The Curtain Call (for women)
Some men will never understand…and some women may never either.
I’ve spent the last week avoiding Brook’s The Long Defeat. I didn’t need to open the NY Times Op-ed piece to know that without Florida and Michigan re-votes, I’m starting to see the only chance to elect a female president to the White House in my life time disappear into smoke. It’s disheartening…
Dual consciousness and the Veil
I remember reading Souls of Black Folk back in a post-reconstruction history class at Berkeley. W.E.B Dubois’ account of the “veil” and “dual consciousness” immediately struck a chord with me.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.
I had always wondered if his account would have been different if he had been a women. Would dual consciousness have become tri-consciousness? Would the veil have morphed into hard, impenetrable glass? Regardless, he had spoken to my soul in a way a show, a movie or no other modern day medium ever had. Reading that book, in some small part affirmed my existence as a poor, Vietnamese-American girl and made me feel that there was someone out there that understood.
Three layers of the veil
I don’t know how to extract race, gender, class from my being. I just know that if Hillary won, I would feel that same sense of affirmation – that the things that I hold core to who I am fundamentally as a person…independence, competence, intelligence, work ethic, vitality, courage, struggle (as a woman)…would be affirmed.
My 20-something guy friends don’t get this. The idea of voting for Hillary because she’s a woman seems “uninspiring.” I just think/hope that this understanding will come with time. Like when they have a daughter and realize that however smart, talented this little girl is she will grow up being judged mostly by her looks. That her modern day role models are the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. That she could be as talented as the Williams sisters, but be dismissed by her non-Kornikova like beauty. And then I think my guy friends will start to understand what it means to see a woman elected to the presidency.
Growing up Asian American, I think the need for representation is sometimes felt more acutely. You’re American, but nothing around you affirms that. TV, movies, books, magazines…your presence is unknown and relatively inconsequential when it pertains to American culture. Hillary represents more to some women than just a competent candidate and that hope should be respected. It should be respected as much as the hope that African Americans have for seeing a Black president. It shouldn’t be looked at with disdain by those so ready to prove their gender neutral stance: “I’m not voting for her just because she’s a woman.”
I would not be voting for Hillary if I didn’t think she was the best candidate
I am a peaceful person (okay, not really), but boy, I have felt the urge to punch some people in the neck after they’ve given me that look. You know the look. The “oh, you’re voting for her b/c she’s a woman and you’re a women so therefore you must not be rational enough to look beyond that.” That look. That look is maddening. Because 60% (who am I kidding…90%) of the times, I feel like I better understand the issues, have better articulated views and have more thoroughly researched candidates’ policies.
And I want to make a point. And I know that I will get flack for this, but I do not believe that if any woman was running with less than 2 years of national experience, she would garner the same level of support that Obama has – regardless of great rhetorical flourishes and the like. It’s the ultimate catch 22. Hillary is being faulted for being of the “establishment,” yet without years and years of the Washington grind, she wouldn’t have passed the sniff test for competency. Especially strange since she has proven that she is not a part of the establishment in many ways by departing from traditional democratic views like in the case of charter schools, enforcing stricter rules against teacher unions and crossing party lines in her time in the Senate to pass needed legislation. She worked with Orin Hatch to get the S-CHIP bill for healthcare passed for heaven’s sake.
The point that I’m trying to make is Hillary is by no means an affirmative action case, and let’s acknowledge the double standard. Because there is one…even if it isn’t as clear as black and white.
Other Related Content
Woman and Clinton: Damned if they vote, damned if they don’t?
Red Pill Politics surpasses 1000 hits
Who knew enough friends and internet randoms would find their way on to Red Pill Politics to drag it across the 1,000 hit mark. To give you a sense of how insignificant this milestone is, let me just mention that Facebook achieves the same amount of hits in about 3.98 seconds. I did the math. But life is about celebrating the small stuff, so let’s take a trip down memory lane. 
Top 5 Posts
| Obama as a Religion | 68 |  |
| The Red Phone | 55 | |
| Race and Politics: the Overused Divide | 44 | |
| Obama is no Steve Jobs | 41 | |
| The Workings of Class | 39 | |
The Tricks of Traffic
Thanks for all the support!
