GOP's Brand of Fiscal Restraint is Really Expensive

House Republicans are all about saving taxpayers' money, right? Right? Well, actually not so much. It would be more accurate to say House Republicans are all about talking about saving taxpayers' money, while doing nothing but collecting it in the form of congressional paychecks. And what they don't pocket themselves, they blow on boneheaded fiscal ideas.

There is a cost to a do-nothing congress. And this is definitely a do-nothing congress. Oh sure, they pretend to accomplish things, but mostly they just dick around with PR stunts that even they know are doomed. And they don't pay for their own PR -- you do.

Take for example the repeated votes to repeal Obamacare. Those bills go nowhere in the Senate -- they aren't even brought up for a vote -- yet John Boehner has wasted 80 hours worth of taxpayer money on these election year stunts. That ain't free and that ain't hay.

Huffington Post:

According to a report by CBS News, these efforts, widely viewed as symbolic political maneuvers, come with a high price tag.

CBS' Nancy Cordes reported Wednesday that Republicans' many fruitless attempts at repealing the Affordable Care Act have taken up at least 80 hours of time on the House floor since 2010, amounting to two full work weeks. As the House, according to the Congressional Research Service, costs taxpayers $24 million a week to operate, those two weeks amounted to a total cost of approximately $48 million.

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Believing Healthcare Reality, Instead of Rightwing Spin

Sometimes, polling shows just how wide of reality people's perceptions are. For example, in 2003 the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks found that Americans were poorly informed about the facts of the Iraq war, with Fox News viewers knowing the least. Basically, they called people up and asked them if they believed three false statements; that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been found, that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and that world public opinion favored the US invasion of Iraq. 80% of Fox viewers agreed with at least one of those statements. In fact, the more you watched Fox, the more likely you were to get the facts wrong. In other words, Fox News was obviously misinforming their audience to support the network's pro-war bias.

Yesterday, Gallup put out a poll that showed a similarly misinformed public. And while they didn't track which news source they relied on, they did track the respondents political affiliation.

A majority of Americans say the U.S. healthcare law that the Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional will make things better for those who do not have health insurance and for those who get sick. At the same time, Americans say the law will make things worse rather than better for taxpayers, businesses, doctors, and those who currently have health insurance. Americans are about evenly divided on the impact of the law on hospitals and on themselves personally.

Americans' views of the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), measured in a July 9-12 Gallup poll, are nuanced. Although Americans are fairly evenly split in their views of how the law will affect them personally, they have widely differentiated views of its impact on various other groups and entities in society. The results thus provide support for both proponents of the law, who argue that it will help those in need, and for opponents, who argue that it will place a burden of cost and more bureaucracy on taxpayers and businesses.

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The Republican War on Freedom

Conservatives can put away their three-cornered hats now, we're on to them. They aren't patriots. They're the opposite. For those of you unclear on the concept, patriotism is not demagoguery over stupid little flag pins. Patriotism is standing up to defend the concepts of freedom, fairness, justice, and democracy, among others. The nation will never stop being free as the result of someone hanging the flag wrong. It will cease to be free when the flag becomes more important than the democracy it represents. There is no free country that is not a democracy, so it stands to reason that the enemies of freedom are the enemies of democracy.

And Republicans are the enemies of democracy.

Associated Press:

When Edward and Mary Weidenbener went to vote in Indiana's primary in May, they didn't realize that state law required them to bring government photo IDs such as a driver's license or passport.

The husband and wife, both approaching 90 years old, had to use a temporary ballot that would be verified later, even though they knew the people working the polling site that day. Unaware that Indiana law obligated them to follow up with the county election board, the Weidenbeners ultimately had their votes rejected - news to them until informed recently by an Associated Press reporter.

Edward Weidenbener, a World War II veteran who had voted for Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential contest, said he was surprised by the rules and the consequences.

"A lot of people don't have a photo ID. They'll be automatically disenfranchised," he said.

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Mitt Romney, Candidate of Mystery

It's kind of ironic that the candidate whose primary opponents ran as his antithesis is running as the antithesis of his opponent. After facing down various Not-Romney candidates for his party's nomination, Mitt's running as the Not-Obama. And that's pretty much the gist of it. The seems to have no ideas and stands for nothing other than the idea that Barack Obama should not be the president.

