Barack Obama gave his speech announcing his candidacy for the Presidency of these United States from Springfield, Illinois. I have something of a man crush on Abraham Lincoln, so Mr. Obama gets bonus points from me for that. And, the man gives a good speech. If you want gear, my wife is selling Obama paraphernalia at Cafe Press. Personally, I’m not yet entirely sold on Obama, but I am certainly listening.
I found out all I needed to know about Mr.Obama last year when he added his touch to the then so called comprehensive immigration bill where he wanted DAVIS-BACON wage protections ie pay prevailing wage to illegal immigrants on government constuction jobs.
Phillip,
I don’t see what’s so objectionable about that. If someone is going to hire an illegal immigrant in the first place, they should pay a competitive wage. I can think of ethical as well as pragmatic reasons for this:
Ethical:
* If we should deny them the prevailing wage, what else should we deny them? Why not pay a zero wage, and make them the property of the employer? As “illegals”, they don’t have any “rights”, right? So why bother with that troublesome 13th amendment?
Practical:
* If illegal immigrants are paid the same wage as legal residents, then “illegals” can hardly take jobs away from “legals” by putting downward pressure on wages. Since one major complaint from working-class U.S. folks about illegal immigrants is how the brown folks work “for nothing”, Obama’s position should score points. (Of course, it won’t, because of the color of Obama’s own skin, but that’s another matter. There’s always John Edwards, who even has a nice twangy accent that won’t frighten the good ol’ boys too much.)
* If the “illegals” have to be paid a prevailing wage, this has to be enforced. In the course of confirming whether a given contractor is paying that prevailing wage to everyone, there is presumably an additional opportunity to detect the illegal status of any workers in the first place. So this could easily be welcomed as affording additional chances to catch the illegals and slap them and their children into a prison for a few months.
Ah, I can hear the accusations of hyperbole already. Well, don’t bother reading this, then:
(source)
“Family detention centers” — isn’t that sweet? Kindly old Uncle Sam will take care of you from the cradle to the grave, in your very own concrete cell. Isn’t it amazing what heights of social welfare economic conservatives can achieve when they’re given unfettered access to power?
Any attempt to address the solution to illegals already dwelling in this country is an exercise in futility until the problem of border security is stifled.
So long as a better life is available without following proper procedures, nothing will change.
I am not in favor of wall-building, but only of proper enforcement of laws already on the books; and this includes more of an interest on the part of federal authorities to curb illegal hiring practices.
As long as the government encourages under-the-table wage-slave payment for illegals by business, the flow will continue to increase.
It doesn’t help matters any that this administration is more intent on stealing oil from Iraq than they are on protecting the borders, jobs, and general well-being of America itself.
Branden Robinson,
Ask members of the operatining engineers and laborers construction unions how they feel about this.I know many of these guys. How many do you know?I say deny these illegal aliens everything like states and local communities are doing everywhere.It is not the responsibility of my country to be a safety valve for a corupt Mexican government to export it’s poverty too.
New ballot measures were passsed the last election cycle to deal with these issues especially in Arizona.Maybe in your neck of the woods people imbrace illegal aliens,not in mine.They drain state and local resources and all of you liberal thinkers say the more the better.The blame for this mess is not yours or mine but a Federal government who will not enforce immigration laws.The cheap labor being exploited is only cheap to the employer.Tax payers end up paying the bill.These people drive down wages and put a strain on local services.See California,Arizona,and New Mexico.They cause hospitals to close you name it.The point is they are breaking the law by being here and rewarding them for doing it is not the answer!
Just because we share a border with a third world country doesn’t mean we should open our borders to them.There is a legal way to immigrate to this country and breaking the law and cutting the line isn’t it!I am aware all of the ordinances and laws being passed by local communities are being challenged by pro-illegal immigration groups and the ACLU.
I am sorry if I come across as harsh but this issue really upsets some of us because were fed up with it!I am a conservative democrat and will not vote for Obama and do not believe he will win.He may get the nomination but the far left of the democratic party doesn’t elect presidents.