Hillary INTJ, Obama ENTP
Oh, the joys of MBTI. I was recently forwarded this Slate article, “The Supervisor, the Champion, and the Promoter,” by a good friend who shares my love for Myers Briggs. Emily Yoffe attempts to type the political candidates still left in the presidential race and explain their styles through their personality types (albeit poorly). Here’s a follow-up NPR article that is good for the user comments.
For those who are unfamiliar, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) is a psychological tool that helps individuals better understand certain innate preferences that they may have. I know many of you may be quite skeptical of pie-in-the-sky theories that attempt to tell you who you are and put you in a box through 4 seemingly simple questions. For those who want to learn more, I would be happy to spend hours (literally) discussing fundamentals behind the indicator and to administer the test at cost (~$25) for you. (I took a week long course along with being avid scholar for the past 6 years and am officially qualified as an administrator.)
Myers, Briggs & Jung
MBTI is based upon the psychological theories of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and a close colleague of Freud [although not at the time of initial publication of Physiological Types]. Jung was the originator of 3 out of the 4 dimensions used in the MBTI framework – Introversion (I) vs. Extroversion (E), Sensing (S) vs. iNtuition (N), Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F). A mother-daughter team, Isabel Myers and Katharine Briggs, were eager Jungian scholars and set about to take Jung’s theories and put them into a useful framework for all to use. They were inspired by the chaos of World War II as they felt that we as a society could avoid conflict through better awareness of ourselves and better understanding of our fellow humans. A nice and fuzzy thought. They contributed further to the framework by adding the last dimension – Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P).
The Basics
Go here to read more about the Basics.
I’ve excerpted a description of the four dimensions:
Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).
Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).
Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).
Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).
The Genius of MBTI
People think they’re so cool. They’re so unique and original and wonderfully individual. And that is true – to a certain extent. We are uniquely individual, but most of us were born with 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose, 10 fingers, a cardiovascular system, temperature regulated to exactly 98.6 degrees. We all can be classified into 1 of 3 races – Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Negroid. Of course, there are some individuals or groups that avoid classification through their unique properties, but that doesn’t negate the fact that certain patterns exist and those patterns are fascinating to examine.
MBTI assumes that humans also have some universal mental patterns and preferences. Is this so crazy? Not really. We see it in implicitly in our everyday lives. “This person reminds me of this person.” “Wow, his mannerisms are exactly like so and so person.” “This character in this book gets me.” But the genius of MBTI is not its ability to predict behavior because no one or no tool can do this. Like Dostoevsky’s Underground Man understood, human behavior cannot be mapped to a logarithm table. Yet, the genius of MBTI is its ability to frame personalities to understand 4 latent dimensions that may explain 80% of a person’s preferences. It’s the ultimate 80/20 tool!
Hillary is an Introvert
Hillary is so obviously an INTJ, it’s kinda sad how off Emily Yoffe is. Hillary’s introversion goes a long way to explain her awkwardness in front of crowds, her inability to fine-tune her body language with strange finger pointing, fake smiles and the like. Being an Introvert, I relate. You can’t help it. Es derive their energy from crowds. Introverts get drained and revert to internal reflection and “alone time” to recharge their energy reserves. Given the fact that Es get energy from the interaction of others, it makes sense that they welcome more interaction and over the span of a lifetime, their social skills get honed to a level that Introverts can only envy. This is not to say there aren’t Introverts out there with fantastic social skills. It’s just means they worked really hard at it.
The N vs. S divide
I shall post more on this most interesting of dimensions and it’s affect at a later time, but suffice it to say, Hillary is an N through and through. Unlike Ss who rely more on their senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing) to process information, Ns are pattern people. Ns like nothing more than analogies and frameworks to explain concepts. A tangible way to describe this: an S person may look at a Coke can and describe shapes, colors, textures, concrete things – “red, cylindrical, 5 inches high”; Ns would attempt to derive a pattern and find meaning- “A piece of Americana, pepsi vs. coke wars.” Interestingly, Ss would write in bullet points and Ns would tend to write in paragraphs for this actual example.