This has been obvious for a while now, but the media is just starting to notice it.

Politico:

...Vague, general or downright evasive policy prescriptions on some of the most important issues facing the country are becoming the rule for Romney. Hoping to make the campaign strictly a referendum on the incumbent, the hyper-cautious challenger is open about his determination to not give any fodder to Obama aides hungry to make the race as much about Romney as the president.

Romney is remarkably candid, almost as though he’s reading the stage directions, about why he won’t offer up details: he thinks it will undermine his chances to win.

“The media kept saying to Chris, ‘Come on, give us the details, give us the details,’’’ Romney has said about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2009 gubernatorial race. ‘’We want to hang you with them.’”

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Obama and Immigration: Why the Right Thing to do Was Also the Smart Thing

President Obama's announcement that he will end deportation of undocumented people who came here as children was seen as a gamble. After all, it may get Latino voters more enthusiastic, but what about those who are freaked out about illegal immigration? The president was obviously throwing those votes away. For example, an analysis by the Associated Press:

There's not much President Barack Obama can do to boost the economy in the next five months, and that alone might cost him the November election. But on a range of social issues, Obama is bypassing Congress and aggressively using his executive powers to make it easier for gays to marry, women to obtain birth control, and, now, young illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

It's a political gamble that might fire up conservatives, many of whom remain cool to Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Democrats think it's more likely to inspire enthusiasm among groups that were crucial to Obama's 2008 victory — young voters, women and Hispanics.

There is, of course, a glaring flaw in this thinking. Conservatives are already fired up by nearly four years of rightwing BS from Fox News and talk radio. When 51% of Republican voters are birthers and believe that Obama's a Socialist, Communist, Muslim terrorist, and atheist at once, it's a pretty clear indication that they don't like the man very much. Conservatives have worked hard to keep the outrage meter pegged on the right, so anything Obama does comes without consequence on that front.

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George W. Bush, Mitt Romney's Running Mate

Recently, I titled a post, "We’ll stop blaming Bush when it stops being Bush’s fault." That is, when we finally get dug out from under the wreckage of mismanagement of the economy, whatever happens afterward will no longer be Bush's fault. The economic craphole we're in now? Bush's fault. Obama may not be fixing it faster enough for you, but he's not the guy who crashed it.

Americans agree.

Gallup:

Americans continue to place more blame for the nation's economic problems on George W. Bush than on Barack Obama, even though Bush left office more than three years ago. The relative economic blame given to Bush versus Obama today is virtually the same as it was last September.

Gallup first asked this "blame assessment" question in July 2009, six months after Obama became president. At that point, 80% of Americans gave Bush a great deal or a moderate amount of blame, compared with 32% who ascribed the same level of blame for the bad economy to Obama. The percentage blaming Bush dropped to about 70% in August 2010, and has stayed roughly in that range since. Meanwhile, about half of Americans have blamed Obama since March 2010, with little substantive change from then to the present.

[...]

The relative amount of blame Americans give to Obama and to Bush has largely stabilized over the last two years. It remains to be seen whether Americans are open to further discussion of those issues in the months remaining before the Nov. 6 election, or whether their minds are made up.

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Hey Mitt, Why's Your AZ Co-Chair Trying to Kick Obama Off the Ballot?

State level Republicans are crazier than outhouse rats. That's not even a matter of opinion, that's pretty much provable fact. Take, for instance, today's news from the Iowa GOP.

Radio Iowa:

The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party’s platform committee says the group is intentionally questioning President Obama’s citizenship with the wording in one section of the document. It calls for presidential candidates to “show proof of being a ‘natural born citizen’ of the United States.”

Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa GOP’s 2012 platform committee, spoke with Radio Iowa by phone this afternoon.

“There are many Republicans who feel that Barack Obama is not a ‘natural born citizen’ because his father was not an American when he was born and, therefore, feel that according to the Constitution he’s not qualified to be president, should not have been allowed to be elected by the Electoral College or even nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008, so this is an election year. It’s a shot at him,” Racheter said.

