Sephy’s Platzish

Today was a day that I’ve been asked about for at least two weeks - the day that we went to the polls and voted for our preferences in the Presidential Elections. As it turns out, we actually had a bit of a role to play in the Democratic contest because it was still going on, but the Republican contest is pretty much sorted out by now.

The rules for voting in a primary election (which really is the preliminary election, but they’re called primaries here for some reason) are, for my state, that you can vote within only one party. For example, if you vote in the Democratic column for President, you can’t vote in the Republican column for anything else - of course, that was an issue that we didn’t have to worry about.

As it turned out, the Presidential election was the only item on the ballot - and we still had the full slate of candidates. In my county, according to the clerk’s tally, at least one person voted for every single candidate on the list, including outliers such as Dennis Kuchinich, Mike Gravel, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and even Bill Richardson. Interestingly, I think Ron Paul actually got the third highest number of votes behind McCain and Huckleberry Huckabee. There were even votes for the Undirected Delegate, and some write-in votes. Surely they’re voting for Tommy Thompson…

Anyway, I’m not going to say who I voted for, but I did cross over the line for the second primary in a row - last time it was because there was no competition on my side, but this year, I voted for the person I’d rather see in office out of the slate that was presented to vote for.

I’m not sure how it is to vote in other countries or even other states, but here it’s fairly informal - you just state your name, verify your address and you’re given your ballot. Unfortunately, attempts to require presentation of photo ID to vote have been reneged continually at the legislature level. Considering the current climate, I’m not sure that will ever go through, but it would really be nice if we would have it. Would it be more cumbersome to vote? Sure, but consider that right now, someone could come in, claim to be me, and vote, it makes it really bizarre.

Though considering the size of the community that I vote in, that would be very extremely unlikely.

Sometimes you just have to cave in and talk politics from time to time. Of course, tonight literally almost half of the country has gone to the polls and, while the official results are still being tallied, a picture is emerging about who will be vying for our votes for President.

Or is it?

Personally, I thought that tonight’s events would make our vote in two weeks’ time nearly irrelevant. However, with almost all of the races called, it appears that the race is almost totally still wide open, with the candidates nearly splitting the delegates evenly among them. Personally, I’m starting to lean towards voting for Obama in the primary because I definitely want him to be the Dems’ candidate. We don’t need another 4-8 years of someone from the same 2 families being in the White House.

And, let’s be honest here - I’ve actually liked Obama since he started running for the office; he’s one of the youngest serious candidates in a long time, and even though I don’t see eye to eye with him on a lot of the issues, I’m not certain over any of the candidates on the other side. Let me list some of the issues that I have with the Republican candidates right now.

• McCain: He might be a war hero, but the fact that he’s in his 70s is somewhat disconcerting, but of course it’s not unprecedented to have someone who is older in office…on the plus side, he seems to get the idea of not spending money you don’t have - that’s why he voted against the tax cuts in 2002.
• Huckabee: Actually, he’s not that bad, but I don’t think we need to have a baptist minister as our President. He’s the weakest candidate, but could just be that spanner in the works to make the race a little bit interesting.
• Romney: Honestly, this guy creeps me out. It’s not that he’s a Mormon, but it’s his views. He seems to be so far to the right that he’s almost a reactionary. Add in the fact that he’s been the darling of the hardcore political talkers, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, in my opinion.
• Ron Paul: There are a few things that I agree with him on, like being more true to the Constitution, but seriously, he’s gotten a whole 6 delegates. He might have a niche following on the Internet, but it really hasn’t shown in the polls to date.

Who will I wind up voting for in a couple of weeks at our primary (that’s the 19th, for those who showed up at the polls today to vote…), I’m leaning on doing what I did 4 years ago and crossing over to the Democratic ticket; then I did it and wound up voting for John Edwards - on the basis that he wasn’t John Kerry, if I remember correctly.  Let’s see where the next couple of weeks take us for polling and how the candidates fare.

