Buzz

I wish I had voted for him in 2000. Instead I went for Nader (I'll save the reasons why)
I did support Dean in 2004, unfortunately he ran out of steam in the primaries.

2008 primaries might have an all-star cast. Rather than the pitifull show of 2004.
1. Al Gore
2. Howard Dean
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Evan Bayh

Two terms of Gore/Obama, followed by two of Obama and somebody would suit me perfectly. Gore is exactly the sort of conscientious caretaker one should want in a president, and is the best candidate I can think of to find a way out of George Bush's mess.

I like Presidents who like science. I don't like Presidents who like big government. Since both parties are now Big Government I've pretty much got nothing except linertarians.

"The only difference is, once my pants are on, I ban illegal wiretaps and end military occupations of foreign nations."

If someone were to make this campaign ad happen, no one would be able to stop Al Gore.

I don't understand why you guys never introduced preference voting.

When Gore lost to Bush, the electorate clearly voted against Bush (Gore + Nader), but he still got in. The system enforces two-options-only, and that's just silly. It might have seemed like a good idea a couple of hundred years ago, but the world has moved on.

I don't understand why you guys never introduced preference voting.

Because IRV/preference voting stinks. At least in plurality vote, voting for a candidate can't make him lose; in IRV it can.

2008 primaries might have an all-star cast. Rather than the pitifull show of 2004.
1. Al Gore
2. Howard Dean
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Evan Bayh

I'm not so sure about Gore anymore, but Dean's a wolf in a sheep's clothing (going on CBN and saying publicly that gay marriage is bad? Screw you), and Hillary and Bayh are unelectable Republicrats.

I still think the Democrats ought to nominate Feingold.

Mark Warner all the way. Gore simply is not going to be a viable candidate: he's always been far far better as, well this guy. In politics, he's too stilted. Plus, his cable network failed and like Hillary, his negatives are already high (they almost never go down).

Warner has no negatives: he can create a national persona from scratch. He's a still popular governor from a red state who may well be able to carry that state (which would be nearly as big a blow to Republican electoral math as losing New Jersey would to us), but he did it by selling blue-state values instead of simply playing a red-stater: we need to invest in schools, make sure our financial house in order, pay for what we really need, etc. That's the sort of guy we need. Is he more conservative than me? Sure. But his shtick is not the sort of arrogant "I'm always right" stuff but rather the "let's compromise to get something workable on the table, get stuff that matters done instead of spending time with noisy sound and fury."

After Bush, Americans are going to be sick and tired of the same old faces and partisan battles that have gone on for the last decade: the Clinton and Bush dynasties. They'll be sick of it. Someone like Warner or Obama who represents something new and fresh is the by far the best option.

No national candidate is going to win on a platform of "let's nationalize gay marriage." If someone supports Civil unions and letting states decide without some national FMA banning it, that's exactly what I'm both satisfied and think will be the best historical process for eventually getting the country to agree that gay marriage is just and right.

What I'm saying is: don't try to shoot the moon when you haven't even had a successful launch in a decade...

I don't know, Gore just comes off a bit too cereal for my taste.

2 things, partially impacting Gore, more impacting Obama:

1) "Executive" Experience. Nobody has been president since Ford who hasn't been a Governor first (except Bush Sr). for all of the candidates coming from the senate, none have won since *Truman*, and he was a VP before his own election in '48.

2) Obama's too good a spokeman to be president. I know that seems odd to say, but I think its true and important. I don't want Obama in the white house wasting away a war against congress. I want Obama as Senate Majority Leader, calling the shots if/when the Dems take the Senate back. In the current climate, there are actually more important things to do than simply take the White House. Restoring a sensible legislative agenda is one of them.

Yup. I wish the new, passionate Gore had been the one running in 2000- he'd be in his second term as President now if he had. Not that he necessarily actually lost in 2000, mind you...

But if it's not Gore in 2008, I like John Edwards. He has apologized fothrightly for his support of the Iraq war, and he is one of the few Democrats to speaks plainly and regularly about the increasing unfairness of our society and the urgency of remedying it. That's the message the party needs to hammer on IMHO. Sorry, I have no use for crypto-Republicans like Warner. Trying to appeal to the mushy middle with a stand-for-nothing candidate like him is a played-out strategy, if it ever was any use. And Hillary is just a Warner with higher negatives- ugh.

correction - JFK was a Senator as well. my bad.

crap, as was LBJ (though like Truman, a VP going into his candidacy)

At least in plurality vote, voting for a candidate can't make him lose; in IRV it can.