Yoffe incorrectly interprets Hillary’s attention to detail as evidence of her Sness. When in fact, I would state that Hillary (unlike George Bush and at times, McCain) does not get bogged down in details b/c she’s an S. She wants to thoroughly understand a concept and come up with a cohesive, “flawless” plan, and therefore, focuses on details to the extent that they may foil her vision. As an INTJ, her true flaw may not come from her lack of understanding of concepts, but her belief in a perfect concept. INTJs live in their own world of pursuit of perfection. Some describe them as scientists or the mathematicians of life. Things should make sense. Things must make sense. They just don’t understand the messiness of messing up or betraying their perfect healthcare plan, but their Jness forces them to produce results regardless.
Ps like Obama focus on possibilities and the vision of things. Their most overt talent would be having the vision and energy to engage people and their enviable adeptness with language. But as ENTPs are idea people, they have a natural ADDness towards execution. (Here’s hoping he surrounds himself a bunch of TJs.) Think of your ingenious friend with all the good ideas for new business but the inherent lack of interest/drive to carry it through. Js, on the other hand, focus on tangible results – ya know, the cool teacher who was torn but gave in to giving you extra credit when you got the process right but answer wrong.
INTJ women
INTJ women make us less than 0.5% of the population. They are quite rare. They feel misunderstood and unappreciated. Like Hillary. And me. 
An Addendum: Hillary has taken the MBTI and is a self-reported INTJ. Done and Done. As for Obama, I could go INTP or ENTP, but definitely not INTJ or F of any form.
Obama as a Religion
Note: To my religious friends, I respect your views and the seriousness of your values even though I do not share them.
As radical as this may seem, I think that we’re witnessing a small version of a modern day religion forming. It is called the cult of Obama. Over the past three months, writers have been hinting at it – from Brook’s cherub analogy to Dowd’s recent messiah mention to Krugman’s overt cult-like references. Although I feel that the mania has died down over the past four weeks, but I still think it’s fairly fascinating to analyze the phenomenon that has gripped at least half of this nation.
The God Gene
I was born without the God gene. Painfully skeptical of all things, I realized at the age of 12-ish that I didn’t believe in God or more like Ivan in the Brothers K, I didn’t believe in this God. My kid-like mind couldn’t reconcile the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful God with the inhumanity and injustice of the world. Heavy thoughts for a pre-teen, I know. Cynicism came early with the newspaper ink stained hands and 6 years of unfinished sleep.
But by college, the “rational” mind had started the process of justifying what had what the fourth grader had instinctually felt sitting in the pews of Willow Glen Baptist Church – that God was a figment of man’s creation, a coping mechanism to explain what could not be explained, a way to deal with human anguish and a means to lend consequence to our lives in a way that science with its evolution, molecules and matter made us feel as if our existence is completely devoid of significance or a “soul.”
Now…well now I’m resigned to knowing that I will never really know. God will always escape my poor, inept Euclidean mind for how can a X dimensional being be rationalized by my 3 dimensional brain. Yet, none of this Kantian humility has actually translated into my everyday life. Like the sign hanging up in the cubby of an adjacent start-up founded by 22 year old Yale grads, “I spit in the face of hubris.” [Pretty funny sign.]
Republican Party and Religion
Often times I associate the Republican Party as being the party of religion. Memories of the Christian Coalition in the mid-nineties with Newt Gingrich as ring leader of what we would realize later as a corrupt, power gluttonous regime. If we’re going to talk about “divisive” Clinton politics, let’s look at the real culprits – the ‘94 Republican controlled congress with its Jack Abramoff tactics. You’re either with us or against us mentality that gridlocked any semblance of compromise. (Read this illuminating piece by Bill Moyers) All of this would escalate my distaste for both the Republican Party and the institution of religion – a tool so often used for the exchange of power.
But the crime of the recent administration has not necessarily been its ability to use conservative Christian ideology to rally its base to vote for an egregiously incompetent Bush. It’s true crime has been how it has violated one of the core tenets of the constitution – the separation of church and state – in a way unseen in modern politics. Our forefathers insightfully understood that a secular state must exist apart from any religious institution. Religion was too powerful of a tool to blend with politics. Bush’s “Axis of evil,” Huckabee quoting from the prophet Isiah are manipulative tactics because they ask Americans who may see these politicians as people of their faith to disagree with their political policies. It’s just exceedingly unfair.
What does this have to do with Obama?