This isn’t a personal type of inspiration, but I have to say that what I’ve read today is quite inspiring about the future of this country. And it came (at least for myself - slightly to the right of the political center) from someplace I wouldn’t have expected it.

Newsweek Magazine.

Particularly their year-end Issues 2008 edition, which came back here from overseas after Christmas - I just happened to pick it up today and have a bit of a read through of it, and what was in there was a pleasant surprise. The theme of the magazine is how the US can come back to the forefront in the world’s eyes - including guest columns from people ranging from John McCain and Barack Obama to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and even one of the creators of Kazaa and Skype, Niklas Zennström.

However, the one article that caught my eye (mainly because it was the article at the center of the magazine which was split up by an “Executive Life” section) was one about how the US is quietly on the road to energy independence and reducing our use of oil. Written as a Memo to the next President, Amory Lovins details how we are actually using a significantly lower amount of energy in 2006 than we were using in 1975. Not only that, we actually saved enough energy in 2005 to power the whole of the European Union, and then some!

The most amazing thing, though, is that the companies who are doing this - completely voluntarily, mind you - are still making billions of dollars in profits.

As the last line of the introduction to the magazine says, “A free exchange of ideas is more important today than ever.” The exchange of ideas in this particular magazine is wide ranging, and a very interesting one to read.

I don’t know if it’s available domestically, but if you can get your hands on a copy (or just have a perusal of some of the articles on the site - it’s not all of them, but quite a few of them are up there), you should do so.

…of the widely publicised election that nobody knew about in the USA.

Well, saying that nobody knew about the election would be a bit of an understatement; obviously news junkies, expats and anyone with an interest in Australia knew about the election that was held today down there. Of course, the pedantic side of me has to mention that almost all of the voting took place yesterday my time, since it’s midnight on the east coast at 7AM here during the winter…

Anyway, if you were aware of how the election was going up until now, you wouldn’t be surprised that the result did wind up as it did - Labor picking up a massive load of seats in the House of Representatives, leading to John Howard (who, incidentally, might just be out of a job depending on the results of the absentee ballots) holding firm at his position on second in the chart of longest-serving Australian Prime Ministers.

I actually stayed up for quite a while last night (I was awake fully until about 2AM, then pretty much dozed off until 3, laying on the couch when I went to my bed proper) watching the coverage from ABC TV, which they were streaming for all to watch (and record, if you may know how to do that; which I do, so I can catch up on the bits I missed while sleeping, though I could have sworn that I heard Mr. Rudd giving a speech, with the cheering crowds and all). I have to say that everything that I had heard about one of their election analysts, Antony Green, was true - he made all this talk of “primary votes”, “two-party preference” and swings make sense. He also would be honest about what the numbers that were coming in actually meant.

All I’ll say is that it’s too bad that a network here doesn’t have the forethought to bring him overseas to possibly analyse our election. I guess beggars can’t be choosers, eh?

However, one of the most interesting aspects of this election is the fact that the American media couldn’t have cared less. Sure, it was an election occurring half a world away, but I will note that elections in the UK get quite a bit of attention; in fact, C-Span would air the BBC’s coverage on one of their networks, even going so far as having it on all night. If you were to tune in to the first two (and most widely distributed) of their networks this morning around 1AM, you would have seen some random government person giving a speech or an author giving a talk at a Barnes & Noble somewhere. The other news networks, all of which weren’t even showing new content (CNN [US], MSNBC and Fox News), may have mentioned the election, but I don’t follow those channels that much anymore; all I know is that 1 AM, they didn’t show coverage from their Aussie counterparts as well.

After it’s all been sorted, though, the news website emails I receive have mentioned the resounding defeat for the Liberals and the Nationals. Of course, it’s all put into the frame of reference that Howard was a staunch ally of President Bush, however, I don’t believe that the close ties to our government had much, if anything, to do with the defeat of the Coalition. If I had to guess, I’d say that the biggest issue that led to this result is the appearance that the recently enacted workplace reforms (WorkChoices), along with uncertainty in the housing market (an issue which wasn’t helped along with the fact that the Reserve Bank raised interest rates during the campaign, to a rate that was still lower than the rate that was in place when Howard took up residency in Kirribilli House some 11 years ago.