Uh. Really? How?

[i]Because IRV/preference voting stinks. At least in plurality vote, voting for a candidate can't make him lose; in IRV it can.[/i]

Uh, you do realise a great many nations use preference voting, don't you? And it works. Very well. It's not theory.

There is no way your primary vote can disadvantage the person you are voting for. It's not possible.

The way it works is this:

1. You vote for as many candiadates as you like, in order.

2. The first choice of every voter is counted.

3. If no-one has greater than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and everyone who voted for him get their votes redistributed to their second choice.

4. Go back to 3 until someone wins.

So, in practice: people who vote for Nader could have selected, as their second option, Gore. When it becomes apparent that Nader can't win, their vote is not wasted, it goes to the Gore.

Having someone elected even though the majority voted specifically *against* him is not democratic. It shows a flawed system. Making people feel obliged to vote AGAINST someone they want, simply because they feel another has a better chance at blocking some even worse candidate, is not democracy.

Nevermind. The answer is in the wikipedia entry for the monotonicity criterion. That's not a very compelling argument against American use of IRV, though. It requires a fairly strange preference pattern which doesn't very well resemble the polarization of America. Meanwhile, the particular form of manipulation that IRV is most useful for rendering largely unnecessary is precisely the most common form in America.

I don't know about IRV, but abolishing the electoral college seems like a good start to me. Then the person with the most votes always wins--novel idea.

Because IRV/preference voting stinks. At least in plurality vote, voting for a candidate can't make him lose;

It can if you define "lose" broadly enough - for all the rhetoric about how the Republicrat candidates are identical, in 2000 voting for Nader made more of Nader's platform lose.

In fact, in plurality it's basically *guaranteed* that voting for a third-party candidate will make them lose - every vote for a third party candidate is a vote that can't be cast in favor of whichever mainstream candidate better represents that voter's platform.

in IRV it can.

And in Condorcet?

Kenneth Arrow proved in the 1950s that no possible preference-voting system is immune to producing bizarre results (i.e. Condorcet's paradox of voting)under the "right" circumstances. So it's not about perfection- mathematically, there cannot be a perfect voting system. It's about being better at expressing voter preferences than the plurality system. And any resonable preference-voting system accomplishes that.

And in Condorcet?

See here. Again, the relevant criterion is monotonicity. Not relevant in that I think it's most important, but relevant in that it answers the question at hand.

I think Gore, Feingold, or Obama would be great. Hillary would be an okay president but she's about half as likely to win as, say, Ted Kennedy. Liberals don't like her because she panders to the center, and rightwingers and centrists don't like her because she's their boogey-man of liberalism.

I'm fine with Gore in '08, as long as he doesn't revert to the Gore of 2000. I'm very susceptible to ModerateLeft's "anti-Hillary" argument, but I worry that becoming a candidate again would re-infuse Gore with so-called DLC "pragmatism."

"That's the message the party needs to hammer on IMHO. Sorry, I have no use for crypto-Republicans like Warner."

Sorry comrade, that I'm not pure enough to be part of the glorious revolution I guess. Shall tie the blindfold myself, or would you prefer I be shot in the back?

Al Gore is not very pro-science. He's certainly pro-technology, and pro-environment. But his environmentalism is mixed up with a weird Earth-goddess kind of pantheism. He fought against the Superconducting Supercollider from the Senate. During the Kansas controversy, he supported the teaching of creationism in public schools. He's in favor of ballistic-missile defense. He believes that government should partner with faith-based organizations to provide social services.

Not to mention that he's a terrible campaigner. Obviously preferable to whatever disaster the Republicans will nominate, but I completely fail to understand the growing progressive love of Al Gore.

I really hope Gore doesn't run.
The next President of the United States is going to buried in the Quagmire of Iraq, hundreds of billions of Debt, a trashed educational system, and an infrastructure on the brink of collapse.

Let Al Gore handle the problems of Global Warming and let's elect someone who will help Al save us from the ManBearPig!

Getting back to this "An Inconvenient Truth" film trailer...

