elections
scientificactivist | February 4, 2008
Since the movement for an official presidential debate focused on science was launched in December 2007, Science Debate 2008 has gained momentum continuously. For evidence of this, just check out its news page, or take a look at the long lists of influential organizations and individuals, bloggers, and signatories in general supporting this initiative.
And, as of today, Science Debate 2008 can add a few more to the list:
February 4 -- The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine are joining the American Association for the Advancement of…
scientificactivist | January 30, 2008Today John Edwards officially dropped out of the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. However inevitable this was, it was still sad to see it finally happen. Edwards fought a clean, issues-driven campaign, but it wasn't enough to compete against the wild but justified excitement of the prospect of a formative Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton presidency. It's unfortunate to see Edwards leave, but I'm sure many more good things from him are still to come.
The obvious question--one that remains to be answered--is who will his supporters turn to now? The two overriding themes…
scientificactivist | January 28, 2008The Democratic Party is doing the very cool thing this year of giving Americans living abroad their own delegation to the 2008 Democratic Convention. This means that anyone currently living outside of the US can vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary for their own 11 delegates. Voting will take place online from February 5-12 and in person on some of those dates at a variety of locations. To be able to vote online, you just need to register (for free!) with Democrats Abroad by January 31st. Even better, though, to vote in person you just need to show up with your passport. You don't…
scientificactivist | January 27, 2008Last night, Barack Obama won the South Carolina Democratic Primary with 55% of the vote, doubling second place finisher Hillary Clinton's 27% share of the vote. John Edwards came in third with a disappointing 18% of the vote. Nobody should have expected Obama not to win South Carolina, but a victory of almost 30 points was not widely anticipated. He needed a big victory to gain some momentum going into Super Tuesday (February 5th), and he certainly got that last night.
While Clinton still seems to be the favorite candidate of the Establishment, the numbers tell a different story. Last…
tqa | January 18, 2008
It's been a couple of days since I posted on the New Hampshire recount. At the time, I fully expected that I wouldn't do another post on the topic, but a couple of things that have happened since then changed my mind. First, Scibling Chris Chatham included me in a list of people who he thinks should get off their "soapboxes", stop "hurting America", and focus on the statistical anomaly he's identified. Second, and far more importantly, preliminary recount results are in from a number of precincts.
First, let's look at this "Diebold Effect" thing again. When I took my first look at the…
scientificactivist | January 16, 2008As the 2008 elections swing into full gear, Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) today launched a new resource--the Science, Health And Related Policies (SHARP) Network--which allows you to track how various elected officials and candidates stack up on a variety of science and health policy issues. SEA was formed a couple of months before the 2006 election in order to support science-friendly candidates, advocate for the proper use of science in formulating government policy, and to oppose political interference in science. SEA made quite a splash then, but its newest endeavor looks…
tqa | January 16, 2008
In the week since the New Hampshire voting, a number of people have become increasingly concerned about some of the things that they've seen in the results. Two things, in particular, have gotten a lot of attention. The first is the difference between the pre-election polling, which had Obama ahead by a considerable margin, and the final result, which was a clear victory for Clinton. The second is a difference in outcome when hand-counted precincts are compared to precincts where the ballots were counted using machines. Obama came out ahead in the hand-count areas, while Clinton came out…
tqa | January 9, 2008
As the dust settles in New Hampshire, people are starting to talk about the winners and losers, and what it all means in the grand scheme of the election. Some are looking for excuses reasons why Obama didn't actually pull off a win when every poll conducted in the known universe last week said he would. Others are discussing the critically important question of whether the whole "tears" thing helped or hurt Clinton, and whether the emotions were real or fake. Then there's the pressing question of whether Fred Thompson's arrival in South Carolina was a calculated political decision, or if it…
tqa | January 7, 2008
Today's Wall Street Journal has a page A1 article (and accompanying blog post) about John Edward's decision to invoke the Nataline Sarkisyan case in his campaign-trail discussions of health care. Sarkisyan, you may remember, was the 17-year-old California girl who died a few weeks ago, shortly after her family's insurance company turned down her doctors' request that they cover a liver transplant for her. The tone of the article is somewhat negative toward Edwards' decision, and not all of their criticism is entirely unfair.