You don't get much crazier than birtherism -- although I suppose you'd have to call this neo-birtherism. Of course, neo-birtherism is probably worse, since it means you accept that the original birther argument was horsecrap, but you're sticking with the broader premise anyway. It's practically an admission of playing politics with paranoia.

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Scott Walker Admits to Wanting to Divide Wisconsin

It should be a blockbuster of a revelation. As Wisconsin Gov. Walker prepares to launch his campaign of union-busting under the guise of a budget repair bill, he tells his biggest donor, Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, that it's his intention to divide Wisconsin. Hendricks, according to the report, has "given $510,000 to the governor's campaign," making her "Walker's single-largest donor and the largest known donor to a candidate in state history."

The exchange was caught on video by filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein, who was documenting the work being done to return jobs to Janesville, an area hard hit by a GM plant closure.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In the video, Hendricks told Walker she wanted to discuss "controversial" subjects away from reporters, asking him:

"Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions -"

"Oh, yeah," Walker broke in.

"- and become a right-to-work?" Hendricks continued. "What can we do to help you?"

"Well, we're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill," Walker said. "The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer."

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In Recall Race, Wisconsinites Just Want to Win

A lot of the commentary on the Wisconsin recall primary seems to be leading to a consensus; that this was a big loss for unions. "It was a very bad night for WEAC and AFSCME," Mark Graul, a GOP political consultant, said. "When a union-backed candidate loses by 20 points in a Democratic primary, you have to question what sway the unions now have, not only in politics, but with their own members."

And other, less partisan observers agree. That Tom Barrett, who didn't have major backing from labor, so soundly beat Kathleen Falk, who did, shows that labor's backing didn't have a lot of influence on voters. Or, if it did, that influence wasn't positive. "This was a major overreach by unions and, frankly, it makes organized labor as a political force look almost like an empty suit," said UW political scientist Mordecai Lee.

I think this overlooks what has become sort of a theme in this recall cycle -- money and ads don't really matter. For example, a recent Gannett investigation found that 78% of all political ad spending in Wisconsin this season has benefited Republicans, yet all this spending has had zero effect on polling numbers. Walker's numbers haven't budged. One explanation (the one I subscribe to) is that the state is so polarized that changing minds is a lost cause -- and that everyone's mind is made up. There are almost no undecideds. The fact that Walker's ad spending hasn't bumped up the needle suggests he may have reached a very uncomfortable ceiling of less than 50%. Or worse, his numbers seem to be declining.

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WI Recall Primary Shows Dems with Advantage, But No Room for Complacency

One of the great joys of following election night on Twitter is watching low-information voters grab onto incomplete sets of data and run wild with them. It's not unusual to see a post declaring a candidate is "killing!" with only three or four percent of the vote in. It really is pretty funny to see.

Following the Wisconsin recall primary last night, I wasn't disappointed -- my favorite election night dumbness ran rampant. For the early part of the night, Gov. Walker had more votes than the entire Democratic field combined. Not extremely surprising, since small rural districts would get their numbers in faster and those districts would be more conservative on average. In the end, Walker did not beat the combined total of his Democratic rivals -- total 670,278 dems to 626,538 Walker -- but I checked before writing this and the "Walker's beating the combined dems!" tweets are still circulating among the wingnuts. As always, the right finds comforting untruths preferable to liberal reality -- and bothering to check your facts just leads to disappointment. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett took the night, but the big news on the right were old, stale, and no longer accurate numbers showing Walker "killing."

That said, the numbers as they are don't tell us a lot. If Walker had beaten the combined dems, then you'd have something to talk about. But the Republican primary was a race between the governor and an old-style La Follette/Roosevelt Republican who stood no chance at all (although he did slaughter the GOP's fake dem, 19,920 to 4,842), so who knows how representative that number will be of the final numbers in the Big Game. We can swap around protest candidate numbers if you like, but I don't think they make much difference -- who votes for those candidates? Does the confuse-the-voter tactic work or do voters cross party lines to cast mischief votes? Probably a little of both, making it impossible to tell where the votes would've gone if the protest candidates hadn't been in the race. Better to leave those numbers where they are and call it close enough.