The past three months have seen a politician rise from oblivion to the status of a mega-star in the Democratic Party. And although I generally give my Democratic brethren a step up on what appears to be the single-minded nature of the Republican Party, what I have witnessed has given me pause. I see extreme emotion overriding rational thought (and rational thought doesn’t necessarily translate into a Hillary vote). I see unquestioned faith. I see extreme divisiveness. I see cheap shots and ill conceived accusations that other groups are racist/stupid when others don’t agree with the faith of Obama. In short, I see religion.
I understand it. Obama seems like a great guy. And in the way he has dealt with the management of his campaign, he seems to have integrity unseen in our era of modern politics. A breath of fresh air in an institution that we are hardly proud to call our own. But let’s also be weary of the way that he has blurred the lines between religion and politics. The talk of faith in his speeches are not as egregious as those made by the right, but again mix religion with politics in a way that I find alarming.
In speeches he orates on the centrality of religion to sustaining progressive politics. “Imagine Lincoln’s second inaugural address without reference to the judgments of the lord. Or King’s I Have A Dream speech without references to ‘all of God’s children’. Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seems impossible, and to move this nation to embrace a common destiny”. Times Online, Chris Smith.
His speeches come off as sermons. His tone and language reminiscent of a Sunday lecture. I became acutely aware of his presence as a semi-”religious” figure, when my brother (who is by no means an intellectual) referred to him as Pastor Obama in jest.
Regardless of who wins the nomination, I strongly feel religion has no place in our government even if it inspires for good, not evil. It’s like the atomic bomb; no one should have the power to use those forces for it creates instability in the foundation of the very institution.
Other Related Content
Hate Springs Eternal, by Krugman
The Science of Religion, Economist
The God Gene, Time magazine
Saving Democracy, Bill Moyers’ piece on the ‘94 Republican controlled Congress
The Onion is Awesome
I found this post pretty hilarious and wanted to share:
Black Guy Asks Nation For Change
CHICAGO—According to witnesses, a loud black man approached a crowd of some 4,000 strangers in downtown Chicago Tuesday and made repeated demands for change.
“The time for change is now,” said the black guy, yelling at everyone within earshot for 20 straight minutes, practically begging America for change. “The need for change is stronger and more urgent than ever before. And only you—the people standing here today, and indeed all the people of this great nation—only you can deliver this change.” Read more here
Obama and Race
I know that I’ve been saying for awhile now that I would fully support Obama if he became our Democratic nominee. That statement was said in earnest early on in the campaign. But over the past two months, it’s been said grudgingly. It’s been said with a true resentment – never at Obama – but at many of his supporters who have sincerely offended me. It’s been laced with anger as I watched a bias media stack the cards unfairly in the favor of one candidate over another.
But after watching his speech addressing the problems of race in our society, I’m firmly back on the bandwagon. Regardless of who wins, I think both Obama and Hillary will be great presidents. Both will force us to confront the issues that plague our society on a systemic level, and both have the courage to attempt to carry it through.
I think what he did was very brave. He could have done what was tactically easy and politically expedient. He could have distanced himself and dismissed the statements of his pastor. Instead he used this moment in the campaign to not retort but to speak about the core racial tensions that are still rooted in our community. He spoke of the narrative that the media has imposed (quite successfully) on us – black, white, brown, yellow. Exit poll after exit poll creating division when often times there were none to be had.
And at the end of the day, I walked away with the belief that this is a man who understands the key issues afflicting our country and how to begin to heal the rifts – through frank dialogue and substantive solutions towards education, health care and the inequality of our economic systems.
Other Related Content
Beyond America’s Original Sin, NY Times Op-ed piece on Obama’s speech
But I still think we govern in prose…
Economics: the Achilles Heel of the Democratic Party (Part 1)
We’re wrong. Very wrong. Well, 80% wrong.
Sound economic policy is the one weapon lacking in the repertoire of the Democratic Party arsenal. It is our Achilles heal. It prevents us from moving right enough to attract moderates and fiscal Republicans. Right enough to become the definitive, dominant party in the US.
As a subject, economics is difficult to grasp because of its inherent counter-intuitive nature, which stumps even those as bright Jon Stewart (who I love dearly and respect for the way he has handled the primary coverage). But watching Stewart discuss economics with Alan Greenspan was about as painful as me trying to get through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. We’re just not worthy.
