Category: political challengers

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ballot access First Amendment rights political challengers

“Top Two” Goes South

Washington State has a long history of popular antagonism to political parties. For years, the state enforced an open primary, which meant that Republicans could vote in Democratic primaries and Democrats in Republican primaries. This was very popular, because it led to widespread strategic voting.

Well, that’s a euphemism. In open primaries, what you get is not mere strategic voting so much as sabotage. I have heard of Democrats and others boasting of voting in Republican primaries, for example, supporting Pat Robertson. Why? They believed Robertson to be unelectable, and hoped putting Robertson ahead would undercut the GOP in independent voters’ eyes, and make running against the party easier in the general election.Shooting numbered ducks.

Well, a few years ago that system was thrown out as unconstitutional, as an abridgment of free association rights.

But instead of allowing party members to select candidates, Washington State movers and shakers cooked up something else altogether. They set up a system wherein anyone could use a party’s label — even if that party’s members don’t know said candidate or despise him. Robbing parties of any control over candidates offered in their name is far worse on the very constitutional issue that nullified Washington’s traditional open primaries. Though Top Two has been legally challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court just this week refused to hear arguments.

The name “Top Two” comes from the fact that only the top two vote-​getters in this super-​open primary are on the general election ballot. The new system has completely removed minor party candidates from the general election ballot, when most folks vote.

Top Two has had the same impact in California. Arizona voters will decide the issue this November, on their ballot as Prop 121.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers

Polled American!

More people view Mitt Romney unfavorably (49 percent) than view Barack Obama unfavorably (45 percent), according to the most recent Reason-​Rupe Poll. This, despite Romney being the challenger, while President Obama must live down his sorry record.

By this measure, and others in the poll, Obama’s re-​election seems ever more likely. And if you think that’s depressing, wait till you read about the general views of taxing the rich more. The “soak the rich” mentality remains quite strong. But some of this “the rich don’t pay their fair share” notion is based on misinformation. Get a load of this:

Last year, the government collected about $1.8 trillion dollars in income tax revenue. If you were to estimate, about what PERCENTAGE of this total tax revenue do you think the top 5 percent of households probably contributed? Would you say…

<1% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3%

1% to less than 20% . . . . . . . 29%

20% to less than 40% . . . . . . 19%

40% to less than 60% . . . . . . 15%

60% to less than 80% . . . . . . 11%

80% or more . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%

Don’t Know/​Refused . . . . . . . 16%

The truth is that America’s Top 5 percenters pay more than 60 percent of income taxes collected. The vast majority of those polled (66 percent) thought the Top 5 should pay less than they currently do.

I’m not going out on a limb, here, to infer a lesson: Were Americans to learn a few more truths about their government, about taxes, and (hey, why not?) real life, they might change their minds on a few crucial political notions.

Education — and by this I don’t mean schooling — is obviously important to political betterment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Bite the Hand

I’m not sure there’s much percentage in talking about percentages.

Divvying folks into groups, and then relying on people to “stay” within their group — behaving according to one’s specifications — seems … kind of creepy.

Last year’s “Occupy” movement, with its relentless pitching of the “99 percent,” demonstrated that creepy/​icky factor pretty well.

But Mitt Romney had to horn in on the action. “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” he said. These wards of the state, he went on to say, believe that

  • they are victims
  • government has a responsibility to care for them
  • they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it

Furthermore, “these are people who pay no income tax,” Romney stated. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Well, not all folks who are somehow “dependent on government” — a group ranging from Social Security retirees and the non-​working poor to federal employees and agribusinesses and Solyndras feeding at the federal trough — necessarily want to increase their own ranks. Not a few are savvy enough to notice that the system that feeds them would, if larded up with more recipients, be made less capable of feeding them.

As for the logic of “not biting the hand that feeds you,” the advice of the late Thomas Szasz is pertinent: “maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.”

After all, many of the people who may qualify, technically, as being “dependent on government” would rather not be. And might like the option of being less encumbered by government “help.”