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Mitt Romney's Desperation

Over at his blog at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi writes that the presidential race is pretty much over, Obama's won, and everyone's pretending otherwise for their own reasons. The media takes the blame for wanting the ratings/newsstand sales/hits generated by the tight race narrative, according to Taibbi, but obviously the campaigns themselves benefit -- Team Obama is probably worried about complacent voters and Team Romney's motivation should be obvious. It's probably overstating the case by a few orders of magnitude, but at this point it feels pretty accurate -- especially when you think about the scattered reports of a Republican mood of doom and the fact that the phrase "Romney's narrow path to victory" is fast becoming a cliche.

But another cliche is "[insert period of time here] is a lifetime in politics" -- in this case, between now and November. This cliche is pretty much true. A lot could change between now and then. Unfortunately for Romney, a lot of those changes are in his positions. Romney's need to tell every voter exactly what they want to hear has him tying himself in knots and engaging in pretzel logic.

Huffington Post:

Despite his 2008 call to "let Detroit go bankrupt," presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Monday that he would "take a lot of credit" for his impact on the U.S. automobile industry's comeback.

During an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland following a campaign stop, Romney said his views helped save the industry.

"I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy," Romney said. "And finally, when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back."

This is, of course, completely insane.

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Romney's Latest Attack Just Another Lie

It's becoming very clear that Mitt Romney plans to run a campaign of lies. If you check out Steve Benen's posts on the subject at the Maddow Blog, you'll see that the sheer number of Romney lies is really pretty astonishing. That Romney is a shockingly dishonest man is the most overlooked story of the 2012 campaign. It ties in with his constant readjustments on the issues; Mitt has his finger in the wind and his eye on polling, constantly trying to tell people what they want to hear -- even when it's a plain lie. It's one of the things that really disturb me about him. He clearly wants the power of the presidency very, very badly -- probably more than any candidate in my lifetime -- but he doesn't seem to want to tell anyone why. It's clear he's willing to do or say whatever it takes to get it. What he'd do with it remains a mystery.

On the bright side though, he and his campaign haven't been stellar examples of competence. He's constantly tripping over himself. The real Mitt often shows up at the least opportune moments. But it's easy to focus on the gaffes to the distraction from the lies.

Somewhere in our recent history (i.e., during the Bush administration), it became a terrible thing to call a lair a liar. The media shies away from pointing out untruths, preferring instead to simply report the things a public figure says -- and then report how that figure's political opponents respond. If the only information you ever got was from the mainstream media, you'd live in a world where there's no such thing as facts and lies, only differences of opinion.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that a photo circulated by Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams (posted above) isn't the most honest depiction ever.

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Weathering the Economy

The slow recovery gets a little slower.

The Hill:

The nation's economy added 115,00 jobs in April while the unemployment rate dropped one-tenth of a point to 8.1 percent.

The figures are lower than a month ago and were also below what many analysts had expected.

They will add to the sense that the labor market is cooling down after months of stronger growth, and come as unwelcome news for President Obama, who is formally launching his reelection campaign on Friday with rallies in Virginia and Ohio.

But is it actually slower -- or are we experiencing a correction after a period of unnaturally faster than normal growth? It turns out that we can probably blame the weather -- of all things -- for our current bumpy ride.

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Misreading the Catholic Vote

It's always fun to feign perplexity over polling. Basically, it works this way; a bunch of pundits agree on a narrative -- often based on stereotypes. They take their assumptions and run with them, until everyone starts thinking that they have some sort of basis in fact, rather than speculation. Then, when polling comes out showing the speculation to be exactly wrong, the head-scratching ensues.

So it is with a new Gallup poll. In that poll, Romney leads among the "very religious," while Obama leads among everyone else (the "very religious" are a minority, by the way). None of this is very surprising -- the religious nuts always go for the Republican. But what has the pundits all confused is that President Obama leads among Catholic voters.

This is a serious variation from the accepted pundit groupthink. That whole contraception coverage thing was supposed to be a big problem for Obama. Yet here they are backing him anyway. The word "despite" is used in just about every story and post dealing with this I've seen so far; Catholics back Obama "despite" the whole BC thing.