Edwards, they claim, "has been bashing big health insurers in…
scientificactivist | December 10, 2007Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection (along with Derek Araujo, Matthew Chapman, Austin Dacey, Lawrence Krauss, Shawn Lawrence Otto, and John Rennie) are spearheading a grassroots movement called Sciencedebate 2008 to try to convince the powers that be of the need for a presidential debate on science in 2008. For a comprehensive list of the reasons why this is a good idea, I would have to rehash almost everything I've written on this blog... and then some. The point is that science is playing a growing role in society and politics, affecting in some way almost every issue…
tqa | October 24, 2007
Several days ago, Senator (and longshot Presidential candidate) Christopher Dodd (D-CT) made some news by promising to do whatever he could to block any legislation that would retroactively grant immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with President Bush's warrentless wiretapping program. He started off by placing a hold on the bill - a procedural move that would normally block the legislation from being voted on. After hearing that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to move the bill to the floor despite the hold, Dodd is now promising to go to the floor of the Senate…
tqa | October 22, 2007
Here are a few numbers from the latest Reuters-Zogby poll. See if you can find the one that's not like the others:
Rated President Bush's performance as excellent or good: 25%
Rated Congress' performance as excellent or good: 11%
Said the U.S. is heading in the right direction: 26%
Rated the performance of U.S. foreign policy excellent or good: 18%
Rated the performance of U.S. economic policy excellent or good: 26%
Said they were very or fairly proud of the U.S.: 88%
Those numbers remind me of a bit from Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment:
"...you might not like everything about…
tqa | October 11, 2007
It looks like Nancy Pelosi might be getting just a wee bit frustrated with the Democratic base. It also looks like she's got a lack of understanding of the proper relationship between politicians and the people that sorely needs correcting. At a recent press lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, she said this:
Activists who want to target congressional Democrats for lack of action on the war are misguided, the speaker argued. "I think it is a waste of time for them to go after Democratic members. They ought to just persuade Republican members who are representing areas that are…
scientificactivist | September 22, 2007Political campaigning can be a cynical business, but this takes things to a whole new level. Check out this ad by Republican Timothy Hugo of the Virginia House of Delegates. The ad quotes "others" as saying that Democrat Rex Simmons ran "the most cowardly campaign I have ever seen.... Rex was spreading lies..... Rex has been lying to voters the entire campaign." But, that's not the shocking part.
In the ad, the only source given for this is "www.raisingkaine.com", the progressive political blog Raising Kaine. The issue, though, is that none of those comments ever appeared on www.…
tqa | September 19, 2007
Every time I read articles (like this one, this one, this one or this one) that talk about how the Democrats are having problems getting the 60 votes in the Senate that they need to move Iraq legislation forward, or how they won't be able to get the 2/3rds of both houses that they need to beat a veto, I get angrier. And not with the Republicans who are standing in the way.
The Democrats don't need more than a majority. The President can't spend money unless Congress lets him spend money. If Congress passes a spending bill and he vetoes it, he can't spend money. If Congress fails to pass a…
tqa | September 17, 2007
Once again, John "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain went and said something stupid at a campaign stop. And, once again, he got caught on video doing it. This time, he went just slightly overboard in his criticism of the now-infamous MoveOn.org "General Betray-us" ad. Holding a blown-up, laminated copy of the ad, McCain said:
"It's disgraceful, it's got to be retracted and condemned by the Democrats and MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country, my friends."
(And if you don't believe Time Magazine, CBS has the video footage.)
Unlike the "Bomb Iran" incident, this wasn't…
tqa | September 17, 2007
In "The Republican War on Science" Chris Mooney referred to the Newt Gingrich-led Congress' decision to eliminate the Office of Technology Assessment as "a stunning act of self-lobotomy." If anything, he was lowballing the effects. For those of you who aren't familiar with this agency (and don't feel bad if you're not; it's been dead for 12 years), the OTA was a nonpartisan Congressional agency. It's job was to provide Congress with an objective analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues relevant to various issues that were relevant to measures under consideration.
Ostensibly…
scientificactivist | August 12, 2007Last week, I attended a seminar at the Oxford Internet Institute presented by J. Ignacio Criado and entitled "Political Blogging in Campaign and Political Communication: Political Leadership 2.0?" (see my announcement and the event's abstract here). My impressions are mixed, particularly in relation to the relevance of the seminar and the methods and conclusions of the presenter. I'll touch on these methodological issues briefly, but the main point that I took home was this: campaign blogging is fundamentally different from everyday political blogging, and it doesn't truly fit into the…
scientificactivist | July 9, 2007Over at A Blog Around the Clock, Bora has posted an interview he conducted by email with Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on science and science-related issues. The fact that John Edwards participated is a good indication that the 2008 candidates (at least the Democratic ones) are taking scientists, bloggers, and even science bloggers seriously. Props to Edwards for playing ball, and a big "well done" to Bora for arranging this.
Bora asked Edwards eight questions on some of the more important and timely science-related issues facing America, including global warming, health…
scientificactivist | June 27, 2007The results of a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll were released today, and they by and large indicate that young adults today are more progressive (based on stances on individual issues and on personal identification) than their parents' generation. Although this liberalization has been a general tendency in America (and fits the stereotype of the idealistic liberal youth), some may have worried that the rise of the religious right over the last few decades was indicative of a reversal of this trend. That's not the case.
The pollsters interviewed 659 Americans (giving a margin of error of…