We who love this country are not biggots or racists but believe in the rule of law.If hispanics or any other race choose to immigrate to this country leagally that’s fine by me.If they choose to move to our communities great as long as they do it leagally and choose to fit in.By that I mean learn ENGLISH and become Americans.
The idea of many people is that we learn Spanish instead of them learning English.I’m pretty sure in Mexico outside of the resorts that is, you better know how to speak Spanish.
Let us also not forget that the mexican government has their military on the border of their country.They do not want people other than their own citizens coming across their border to compete for American jobs.It is a felony to cross their border illegally but when we try to secure ours the Mexican government cries foul.
Again if I have been disrespectful I apologize.This issue pushes my buttons.
Phillip –
Why is it so important to you that people who immigrate to the US learn to speak English? It really offends me when Americans think that people should abandon their culture because they want to live in a new country. If you moved to a new country, would you immediately forfeit Thanksgiving and the 4th of July? If you moved to France but lived in a community where everyone else spoke English, would you speak French anyway? Of course not.
I think what you may be forgetting, or perhaps never knew, is that the United States does NOT have an official language and never has.
People who say they are fine with immigrants as long as they are legal are the same people who said they didn’t care that Clinton had sex but were mad that he lied, when in reality they really were upset about the sex and less upset about the lying. It’s just a smokescreen to protect you from looking like a racist. If you were so concerned about the “illegal” part of it and not about the “brown people” part of it, perhaps you’d have made a mention of illegal immigrants who come here from Canada.
What I don’t understand is why people are more upset about immigration than they are about the health care crisis in this country. Do you not realize how many people, how many AMERICANS, in this country don’t have health insurance? How many children don’t have access to doctors or dentists? How many serious illnesses could be prevented if people had access to proper medical care. THIS is what people should be fired up about. THIS is what people should make their cause.
Instead, we worry about what language people are speaking? Really?
And just so you have something to chew on, Phillip, I used to teach English to non-English speakers, most of whom (although not all) were Latino and at least a few were illegal. I can tell you that these people want nothing more than to speak the language. They got to work, doing hard labor, for 12 hours or more then they show up, with their notebooks and pens and with a positive attitude and an abundance of gratitude, in a packed room, for the opportunity to learn a little English. After class, they come up and shake your hand, saying some of the only English words they know. “Thank you. Thank you.”
You might ask, if this is the case, why aren’t they speaking English? To learn a new language, you need to be immersed in it. If your family speaks Spanish at home, your boss speaks Spanish, and most of the people you know speak Spanish, where do you have the opportunity to practice? A few hours a couple of times a week isn’t enough.
Then once you DO learn some, you’re embarrassed to try it; afraid that you’ll say something wrong and people will make fun of you.
Americans, I’m sorry to say, are not the nicest people, and attitudes like “Everyone should speak English!” don’t help.
Oh, and by the way, Mexico is NOT a third-world country.
Amy Masson,
Believe as you wish and I’ll believe what I want.I am concerned about the health care situation but I’ve heard this same old stuff every election cycle.Nothing will get done because the lobbyists and coporate america own the politicians.
The fact that this country has no official language I see as a bad thing apparently you do not.So be it!There was a vote on it last year I believe but it did not pass.I am concerned about illegal immigrants from Canada and possible terrorists.The reason most people are not as concerned about illegal immigrants from Canada are the numbers are not even comparable.Canada is not a corupt third world country exporting their poverty to this country putting a strain on local and state resources that should be dedicated to legal citizens of this country such as healthcare.
What would your answer be to the union carpenters who used to make twenty dollars a hour but because of illegal immigrants doing the work for half are being squeezed.Take also the example of a West Virginia roofing company which is being driven out of business and can no longer pay it’s legal workers 10.00 a hour because of companies undercutting them with illegal labor.Also the meat packing industry which has seen wages decline by 50% the last twenty years because they employ illegal immigrants.It’s simple supply and demand.The more cheap labor from illegal immigrants the lower the wages of low wage americans.
