Voting

Voting by absentee ballot this week.

I don't spend a lot of time on US politics here -- it's not that sort of blog -- but I guess I can make an exception every two years.

I'm still registered to vote in new Haven, Connecticut, so I actually have an interesting ballot this year. If you care how I vote, it's below the fold.

Voting -- I vote with an absentee ballot. To get it, I have to fill out a form (which I can download from the internet) and mail it in. Then they send me my ballot.

This is a simple system, and the New Haven staff were all very friendly and helpful... nice ladies who called me "honey" and were very interested in Armenia. ("Oh, that is a long way off!") It does seem a little vulnerable to cheating, but presumably someone is taking care of that. Right? So, moving along.

Senator -- If you've been following US politics, you know that the Connecticut Senate race is one of the weirdest in the nation. 18-year incumbent Joe Lieberman was defeated in the primary by novice challenger Ned Lamont. (Lieberman is a "centrist" Democrat who has been a little too friendly to President Bush.) Lieberman then turned around and ran as an independent, making this a three-way race. But the Republican candidate is pathetically weak -- he has a well-publicized gambling problem -- so it's really a two way race between Lamont (the official Democratic candidate) and Lieberman (former Democrat, now independent).

Lieberman ran a miserable primary campaign, but the loss seemed to energize him -- he's become a very aggressive campaigner, and is currently leading Lamont by about ten points in the polls.

I'm going to vote for Lamont, because I just don't like Lieberman much. There's a smug sense of entitlement about the man that really gets on my nerves. Lamont will at least be a fresh face.

But... reality check, people. Lamont is probably not going to win. And if he does win, he'll probably be a rather mediocre Senator.

Meanwhile, if Lieberman wins, he'll pretty quickly return to the Democratic fold. Oh, he's swung far right in this campaign, to pick up all those Republican votes that he needs to win. But that's simply what he has to do. Lieberman is a Democrat, albeit an annoying one. He's not going to turn Republican and he's not going to stay independent for long.

Furthermore: even if you think Joe is a dirty traitor who's a secret Republican at heart, there's still a good reason for him to rejoin the Democrats. To wit: the next election, in 2008, will probably add several more Democrats to the Senate.

See, Senators have six-year terms. Only one-third of them run for re-election in every two-cycle. So, only 33 out of 100 Senate seats are open this year. In two years, it will be a different 33. And more of the 2008 seats are Republican, meaning the Democrats have more chances to pick up seats. In fact, a lot of them are unusually weak or vulnerable Republicans. So, while two years is a long time in politics, 2008 should be a more favorable year for the Democrats than 2006.

So: right now the Democrats have 44 seats and the Republicans have 56. To gain control of the Senate this year, they need to win seven seats. I think this is unlikely. But... if they win four or five seats, then they should be in a very good position to gain control in 2008.

Lieberman, a professional politician, knows this. So although he has reason to be unhappy with the Democrats (a lot of his former friends and colleagues have been campaigning against him), simple self-interest should move him to their side of the aisle.

So, while I'm voting for Lamont, I'm not going to be too upset if Lieberman beats him.

Governor: I'm voting for the Republican, Jodi Rell.

Yeah, I know. But. I lived for two years in New Haven, Connecticut. Nice little city, great location. It's on major rail and highway lines and has three colleges, including Yale University. It should have a lot of potential. But it's never recovered from the urban blight of the 1960s and '70s. The downtown remains feeble or dead; walk off the Yale campus in most directions and you're either in a concrete mess of overpasses or a slum. Most American cities underwent a revival in the 1990s, but it passed New Haven by.

Why? Well, one major reason: crappy, corrupt city government. And the long-time Mayor of New Haven, John DiStefano, is now the Democratic candidate for Governor.

Also, Jodi has been a decent Governor. I don't say great, but okay to good. She'd have to be a real howler to make me vote for DiStefano and, well, she isn't. So.

Congressman, we have a decent, undistinguished Democrat, Rosa DeLauro. She holds such a safe seat that it's hardly worth voting. She's in her 8th term and is likely to go on as long as she cares to. Just for the hell of it, I looked up her Republican opponent, Joseph Vollano. Ouch: a complete no-hoper. 28 year old former McDonalds manager turned network administrator, running for office for the first time. Seems like a nice guy, but come on.