In this post, I want to layout some basic economic principles. In my next post, I’ll discuss why well-meaning Democrats make it hard for our Democratic candidates to run up and up campaigns as witnessed recently by Obama and his NAFTA issues.
Economics is like science
I remember the moment when it all clicked. I was sitting in my International Trade class in HK, and Professor Gary threw up the following slide and things started making sense. I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background. Nerd that I am, it was like the first time I found out that the everyday items around me were made of atoms – tiny particles whose theoretical nature seemed completely irrelevant to my daily life but in fact were the building blocks to everything in its existence. Economics is the same way. Economics like science is part of the 20% that explains 80% of life and the rationale for why things happen the way they do. And to some Republicans, Adam Smith’s invisible hand is like God. Asking them to deny its presence is sacrilegious.
Principle 1: Trade fuels economic growth
Trade is tricky. Intuitively, one feels that there is a winner and a loser in the game of trade. And much to my chagrin, our Democratic leaders (except for Bill Clinton) continue to perpetuate this myth. To understand trade, one must fight off one’s “the world is flat” tendencies.
Ghana & South Korea: A Case Study in Trade
At this time, Nkrumah, Ghana’s Prime Minister, wanting a Ghana independent from foreign influences, took an isolationist view towards trade. He imposed import substitution (buying goods from within a region vs. outside the region), government centralization of economic decisions (government decides prices), nationalized industries (government controlled businesses) – basically, everything we know to not work when attempting to grow an economy. But everything that would feel like it makes sense when using human psychology. Let’s not be dependent on any other country; let’s not trade. Let’s help people by lowering costs; let’s set prices.
South Korea, on the other hand, embraced foreign trade and utilized an export driven model to fuel economic growth (a.k.a China).
There you have it. Do you want a world where people are no longer living in extreme poverty? Where people are not reduced to drinking out of puddles like I’ve seen on the streets of Saigon. It has nothing to do with re-allocating wealth as Marx would have you believe. Let’s remove our trade barriers and give other countries a chance to participate in the global economy. It’s not as simple as this for the poorest of the poor; I’ll explain in another post. But it’s a good start.
Principle 2: Government controlled anything is usually bad
Socialism is a smoke screen. It presumes governments are more efficient at allocating resources than the natural laws of supply and demand.
“The theory of the Invisible Hand states that if each consumer is allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer is allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it, the market will settle on a product distribution and prices that are beneficial to the all individual members of a community, and hence to the community as a whole.”
So, what does this mean? Let me give you an example. Lululemon decided to produce 100k pairs of yoga pants and sell those pants at $70 a pair. After awhile, Lulu realized that it could only sell 75k pairs at $70. The invisible hand dictates that Lulu will either reduce the number of yoga pants it produces next time or reduce the price of the pants to sell out the remainder. Now imagine thousands and thousands and thousands of those decisions happening all over the place all the time. Then you can comprehend why the government is incapable of playing that role. It is best left to the forces of the market. (We’ll talk about government regulation for a free and competitive market in my next post.)
Principle 3: Trade is a positive sum-game
This is hard to get, but it something to do with what is called Comparative Advantage. The basic premise of comparative advantage is countries benefit when each party specializes in producing goods and services that they can produce relatively more efficiently and trade for the other. Here’s an example from Wikipedia:
Imagine a city where the best lawyer happens also to be the best secretary, that is he would be the most productive lawyer and he would also be the best secretary in town. However it is quite clear that this lawyer would focus on the task of being an attorney by employing a secretary instead of doing all the paperwork by himself. This can easily be explained with the concept of comparative advantage: He is the best secretary and the best lawyer, however by comparing what he can earn as a secretary with the income he could earn by running a law firm and employing a secretary one can clearly see that the latter option is the better one.
When each country focuses on specializing in goods and services that they can comparatively produce more efficiently, the sum total is that both countries benefit. When a country isolates itself from the global trade, it hinders its ability to focus on its comparative advantage. “Trade creates wealth. Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty.”
Principle 4: Protectionism is never the answer
The way these obscure economic principles affect us is through the current debate on globalization and free trade agreements. Opponents of NAFTA will have you believe trade is bad for the US. It robs us of jobs and destroys towns. Free trade is not the problem and avoiding globalization is stalling the inevitable. NAFTA “adversely affected” 400,000 US jobs, but created over a 1M jobs. (US Govt; Commanding Heights) And as for Mexico, a country where 40% of the people live in poverty, trade with the US had multiplied by a factor of 7 from $40B to $280B in just 6 years.