Take for example the Houston policeman father of 7 shot in the back by a illegal immigrant who had been previously deported for molesting a 12 year old girl but because we have a nonsecure border turned up again.Also a young couple engaged to be married hit and killed by a illegal immigrant with no licsense and several DUI convictions or the young marine home from Iraq shot dead by a illegal immigrant and whose family is now filing suit against the US government for failing to protect their son.These are not isolated incidents but happening all the time in this country because of a unsecure border.I almost forgot ask the woman from Nevada what she thinks about illegal immigration after taking off work for a few years to start a family she tried to return to work finding out her identity had been stolen by a illegal immigrant and she still doesn’t have it straightened out!
I voted for Clinton twice and so did the rest of my family so that’s that.I was on Clinton’s side in the sex scandel because I believed it was a personal matter whether he lied or not.
Illegal immigrants drive wages of my fellow citizens down,commit crimes when they should not even be here in the first place,and strain resources that should be spent on legal citizens of my country and that concerns me more than if Clinton lied about a affair.
I had to work 10 years to be vested in social security. A bill that has been proposed but not passed is for illegal immigrants to be vested after 5 years.If social security is in such bad shape the last thing we need is to provide it to illegal immigrants.Being fine with immigrants as long as they are legal doesn’t seem strange to me because with that process the country is not being over run straining the resources that we have for legal citizens.You seem to be one of these open borders type people which is fine if that’s your opinion I respect it but disagree.This country can stand only so many people econmically and enviromentally.It is also the most welcoming country in the world as far as immigration but there has to be a process and a line not thousands sneaking across every day.
I do not see how anyone thinks this country could implement the so called comprehensive immigration plan.This government would never be able to implement that plan.The 1986 amnesty worked well didin’t it?We were promised border security along with the amnesty and all we got was the amnesty.
My congressman in the eighth district(D) Brad Ellsworth stated he would not vote for the plan so we will see.The new coservative democrats will have a hard time supporting this type of plan in my opinion.Most of the newly elected congressional democrats are pro- gun,pro-life,and anti-illegal immigration but who knows?I will say again if I’ve angered anyone I apologize but my opinion is not a minority opinion in my community.I respect everyones opinion but I will express mine also hopefully in a respectful way.If it offends you I apologize but this is the way I see the situation.
IN USA you will never get full rights unless you speak English,because English is the language of law.You can get assistance from advocacy groups, but it’s not the same.Speaking English along with a mother language is not giving up your culture.
Phillip,
I assume by your concern over wages that you NEVER shop at Wal-Mart and always buy from local farmer’s markets. If you do, great. If not, you are doing exactly what drives wages down.
Personally, I do not think we can pass laws to protect wages. Minimum wage, import / export taxes, etc just help people get elected but don’t solve the problem.
As to immigration, I think the biggest problems are the people that hire illegally and the governments inability to process things in a orderly manner. The government SHOULD have an enforced national ID (many far more liberal contries have this already), also allow anyone that wants to be a citizen become one as long as there are no legal issues to deny them. No immigration quotas, no lines. Then, go after anyone that hires illegally. More than anything, everyone should pay their fair share of taxes (business and citizens).
As to Doug’s main topic:
Since this is a blog about Indiana politics, it just doesn’t matter. We get NO SAY in Indiana on who gets elected president until November 2008. This whole staged primary things is a crock. As long as we have that system, we have no say.
I wanted to vote for Forbes and McKain the last two elections, but NOBODY ASKED ME. They gave me Bush, Gore, and Kerry. And people wonder why we have low voter turnout?
I do believe people are losing jobs due to immigrant laborers doing the work cheaper. I don’t think this is the fault of the immigrant. (See, perfect example of Americans looking for someone to blame. “Let’s blame the poor brown people who don’t speak our language!”) The blame lies SOLELY on the people who are paying the immigrants. No where else.
Do I think it’s wrong to come into the country illegally? Sure. But if I were in the same situation, and I thought that the only solution to supporting my family and ensuring education and opportunity for my children was to flee to another country, illegally, I would do it. I would do whatever I had to do. So I don’t blame the immigrants. I blame those who pay them. THOSE are the people who are putting Americans out of work.
And how do you know that half of your town isn’t Canadian immigrants? You wouldn’t, because they look like you and talk like you.