There was a time when I might have voted for the no-hope candidate, out of some combination of sympathy for the underdog and sheer perversity. In recent years I've swung the opposite way: I find I don't care to give my vote to candidates who aren't serious. I mean, get real, people -- if you want my vote, run someone who has a chance in hell of winning.

If any non-American readers are still with us, let me add that this is a big, big problem with the American system: roughly 90% of all districts are totally "safe" for one party or the other. So, even if De Lauro were a horrible Congresswoman, and Vollano was an excellent challenger, she'd probably still win, because her district is very, very Democratic. So the Republicans don't bother to run a serious candidate.

I don't approve of this, but there's not much I can do about it. As for DeLauro, while she has some problems -- she's a little to close to the DiStefano machine -- she's not bad. I could wish there was more of a choice, but since there isn't, she gets my vote.

(Oh, and there's also a Green candidate. But he's another no-hoper: another first-time candidate, an assistant professor of English who writes poetry. Don't think so.

(There might also be a Libertarian candidate, but brief googling didn't turn one up, and you know what? It's 2006. If I can't find your website in 30 seconds of searching online, you don't deserve my vote.)

Then there are several statewide offices: state treasurer, state comptroller, state attorney general. Because I haven't lived in Connecticut for a while, I don't think I know enough to cast a meaningful vote. So I won't vote for any of those, except one: State Attorney General. That's held by a guy named Richard Blumenthal. He's been SAG for sixteen years, which is incredible... most SAGs use it as a stepping stone, either to higher office or to a great job in the private sector. But Blumenthal seems to have no higher ambition than serving as SAG. And he's done a pretty good job. So, he gets my vote.

And that's about it. There will be many other races on the ballot, but they're all local New Haven races. Since I don't live there any more, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to vote in those races.

Prediction: Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make some predictions.

House -- Dems pick up 18, giving them a razor-thin majority.

Senate -- Dems pick up 4, making the Senate 52-47 Republican with one "independent" who'll caucus with the Dems.

Governors -- Dems pick up 4.

If I'm going to be so foolish, I'd like the rest of you to join me! Readers, what think you?

Comments

[Scott Raun]

I'm still holding out hope for the Democrats to actually pick up enough Senate seats to get a majority.

What do you think it would take for a serious third-party to come into being in the US?

[Jim Parish]

One quibble with your prediction: there will probably be *two* independents, both of whom will caucus with the Democrats. The other one is Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who's a shoo-in.

[Dennis Brennan]

I'm from Pennsylvania, and I live in the 7th Congressional District (presently represented by Republican Curt Weldon). That's an interesting race, and the Santorum implosion is also an interesting race, but as you've mentioned, this is Not That Sort of Blog, so enough said about that.

What motivated me to comment was the subject of absentee ballots. My wife's family is from California and a couple of times they've traveled abroad around election time and have voted by absentee ballot. It gets sent to them before they leave, and they simply have to fill it out and return it by the due date.

The remarkable things about the California absentee ballot are:

1. California, perhaps more than any other U.S. state, loves them some ballot initiatives and questions. There are 13 of them on the November 2006 ballot ( http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_j.htm ).

Each ballot initiative basically consists of a proposition that the voter is asked to vote for or against. The proposition is accompanied by a statement prepared by the proposition's, er, proponents that explains why the voter should favor it; and by a statement prepared by its opponents that does the opposite.

The propositions that I've read are dense legalese, and the pro- and con- statements are florid and hysterical. I recall reading one from several years ago that purported to deal with whether California law would be amended to permit medical use of marijuana (notwithstanding that the conduct in question would still be a violation of federal law). The proposal was so oddly worded that it was very hard to tell whether a "yes" vote was a vote to permit, or to continue to prohibit, the conduct in question.

2. The whole shebang has to get translated into a whole mess of languages. (In Orange County, for instance, the whole ballot has to be translated into Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. Other counties require different languages- I think LA county requires something like ten languages. The accuracy of these translations has been questioned: http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a69/press/p692006002.htm which is not that surprising considering the relatively small number of people who must be qualified to translate dense legalese from English into say, Vietnamese.

As a result, the absentee ballot materials that get delivered are remarkably voluminous.

[David Weman]

The GOP only have 55 seats in the senate.

