Living on the Edge

An Irish Point of View on the Election Race...

 

We, in Ireland , can't figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States .
On one side, you have a woman who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, running against a lawyer who is married to a woman who is a lawyer.
On the other side, you have a war hero married to a good looking woman who owns a beer distributorship.
What are you lads thinking over there?'

 

My mom forwarded this to me this morning.  Way too funny!  I never thought about it this way.  Which one sounds like the All-American.  Maybe the choice is a bit more black and white than the color of their skins.  What is that old saying about too many cooks in the kitchen?  I think it is the same for too many lawyers in DC!!

Super Tuesday!!

Well today is supposed to be the make or break day in the 2008 Presidential process.  Who will survive the day?  Who will step out of the race?  And who is going to win California? 

If you have ever lived in that state...you will appreciate the *chuckle* I have for the press right now.  Last week they forecast who would win in California...McCain and Clinton.  Now listening to the news this morning, they are wavering in their prediction...back pedalling full steam.  Now it appears that the vote is still up in the air.  Hmm, maybe that's because the voting precincts haven't even opened yet!?!?!

The primary election in California is as predictable as New England winning the Superbowl on Sunday...oh wait, New York won!  Can't wait to watch the news tonight and watch the way the news reporters spin their stories.

The 'Simple' Democratic Process

Participating in the Democratic process is not as easy as it was when I was 18.  Was it always this complicated?  My research and confusion increased when I wanted to understand the difference between a Primary and a Caucus.  Coming of age in California, I knew the Primary process.  I proudly exercised my right to vote every time I was given the opportunity.  But things started to get murky in the last ten years when we actually had a president that won because he had the most delegate votes and not the popular vote.   How in the world could that happen and what is my vote worth then?

Educating yourself is almost as complex as the current state of our political process.  Not that I’m not smart enough to figure out primaries and caucuses, but muddling through the internet was harder than digging through the ‘stacks’ in my college library when I wrote my Masters thesis. Have you tried googling ‘election 2008’ or ‘primary’ or ‘caucus’?  There are literally hundreds if not thousands of sites to wade through.

So when you start researching, if you want to make an educated choice, be sure you don’t rely on one organization or website for your information.  Take time and check out multiple sites.  I found errors even on nonpartisan sites. And be sure to bookmark the sites so you can return and stay updated on changes and new information.

First I bookmarked both the Democratic and Republican state websites.  There’s a wealth of information on those sites, but as you would expect, the information is one-sided.   So I started searching for sites with nonpartisan information.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization, with a wealth of information. Just be careful if you call to ask questions because, although the organization is nonpartisan, the information you receive can be weighted by the states dominant political party.  Many of the people working in their offices are well-meaning volunteers who do try hard to be nonpartisan.

Finally I just started hunting through my results from google searches and read and read and read.  To save you some time, I listed below some of the sites I found which seemed to share both sides of the Presidential race.

What I discovered about Primaries and Caucuses is even more perplexing. Each state can and does do it differently. Here is a simplified version of how the caucuses and primaries shape how the delegates are chosen for Washington and Idaho.

In Washington we have both Republican and Democratic primaries as well as caucuses, all of which will be in February.  The Democrats can vote in both, but only the caucus votes will count toward the state’s candidate choice.  The Republicans will use a percentage of both the caucus and the primary to choose their candidate.

In Idaho the Democrats choose their delegates solely through the Caucus in February, while the Republicans do not have a separate caucus vote.  They only use the state’s Primary election in May.

To complicate matters even more, in some states it is all or nothing for the candidate that wins.  If they win the caucus, they win all the delegates for that state.  While other states give some delegates to the second place finisher as well.  In Florida, Hillary won but didn’t get any of the Democratic delegates.  Now that is really confusing isn’t it?

Here are some of the sites I found during my search that were helpful in keeping me educated, informed and updated with the ever changing Presidential campaign.  I’ve listed links specific to

Idaho and Washington, but you can google similar site for your state.

Your state’s Secretary of State website. The election process falls under the auspices of this state office.  There is a lot of information about the Primary—if your state has one—and the Caucus process as well.

           Idaho SOS:  www.idsos.state.id.us

           Washington SOS:  www.secstate.wa.gov

Democratic Party of your state.