Don’t even get me started on your crime “statistics”. One or two examples cannot dictate an entire population of people. Americans are by far more violent and more devious and make up the vast majority of all crime committed. Americans steal identities every day. Americans commit violent crime every day. Our problems, as a nation, are not the fault of illegal immigrants.
And attitudes like yours in regard to health care is exactly why we don’t have universal health care. It’s why people aren’t motivated to vote. We need to get people in office who WILL make a change, who are motivated to make a change because as the voters in this country, we DEMAND it! If we take a stand and fight, then we can change things.
If you don’t believe that, then we should all sit home on election day.
I took French MANY years ago in high school. Some took Spanish.Today Spanish would make the most sense.I do not care if these people speak Spanish and never learn English.Just do not expect me to learn Spanish or take funds from schools or make public service personel learn Spanish to accomodate illegal immigrants.If the legal immigrants want to assimilate and blend in they will learn English.
I read a few months ago where one small community school systenm had to spend a extra $800,000 a year for English as a second language courses.That is legal citizens tax money being spent to take care of the needs of some illegal immigrants children that should be spent on the children of legal citizens of this country.
It is clear no one is going to change anyone’s mind in this debate so I will move back to the time zone debate.That’s my favorite subject anyway.
I think Obama was on 60 miutes tonight.I heard him speak at the democratic convention.I would say I thought he was well spoken and articulate but somehow that has become a predudice statement these days.I also always thought Senator Edwards was a well spoken and articulate person on the stump so I don’t know what that means.Both are good speakers and deliver a good speech.I guess we can never say that about John Kerry who stammered and put his foot in his mouth all the time he was running for President or President Bush who can’t put two sentences together or pronounce certain words.
Sounds like things are getting a little heated in here. Just a reminder to focus on the message and not the messenger. Folks have mostly done that, but we’re straying close to the line.
(In my nanny mode, I’m trying not to be so sensitive to bruised feelings that we stifle conversation, but I also don’t want to host one of those places that turns into a flame war at the drop of a hat.)
Amy Masson,
I’ve voted in every election since I was 18.If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be on here expressing a opinion.
There are many more examples of the escalating illegal alien crime problem I could list but won’t because there’s no point.
You make a good point about Americans being violent and stealing identities but the point is they are AMERICANS.Why should we also add illegal immigrants to the mix who shouldn’t even be here in the first place.
I suspect the families of those people killed at the hands of illegal immigrants do not feel like they are isolated cases.
You and I finally agree on one thing it is THOSE who are paying the illegal immigrants and that reap the benefits that are causing this problem.If the Government enforced immigration laws and really fined the hell out of these businesses things would change.
I do not know what to say about health care except as I have posted on here before that it is a shame that the richest country in the world can not provide health care for it’s citizens.I am jaded when it comes to this subject because I’ve heard it all before from politicians from both sides and do not think anything will get done but I will ALWAYS VOTE.
When I think of all the money spent in Iraq that could have been spent in a more constuctive way ie health care or something else in this country it’s a shame.
As for the immigration issue, I don’t think it’s off topic — sure, most of this site’s time is devoted to Indiana politics, but I brought up Obama, so national politics is fair game.
There aren’t any easy answers to the immigration debate. I do not favor the National ID card because I think that’s a concrete step on the way to totalitarianism. Not because of the card itself or because of the people proposing it or because of the reasons they have in mind right now, but because it’s such a powerful tool that if the wrong folks got the reins of power, things would go badly rapidly. With the databases available now, perhaps it’s too late already, but that’s the source of my paranoia about National ID cards. Sure, more liberal countries have them now, but those are also countries that are less concerned about liberty. In any event, why a card? If we’re going that far, why not make it a chip implanted into every citizen? Or maybe just a nationally accessible data file keyed to each individual’s retina scan?
Border security is a nice idea, but is it feasible? We don’t even seem to have a good grip as to the objects coming in and out of the country or very good port security. How likely are we to secure the border from all the people trying to come this way and that?
