Category Archives: Random Blogging

Five More Days….

…until the primary election is over.

If you are like me, you are fed up/disgusted with the incessant negative television spots that tell you nothing about the candidate who has “approved” them and the constant stream of email messages “urgently” requesting money so that good can overcome evil. I’m just hiding under my desk until next Tuesday.

But while I’m under there, I’ll share a message I got from a reader yesterday, commenting on his own political observations and concerns. He wrote:

I’d like to focus on the peculiarities of the primary election in the former 4th District of Indiana. First, with the exception of Lafayette, West Lafayette, and a couple of other cities the District exhibits one-party rule. The consequence is that, in most cases, except for statewide contests, the Republican primary is the election. The media, outside of Tippecanoe and Clinton County, therefore focuses almost exclusively on the Republican primary candidates, ignoring the Democratic candidates and the local general election. Civic, business, media, and school organizations frequently sponsor debates and forums for the primary elections but rarely for the general election. This system is facilitated by the widespread indolent habit of general election voters to vote straight-party ballots in the general election avoiding an actual confrontation with the names of their elected representatives on the ballot. As I have greeted voters my required distance from the polling places on the general election day, I have found that fewer than 50 percent of voters actually know the name of their current U.S. Representative. Many will still not know when they emerge from the voting booth.

Second, I would note the conveniences and inconveniences of the current Indiana voting system. We have essentially monthlong voting here. If I am not mistaken, more than a third of Tippecanoe County voters cast their ballots before Election Day. I have been voting early for years, because I have been busy speaking to voters on my behalf or on the behalf of other candidates on Election Day. In Tippecanoe County we are blessed with an efficient and convenient Vote Center system. There is some disadvantage to candidates for precincts that cover only part of the County who wish to target their messages to voters on Election Day and obviously one can’t reach in the days before the election the substantial numbers of voters who have already cast their ballots, but the general advantages outweigh these concerns. In contrast, we have the earliest closing polls in the country, which makes it quite inconvenient for working people to vote. Lines can be quite long at lunchtime or at the end of the day.

Third, in the 2010 Republican U.S. Representative primary there were, I believe, 13 candidates. It was remarkable how in the majority of responses to questions they would each mouth identical right-wing platitudes. Name recognition is probably even a more significant contributor to success in the primary election than it is in the general election.

Finally, I don’t think it would be appropriate to ignore the component of race in the primary elections. I recall that there was a well-known African-American candidate on the Republican primary ballot who was unopposed. In the Indianapolis donut/white-flight counties this candidate only received two-thirds of the number of votes that other unopposed Republican candidates received. In a Democratic primary contest a mostly unknown candidate with a name that one might guess was African-American (the candidate was not, in fact, African-American) did much better in precincts with large African-American populations than in other precincts. There was a dramatic and sad ethnic-name based outcome in the 2010 Democratic 5th District primary. It should also be noted that Indiana was one of the first states to institute the Voter ID laws, which are racist in intent and discriminate on a racial basis in practice. It is claimed that they are designed to prevent voting fraud. No evidence has been provided to demonstrate that this form of fraud has existed in Indiana. Voter ID laws are the modern version of the racist poll taxes. I know that Voter ID laws have been found to be Constitutional. Poll taxes were evidently Constitutional too until there was a specific Amendment banning them.

In conclusion, I encourage people to be informed voters. Go beyond the names and party affiliations. Get to know the candidates, whether they are honest, and their positions on the issues.

Your thoughts?

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Different Worlds

One of my husband’s favorite stories about his college years concerns a wealthy fraternity brother who, upon learning of the pregnancy of another  member’s wife, congratulated him and asked him whether the happy couple had hired a governess yet.

A couple of days ago, Mitt Romney spoke to a group of college students worried about student loan interest rates. Among other bits of advice, he encouraged those of an entrepreneurial bent to take the plunge and start businesses. How? “Borrow the capital from your parents at a favorable interest rate.”

And while they are at it, perhaps they can borrow a bit extra to pay the governess…

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OMGs of the Day…

Sometimes, it’s really hard to choose the most appalling news of the day.

I could begin with the continued embarrassment that is Dick Lugar’s campaign.

Yesterday, Lugar was one of 31 (male) Republican Senators who voted against reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act; evidently, “true Indiana conservatives” consider laws against wife-beating an infringement of their liberty. Today, we learn that Lugar has invited aging crooner Pat Boone to campaign for him. Whatever his merits as a singer, Boone is primarily known today as a right-wing crank. He is a creationist. He has compared gay activists to terrorists. He is a “birther” who insists that Obama was not born in the U.S. and is not a Christian. He is exactly the sort of person the Dick Lugar I once admired would have avoided like the plague.

Granted, Mourdock is a toad. But watching Lugar frantically shed what is left of his integrity in an effort to appeal to the baseness of the GOP base has been endlessly disheartening.

Lugar is hardly the only public figure who has allowed his ego to trump his judgment. Today’s news also focuses on Eugene White, who seems equally intent upon disgracing himself.

It seems that White is doing everything he can to torpedo the impending State takeover of several IPS schools. He’s refusing to turn over student information, spreading misinformation to IPS parents, removing equipment from the targeted schools and otherwise making the transition as difficult as possible–all without any apparent regard for the children whose education is supposed to be his first concern.

