Drive-by political pontification
(1) I’ll begin with this acknowledgment: Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s campaign commercial focused on opponent Kay Hagan’s “godless” money was about as low as it got this election season. It was both stupid and clumsy, and may well have cost Dole the election. (We’ll know by tonight.) But with that said, Hagan’s reaction — filing a defamation and libel lawsuit against Dole — was equally stupid and clumsy. Hagan has virtually no hope of winning the case, and her lawyer (assuming he managed to stay awake in law school) surely told her that. What that means, then, is that the suit was simply politics by other means. It was a publicity stunt, which had the unfortunate effect of making the court system an unwitting adjunct to Hagan’s campaign. OK, her feelings got hurt. But that’s no reason for Hagan to gum up the court system with a lawsuit she is preordained to lose. It’s a political issue, not a legal one. Voters are the jury.
(2) The system of public finance for presidential campaigns is dead, and Barack Obama killed it. As you recall, the system was instituted in 1976 as a reaction to Nixon-era corruption, and every presidential candidate since then has abided by its spending limits — until now. When Obama announced in June that he was opting out of the system, despite his earlier agreement to accept public financing if his opponent did, the money poured into his campaign. By last week, he’d collected something in the neighborhood of $600 million to spend, while McCain — who stuck with public financing — had a fraction of that amount. Needless to say, no Republican will ever again agree to spending limits, and now that Democrats have established themselves as the big-money party, it’s hard to see how they’ll ever go back to being noble and underfunded.
(3) I like early voting. I did it for the first time this past weekend and immediately understood its appeal. I got to fit civic duty around my schedule, picking the time and place to vote most convenient for me. But I can see potential for a huge problem at some point. As more and more people cast ballots before the official Election Day, the chances increase that a sudden event will create chaos. Imagine, for instance, that John Edwards was the Democratic nominee and had been outed by the National Enquirer as an adulterous pig just a few days before the election — after millions of people had already cast their votes for him. I can already visualize mobs of people beating on the doors of election offices everywhere, demanding a mulligan.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Totally off topic-are you still working on ‘Seventeen Women’? Just wondering when we might expect a new novel from you.
November 4th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Your issue with early voting is one that I’ve also raised — what if?
I don’t think we can stop the early voting when the turnout is so much better than with one day. Yet there should be a way to avoid that “what if.”
Let’s work on it!
November 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
In the spirit of yesterday’s comments I would just like to say that Miss Margot is full of #$^!
For what it’s worth, I think Hagan filed the suit as a way of showing her displeasure with Dole’s low blow, and that it was a false accusation. Doubt she really plans to follow through after today.
Just voted and there was no line, no wait. How long did you wait to vote early, Dan?
November 4th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Am I the only one that feels nervous about early voting? Though I really don’t have anything to base this on, I worry about “lost” ballots. I guess sometimes I’m old-school. But I voted this morning; got there just before 8 a.m. and there wasn’t a line for my last name (though the poor A-Ds were 15-deep!).
I actually have butterflys in my stomach, like, “Could this be the change our country needs? Will other Americans see it the way I do?” I’m really anxious to see how it all plays out.
November 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
The John Edwards example is an excellent one.
Many people—including his former campaign manager David Bonior—were livid after having been lied to by both Elizabeth and John Edwards.
Both of the Edwards used the money that ordinary working citizens donated to them and the long hours of volunteer work performed on their behalf and put forth the pathetic lie that John-Boy was a down-home family man……
…….and don’t forget: His ‘Diddy’ was a mill worker!
Just imagine the position the Democratic Party would be in right now of they had exhibited the bad judgment of choosing Edwards as the nominee.
This is why someone like Elizabeth Edwards is so sickening. What a phony opportunist.
She’s forever talking about her family’s interests as if they are somehow more than ambulance chasers who made millions from her hubby channeling fetuses inside a North Carolina courtroom filled with uneducated and impressionable juries.
Lots of women suffer the awful disease of cancer, but with no health insurance or certainly not the millions of dollars Edwards has for the very best treatment available, yet she and John Edwards paraded in front of the media and used her illness…..
……the way that they have used the death of their son.
(And don’t any of you Edwards supporters deny this. Just ask John Kerry how true this is.)
Early voting is a great idea, but there would be an enormous problem under such circumstances noted above.
In honor of Election Day, below is a column by Stuart Taylor. I agree totally that if Obama should win, he must govern from the center.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20081101_5949.php?related=true&story1=or_20081101_5949&story2=or_20081025_8927&story3=or_20081018_3384
November 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I’m not a real fan of early voting. I like the idea of casting my ballot on election day. Some countries make election day a national holiday. I’d go for that solution.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am
“Some countries make election day a national holiday. I’d go for that solution.”
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Do government employees really need another holiday?
November 4th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Debrah,
Debrah, I really hope that Stuart Taylor is right about Obama (if he wins) having to govern from the center. Obama’s ability to deviate from previous positions throughout the campaign gives me hope that he really isn’t all that wedded to any core governing philosophy.
However, that hope is seriously mitigated by the knowledge that he won’t have a Congress of the opposite party to temper the worst instincts of the liberal wing of the party. He also has no history of tackling any controversial legislative issue in a bipartisan manner. With no immediate election to win he may rediscover his “core principles” to the detriment of the country.
In that scenario we could only hope that the Blue Dog Democrats would serve as that mitigating force for the first two years of his term.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Elizabeth Dole’s ad was despicable, deplorable, disgusting and just plain evil. A new and horrific low in politics. I hope (and think she will) she pays for it by losing her seat. She’s certainly lost my respect. Good riddance.
November 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
“However, that hope is seriously mitigated by the knowledge that he won’t have a Congress of the opposite party to temper the worst instincts of the liberal wing of the party.”
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That concerns me as well.
Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi will be having multiple orgasms, simultaneously, tonight if Obama wins.
Which is why I voted all over the map to, in some small way, try to mitigate such an imbalance.
Really, I don’t think that most Americans will stand for the ultra Left holding such power if they do not exercise good judgment. Most of them have no sense of reality.
November 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Regarding the Dole ad, I wish that all religious issues—and I mean ALL—would be kept out of the political arena.
Kay Hagan is just as much a creep as Dole.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
OK, I understand I’m old fashioned and a bit of a prude but Debrah, please don’t ever again in a public forum use the words “multiple orgasms” and “Barney Frank” in the same sentence.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Debrah can talk about multiple orgasms any time she wants to.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
My life experience tells me that Debrah is exactly right in calling BS to Sheila’s comment about overhearing the ‘N’ word at the NC State Fair. My career has brought me in close contact with thousands of rural people over the last 32 years and my reality is this: white people, from the Penthouse to the outhouse, do not use that word. We hear it often from blacks, but not whites and especially in public. Debrah sounds reasoned in most of her commentary and if not for the abortion issue, just might support McPalin. Obama supporters; you may be in for some serious buyers’ remorse.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
As much as I regret admitting this, I’ve heard plenty of white people use the gross N word.
And in related news (did anyone mention this yet?)… how about the guy on the cover of the N&O Friday saying it was a race issue, and he’d prefer to vote for a woman than a black man? I mean, props to him for being honest, but gah, it’s hard to hear that people still have that mindset.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Dear Dan,
As an early voter myself, I appreciated the convenience and had no doubts about the person for whom I voted, regardless of what might have come out about him during the week following my vote.
As for multiple orgasms, I vote Yes! Yes! Yes!