Funk Babblings

(This is way later than I intended, but hey, the polls have only been open for half an hour!)

First things first: In the grand scheme of things, the positions of Clinton and Obama are pretty close. Despite what you may have heard, both have detailed plans on all manner of issues, those plans and their overall positions are fairly similar, and those plans will inevitably get modified if they ever even make it through Congress.

Each has a life history that prepares them for the global stage. Both are highly intelligent. If you're concerned about ability to accomplish their goals, Obama's legislative record is actually more impressive, writing and passing legislation on all manner of important issues. There's plenty of substance there if you care to look.

On the life experience issue, I should also note that Obama has (at least) as much life experience as Bill "The Man From Hope" Clinton did in 1992 (when he was the same age Obama is), and John F. Kennedy did in 1960 (when he was three years younger).

But my major goal in voting today is to make sure the Democratic nominee will win in November. The biggest reason for that is the Supreme Court -- in replacing Sandra Day O'Connor with Sam Alito, Bush has pulled the court to the scary-right, and there's no doubt that McCain would continue that. McCain is also the guy who wants to stay in Iraq for centuries and joked about bombing Iran, as well as somehow keeping an image as a "maverick" while staying in lock-step with Bush.

So the first thing I look at (both last time around and this time) was the polls vs Republicans. Yes, it's early and things can change, but many of the candidates are already well-known, so those polls haven't changed a whole lot (especially when you consider the margin of error). It's striking that, rather consistently, Obama has polled better against McCain than Clinton has.

Then I look at the way they run their campaigns. The Clinton and Obama campaigns look very much like the Kerry and Dean campaigns four years ago, except that Obama learned from Dean's mistakes. Clinton is running a swing-state campaign, ignoring the "red states", and taking for granted the "blue states". Obama is running a 50-state campaign, bringing voters over to his side not by shifting his positions to the right, but by framing his views in ways that appeal to people who normally vote farther right. The 50-state strategy not only gives a better shot at winning a lot of states we might not otherwise win, but also gives a better shot of helping Democrats win House and Senate seats in Republican seats. More Democrats in Congress means more chance of a Democratic president actually getting their goals accomplished.

In addition, Obama's campaign has shown a remarkable ability to plan ahead, while Clinton's campaign was apparently unprepared to go past Super Tuesday, and has repeatedly been caught by surprise by the quirky rules of various states (such as Nevada and Texas). When the rules that were in place from the start have turned out later to have unfavorable consequences for her, her campaign has even sought to change them after the fact. (Watch for the coming fight over Michigan and Florida delegates, despite everyone knowing the rules ahead of time, those states flouting the rules, and therefore everyone knowing that those contests wouldn't count.) We don't need another president who tries to change the rules after the fact.


It's probably too late to change anyone's mind, but for all these reasons and more I intend to vote today for Barack Obama. And in November I'll happily vote for whichever of the two is still standing.

Election day is almost here, and it can't come fast enough for me. Among other things, it means the end of my (physical) mailbox and answering machine being filled with Republican lies. "John Kerry will raise your taxes"? Nope, not unless you make at least $200,000 a year. (And if you do, were your taxes really that bad under Clinton? Cause that's what they'll go back to under Kerry.) "John Kerry supports a 50 cent gas tax hike"? Nope, a decade ago he mentioned that it might be necessary, that's all; he didn't even vote for it, though Dick Cheney did. Oh yeah, and that thing about Kerry voting 98 times to raise taxes? Cheney voted 148 times to raise taxes. Cheney must be really liberal. The good thing is that the Republicans seem to think our suburb is a lock for them, so they're encouraging us to vote; we're not likely to face polling-place challenges as we cast our votes for Kerry. I should probably update my driver's license with my current address just in case though.

Then there's that issue that the Republicans keep dismissing as ludicrous: the draft. Everyone else looks at Bush's plan to "stay on the offensive", and wonders where he'll get the manpower to keep invading more countries, considering we're already overextended -- keeping people longer than they signed up for ("stop-loss"), and calling back people whose terms of service were over. Turns out that the Selective Service System has already recommended a draft plan that includes drafting men and women with specialized skills (medical professionals, computer specialists, linguists) up to age 34 -- possibly up to age 44 for medical professionals. The counter-argument here is that the SSS's job is to plan for a draft, but that still doesn't answer the question of where Bush will get all the troops to stay on the offensive. (Those words out of Bush's mouth send chills down my spine.)

Yesterday we drove over an hour south through rural Tuscarawas and Cochocton counties -- the northern edge of Appalachia. And though we saw plenty of Bush-Cheney signs, we were pleased to see a lot of Kerry-Edwards signs too. But even better, there was a big sign up aimed toward the freeway:
Republicans For Kerry 04 .org

And that's apparently a different group from RepublicansForKerry.org!