[Noel Maurer]

Scott: There simply won't be a serious third party movement in the United States in our lifetime. When you actually parse the opinions of those who claim to be dissatisfied with the two choices on offer, they boil down to three positions: (1) fringe libertarianism; (2) a generic dissatisfaction with the nasty tone of American politics, or (3) a symbolic dislike of the Democratic Party with little basis in actual Party positions. In other words, bullshit. Even (3) is bullshit: its partisans will either never vote Democratic, or they will be satisfied by the Party's decision to abandon the idea of a national platform on hot-button (as opposed to serious) issues in social policy. There are, of course, people who are genuinely dissatisfied with the two-party system --- those libertarians again, real Greens, rabid America-First nationalists --- but they are not majority positions ... and could be accommodated by one of the two major parties were that to change.

Doug: my heart tells me that the Democrats will lose, for I am a dog that has been kicked too long. My head (or at least the available polling data) tells me that the Democrats will pick up at least five Senate seats (leaving the GOP with a working majority) and 27 representatives.

[Carlos]

I think a lot of the aversion comes from the 2004 election, where a number of previously good indicators -- the Zogby poll, exit polling -- markedly and systematically differed from the actual election results.

Assuming no active fraud, and setting aside Zogby's methodological problems (which still seem to be present), the likeliest explanation is that some large fraction of the swing voters being polled felt otherwise once in the voting booth. A dynamic of 'better the devil I know', based on a general climate of anxiety.

The current climate, though, is one of 'throw the bums out'. Montana is in play? Joe McCarthy's Appleton is in play?!

I think it's possible (but not probable) that the swing is even underreported, because people may be feeling cagey about reporting their contempt even to pollsters.

Doug, when you were last back in the States, you were in Creepy Yahoo Land [1], DC, and Vermont. Not representative.

[1] OK, so you weren't in Stafford. Maybe one of the outer circles, near the virtuous pagans.

[Mike R.]

I'm still going with my prediction back in May (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.history.future/browse_thread/thread/9e7666f31d614538/7bd93acb7436b4af?lnk=st&q=mike+ralls+2006&rnum=3&hl=en#7bd93acb7436b4af)

"I think that the situation in Iraq six months from now will be very
similar to what it is now, and the American people will be looking for
a way to make their displeasure of this known. Combined with
increasing anti or luke-warm-Bush feelings among many conservatives, I
think the Republican base just won't support it as much as in the past
and we'll probably end up with a slim Democratic control of one or
(less likely but still plausible) both houses. At which point we are
probably going to get some very interesting investigations and house
hearings underway."

[Mike R.]

I'm still going with my prediction back in May (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.history.future/browse_thread/thread/9e7666f31d614538/7bd93acb7436b4af?lnk=st&q=mike+ralls+2006&rnum=3&hl=en#7bd93acb7436b4af)

"I think that the situation in Iraq six months from now will be very
similar to what it is now, and the American people will be looking for
a way to make their displeasure of this known. Combined with
increasing anti or luke-warm-Bush feelings among many conservatives, I
think the Republican base just won't support it as much as in the past
and we'll probably end up with a slim Democratic control of one or
(less likely but still plausible) both houses. At which point we are
probably going to get some very interesting investigations and house
hearings underway."

[Bernard Guerrero]

House: Dems pick up 17 (this is subject to last-minute revision down)

Senate: I'll agree with Doug's projected pick-up of 4

Governors: Dems pick up 6

[Doug M.]

Mike, one problem -- it takes time to get investigations going. To make them work, you need experienced and competent staff, and these do not spring fully formed from the brow of Zeus.

A Democratic House would have to hire a lot of staffers and then organize them into effective teams. At a minimum, this will take months. Then the effectiveness of the work will depend very much on a handful of people in charge. Is the team leader a Rudy Giuliani (he was a very good prosecutor) or a Marcia Clarke? Are the Congressmen in charge patient enough to wait for good results, or will they try to force the curve, make political appointments, and grandstand? If it happens, it will be very gnarly and contingent.

All that said, obviously I would prefer a Congress that is at least trying to serve its Constitutional function.

Bernard: which six governors?

In other news, looks like I won't be voting after all. Don't ask. Absentee ballots, they're not so great.

Doug M.

[Bernard Guerrero]

Arkansas
Colorado
Massachusetts
New York (damnable, but I don't even know why the GOP ran a candidate; at least Spitzer made a "no new taxes" pledge)
Ohio
Maryland