My concern is that it will be perceived as fear mongering. I mean it really uses the tropes of horror/thriller movies in the trailer--the music and the titling and everything really suggests fright, shock, catastrophe, etc. The thing is, yes, if the global warming worst case scenarios come to pass it will be awful...but shouldn't we be thinking about how to persuade people most effectively? Hasn't Bush been accused so many times of fear mongering about terrorism, and hasn't that been used against him by many liberals? But it is similar, in that, well, actually there is a terrorist threat of real harm as 9/11 showed. The global warming crisis could be orders of magnitude bigger in harm, but still the issue of how to best present this to the public is there. As it stands, I think most people would not be inclined to see this film and add to the worries beyond war, terrorism, oil crisis, avian flu, etc.

My worry is that Gore is potentially hurting his cause by making use of such dramatic cinematic effects. Of course, the counter to this is that if one doesn't get dramatic, no one will see the film (the Michael Moore apologist's line). Or maybe using fear is an effective approach? I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

The objections against preference voting relies on the possibility that the preferences of the second place candidate (B) are largely in favour of the first place candidate (A), while the preferences for the third and lower candidates (C) elect the second placer (B).

...and it's only thought of as "false" if one of those lower candidates (C) lost votes to the first placer (A), and thus got put out of the running. Note that although some of C's voters shifted to A, the voters left behind are still, strangely, giving their preferences to B!

First, this would be stupidly rare. It ignores comparative ideology - when, in practice, most voters can put the candidates on a line from favoured to unfavoured and generally get a similar result to other voters. That can be seen by the very predictable preferences found in most elections (that is, people who vote for A almost always give their secondary preference to B).

To my knowledge it's never happened in Australia, and we've used the system for thousands of seat elections.

Second, and most importantly, is that this is not really an inappropriate result if it does happen. Improved primary voting, when (strangely) unsupported by any improved secondary voting, must show greater polarisation of the community. Sure, the person with the largest primary vote may lose *because* they got more of the primary vote, but it shows a situation where another candidate has become a better *compromise*, as shown by the preferences. And democracy is nothing if not a compromise.

It could only happen if something very strange happened in the electorate. So if it did, then a compromise candidate seems the most appropriate.

Plunge, as Harry Truman said, a real Republican will beat a fake Republican every time. If you just can't stand to vote for a real Democrat, by all feel free to vote for a real Repbublican. Sayonara.

Er, that was supposed to say "by all means".

People seem to have forgotten that the last time Gore ran for president he actually won the election.

"Plunge, as Harry Truman said, a real Republican will beat a fake Republican every time. If you just can't stand to vote for a real Democrat, by all feel free to vote for a real Repbublican."

And I say that you are particularly vile part of our party that denounces anyone they don't like as one of the enemy. Republicans have people like you in their party too of course. They're called "Freepers."

Al Gore is not very pro-science. He's certainly pro-technology, and pro-environment. But his environmentalism is mixed up with a weird Earth-goddess kind of pantheism.

What's the evidence for that?

Here's some humor from Al Gore (yes he can be funny at times)

SNL: If Al Gore were president

Plungie my boy, I'm a prototypical wishy-washy liberal. If you think anybody who's not a fan of Warner and his ilk is the Democratic equivalent of a freeper, then it's you who have left the Democratic party (and common sense) far behind. Good riddance; I'm sure you'll make a crackerjack Republican. I'm tired of the constant rightward creep of the politcal center of gravity and the apologists for same.

Yeah, I too thought the trailer was a little unintentionally funny (If you love your children, then WATCH THIS FILM!!!!). However, that is how republicans win elections. Americans go for scare tactics big time.

And honestly, the before/after of mt kilimanjaro was fairly scary on its own.

Gore-Feingold 2008... I am so there.

Did anyone else read Michael Shermer's column in the new Sci Am about how Gore's new film/book were, for him, the tipping point that changed him from a global warming skeptic to a "believer?" Worthwhile read...

My respect for Al Gore soared when he essentially took two years off to be with his son after his son was critically injured when struck by a car. Gore weighed his priorities, and put his career on hold to do what he could for his son, and he didn't go back to politics whole-heartedly until his son was well healed.