Here’s the crux of the issue. When we restrict trade to “protect” industries, we prop up uncompetitive businesses. Doing so in the short-term “saves” jobs, but ends up costing the American people more in raised prices. There is a net loss in the process. You can go through the mathematical proof here.
Republicans don’t have it totally right either
The battle against trade isn’t really a battle against trade. We can sit here and mourn the loss of American automobile jobs, but in all honesty, we cannot compete with Japanese car manufacturers. You and I know this implicitly. We pick Civics and Camry’s over the Ford Focus and other pitiable American cars. Our Democratic leaders should focus less on denying the efficacy of free trade agreements and more on solutions to transition those workers and towns of exiting industries to new vocations valued in this global economy. That is what the Republican leaders of the past 7 years have failed to do in Michigan – a state with a declining GDP. Our Republican leaders have also under-invested in an education system to equip our students for the 21st century.
Adaptation and innovation are the keys to our future. Not isolation.
Other related content
For a basic primer on economics and economic history (b/c my explanations are pretty basic – I tried!), I suggest the three part video series Commanding Heights found here.
Click here for a virtual treasure trove of good essays on trade, including a couple by Krugman.
Michigan, Florida and caucuses
Should these states be counted? Is this even a serious question?
We live in a troublesome democracy, which unfortunately means we have this burden of actually allowing peoples in this said union to have their voices heard. It’s annoying, I know. It pains me every four years when the future of the world is decided by single states like Ohio. But thus is our plight until we un-annex the South and Midwest.
Also, a little known fact that CNN fails to mention prominently is that Obama and Edwards purposely took their names off the ballot in Michigan. I’m no schooled political pundit, but the obvious and likely reason is that they both suspected that they would lose there. They removed their names to “lessen” the blow and call it farcical when Clinton claimed victory.
Luckily, both camps are not arguing about whether there should be a do-over (because not counting Florida and Michigan would be undemocratic on multiple levels), but are now discussing how and when and in what format and who should foot the bill.
On caucuses
I have no specific opinions on this subject other than we should re-do elections, and they should be primaries. Any proposal by any camp to hold caucuses should be out-right rejected. In a fairer media, an equal amount of time would be spent on the nature of caucuses versus the controversy over super-delegates. But since caucuses help Obama, the issue has largely been ignored.
In a simple and efficient system like primaries, a person comes and casts a secret ballot. Votes are tallied and in Democratic races, delegates are apportioned proportionately. Seems smart. Seems efficient. Now let’s take a look at the antiquated caucus system in two states: Iowa and Texas.
Public voting at an Iowa caucus precinct
Reasons why Iowa caucus process is undemocratic
1. There is no absentee voting. So, if you’re working evenings, old and have a hard time being mobile, are taking care of kids and don’t have 2 hours to spare, are in the military and servicing us overseas, too bad; you’re out of luck.
2. Public voting. Need I say more? In Iowa, you show up and declare your vote in public. Apparently, we let peer pressure influence democracy in a very literal sense these days.
3. Clusters of inefficiency and lack of plurality. Apparently, when you show up to a precinct, you are suppose to form a group with folks who support your candidate. If the group does not achieve a certain number of individuals, the group must disband and form new groups until a sufficient number of people join the group. The number that determines sufficiency is based upon how many delegates are designated to that precinct. So for example, if your precinct has only 1 delegate. The group that has the most people wins regardless if the split was 34/33/33 among 3 candidates. Does this all sound lame and retarded? That’s because it is…
Texas Two-Step
In Texas, we start off with a primary contest of 126 delegates. Only individuals who voted in the primary process can return at 7pm that night to re-cast another vote for a candidate. The caucus portion accounts for a third of the delegates in Texas. A proponent of the caucus system would say it rewards the super passionate. I don’t know. Seems to me it rewards those with more time and no kids or job to tend to. Apparently, in this election year, caucus precincts were unable to accommodate the voter turnout, so people had to wait in 2 hour lines before writing their name down.
Maybe it’s time to “innovate” with a basic hole puncher and some scraps of paper.
Other related content
Iowa caucuses discourage participation by many voters
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