And now we have prominent Kentucky Republicans publicly explaining why they're against Bush and for Kerry: "Bush goes against values I treasure"

These are probably the sort of conservatives, all too rare these days, that still remember that Jesus primarily preached for peace, against violence, for the poor, against wealth, and for the marginalized people of society. I'm not a Christian but I share those values with them. It amazes me when I see people claiming to be Christians going against those values.

Update: Wow. The NY Times has an amazing portrait of Bush's faith-based presidency. (The Kerry version was last week.)

Update 2: (If you don't want to register to get into the newspaper sites, use BugMeNot to get a shared user ID and password to use.)

1. I managed to miss the Cleveland date of the Warped Tour this year. Oops. Ah well, I can stand to save the money (about which I may have more to say later). The Columbus date is Aug 17, but (among other things) I'm planning to be at Pennsic then.

2. After they finish the Warped Tour, Bowling For Soup is apparently coming to Canton to play a September 11 show at the local former minor-league ballpark (which I didn't even known existed). This is really cool, but seems very weird to me; I feel like there's more to this story that I'm missing.

Update: BFS is the headlining act of a local radio station's "All American Music Weekend" day one.

3. I often tell people that the best thing about living in Canton (compared to Columbus, at least) is being only an hour from Cleveland. I was reminded of this when I saw the schedule for the Vote For Change Tour. At this writing, Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., and John Fogerty are scheduled for five dates. One is in Cleveland (Oct 2), one is in Ann Arbor (Oct 3), and the rest are nowhere near Ohio. And the $25 tickets go toward fighting to defeat Bush.

And speaking of Springsteen, John Kerry's use of his song "No Surrender" at his acceptance speech last week was kind of interesting to me. It comes from the Born In The USA album, which of course was Springsteen's hugest album and got mounds of radio airplay. So much so that I never bothered to buy the album; I figured I'd already gotten sick of half of it being overplayed on the radio, plus the misplaced jingoism that surrounded the album turned me off. So I knew "No Surrender" only from the quiet acoustic version on the Live 1975-1985 album, and I've always loved the song even though I normally prefer rockers like "Cadillac Ranch". Well yesterday I finally bought Born In The USA, and I was amazed that "No Surrender" is a rocker there! So now I like the song even more. (The other non-hits on there are great too, though I still skip over the overly-anthemic title song.)

If you didn't see John Kerry's acceptance speech tonight, go watch it!
(If that link doesn't work, go to C-SPAN's Dem Convention page.)

It wasn't that long ago that I was fairly anti-Kerry. That speech should make anyone into a Kerry believer. Wow.

So, any bets on who Kerry picks as Vice President?

The leading candidate these days seems to be John Edwards, the last competition standing in the primaries. (Sorry, but Kucinich didn't count as competition.) But his total governmental experience amounts to a Senate term he's finishing out now.

For a while it seemed like Kerry would pick Dick Gephardt, but the only people that excites are the rapidly-shrinking ranks of union members. Gep turns off everyone else.

If Kerry wants national security and diplomatic credentials he might pick Gen. Wesley Clark, but he's never held elective office, and showed himself to be a weak campaigner in the primaries. There are also some senators that might be chosen for similar reasons, but they're all pretty old -- not a good match for a guy who looks like a cadaver at 60. (Compare with the buzz for young-looking 50-year-old Edwards.)

Not too long ago rumors were floating around that Kerry wanted Republican Senator John McCain as VP, but McCain doesn't want the job. For a Republican in today's partisan climate, I like McCain, but I wouldn't want him as Kerry's VP. The interest does give some clues about what Kerry might be looking for - war hero, national security, unification of the country, making a splash with a bold choice.

Well, it seems that the latest rumor is that Kerry is considering Howard Dean. Dean had been initially discarded (even by Dean himself) as a VP possibility because he's another New Englander, and everybody always wants geographic balance. On the other hand, Clinton/Gore are both southerners, and Bush/Cheney are both Texans (despite Cheney's house in Wyoming). Maybe that "geographic balance" thing is just code for "there has to be at least one southerner on the ticket, preferably two." Dean also has plenty of executive branch experience and loads of followers.

The most interesting thing about choosing Dean is that Kerry's image is more centrist than his reality, while Dean's image is more left than his reality. I guess the combination would let them merge the image and reality of both.

Anyway, I know I'd be happy with a Kerry/Dean ticket. I don't think it'll happen, but it would be really cool. I'm sure next week there'll be some other rumor floating around.

It seems that in high school in the early 60s, John Kerry played bass in a rock band, The Electras, and they released a 13-song record (making 500 copies). Now that record has been dug up and released on CD.
http://kerryrocks.com/
http://www.TheElectrasRockandRollBand.com/

There are a couple of mp3s available for sampling bits and pieces of the album. Sounds to me like fairly typical uninspiring surf-inspired early 60s music, but rather amusing and interesting nonetheless.