I am no fan of State Superintendent Tony Bennett, who clearly has an ego problem of his own, and I harbor grave doubts about the wisdom of the state takeover. But White’s response is infantile and destructive–a description which, come to think of it, has characterized his entire tenure at IPS. A school board that took its responsibilities to children seriously would have fired him long before this.

Whatever happened to public servants who wanted to–you know–serve the public?

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Nimble We Aren’t

There is a report in this morning’s Indianapolis Star—buried between breathless reports about the Colt’s new quarterback, true, but an actual story with real news in it–about efforts to address Indianapolis’ longstanding sewer problem.

When it rains, tons of raw sewage are dumped into our water supply. Citizens, which bought the water and sewer utilities last year, is beginning construction of massive tunnels beneath the city to divert that sewage and correct the problem–and not so incidentally, fulfill the City’s obligations under a 2006 consent decree with the EPA.

I was delighted to read that we are finally going to address this problem. But I couldn’t help marveling over the amount of time it has taken.

I was in City Hall from 1977-80. Indianapolis’ sewer problems were already a regular topic of conversation at cabinet meetings. The City had been in discussion with the (then new) EPA since the Lugar Administration. (I wouldnt say there was a lot of resistance to demands that the problems be fixed, but an engineer with DPW reportedly protested that it would be cheaper to clean White River than comply with federal demands.)

It took from 1975 to 2006 for Indianapolis to agree to stop dumping raw sewage into our drinking water. It took another six years to begin remediation. Of course, City leaders have been trying for almost that long to address our need for decent public transportation, and we’re nowhere close to getting that job done.

If it took us 37 years to begin fixing a problem that everyone acknowledged we had, a problem we knew how to solve–how many years do you suppose it will it take to fix public education?

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Romney Sells What’s Left of His Soul

If there is any lingering doubt that Mitt Romney has sold what passes for his soul to the extreme right, his appointment of Robert Bork as his “legal advisor” should remove it.

I remember when Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate in a vote that included several Republicans. I was a pretty partisan Republican at the time, but even so, I found his nomination both mystifying and appalling. It’s fashionable among people who are unfamiliar with Bork’s writings and positions to bemoan the “nasty politics” that denied him a seat on the high court, but that sanitized version of history is simply inaccurate. While politics undoubtedly played a part, the reason Bork was rejected was that his views were far, far out of the legal mainstream.  His diatribes have–if anything–gotten more extreme since.

As law professor Jamin Raskin reminded readers in a recent post to the American Constitution Society blog,

  • Bork condemned as “lawless” and “a new low” the Supreme Court’s decision in Roper v. Simmons, which banned state execution of juveniles — a practice that he would allow despite the fact that no other country in the world sanctions it. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.
  • Bork rejects the Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey upholding a woman’s right to choose an abortion.  He is adamant that Roe v. Wade be overturned and states be allowed the power to prosecute women and doctors who violate criminal abortion laws.  As Bork states, “Roe, as the greatest example and symbol of the judicial usurpation of democratic prerogatives in this century, should be overturned.  The Court’s integrity requires that.” (See The Tempting of America)
  • He attacked the Supreme Court for its 7-1 decision in U.S. v. Virginia barring the state-funded Virginia Military Institute from discriminating against women. He argued that the “feminized Court” had reached its conclusion based on “sterile feminist logic” and rejected the mainstream view that sex-based classifications by government trigger heightened scrutiny.
  • Bork deplores the Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas striking down state laws that criminalize gay sex and has advocated amending the Constitution to declare that marriage is between “one man and one woman.”  (He even championed for a while a constitutional amendment permitting a simple majority of Congress to overturn the Supreme Court’s constitutional holdings, but appears to be backing away from this position.)
  • Bork lambasted the Court’s decision to uphold affirmative action as constitutional, despite the consensus of most universities, and even the United States armed services, that such programs are needed to counter historical discrimination and promote diversity in these institutions.
  • He has an embarrassing record on voting rights, vehemently opposing the fundamental constitutional principle of “one person, one vote” and defending the constitutionality of the poll tax and literacy test in state elections. 

I read Bork’s “Slouching Toward Gomorra” when it first came out; in it, Bork essentially took the position that he and other members of an “enlightened” elite should decide what other (lesser) Americans could read. Despite the effort of many on the Right to rehabilitate Bork’s image, the man’s own works testify to his profoundly anti-democratic views. If there is any doubt of the utterly radical nature of Robert Bork’s positions, the evidence is in his own articles and books, his own words. It is unnecessary to consult secondary resources.

The obvious question is: Why on earth would Mitt Romney choose Robert Bork–as extreme and polarizing a figure as can be found–to be his legal adviser, the person he would listen to when choosing Supreme Court nominees, the person he would consult about the constitutionality of policy proposals?

Why, when he has secured the nomination, would he embrace someone beloved only by the farthest fringes of the lunatic Right? If it’s time to shake up the Etch-A-Sketch and try to look reasonably moderate, this is a seemingly inexplicable choice.

I can think of only two possible answers to that question: either Romney really is an extremist who only played a moderate in Massachusetts; or he is making a final, desperate Faustian bargain in an effort to earn the trust of today’s reactionary GOP base.

Either explanation makes him a fraud. Bork makes him a dangerous fraud.

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