All in all, it will be interesting to see how it all comes out in the wash, and to see what kind of changes will go on Down Under over the next three to four years. Also, a question, when will Kevin become the PM? I’d guess before Christmas?

This week’s Hump Day Hmm is about values. This is timely due to the situation that Senator Craig from Idaho finds himself in. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of him at all until this all came about; partly because he’s from way out west, but also because he just doesn’t have that high of a profile in the Senate.

However, the question of his treatment in the media is certainly an interesting one. For years now, the Republicans have been campaigning as the supporters and defenders of “traditional” values. Because of this, you now have a situation where, if someone who is a Republican winds up in a situation like Senator Craig’s, they are completely vilified.

The closest comparison that I can draw is when the former Governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey (Democrat) came out of the closet a couple of years ago. When that happened, it was seen as a moment that should be celebrated, with him and his wife (they’re now separated however) appearing on various TV shows up and down the dial. The coverage couldn’t have been more different.

The discussion of values obviously goes beyond one’s sexual preference, into what you believe and what you tolerate. It used to be that you could have your own beliefs and values and have the right to belong to whatever groups you wanted to. Now, it seems that if you are part of one group, you must subscribe to all of that group’s beliefs.

Again, in the world of politics, it is considered to be almost taboo to be a pro-choice Republican or a pro-life Democrat. That doesn’t mean that there have been, are, and will be successful exceptions to the rule, but the chances of that happening are becoming slim. I am sure that if one of the exceptions made it to the running for a national office, they would have attack ad after attack ad questioning their “values”.

I personally feel that your values are yours alone; they should be influenced by your experiences and those of the people around you. They shouldn’t be dictated to you by a person you’ve never met, or by a sheet of paper handed to you when you sign up for something.

Another example is that all around the country, you’re seeing these votes come up to institute constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. In my state, we voted on it last November. I voted no because I didn’t think we needed to have a constitutional amendment to reinforce something that was already clear as day in the laws of our state.

However, the people who were saying to vote yes to this measure were saying that if you voted no, it would mean that the day after the election, you’d have people clamoring to get the laws of the state changed to allow same-sex marriage.

The bit that really tipped me off to voting no on this measure was that it was a very confusing and opened the door to preventing unmarried straight couples of having the same benefits as married couples (such as living trusts and will executorships, of which I’m not totally clear of the laws on, so I might not be qualified to talk about it ;)). This is the text of the amendment:

[Article XIII] Section 13. Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.

The second sentence is the part that created a lot of confusion. If you read it with the widest understanding, it could be conceived to block these benefits and privileges to all unmarried couples.

The really interesting thing is that although the polls were showing it was going to be a close fight, it passed comfortably at 60-40. Even though I was against the amendment, I can accept that it passed and that it is now part of our constitution. In fact, since the election, you haven’t heard anything further about this causing trouble for unmarried couples, so I guess you could almost say that it didn’t change anything, except reinforce the laws we already have.

Here’s where some people could get confounded by the fact I voted against it. I am to the right of center on the political spectrum. I believe that the government shouldn’t be getting in the way of personal business, and that they shouldn’t be forcing new regulations down our throats. I also believe that, when it comes to the “big” values question - abortion - there are a lot of choices that are made on the path to choosing whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. I don’t like the idea of aborting a pregnancy, but I do think that if the mother-to-be decides that it is best for her, for any reason, to end the pregnancy, she should have the right to do that.

I know it is a touchy subject, but if you wish to share your outlook on it, or on anything I’ve mentioned, please do so.

Lastly, on the topic of exceptions to the rule, once again, The West Wing did this wonderfully with the election at the end of the series. They made the election between two pro-choice candidates, one a Republican from California and the other a Democrat from Texas. I don’t like to spoil the show for y’all, but if you have the chance, watch an episode from the final season called “The Al Smith Dinner” - it confronts the challenges of a pro-choice Republican running for national office.