure they have their staff keeping up with the other duties generally performed by the office of the Senator. But where is their leader? Where is the champion that the people of New York, Illinois and especially Arizona elected to represent their interests in Congress?

*According to Obama’s Senate website, he voted on 5/22. This information was not available at my primary source yet. I did not check the other candidates’ sites.

If you are in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa (they can vote?), Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee or Utah then tomorrow is Primary (or caucus) day for you. Please be sure to vote. This is one of the most important (and, in my humble opinion, interesting) elections of our time.

I’d prefer if you voted for Obama, but even if you vote for someone else the important thing is voting. I think it’s a responsibility as well as a right.

It’s been awhile, but I decided it’s time to make a return to political blogging. That is to say, blogging at least a little about real politics, not CTA foolishness and the bumbling idiots in Springfield.

I don’t normally watch many debates, but for some reason I felt compelled to watch both the Democratic and Republican debates this past week. They could not have been more different. The Democratic debate was first, on Monday. It aired on CNN and was moderated (if you can call it that) by Wolf Blitzer. The only participants were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. It was clear that the two front-runners are Hillary and Obama. They didn’t really view Edwards as much of a threat. For much of the debate, Hillary and Obama were at each others’ throats, flinging accusations back and forth like they were playing catch. At one point Edwards commented that there were three people in the debate, not two. The debate was in two parts. The first hour was supposed to be a traditional format with the moderator asking questions and the candidates having a certain amount of time to answer and rebut, if applicable. It turned out to be more of a barely controlled near-free-for-all. Edwards mostly stayed out of it at first, then ganged up with Hillary against Obama. Could he be looking for a ride on her ticket as VP? Maybe, but then later in the debate he turned on Hillary for a bit too. The second half of the debate the candidates were allowed to sit down and were supposed to basically just discuss issues amongst themselves, prodded along by Wolf. The main difference between the first and second halves were that the candidates were standing up in the first and seated in the second. The bickering was pretty unbecoming. The main issues discussed seemed to be health care and Iraq. And how the other candidates eat babies.
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