Going after the employers. Sounds like a good idea, but the more severe the enforcement, the more likely employers will just err on the safe side by simply refusing to hire anyone who seems vaguely foreign. In other words, no hiring legal immigrants. No hiring citizens with non-Anglo names.
What are we really concerned about here? That probably varies person to person. But, for myself, I’m not worried about diluting our culture. Our culture has been pretty fluid so far; adapting with each new wave of immigration or wave of new ideas. In 20 years it will be different one way or another, immigrants or not.
Driving down wages? This is much more of a concern. The residency status of the worker isn’t directly related to the worker’s effect on wages, however. A legal citizen working for peanuts has just as much of a lowering effect on wages as an illegal immigrant does. No doubt illegals are more willing to work for less. In any event, it seems to me that we need to focus on enforcing minimum wage laws, other wage related laws, and working condition laws. If you’re an employer paying someone illegal wages, there is no real guess work; you know what you are or are not paying. Enforcement should be equal, whether you’re paying Gonzalez or Smith too little. If you have to pay everybody the same, it seems like there is little to recommend hiring hordes of illegals.
There is the question of whether illegal immigrants are draining our resources. The studies I’ve seen referenced seem to show it’s pretty much a wash. Sure, there are enough illegals who need public assistance. But, there are also plenty who have their payroll taxes deducted and never get a refund or who pay sales taxes and whatnot without enjoying too many of the benefits.
Our lack of border and port security should anger us for other reasons. Not so much because of the illegal immigrants who pass, but because of the amount of money we’ve dumped into security over the past 5 years and how very little we have to show for it.
Doug,
As I have stated I apologize if I’ve offended anyone.I am moving on and will let someone else have the last word although I’m one of those chidish people who always trys to get in the last word I will move on.No one is going to change anyone’s mind on this subject anyway(immigration) that I guess I caused by straying off the subject at hand which was Obama.
Thanks for the icewater, Doug. :)
Sounds like you are a good mother. I hope I would do the same thing myself, and I think many people that get upset at the immigrants would also do the same thing if the roles were reversed. “Let’s see…my family vs the wealth of people that are already far more wealthy than we are…I’ll choose my family”
In fact, we make that same decision every time we shop somewhere that drives wages down. We choose that our own money and wealth is more important than other Americans. Yes, I do shop at Wal-Mart and accept my share of the blame that is needed. I work in computers, and I also must compete with lower wages from India and elsewhere. While my situtation currently is not as dire as American factory workers, I accept and expect that one day I will be in a similar situation if I don’t plan for it. I am working on other skills for when the day comes that someone else is willing to do my job cheaper than I am.
There was a story on HDNet last summer that follows a Mexican family across the border. It really drives Amy’s point home. More info: http://www.hd.net/transcript.html?air_master_id=A4382
Hey Phillip,
Post as long as you feel it valuable. I appreciate your contributions.
Phillip –
You making a bold statement that EVERY STUDENT who receives ESL services is illegal. That’s the problem. You see someone who doesn’t speak English and assume they are here illegally. You want them all to speak English, but then you deny the schools the funding to teach them English. You can’t have it both ways.
As a public school teacher, I had many students who didn’t speak English at home and needed the ESL classes throughout the day. Most of these students were here legally. (And a few were even from countries around the world.)
What do you expect the schools to do? “You are here legally, so you can take this class. You are here illegally, so you can’t. Sorry.” Why punish the children?
Even without illegal immigrants, there will always be students in schools in need of those ESL classes, so your point doesn’t hold water. You can’t deny those resources anymore than you can deny any service for any special needs student.
(And, from the point of view of someone who has worked in a small community school system with a fairly large population of migrant students, that $800K seems high, especially when you consider that the starting salary for teachers is right around the poverty line.)