            Idaho Democratic Party:  www.idaho-democrats.org

            Washington Democratic Party:  www.wa-democrats.org

Republican Party of your state.

            Idaho Republican Party:  www.idgop.org          

            Washington Republican Party:  www.wsrp.org

Campaign Finance Information.  Find out who is spending what on their campaign.

            Idaho Commission:  www.idsos.state.id.us

           Washington Commission:  www.pdc.wa.gov

Here are other sites I’ve come across during my search.  It’s good to see the variety of perspectives out there.  Not all these sites are nonpartisan, but hey, it’s really difficult for anyone to be nonpartisan.

www.vote2008online.org  Visit this poll and see how it changes over time.  It’s not affiliated with any of the candidates.  It’s just for fun.  There are a million people creating polls as well as participating in them.

www.cnn.com/ELECTIONS/2008   Links to a lot of good information.  Research your heart out on this site!  Lots of opinion blogs as well.

www.youdecide2008.com  This is one of my favorites.  I like the delegate count.  It helps keep you straight on who is receiving the delegates from the caucus votes.

www.vote-smart.org  This is Project Vote Smart.  Have you wondered whether a candidate is telling the truth about how they voted on a senate bill?  Are you curious what their stand is on an issue that is important to you?  Which interest groups are supporting your favorite candidate?   This site is full of these political resources as well as many others.

www.mapthecandidates.com  Video clips, articles, and an interactive map where you can see where your candidate is stumping today!  This is a neat site too.  I think I like the sites that have the interactive stuff on it.

Map the Candidates

	I just found this awesome nonpartisan website.  Now I know where everyone is campaigning in the U.S.  You can just focus on your favorite candidates or track them all.  Cool Tool!  There are also links on the site to more information about the individual candidates.  check it out! http://www.mapthecandidates.com/
	Nonpartisan tool that tracks the presidential candidates' campaign stops across the country.

Mom and Dad are bad words?

We moved to Spokane from Northern (really northern) California.  There are many reasons why, the rain, the cost of living, the fact that we only had 2 seasons...there is also the political process in California.  It has been going downhill for quite some time...not from the perspective of a true liberal, but for those of us who happen to be slightly more conservative individuals, the changes were difficult to handle.

California professes to be the land where everyone can enjoy the freedom to be unique, where tolerance is expected, demanded and enforced by law. These laws, which on the surface seem harmless and are created for the sake of an individual's right to be different are creating an androgynous environment which completely attacks and no longer tolerates the traditional family values that many of us grew up with. 

In 2006, a law, SB 1437, nearly passed in California which would have made using terms such as Mom and Dad and husband and wife against the law.  The terms would have no longer been allowed in school textbooks.  Why?  Well, they thought that using these terms could promote discrimination against homosexuals if a same-sex couple is not also featured in the text books. This law would have also allowed boys to use girls bathrooms and vice versa. 

Fortunately, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the law!  But for every single bill vetoed, how many others are following behind it?!

If you google this senate bill, you won't be surprised to find that conservative family and religious sites  pop up on your search.  That's understandable, but what was surprising was how hard it was to find out the minor detail that it was actually vetoed and NEVER became a law. 

Now why did I start in on this?  It's all the fault of the Caucuses!  Just beware...I'm going to blame everything in 2008 on the Caucuses...I think global warming and the 15 inches of snow in our yard were caused by them too!....

But I'm back to the problem of learning and misinformation! I spent quite a bit of time on the phone this week trying to educate myself on the caucus and primary process.  I must have talked to more than half a dozen people related to the political world.  You would not believe the amount of well intended misinformation I have received this week!  The Washington League of Women voters gave me misinformation about the Republican party.  And the Washington state Democratic party, once I said "yes, I'm Republican", thought it was "so nice of me to be bi-partisan on my website"--and that was the end of that conversation...

During another conversation with yet another political organization, I learned more about caucuses and ended with an interesting conversation regarding the Washington school system in which I was told that California passed a law making it illegal to use the terms Mom and Dad in school...

So after learning this information...I spent time googling again...and found it to be false. It made me curious about how much of the information I had been learning was accurate. It's an interesting lesson or maybe a refresher from the college thesis days--that you should always find more than one source of information!!