If Reagan were a Democrat.

Ted Stevens’s conviction shows that when things don’t go your way, they really don’t go your way.  The Republicans are pretty much screwed this year.  Certainly, the pendulum has swung back to a place where those of us who value civil liberties, environmental protection and sanity can feel a little bit happy for a while.  But just in case you’re ready to celebrate the ultimate triumph of good over evil, Matt Yglesias has some words of wisdom to put you back in your place.

It seems to me that any talk of the end of conservatism is not only premature, but fundamentally misguided. It’s in the nature of things that politicians and intellectuals whose ideas tend toward the preservation of existing wealth and privilege are going to manage to find money and institutions to support them. The right sequence of events could push such a movement out of power for a while, but any incumbent regime is bound to be tripped up by bad luck or mistakes soon enough. And when it does, people turn to the alternative.

That is to say, enjoy it while it lasts, but don’t give up the fight.

…and one bad hangover until I can have my life back.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” -John Quincy Adams

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

As someone who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 (in New York, not Florida), I can see both sides of the argument of whether a vote for a third party candidate is “wasted.”  If you believe voting is a worthwhile endeavor at all (after all, how much does a single person’s vote really count?), then you should rightly believe that voting for the candidate who is most closely aligned with your views, regardless of party, is reasonable.

But what makes the most strategic sense?  Most agree that Al Gore would not have started the Iraq War, so the sentiment that there is never a difference between candidates of the two major parties (the “Republicrats” line) doesn’t really hold water.

I have no firm opinion one way or another, but here are some random thoughts on voting for third party candidates:

• If, like most people, you don’t live in a swing state, why not vote for a third party candidate if there is one who represents your views better than the Republican or Democrat?
• If you do live in a swing state, as James Joyner argues, it only makes sense to vote for a third party candidate if it truly makes no difference to you whether the Republican or Democratic candidate wins.  How many thoughtful people can truly say they don’t care who wins in this or any year’s race?
• Some vote for third party candidates in order to influence the future development or the candidates of one of the two major parties, as Radley Balko encourages the libertarian-minded to do (actually, he just wants the Democrats to get “throttled,” and seems to be open to an Obama vote for that reason).  But will doing so actually have the desired effect?  Not to say it couldn’t happen, but I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where primary voters are significantly influenced by the effects of a third party candidate in a previous election cycle.  When has a protest vote ever been effective?
• If I were a libertarian-minded Republican, for whom would I vote?  Knowing that McCain is likely to lose might drive me to vote for Bob Barr.  But what’s up with this Chuck Baldwin character who Ron Paul endorsed?  I don’t quite understand how a former state chair of the Florida Moral Majority would appeal to a libertarian but I don’t know much about the guy either.  I am, however, eagerly anticipating The Vigilant Rattlesnake’s endorsement (when will it come?).
• Ross Perot gave us eight years of Bill Clinton.  Ralph Nader gave us eight years of George W. Bush.  Just sayin’…
• When third party candidates do achieve some success (”success” defined not as winning, of course, but as getting enough support to receive a modicum of coverage by the mainstream media), it’s almost always a personality-driven campaign rather than an issues-driven campaign.  Yes, with Perot and Nader and Paul and I’m sure others, you could argue that what really got their supporters going was their non-Republicrat take on the issues.  But other candidates who have voiced almost exactly the same opinions as any one of those three have not achieved the same notoriety.
• It’s true that there’s not much wiggle room within each party’s orthodoxy and that the American electorate is limited to the predictable Choice A and the predictable Choice B.  But that’s exactly because the American electorate is by and large mainstream and conformist in its political views.  Significant variations exist only at the fringes.  We don’t see the Green Party or the Socialists or the Libertarians getting a significant chunk of the vote because there truly are very few Americans who agree with their platforms.  We get what we ask for.
• At this point, even if a third party candidate were to win some office (even the Presidency), they would not be able to have much influence at all because the Republicrats would still be firmly in control.
• If a third party hopes to stand a chance in the long term, it needs to run candidates at every level, national, state and especially local.  And it needs to do so for many election cycles.  Americans will need time to grow comfortable with a new party, whatever it might be.
• Just because a third party has not achieved significant success recently doesn’t mean it can’t happen (again).

I mean this question seriously:  why is it that The Daily Show, a COMEDY program, so often exposes the essence of a story so much more effectively than the mainstream media?  The standard practices of traditional television journalism are clearly outmoded and ineffective.  Are there people, either in journalism schools or in the real world, studying how the methods mainstream televised news programs might be changed so that there reporting accomplishes something more than describing the surface elements of a given story? Neither the listen-to-me-agree-with-you gabfests at Fox News or MSNBC, nor the grampa-try-to-stay-awake snoozefests at the big three networks are contributing much in the way of actual reporting these days.

Case in point:  the interview with the current Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in The Daily Show clip below.  Rather than simply repeating each campaign’s talking points as they are in the habit of doing, might a real news organization have considered going to Wasilla and asking the current Mayor about her responsibilities and whether they would prepare her to be Vice President? Even if they had, the sympathetic editing that’s normally practiced would have softened the impact. That is to say, it would have blurred the truth.

How much money has the Republican National Committee spent on Sarah Palin’s clothes, hair and makeup since her selection as McCain’s running mate in late August?

This is what happens when backwater Jesus freaks start to realize that the rest of the world has evolved without them:  irate North Carolinian McCain supporters, frothing at the mouth, protest and heckle black people…for voting.

Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest one and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black.

Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.

As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.

At the voting site, I asked a local sheriff monitoring the scene if the protesters were allowed. “They’re fine,” he said. I asked if he’d ever seen anything like that and he said he’d never seen Sunday voting.

Bet you’ve never seen a black man win the Presidency before either, you ignorant piece of shit.

Andrew Sullivan wants Barack Obama to come out with an ad against Proposition 8, the California Ballot Initiative that would, if passed, change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California and invalidate the marriages that had happened there so far.

Black Californians back the anti-gay measure by a margin of 20 points, 58 - 38, in the SUSA poll. No other ethnic group comes close to the level of opposition and black turnout is likely to be very high next month. [snip] Memo to Obama: make an ad. Speak loudly. Defend equality. Defend it when it might actually lose you some votes. Show us you are not another Clinton.

Obama has already shown that he’s not another Clinton by openly speaking out against this pernicious initiative.  What he is not obligated to do is make gay marriage the focus of the last two weeks of the presidential campaign.  Gay marriage will ultimately prevail in California and elsewhere, regardless with what happens with Prop 8.  And gay rights will certainly be better served by an Obama Administration than a McCain Administration.

So let Oprah, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith and Kobe Bryant make an ad (and throw in Governor Schwarzenegger, who is also against it, for good measure).  At this stage, Obama’s only responsibility is to win the Presidential election.  Period.

To donate and learn more about this assault on personal freedom, go here.  The polls aren’t looking so good, so they can use your help.

Obama and McCain debate.

Obama whips ass.

Pundits come on and talk about how close it was and how maybe McCain even won.

Snap polls show that Obama whipped ass.

Pundits appear shaken.

Pundits talk about how Obama whipped ass.

Not that it matters any more.

Bristol Palin, I will pay you $1 million to pose nude during the ninth month of your pregnancy.  As always, the shoot will be tasteful.  I hear Levi just dropped out of high school, so maybe the money will come in handy, but if you kids would prefer to paid in Oxycontin, well, that can be arranged.