Your Right To Vote

This is a (mostly) business-oriented blog, with some side trips to the world of golf once and again, so I don’t like to stray too far into the wilds of politics.

But this being election day here in the United States, I did want to take a moment and share a few thoughts about our politics and the political system here in the United States.

It would be very easy to have watched this most recent U.S. presidential campaign and be completely jaded. The amount of money spent this go around has been entirely obscene, and at the end of a summer and fall of massive television media spending, we’re about right back to where we started out in June in terms of the polls, when all that local TV advertising sprung forth.

And, here we are, on election day, with all that money having been spent, and examining most polls, national or otherwise, only to find that we’re likely in a toss up race.

Which is the point at which I wish to say a big “Thank you” to our Founding Fathers.

In “The Federalist Papers,” authors Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the following (this dispatch, in particular, is from Federalist 1):

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

With over two and a quarter centuries now of peaceful U.S. presidential elections and subsequent smooth transitions of power, I believe we can answer Hamilton et al. yes, it was a question left to the Americans, and we have answered it proudly and loudly — with the Founders’ guidance and the wisdom of the early political structures they recommended for the country, of course.

Implicit in the idea of having a choice, and allowing the people to make that choice in a free and fair election, is the notion that one set of ideas has more appeal to one than another.

Therefore, in making a choice, one has to favor one set of ideals more than another.

But the genius of the Founding Fathers was that they took us one step further. Yes, we all get to make a choice and vote for the candidate whom we think would make the best president.

But all the power was not vested in that single branch of government, the executive.  Instead, in our U.S. Constitution, the founders explicitly constructed a means by which we could have three counter-balancing branches of government, each with checks and balances against the other, and in the case of the legislative, where we the people also had a vote.

Think of it as a triangle, with the overbearing weight of one branch being countered by the combined strength of the other two branches.

Though many might complain this system makes it very difficult to accomplish the people’s business, one might just as well say that that’s precisely the point, that an endeavor worth pursuing has to be a very good idea supported by the majority of the people and upheld by all branches of the government to be fully enacted.

So whether you’re a small government conservative, a big government liberal, or even a minimalist government libertarian, there’s something in our system to accommodate most free thinking people.

I spent last evening watching the National Geographic channel’s “The War in Afghanistan,” which provided a very compelling visual history of the past decade’s war in that country.

What was amazing to me throughout the war there was the willfullness and commitment of young American soldiers in often impossible situations and in constant peril and personal danger, running towards the bullets and RPGs, rarely away from them.

Just think about that for a moment and let that thought really sink in. Our soldiers running towards the bullets.  Doesn’t seem to me like a rational thing to do.

You might not like the candidates you have to select from today.  You might not like the seemingly neverending process  and ongoing media coverage and hype.

You might not even like those newfangled electronic voting machines.

But I would ask you to forget all of that “noise” for a moment, and instead think about all those American soldiers who, over the past 236 years have been willing to put their lives on the line or, worse, give up their lives entirely, so you can spin that dial or fill in that oval on that ballot.

If such brave men and women thought such a system was willing to fight and die for, it’s hardly asking much of we “citizens” to give a little consideration to the politics and process and show up at the polls. In fact, we ought to consider it more of a privilege than many of us do.

Though I have my candidate in this election, I struggled through the process myself and deliberated greatly before making my selection in early voting. But no matter the outcome this evening, I will be a happy and grateful American.

People fight every single day, year after year, to come from around the world with the hopes and aspiration of living in our great country.  Our soldiers willfully run towards the bullets in battle.

Both of these things should be powerful reminders to those of us who are natural born citizens just how good we have it, and how we should never, ever take our precious freedoms for granted, including the right to vote.

Now, go spin that lever or turn that dial or fill in that oval.  It’s the least you can do for your country.

Big Bird’s Social Media Job Search

Poor Big Bird.

Through no fault of his own, he becomes the punching bag of the Republican party during last night’s presidential debate, which by all counts have suggested provided a big “W” in the Romney column.

I grew up with Big Bird.  I know Big Bird well.  Big Bird is a friend of mine.

Please don’t kill Big Bird.

If it weren’t for Big Bird, I might never have learned to read.  Which means I might also have never learned to write.

Which means I couldn’t bring you these blog posts on such a regular basis.