‘Our economy can only be strong if we keep labor low and profits high..which means high dividends and investment income’
That’s a principle premise driving the immigration debate,but it’s often left unstated.And the premise goes on to justify itself: Even if wages are low they’re still better than in Mexico,which is true,so employers ,even can protray themselves as humanitarians just for hiring people at low wages.( It’s kind of like the race debate that we sometimes hear that Blacks are better off in USA than they would be in Africa,so we’ve already done too much for them) It doesn’t matter whether someone is legal or illegal but illegal is better(and call everyone just ‘immigrants’) because the goal is to keep wages down,and a vague status situation can ironically help both the illegals and the employers in different ways. No one wants to be defined as
‘ fighting against immigrants’ .We are an immigrant nation. So in this weird debate ‘the exploited’ and ‘the expoiters’ are sometimes using the same rhetoric.I agree with those above who say we need to go after employers,but unless we have easily verifiable legal status cards, thats not going to happen.I’m not sure I agree with the argument that emploerys would avoid hiring any Hispanic looking persons..The point is they have to hire someone cheap and who else is there? (High school students won’t work for what many immigrants work for) ”Higher wages will ruin the good economy”
Wal Mart and other big box stores could not stock their shelves if not for cheap Chinese labor,and that’s a parallel issue.Too bad perishable products can’t be shipped in from China profitably!
But the bottom line for me is that illegal status means easier exploitation,and if the situation isnt solved, the ol’ cliche will be our new economy mandate: the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer and that’s good because it keeps stock dividends high.
This argument sidesteps the burden on state and local government to supply services,but it has just been thoroughly discussed above.But put it all together and we have one hellova problem.
Lou,
You wrote:
Amen, brother! We may clash on religious issues but it appears we’re comrades in arms on the socioeconomic front. :)
So, “free trade” is supposed to fix all problems, right? Well, maybe, but the North American Free Trade Act didn’t seem to solve problems for most Mexicans, according to this 2003 article:
(emphasis added, source)
Anyway, that’s enough quoting for now. I’ll give any NAFTA fans here the opportunity to reply by researching whatever political connections the article’s source has so we don’t waste valuable time checking its facts or arguing its logic. Man, that stuff is so boring. What’s Bill Donohue got to say about this?
If I moved to another country, you bet your backside I’d learn that language, pronto!
On another front, let’s not call NAFTA ‘free trade’. It isn’t. It’s a treaty that regulates trade in myriad ways, as Branden’s post above only begins to highlight. NAFTA is social engineering, corporate welfare, and a host of other things Libertarians and other free marketeers abhor.
Back to Senator Obama –
I’d wish for him to have more experience, and I’d like to have greater certainty that he is up to the job, but if electing a black president will help get us to where we “judge them by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin”, I’m at least partly sold.
And no, I’m not blind to the irony and/or internal contradiction inherent in the statement above…
Parker,
I’d say Obama has at least as much relevant experience as George W. Bush did when he first ran for President. The Texas governorship, despite being of a populous state, is widely regarded as one of the weakest ones in the nation. For example, here’s some material from the University of Texas:
(source)
By serving in the Senate, Obama actually has more experience in federal government than GWB did before he actually became President.
Incidentally, I wonder if we can de-register “articulate” as a patronizing code word to describe well-spoken African-Americans…after all, George W. Bush is as white as his WASPy New England roots, and is as inarticulate a president as we’ve ever had.
By the same token, George W Bush had as much experience as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The three were each governors first, with no federal government experience.
It appears that voters believe that governing a state as Executive is ideal training for governing a nation as Executive, while serving in the Senate somehow doesn’t measure up. The last elected Senator was JFK.
Branden,
That was a great documented before and after view of NAFTA,especially the quote from Gerald Ford that NAFTA would prevent the influx of Mexicans into the USA. I bought into all of that back then .I trusted Clinton and he had a good international sense it seemed.Who is in charge may be more of a factor than what the program is. NAFTA is viewed as a success by Bush administration and CAFTA is the next expansion. It would be interesting to see Clinton’s evaluation of NAFTA in hindsight,and I’ll be looking for that in some upcoming interview.
Mexico is a sorrowful country. I did a couple of study summers there in Mexico City back in the 70s when the city was still semi-liveable.July is rainy and cold so dont let latitude mislead,it’s altitude that counts. What struck me was the great wealth with the great poverty with very little awareness of problems.It was either a struggle for daily survival or how to keep all your swimming pools looking tidy. It’s when I learned what ‘fatalism’ meant.To realize that Mexico’s poverty has gotten worse due to NAFTA is dismaying.