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Romney Can't Buy Love

Politico has the story of Mitt Romney triumphant five-state sweep of primary elections last night:

Mitt Romney swept all five Republican primary elections Tuesday night, putting an end once and for all to any hopes for a comeback by his beleaguered GOP primary opponents.

The last state to be called was New York, where voting ended at 9 p.m.; Romney was previously projected the winner in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

There was little suspense in tonight’s elections. Only in Delaware, where Newt Gingrich camped out in recent days and collected endorsements from top local officials, was Romney at any risk of losing. Even a Gingrich victory there would have been unlikely to complicate Romney’s glide to the Republican convention in Tampa.

Yes, nothing but smooth sailing from here on out. Just a non-stop express train to the Oval Office. There's only one hitch: Mitt's actual showing was more than a little weak.

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Romney Not Acting Like a Winner

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall makes a pretty on-the-money observation; that Mitt Romney's walking into the general election looking a lot like he expects to lose.

As noted this morning, Wednesday April 11th is day one of the general election. But there are things I’m seeing that tell me that Mitt Romney is kicking off the campaign in a telling defensive posture. What I mean is that on various fronts, Romney is kicking off within Obama’s campaign narrative. He’s living in Obama’s world, playing on his turf.

Example one is the Romney campaign’s push that it’s Obama’s economic policies that are the real “war on women.”

The effort to point to an “Obama Rule” over and against the “Buffett Rule” looks the same to me.

Right now, Romney's not a man with any real ideas of his own. And this isn't actually anything new. He's laid down a policy proposal or two, but after they failed to catch fire, he seems to have abandoned them. With his poor polling numbers, Romney is in a reactionary position -- and by that I don't mean like the typical Republican knee jerk reactionary, I mean like a boxer losing a fight. Mitt's too busy deflecting blows to land a good one of his own. He can only react and hope for a chance to counter the better fighter. Last night I described Romney's strategy as "I know you are, but what am I?" Marshall seems to agree.

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GOP Unable to Retreat from Disastrous War on Women

A new Economist/YouGov poll [pdf] shows Barack Obama defeating Mitt Romney in a head to head match-up. At 47% to 41%, it's a pretty convincing win. Undecideds can't make up the gap for Romney here. While not a slamdunk by any means, it still looks like a good bet.

But the big news out of this poll is that the suggestion that the numbers could've been a better bet for Romney, had his party not decided to launch a war against half of the American voting population. In the Republican War on Women -- an aggressive war of choice, by the way -- Republicans are the ones taking a beating.

Among women, President Barack Obama leads Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney by 55%-38% in the Economist/YouGov poll (Week of 3/17/2012). That 17-point deficit among women right now is too much for Romney to overcome, as Romney leads Obama among men by 45%-43%.

Right now, it is Newt Gingrich and even Rick Santorum (not so much Romney) who are the real lightning rods for women angry at Republicans in general.  For example, among women, Romney is viewed favorably by 36% and unfavorably by 46% of women.  By comparison among women, Santorum’s standing is 30% favorable rating and 50% unfavorable, and Newt Gingrich’s standing among women is 22% favorable-60% unfavorable.  (Obama is 50% favorable-42% unfavorable among women.)

The Republican Party is losing women at a pretty good clip. And the state parties aren't helping things much. Even as Republicans at the national level recognize that they simply must stop talking about women, those at the state level aren't getting the message. Ultrasound laws and attacks on Planned Parenthood are rampant. People who think this is all about contraception and Rush Limbaugh talking about sluts are missing the bigger picture.

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Wisconsin's Unconstitutional Voter ID Law

Scott Walker's voter suppression scheme has run into trouble -- and that trouble may be shared by other bills the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) drafted in other states. Specifically, ALEC's one-size-fits-all approach to legislative mass production doesn't actually fit all. Different states are, after all, different legal environments and a law that's fine in one state may be unconstitutional in another.

In striking down Wisconsin's voter ID law, Dane County Judge Richard Nies wrote, "A government that undermines the very foundation of its existence — the people's inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote — imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people." This was clearly a personal opinion of voter ID laws in general. But before we entertain cries of "judicial activism!" we have to consider an inconvenient fact -- the Wisconsin Constitution.