But I also had many chances to see him up close when I staffed on the hill. On one occasion I was detailed to stop Rep. Al Gore from getting into a Senate hearing until very late -- Orrin Hatch was holding a hearing on his organ transplant bill, and he didn't want Gore to steal any thunder on the issue (Gore was the chief advocate of organ transplant legislation in the House). Alas for me, Gore actually showed up with enough time that he could get into the hearing. I dutifully blocked the door and engaged him in conversation about the merits of the bill, etc., until he finally looked up as the enlightenment struck him -- "You're supposed to make sure I don't get in there before the TV cameras go off, aren't you," he said, with laugh. Without waiting for an answer he said that he understood completely; he told me he'd let Hatch's bill be the vehicle, and he said that a coalition of Hatch and Gore would be much more formidable against the White House veto threat than either alone. Then he asked to push me aside, did so, and entered the hearing. Within the next few minutes he appeased Hatch, appealed to Hatch's better side with an offer to support Hatch's bill, and guaranteed the bill would pass (it did -- Hatch's bill with Gore's language substituted, essentially). Hatch got credit, Gore got his bill; together they persuaded the White House to sign it.

Several years later after I'd left the Senate staff and went to work for an airlin, in 1988, I was sitting in first class on a flight from Chicago to Des Moines, and presidential hopeful Al Gore got on, on his way to a coach seat. There was no reason for him to remember me from Adam, but later during the flight he asked me why a Senate staffer would fly first class, and he reminded me of the organ transplant bill and how the whole thing turned out.

So my view of Al Gore is that he's a remarkably smart guy who backs really good issues and will do what it necessary to make good laws -- and he's got a great memory. I was proud to be a Gore delegate to the Texas convention in 2000, and I'd do it again. The only things Bush has done right since 2000 are those few things where he's changed his policy to match what Gore had said (such as the importance of "nationbuilding" in Afghanistan), but always too late. If there are alternate universes, I'll bet the one where Gore won the election in 2000 is a much nicer place to be.

i am getting sick of the whole political game.

i did not vote for Nader because i understood what that split would do. didn't matter. we gave a bunch of money to the Democrats in 2004. didn't matter: they squandered it. we're left with a Republican Congress which has less intelligence than a rubber stamp and a bunch of Democrats who are looking out only for themselves and their home districts. they have the opportunity of a lifetime to stick it to the Republicans. what are they doing? sitting back and being cautious.

i had a look at the moderate pretenders "It's My Party, Too" and left quickly.

Ted Kennedy tries to kill Cape Wind.

noone is opposing post-2001-09-01 intelligence enhancing based upon, like, Congress really ought to have some control.

i think this Congress is what Presidents have dreamed of for generations. it's toothless and balkanized. the Pentagon demonstrated mastery of controlling during their major weapons procurements like for the B-2 bomber. they deliberately chose contractors in districts of Congressional opponents of the program, even if competing contractors from other places had superior proposals.

so, apart from the votes in the booth and the matters which i feel moved to write to representatives about, political parties aren't gonna have any financial support from me. i'll put my support in places i feel make a difference, with preparing for repercussions of global warming high on the list.

i like Al Gore. i think i understand his sentiments in not seeking a presidential run. he's trying to be true to himself. what else is left? the problem isn't politics or democracy, it's that the United States has a bunch of citizens, perhaps a majority, who act like idiots on political issues.

i just don't believe Democrats have the mojo to take the hill by storm. i used to think they needed to "get Clinton" and go moderate. i don't think that any more. Americans need to be led. Democrats need to create a market for themselves. recreating the commons who be a good theme. but who over there is gonna do that?

they might win big in November. but, then, so typical, we have Pelosi already making promises that they'll leave poor Georgie boy and company alone.

so, i'll just quietly gadget away in the corner on my code, go see Gore's movie, mumble "I understand, bro'", and await the train wreck. maybe it used to be different, but it seems all levels of government today is like local government: they don't put up a stop sign or a traffic light until the body count gets high enough.

"Plungie my boy, I'm a prototypical wishy-washy liberal. If you think anybody who's not a fan of Warner"

Too wishy-washy to even remember what you said apparently. You didn't say you weren't a fan. You said he was basically a Republican. Something that you apparently happily sling around at all Democrats that aren't in exact lockstep with your politics.

"I'm tired of the constant rightward creep of the politcal center of gravity and the apologists for same."

Sorry, but that's what a "democracy" is, or even what a party in general is: it isn't "whatever Steve LaBonne says is the law! Not to hunt, not to spill blood! That is the law!"

If you can't accept as a Democrat someone that pours money into education, raises taxes when needed, got the first and still the only ever African American Governor into office, and sparked a resurgence of Democrats taking back a red state and so on, just because they don't go as far as you want them to on lowering the age of consent or whatever your particular extremism is, then that's your problem. Thankfully, the party is bigger than just you.