I guess I could draw stick figures and post them here, but I don’t think they would be nearly as interesting.

What interested me about the debate, beyond the substance (sic? was there any substance, or just an amalgamation of statistics thrown about?), was the social media response.

Of course, on Twitter, the debate Twitterstream flew by so quickly, I was having flashbacks to the Arab Spring.

In fact, according to Beth Fouhy writing for the Huffington Post, Twitter announced after the debate it had been the most tweeted event in U.S. political history.

Heaven help us.

There were apparently 11.1 million Tweets — this brings it in behind the most recent Grammy Awards, MTV’s Video Music Awards, and the Super Bowl.

I’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that our first and probably most important presidential debate in years trails the MTV Video Music Awards in terms of Tweetability.  Along that road lies the fall of empires and such.

What was most troubling to me was that comments from the social media echo chamber seemed to be pretty much that, an echo.

Mind you, I don’t expect an Alexis de Tocqueville treatise on democracy from my social media compadres, but an original, insightful thought or comment about the substance of the debate might be good every once in a while.

But no.  We got @FiredBigBird (Update: We had @FiredBigBird.  His Twitter account has apparently been suspended.  Poor Big Bird can’t get a break!)

Of which there are now were over 27,000 followers.  I am not ashamed to admit this fact, because it’s my job to keep up with such social media trends.

What’s your excuse???

I’ve been on Twitter since 2007 — I was even part of that original crowd at SXSW Interactive using Twitter that first year to plan lunch and escape boring conference sessions.  I had no clue someday I’d be following Big Bird on Twitter concerned for his future employment!

Yeah, I’m a little jealous.  I’ve been laboring in the Twitter trenches for years, and I’ve eked out just over 2,000 followers on some serious and substantive issues concerning our planet, technology, business, politics, and, yes, golf!

So, like our Republican candidate, I’ve decided to come out swinging.  Enough of this Turbo Twitter Travesty.

I’m about to get bold.

I’m going big and I’m going wide.

I’m going to take on the visage of one of the Sesame Street characters, because that’s clearly the only way anyone can get any real attention in this joint.

So I’m posting a poll below, and you, the audience, get to vote for the Sesame Street character that best personifies me “Turboness.”

Vote early, and vote often.  If it works for America, by God, it can work for my blog!

As for Sesame Street’s funding options…well, Big Bird has to earn his way just like the rest of us.

If he can’t make it on TV, there’s always Broadway, or off-Broadway…or, well, I’m sure there’s a football team somewhere in America that would take him on as their mascot.

Just don’t ask him to Tweet too often…those velvet Big Bird hands don’t do so well on the iPhone keyboard.

Pressing The Iowa Horse Flesh

Okay, so I missed the Iowa Caucus call last night, having suggested Rick Santorum would take away Mitt Romney’s Iowa Caucus cake.

The latest Iowa Caucus returns, as reported this morning by The New York Times

However, I was only 8 votes off — pretty good for an amateur political prognosticator.

Our Texas governor, Rick Perry, received 10.3% of the vote, and declared he’d be going home to Texas to regroup.

Translation: He’s exiting from the grand, national political rodeo.

But I give him credit for giving it a go.  As it is sometimes said in Texas, if you haven’t fallen off a horse, then you haven’t been riding long enough.

Just next time, please go back and take a debate class first. Whether you liked it or not, you did represent our entire state.

It’s not so clear whether Newt Gingrich fell off his horse, or the horse had an epistemological epiphany and concluded Mr. Gingrich was no longer a good caretaker of his backside, but in the caucuses, he (Gingrich, not said horse) distinctly came in fourth place with 13.3% of the vote.

Michele Bachmann (who apparently already canceled her ticket to South Carolina) and Jon Huntsman were at 5% and 1%, respectively.

Which leads us back to the top three.

Mitt Romney demonstrated he could ride the horse in Iowa, manage to even stay on the horse, right there at his steady, level and never-breached 25% (24.6% to be precise).

Rick Santorum was at 24.5%, again, separated by Romney only by 8 votes and a few hundred million dollars, clearly proving surges can work to your advantage in both wars and political campaigns.

Timing really is everything.

Ron Paul also made a surprisingly strong showing, demonstrating that even when you’re tilting at windmills, it’s your horse which keeps you grounded…until it doesn’t.