Mitt, I wouldn’t write them off yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Euro Woes

The Dutch have just voted, and Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party took a big hit. The more centrist VVD and Labor parties increased seats, indicating that a solid Dutch majority is resolved to back both “austerity and the recent eurozone bailouts.”

Which, in its own way, is astounding, as another BBC report, on the same day, makes clear. The “fizz seems to have gone right out of the euro project, even here in Maastsricht,” writes Manuela Saragosa for the BBC, quoting one businessman insisting that “We have one Europe with totally different excise duties and taxes in each country. It doesn’t work… First work on harmonizing all that and then create a single currency. They did it the wrong way round.”

A common political problem.

But righting something done wrong is not easy.

Just ask Wilders. He was the one who started this political round, when his party gave a vote of no-​confidence to the government, necessitating a new election. During the campaign, Wilders repeatedly denounced the heavy burden of the EU bailouts on a hypothetical Dutch couple named Henk and Ingrid. The illustration “backfired when a real-​life Henk with a wife called Ingrid attacked and killed an immigrant.”

The Socialist Party also lost seats. Perhaps the party’s leader’s response to the very idea of austerity struck the Dutch as also unworthy: “Over my dead body” to spending cuts is not a very reasonable program for fending off the financial collapse of the Dutch pension and healthcare systems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers

The Gray Fox

Clint Eastwood, crazy? Like a fox.

Last Thursday, at the Republican Party Convention in Tampa, he spoke to a primetime television audience of millions in the type of direct language politicians never utter. The movie star’s message was simple, but his presentation was more acting routine than speech, using an empty chair as a prop and pretending President Obama was sitting next to him. His delivery came in stops and starts, seemingly ad-​libbed with the 82-​year old no quicker or more nimble of thought and word than other octogenarians I know.

Much of the mainstream media pounced, diagnosed Eastwood as nearly insane, and noted that the actor’s 12-​minute talk upstaged presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Funny, I think Eastwood’s words touched many regular folks — and perhaps a raw nerve for those favoring the president.

While celebrities have every right to speak, I’m tired of the usual sophomoric spewing of famously uninformed opinion — “hot-​dogging it,” as Eastwood put it. But we didn’t watch movie star Clint Eastwood last week; we saw businessman Clint Eastwood.

In 1967, early in his Hollywood career, Eastwood created his own production company, Malpaso, which has handled virtually all of his American films. Eastwood knows firsthand the demands of running a business. In fact, he enjoys a reputation for finishing his films on time and on budget and making profits.

When someone doesn’t do the job, Eastwood signs the proverbial pink slip. He thinks voters should do likewise. After all, “we own this country,” Eastwood reminded us. “Politicians are employees of ours.

“When somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies political challengers

The Punisher Vote

As bad weather and thousands of good Republicans descend upon Florida, it’s worth keeping perspective: The best (and perhaps only) reason to vote for Mitt Romney is the same as the best/​only reason Americans had to vote for Barack Obama in 2008: to punish the party previously in power.

The excesses of united Republican government in the mid-​oughts, and the sheer irresponsibility and insider bias in the lame duck Bush years, as the GOP president panicked and turned Wall Street into the largest welfare queen class in America, required punishment.

Americans wanted a change. So they voted, understandably, for the man who promised change.

But what did they get?

Bush had pushed in a new welfare “entitlement” program; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had pushed bailouts for the wealthy and the protected; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had pushed war and occupation and “nation building”; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had presided over deficits and a rising debt; so did Obama and the Democrats.

Turnabout being not merely fair play, but the will of the pendulum to swing back, it seems like voting against Obama is what is in order. It seems almost ineluctable.

But, uh, there’s a problem. Is Romney electable?

Both major parties tend to throw up lackluster candidates when the opposition has an incumbent in the White House. Take three examples: Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and John Kerry, paragons of pointlessness.

But, this time, a pointless challenger has history endow him with a point: Obama and the Democrats deserve to be punished.

Not much of a platform? True. But it’s something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.