Mike Kole,
You wrote:
Not necessarily. The reason I quoted the material I did is because not all governorships are of equal value, and Texas’s is particularly weak. I think you’re being hasty with your equivalence.
Correlation is not causation. Recall that Senator Gore actually won the popular vote[*] in 2000, and Senator Kerry in 2004 won more votes than any previous Presidential candidate in history[**].
For me to find your thesis credible, I’d want to see Senators in general performing at least half a standard deviation worse than non-Senator candidates over the past four general elections or so. Gore and Kerry did considerably better than that, and even Senator Dole lost by a mere 9 percentage points or so in 1996.
Maybe your observation about Senators’ viability comes more from the major parties’ primary processes; consider that neither of them fielded a sitting or former Senator in the general elections of 1992 (Bush/Clinton), 1988 (Bush/Dukakis), 1980 (Reagan/Carter), or 1976 (Ford/Carter).
[*] I’m assuming here that by “the voters”, you didn’t mean “the Electoral College”…
[**] 59 million to Bush’s 50 million in 2000, and Gore’s 51 million
You’re making good points Branden, however this one gave me a chuckle:
When there is a record number of voters, this is going to happen. There was red vote, blue vote. At least one, if not both, are going to break records when more people* than ever before come out to vote.
We don’t know what the county thought of Mr. Kerry or Mr. Bush. We just know what they thought about one party and another. See my previous rant about primaries above.
*More people in absoulte numbers, not percent
Jason,
I don’t think you’re quite taking my point. It’s not to pimp Senator Kerry, it’s to counter Mike Kole’s point that the voters in a general election generally don’t feel that a Senator has the right stuff to serve as President.
That Kerry, despite his glass-jawed campaign and other weaknesses, marshalled 59 million votes suggests to me that being a Senator wasn’t a serious defect.
Put it this way: how many people do you think would have voted for Kerry, but stayed home or voted for Bush instead because Kerry didn’t have any experience as a state governor?
Mike Kole might be right — but so far he hasn’t shown evidence that I would consider persuasive, and I believe I have presented evidence that supports a contradictory position.
Phillip,
You wrote:
(Sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner — I actually did, but Doug’s spam filter seems to have eaten it, along with the email I sent him when the comment didn’t even show up as “awaiting moderation”.)
No, I do not (to my knowledge) know any members of operating engineers’ or construction laborers’ unions, and I acknowledge this as a deficit in my personal experience.
As a software engineer, however, I do face the spectre of my job being outsourced to potentially any country in the world. Since my job includes some management responsibilities, I am not eligible for union membership (at least, not a union that the NLRB will even pretend to recongize).
I don’t know how much more or less at risk I am to displacement than your friends are. If you have any reports or statistics to share, I’d be interested to read them.
I don’t believe it’s that simple. As I noted above in quotes from The American Prospect‘s 2003 article on NAFTA, the U.S. government has had a hand in exacerbating the conditions that have led to increased Mexican immigration to the United States.
(Sorry about the aggressive spam filtering — not sure what would have happened to the e-mail. Usually I get those, but I end up wading through enough spam, that the diamonds in the rough probably get missed from time to time.)
Gotcha, I understand now Branden. Totally agree.
Still giving me reason to laugh though:
hehe “Pimp my Senator!” hehe I can see it now
I hate MTV…kills more brain cells than beer.
Jason,
I don’t mind spreading some good cheer as long as I’m making myself understood. ;-)
I believe in ‘old school’ Senator pimping:
Branden, I wasn’t number crunching. I was just doing the mental recall on US Senators and their show in the elections- popular elections. Let’s let the popular vote vs. electoral college vote meme die now. It’s a tired one, and immaterial. You only get to be POTUS if you win the electoral college. It’s no surprise to anyone, so the campaign teams have to plan accordingly. It sounds like sour grapes.
But let’s focus on this: You said “not all governorships are of equal value, and Texas’s is particularly weak”
You mean to say, unlike Arkansas? Or, Georgia is? How do you justify those inferences? Because to me, if you’ve been a governor in New York, California, Florida, Texas- states that are the most populous and of great area, you’ve had a pretty strenuous test of your abilities.