It will be interesting to see whether he and his isolationist horse can go it alone  all the way to Portsmouth.

What were the lessons I learned from all this?

For me, it was all about good TV. What would the Iowa Caucuses be without an endless litany of talking heads overanalyzing it all to death and forcing me to the fridge for another beer!

Okay, well, for one, I learned that CNN had some really cool virtual reality graphics that demonstrated the key difference between their early voter poll and late voter poll — which was that one was early, and the other was late!

And yes, they even had a cute little Anderson Cooper avatar, which I hope to not see online anytime soon.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow demonstrated her prowess beyond anchoring a nightly TV show, but also that she could manage the chaos of an uncertain election night whose returns seemed to take anywhere from 3 minutes to 4 hours to count the ballots.

C’mon, give the poor woman a hand, that’s a lot of extra innings time to fill! (If you’ve ever been on camera, you know what that long, dead silence is like?  Well of course you do, that’s why you’re no longer on camera!)

And I learned that no matter how unsurprising American presidential politics might be after a year of Republican debates held every other minute…well, you just never know what’s gonna happen until the ballots are in and counted.

So, now, it’s onward and upward to New Hampshire.

That’s a whole six days away, of course.

In politics, that’s a lifetime.  In horse time, I’m not quite sure how long it is, but it’s probably longer than they have the patience for.

Me, I have all the patience in the world.

But apparently not at Yahoo, which in other news finally named a new CEO this AM, the current president of eBay’s PayPal division, Scott Thompson.

For those who have a short memory, Yahoo’s last CEO, Carol Bartz, was let go in September of last year.  Maybe Ms. Bartz should jump into the race for the Republican presidential nomination!

The Iowa Caucuses

It’s Monday, January 3, 2012.

The 2012 Iowa Caucuses will be held this evening in churches, schools, and other gathering places across thousands of locations in Iowa this evening in order to start determining the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates for the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Yes, the year is now 2012.  Please turn that page on your calendar/diary.

And because it’s January 3, 2012, a presidential election year here in the United States, that means today, the first Tuesday of the election year, we’re having the Iowa Caucuses.

For those of you who live outside these United States, who don’t know what that means, allow me to try and explain, because Iowa is somewhat different from most standard primary elections used in other states.

In Iowa, the caucuses are a process whereby “gatherings of neighbors” occur across each of Iowa’s 1,774 voting precincts. Rather than simply casting polls and ballots, they gather in these locations (at schools, churches, public libraries, and even individuals’ homes) to discuss and choose presidential candidates, as well as begin writing their parties’ platforms by introducing resolutions.

In Iowa, caucus-goers elect delegates to county (as opposed to national) conventions, who then in turn elect delegates to district and state conventions (who THEN choose national delegates).

Got it?

All participants in caucuses must be registered with a party, but they can change their registration at the the caucus location. Also, 17 year-olds can participate, so long as they turn 18 by the time of the general election.

Because President Obama’s selection on the Democratic ticket is a fait accompli this year, we’ll do a deeper dive on the Republican caucus process.

In the Republican caucus, votes are cast by secret ballot. Voters are given blank sheets of paper with no candidate names, then after listening to some campaigning for each candidate by caucus participants, they write their choices down and the Republic Party of Iowa tabulates the results at each precinct and transmits them to the media.

As for the number of delegates, because there are 13 delegates for the Congressional district, plus 12 statewide, plus 3 Republican National Committee members who are also delegates, makes for a total of 25 elected delegates (don’t worry, the math didn’t add up for me, either) out of a total of 2,286 national delegates. But again remembering, they’re not really chosen this evening, but at the county and state conventions down the road.

So that’s what all the fuss is about.

If you really want to know what’s going on and want to follow the math closely, you have to read Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog. 

My projection: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum are neck in neck in the 19-21% range, but the surging Santorum pulls just far enough ahead to take the Iowa caucus cake.  But hey, it’s Iowa, who the heck really knows until the votes start coming in later this evening.

For all the opportunities to criticize it, the Iowa Caucus is still the first polling that matters in the U.S. presidential primaries, first also meaning it’s very influential in shaping the outcome yet to come in the other 49 states by potentially reshaping the field of candidates.

So for those reasons alone it’s worth paying close attention to!