I watched the trailer too, it also got me excited - very well done. I've also pledged to watch it on opening night. Good thing it doesn't come out the same time as DaVinci!

I also tried to see if I could get an interview with Gore, but his agent told me he's booked solid for two months... at 15-minute intervals. So right now I'm trying for months in advance..!

The strangest thing is, as I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Fifty Degrees Below, the good presidential candidate in the story campaigns heavily about the reality of global warming. I wonder if Gore read it?

Gore-Clinton 2008!

I say Gore-Feingold!

That would be a dream ticket.

Sean: Al Gore is not very pro-science. He's certainly pro-technology, and pro-environment. But his environmentalism is mixed up with a weird Earth-goddess kind of pantheism.
George: What's the evidence for that?

Well, for starters, as Sean correctly wrote, Gore did in fact endorse the teaching of creationism in 1999 (he did back off some when criticized, true). I can't see how anyone can say someone is pro-science who supports creationism. Secondly, he does go on and on about Gaia in "Earth in the Balance". Whether or not he was referring to the Greek goddess or Lovelock's theory of the Earth itself defending the ecosystem, neither square with our understanding of evolution, as both W. Ford Doolittle and Richard Dawkins have quite correctly argued in their works.

i need to correct something i wrote in a post above. i drew a comparison between the presumed current attitude of Vice Prez/Senator Gore and myself with respect to American responses to climate change. that is incorrect. Al Gore is more optimistic than i am, according to a post at RealClimate about his An Inconvenient Truth:

Response: One of the things Gore emphasized in the question and answer session after the movie is that Time magazine's "Be Very Worried" cover was not constructive. Gore's point is that the U.S. has risen to challenges before, and exceeded all expectations. His major point is, "come on guys, lets show the world what we in the U.S. can do." So the popular press is only just now catching up with the science. It seems a ways back in catching up with Gore.--eric

thus, Al Gore thinks we've a chance to pull out the dive before we become climate kill, at least financially. i don't.

I'm not enthusiastic about Gore. Even aside from being a proven loser (well, sort of) and his negatives/image problems, he seems like the kind of passionless political operator that I personally am sick of, and it seems like more and more of the electorate shares that feeling. Gore might be good for a Cabinet post, but I think he probably shouldn't be nominated as a candidate for national office.

That's why I think Feingold should *lead* the ticket. I think he can be as pragmatic as necessary without throwing his principles overboard at the first sign of trouble. Warner might be a good running mate though - he has practical successes under his belt and can assure people that the ticket and the party aren't flying off the handle, without being another Lieberman.

To my knowledge it's never happened in Australia, and we've used the system for thousands of seat elections.

And yet Australia still has a two-party system where each party runs one candidate in each election.

Eastern Europe regularly uses (dis)approval vote successfully, with numerous candidates in each camp.

First, this would be stupidly rare. It ignores comparative ideology - when, in practice, most voters can put the candidates on a line from favoured to unfavoured and generally get a similar result to other voters.

Actually, it's perfectly possible as long as there's more than one issue. I think you can even do it on a Euclidean political compass, without having different voters prioritize different issues.

Sure, the person with the largest primary vote may lose *because* they got more of the primary vote, but it shows a situation where another candidate has become a better *compromise*, as shown by the preferences.

No, you don't understand... suppose there's an IRV election with A, B, and C, and A wins. Now suppose that there were voting irregularities, so there's a rerun, where everyone votes the same way as before, but some people rank A higher than before. It's possible under certain circumstances for A to lose because more people voted for him this time.

Arrow's theorem also only applies in a one-off, from what I understand. If you allow follow up elections like they do in many places, you do get a proper ranking.

I really do not envy the people of the US on their political choices more than ever ...

Steve LaBonne: ...Not that he necessarily actually lost in 2000, mind you...

Is this a reality-based statement? I don't think so. Let me help you out:

...Not that he necessarily actually won in 2000, mind you..

There. Much better.

Arrow's theorem also only applies in a one-off, from what I understand. If you allow follow up elections like they do in many places, you do get a proper ranking.

Unfortunately, no. Arrow's theorem applies to *any* method of aggregating preferences, iterative, oneshot, or whatever variation you can imagine. What it really says is that a global ranking is just not well defined in some cases -- any outcome is the wrong one.

Which is not to say that the majority of cases there is a clear winner, and well defined preferences. Any time there is a Condorcet winner, for example.