Show me where I’m off here.
RE: Weakness of the Texas Governor. Blockquoting from a random Google search isn’t necessarily authoritative, but the URL said it was hosted at the University of Texas, so here it is:
Mike Kole,
I agree; you weren’t offering empirical data, just bare assertions. I can’t speak for others here, but I don’t find bare assertions to be very persuasive.
My emphasis on the popular vote is perfectly material, given your speculation on “the voters'” rejection of Senators as presidential material. Or do you posit that the electors should not vote according to the election laws of their state?
I don’t see how this is consistent with your earlier assertions. Is the popular-rejection-of-Senators phenomenon now localized to the state of Florida?
By referring to published academic literature on the weakness of the office of the governor in the state of Texas, as I quoted above, and as Doug subsequently did much more comprehensively.
If you reject that material, please state your reasons for doing so.
By that reasoning, the Governor-General of Canada is more qualified to be President of the United States than Governor Bush (either of them) was or is.
But more matters than population and land area. The office of Governor-General is ceremonial. The Prime Minister is the Canadian head of state — that’s the office that matters.
Because the U.S. has a federal system, the states have great leeway in apportioning powers among their branches of government and officeholders.
I think it is hasty, unjustified, and contrary to existing knowledge about U.S. state governorships to assert a simple linear relationship between the value of gubernatorial experience and the population and area of the governed state.
I’ll grant you that each of the major parties will adopt this fallacy implicitly to inflate the appeal of their presidental candidates, as applicable.
The bottom line is that you have failed to address my challenge to your thesis. I submitted Senator Gore’s win of the presidential popular vote in 2000, and Senator Kerry’s amassing of 59 million votes as counterexamples to your thesis that the popular will rejects Senators as presidential candidates.
It is incumbent upon you, not to characterize Gore and Kerry as anomalies (“if the data don’t fit the curve, fake it”), but to forward a hypothesis that has some hope of independent verification.
I proposed a metric (senators performing half a standard deviation worse than non-senator presidential candidates) which, whatever its flaws (it’s arbitrary — why not a full standard deviation? I was trying to throw you a bone…), is independently applicable. I also forwarded an alternative explanation, which is that you are right to perceive a bias against Senators, but that this manifests in the major parties’ primary processes rather than in the general election.
Evidently you found neither of these of interest, because you offered no thoughts on them (or the material from UT) whatsoever.
I’ll offer yet another possibility: your observation is true not for the general public, but for the large subset thereof that is affiliated with, or leaning toward, the Republican Party. A quick historical review reveals that, of all Republican presidents in the 20th century, only two had any experience in the Senate: Warren G. Harding and Richard Nixon — and both of their administations were mired in notorious scandals. Perhaps that, combined with Johnson’s defeat of Goldwater in 1964, has led Republicans to a superstition that Senators are “bad luck” as presidential candidates. (Goldwater was and is much-beloved by the conservatives who now dominate the Republican Party, but he lost to Johnson by 22.6% of the popular vote.)
Perhaps you regard your theory of popular rejection of Senators as unfalsifiable, in which case I’m content to let the issue drop.
I hope I have adequately elucidated why I feel you have failed to engage my argument.
Professor Robinson, you’ve done me a great service here with your bag of hammers. You’ve helped me to stand back and realize that I really don’t give a crap about whether or not Obama or any other US Senator is electable. It’s all speculation no matter how much empirical data anyone brings to the table.
I sincerely regret trying to take the piss out of you, because plainly, it is not possible.
Mike Kole,
I’m sorry if I aggravated you. I personally am not willing to rule out the possibility that a workable thesis can be constructed from your premises. I simply didn’t find your approach persuasive.
Americans are among the most polled people in the world on political (and especially electoral) issues, for good or ill, so there is a lot of data out there. Statistical regression analysis is a powerful tool in the right hands (not mine, alas, as I’m not trained).
Maybe someday we’ll have an answer. Like you, though, I won’t lose sleep if we don’t.