Center for Media and Democracy:

Article III, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution provides that all state residents who are U.S. citizens and over age 18 may vote, and Section 2, according to the decision, "authorizes the government to exclude from voting those otherwise-eligible electors (1) who have been convicted of a felony and whose civil rights have not been restored, or (2) those adjudged by a court to be incompetent or partially incompetent, unless the judgment contains certain specifications."

According to Judge Niess, Section 1 and 2 provide the exclusive basis for creating laws that implement the constitutional requirements for voting. "The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications on the grounds that the voter does not satisfy additional statutorily created qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID," he wrote.

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On Super Tuesday, Mitt Fails to Lock It Down

The janitors are sweeping up the confetti after the Super Tuesday celebrations last night (at Gingrich 2012 HQ, those janitors are fifth graders) and looking back, "Super" seems a little hyperbolic. By the numbers, Mitt Romney's the big winner, but the battle actually left him looking weak. In his least contested and most decisive win -- Massachusetts -- turnout was positively anemic. You could argue that this was because Mitt was a shoe-in, so people didn't bother voting. But that doesn't explainb Ohio, a hotly contested race with likewise light voter turnout. "Turnout has been low... modest, you can insert the term you want," says Secretary of State Jon Husted.

In that state, Romney outspent Santorum 3:1 and it was a nailbiter all the way to the wire. As a result, it looks more like an election bought than an election won. And momentum? It's just not there.

Politico:

Romney, as we’ve written before, is likely heading into another bounce-free news cycle. The former Massachusetts governor’s campaign and its backers had hoped to use a strong night to start making the case that it’s time to wind this down, and his election night speech, delivered from Boston, was supposed to convey the aura of a nominee-in-waiting.

But in the end, he underperformed. He does not head into Wednesday with the spin on his side, and his campaign has done little to finesse expectations throughout this race. The muddled results Tuesday — Romney’s cache of victories, Newt Gingrich’s win in Georgia and Santorum’s surprisingly strong clinch in Tennessee accompanied by wins in Oklahoma and North Dakota — are going to do little to bring an immediate end to the primary.

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Democrats for Santorum

I have a confession to make; in 2004, I engaged in voter mischief. I didn't vote for the candidate I most wanted to win the Wisconsin primary, but rather to extend the primary season. In my case, I didn't vote for a candidate from the other party, but John Edwards. See, the candidate who best fit my worldview was Dennis Kucinich. But, by the time Wisconsin's primary rolled around, it was pretty clear that Kucinich was a lost cause. I would only be casting a protest vote. I wanted it to count for something.

The reason I chose Edwards was a strategic one. I really didn't care much whether it was Edwards or Kerry in the end; both were fine with me, if not ideal (we didn't know what we know now). But I'd noticed that President Bush was dropping in the polls. Edwards and Kerry weren't spending much time attacking each other, but were instead engaged in a contest for the status as the one who thought Bush sucked more. Bush was the one taking the beating in the Democratic primary, not the candidates. Kerry was ahead in the delegate count, so Edwards was the logical choice. Bush didn't win by much in 2004 and I still believe to this day that had that Democratic primary gone on longer, Bush would not have been reelected -- assuming the primary had stayed so Bush-negative. In the end Wisconsin was a close one, but my single, strategically placed vote wasn't enough. Kerry extended his delegate count lead, effectively shortening the nomination process. And you know the tragic end to this story.

I say I was engaging in voter mischief because I didn't vote for the person I thought was best suited for the job. I didn't even vote for the man I thought had the best chance of beating George W. Bush (I thought it was about equal), I voted for the man most likely to keep the Democratic primaries going. It wasn't what the Athenians had in mind when they invented democracy and it probably wasn't what the founders intended either. My vote was based on math. But it was my vote, protected and defended by over two hundred years of heated debate and cold bloodshed, and I felt I could do whatever the hell I wanted with my tiny shred of responsibility in American government. I still do.

Of course, the problem with voter mischief is that it very rarely works. This is because -- unlike in my situation -- it requires you to vote for someone you absolutely do not want to win. Which means someone from the opposing party.

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