Schroedinger's President

Can't people see what a charlatan Bush is? How terrible he would be for the country? Well, I guess not.

A cow-orker of mine tonight said that he prefers to have Congress controlled by one party and the Presidency controlled by the other so that nothing much gets done. I replied that I preferred to have both arms controlled by the Democrats so that nothing much gets done. Like Will Rogers said, "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat."

We have some interesting conversations at lunch at work. This week, of course, the election has been foremost in our minds. Even our many foreign nationals are interested in the election! Most of them seem to prefer Gore, as far as I can tell.

I had not realized that non-citizens cannot vote at any level of election, even the local ones, even if they're legal residents. This surprised me a little bit; why shouldn't they be able to vote in city or county elections?

One fellow was surprised that results from states on the east coast are reported before the west coast polls have closed. "This is a very strange country", he said. I think I once read that Russia has a similar problem, although of course much of their population is in the west. I imagine Australia also experiences this.

We also argued about things like when the last time one Presidential candidate won the popular vote and the other won the electoral college (back in the 1800s), and how close the Kennedy/Nixon election was. I also put forth my theory that I'd vote for single-term term limits but not for any others (most people seem to disagree with me, feeling that the value of experience outweighs the dangers of incumbency).

I also briefly mentioned the idea of getting rid of representative districts and simply having a whole state vote for candidates at once. For instance, if a state has 10 representatives, then the top 10 vote-getters in that state's representative election go to Congress. No one seemed to have much of an opinion on this, except that gerrymandering of districts like we have now is silly. The obvious drawback I see is that it's tough to expect the American voter to keep track of 20-odd candidates for 10 seats. I really must read the Lani Guinier book I have, The Tyranny of the Majority, sometime, as I think she talks about stuff like this.

By the way, perhaps my favorite liberal political tome is David Kairys' critique of the conservative Supreme Court, With Liberty and Justice for Some. A fantastic book, with a lot of common-sensical arguments which are easily followed. It's really hideously scary that Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are Supreme Court justices.

I got a new computer at work, a G4 Power Macintosh, and have basically got it set up. This took a bite out of my work-day, of course, getting all the necessary software installed.

And on top of that, I seem to be coming down with a cold. Tom was out sick today, and maybe we've both caught something going around. I hope I feel better tomorrow because I have an important meeting to attend and a candidate to interview. Actually, if I feel really crummy I'll stay home without feeling guilty. But the worst would be feeling well enough to go in, but then getting exhausted by mid-afternoon.

Bleah. I'm starting to feel decidedly yucky. Time for bed, I think.

Of course, the front page of the paper tomorrow might make me decide to stay in bed...