this, that, and t'other

This: Successfully completed my first day as volunteer for Heinrich: stuffed & stamped envelopes. Part of this was in fact "skilled" labor: the letters were addressed to individuals - hence the mailing label had to match the enclosed letter!

That: one of my Opera Southwest chorus colleagues was a fellow volunteer.

More "that": I was greeted by name when I walked in the door, by a fellow I didn't recognize. He remembered me from door-to-door petition drive a few months ago. I think I ought to take lessons from Carl on remembering names!

Still more "that": most volunteers were retirees - today is, after all, a weekday - who but retirees has the time? There were two notable exceptions: a pair of 10 yr old girls, there with grandma. Both labored conscientiously, stamping & labeling. One admitted that this was a lot more fun than staying home.

now to t'other: The Grand Conspiracy Theory.
Devoted readers will recall my "grand conspiracy theory": Cheney orchestrates "terrorist" attack on U.S. on Halloween. W declares state of emergency, adjourns Congress, cancels elections.

Question: what would prevent this? If our "Commander in Chief" chose to stage a coup, what could stop him?

Have a nice day.

my near-term future has been determined

Martin Heinrich is the apparent Dem candidate for NM1.
'tween now and November I'll be volunteering on his campaign.
(Full disclosure: I sent $$$ and brilliant advice to all the Dem candidates - hedging my bets, as well as truly having no strong preference. I sent more $$$ to Heinrich than the others, but that's mostly because he was the first to declare his candidacy.)

My political instincts aren't all that great: I would've bet fair amount of $$$ that Heather Wilson would handily defeat Steve Pearce in the Republican race for U.S. Senate (Domenici's seat). Turns out Pearce was leading in most recent polls, and has 3%-4% lead in the primary as of tonight - looks like result won't be known till morning (a few typical New Mexico counting issues have arisen!).

The Republican candidate faces Dem Tom Udall in general election. The same poll that had Pearce leading Wilson also had Udall thrashing either Wilson or Pearce in the general.

There's a chance that NM Congressional delegation will be all Dem... not much of a chance, but a chance. All three House races are open seats - Wilson, Pearce, and Udall all vacated their House seats to run for Domenici's Senate seat. Most likely outcome: Pearce's House seat (NM2) stays Republican, Udall's House seat (NM3) stays Democratic. I'd like to believe that NM1 will go Democratic for the first time ever - the District was created in 1968, and has been Republican since then! Senate? Bingaman and Udall - both Dems!

Have a nice day.

more political commentary

Following Sen Clinton's lead, the media have been quick to pick up on the "Obama can't win the white working-class vote" theme. The pundits all note that in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, etc., Obama has lost to Clinton because the white working-class core of Democratic voters have gone for Clinton.

What no one seems to have noticed, however, is that these are all Democratic voters.

Will they really defect to McCain come November if Obama is the nominee? (Or alternatively, just stay at home, not voting?)

Yeah, there were some disgruntled folks at the DNC Rules Committee meeting screaming, "McCain in 2008!"... but seriously, are Clinton Democrats going to vote for McCain? Yes, this has been a bruising primary season. Yes, what started as a love-fest among the Dem contenders has gotten rather nasty at times... but still...

I take it as a given that Obama will be the nominee. Here I'll consciously adopt a misleading and meaningless argument: I know a number of Dems who'd rather vote for pointless third-party candidate than for Sen Clinton... I'm among them! The fault with this "argument": the concrete, specific example is deceiving - it ignores the meaningful demographics - the statistics. It seems plausible, and is powerful... but it can lead one to erroneous conclusions. The specific, the concrete - these ignore the big picture. (pointless aside: Paul Wolfowitz was fond of citing person X, a known al Qaeda associate who happened to spend a couple of weeks in Baghdad, as "proof" that Saddam and bin Laden were in cahoots. Again - the concrete example is very poor evidence!)

"Information presented in vivid and concrete detail often has unwarranted impact, and people tend to disregard abstract or statistical information that may have greater evidential value."
[The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Chapter 10: Biases in Evaluation of Evidence, Richards J. Heuer, Jr.]

Sen Clinton has some serious fence-mending to do between now and the convention. Her anti-Obama talking points can easily be lifted by McCain to use in the general election. Her willingness to do whatever it takes has hurt the party. If she's not to be anathema she's got her work cut out for her!

Me? If by some miracle Sen Clinton is the Dem candidate, I'll be voting pointless third-party.

Stop the madness!

jumping the gun

I'd originally planned (hoped?) to avoid commenting on campaign politics till at least after results were in tonight - from both the final two Presidential primaries, and from New Mexico primary (selecting Dem & Rep House candidates, and Rep Sen candidate).

Alas, having little else to say, my resolve has evaporated.

Here goes.

I've said it before & I'll say it again: to any and all Dem candidates for any and all offices - RUN ON W's RECORD!

"My opponent wants to engage in ad hominem attacks, accusing me of having carnal knowledge of my swine. I'll let him/her. If he/she could win on the issues, he/she wouldn't resort to these attacks. If you're happy with where the country is today, and with where it is headed, please: vote Republican! Me? I think it's time to stop the madness!"

As a rule I believe that simply attacking the opposition is a very poor campaign tactic. ANYONE can point out a problem.

For the past several election cycles, NM1 Dem challengers to Rep incumbents have relied solely on, "Incumbent is bad!" messages. I've found this foolish. For one thing, it's never worked - so why do folks keep using it? For another thing - as stated above - it's really easy to point out problems. Anyone can do it. The trick is to present yourself as the SOLUTION!

That said... This time around I think it perfectly reasonable to simply note that REPUBLICAN "leadership" got us where we are today, and to invoke the popular definition of insanity:

... doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
[note: this quotation is poorly attested - attributed to, among others, Einstein & Ben Franklin!]

In this case it's simply insane to expect the Republicans to get us out of the many holes they got us into (Iraq, economy, health care, etc... pick your favorite hole).

For that reason, for this campaign only: run on W's record! "If you like where we are today, and where we're headed, by all means - vote Republican! Me? I think it's time to stop the madness!"

Stop the madness!

Help needed

To my loyal readers:
I've gotten rather bogged down in Iraq (apparently following our military!).

The original intent of this blog was to focus on civil liberties issues.

I've lost my way.

Any suggestions for posts would be greatly appreciated. In the absence of suggestions, I'm likely to keep beating the Iraq dead horse... and even I am getting tired of flogging that corpse!

Thanks in advance!

NM primary Tues, 3 June!

If you're registered with a party affiliation, here's your chance!

The NM primary is Tues, 3 June.

The race I'm watching is NM1 - New Mexico's First Congressional District. The Dems have three viable candidates: Martin Heinrich, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Rebecca Vigil-Giron. Any one of 'em would make a fine U.S. Representative for NM1! The Republicans also have perfectly viable candidates: Darren White & Joe Carraro!

I'm registered the NM equivalent of "Independent", so I don't get to vote in Tuesday's election.

But - if you're registered with a party affiliation - YOU SHOULD!

Best of luck to all candidates.

I'm hoping for a huge turnout!

I'm back!

... anybody miss me?