.:Colter:.

This season’s electoral landslide highlights once again that the Electoral College is a device of questionable political accuracy. How are we supposed to interpret these particular tea leaves, these apparently random numerological phenomena? Does it make a cohesive statement? Can we say with confidence that these United States have definitively spoken, and with a greater than 2 to 1 electoral margin at that? As much as I’d love to say it’s true, I fear it’s not.

The defenders of the EC say it’s a marvelous device for preventing tyrannical majorities, but in the absence of any such tyranny either way, what purpose is served? One thing this country seldom produces is a strong majority. The defenders also say that it gives greater representation to individual states, allowing the little guys to get a piece of the action, but I say that’s irrelevant today. I think that the mass media and culture of the United States produced by the 20th century has tied the country together as a cohesive entity. I can ask myself if I am an Arkansan or a New Yorker, but it’s irrelevant because I’m an American first. Even McCain’s campaign slogan was “Country First.” Not “States First.” The US always comes first in the minds of nearly every American. We wear our state citizenship as a sort of alma mater, secondary to our federalist identity. We even label ourselves with the misnomer, “American,” because it’s too weird and untrue to say “United Stater.”

Contrary to the randomly drawn borders of the US map, the needs and minds of Americans generally fall into two socio-economic camps: urban and rural. The red state/blue state map is a crock. Name me one major US city that voted McCain[1]. Even Tuscaloosa, Alabama voted Obama 62% TO 38%! I’ll repeat that, TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA VOTED OBAMA. It has a peculiar rhythm to it that I think nicely underscores the unmitigated glee behind the words.

Looking back over past blog entries, I’m reminded that Heath had some great links on the Electoral College, and my rant from four years ago is still pretty applicable. I stand by it: city mice and country mice are we. I say it as a born country mouse.

1.) It’s so hard to find them because everything is county oriented. I wish somebody would compile a list of major US cities by vote, no suburbs or rural outlying areas added.

Wired has a tantalizing piece on the things we may learn once the Bush Administration is finally put out to pasture.

“I’d bet there are a lot of career employees in the intelligence agencies who’ll be glad to see Obama take the oath so they can finally speak out against all this illegal spying and get back to their real mission,” says Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU’s Washington D.C. legislative director.

New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh already has a slew of sources waiting to spill the Bush administration’s darkest secrets, he said in an interview last month. “You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on January 20. [They say,] ‘You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then.’”

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan still wants to see the medical records on Trig Palin. Who knows what else we’ll discover in the coming days. Hopefully it will soon become inescapably apparent to the average American the exact size, weight and velocity of the bullet we’ve collectively dodged.

Palin was also quoted in the Times as saying:

“I don’t have any idea of what the next chapter of life is going to open up into, and I look forward to just the surprises that life offers.”

Same here.

It’s a Christmas miracle. After the last election, I had begun to expect disappointment from Americans. I had steeled myself for the pain. And now. Now it’s truly morning in America again.

So we’re bailing out Wall Street with 700 billion dollars. To quote Seth Meyers on SNL, “to give you an idea of how much money that is, I CAN’T give you an idea how much money that is.”

But I can tell you this. 700 billion divided by the US population of 300 million = $2,333.

So the next time you hear anyone complain about welfare spending for the poor, remember that’s only $50 of your annual taxes. So one silver lining to this debacle is that we’ll never have to hear the argument against welfare from conservative Republicans because we’ve just handed the fattest of possible cats FORTY SIX TIMES more money than we’ve ever given the poor.

Much was made of small towns at the Republican National Convention, so I’d like to offer you my thoughts as someone with expertise in both rural and urban areas of life. These are of course broad generalizations; your mileage may vary.

Small town folk are friendlier and more laid back. The almighty dollar is seldom the bottom line in small towns[1]. People wave to strangers. Doors are left unlocked and keys are left in cars. Small town folk are generally just simpler people. That strength is also their weakness, and so they are easily misled. They vote for the person who most resembles them, and not who is smarter or more qualified. They tend to be suspicious of anyone more educated than they are. They don’t take the time to learn more about the world because their environment does not require it.

Big city folk often don’t know their own neighbors. They seldom make eye contact. They are more private, but they are often more intelligent and observant. Without much complaint they tolerate entire ethnic neighborhoods of different cultures because they understand what it means to get along; peace requires quiet sacrifice. City folk endure a psychological battleground of high-stress jobs, gridlock traffic and public transit. They enjoy a wider understanding of history, socio-economics and politics because their environment presents it to them every day. The luxury of safe homogeneity is something they traded in for the excitement of living on the frontier of modernity.

I know New Yorkers and Bostonians who have moved to Arkansas for its slower pace and friendlier society. And I know Arkansans who have moved to New York for its faster pace and competitive job market. I often wonder if everyone in this country would be better served by moving out of their preferred environment for some length of time in order to better understand both sides. Maybe that’s what I’m doing here.

P.S. As a side note to all of America: voting for the candidate to whom you can most easily relate is what got us where we are these last 8 years.

1.) I say this because while Wal-Mart’s bottom line is saving you money, Hudson’s Supermarket’s bottom line is making you happy. You don’t find sackers who carry groceries to your car in cities anymore and this is a societal tragedy.

I’m not sure which disconcerts me more: stadium politics or stunt veep-ing.

Moving the Democratic Convention to a stadium[1] seems to be the culmination of politics as entertainment form. It’s already the case that reporters largely view politicians as celebrities, and if you don’t believe it, read this, so this kind of clinches it. Super Bowl production values at a political convention? I mean, I guess that politics is something everyone should get excited about, but this wasn’t what I had in mind.

Selecting a young female governor as a running mate to grab a potential gender vote seems, at least for a Republican, marvelously shrewd. The Machiavelli in me is thoroughly impressed, which means that the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in me just passed out at the end of his filibuster.

1.) I’m still trying to find out if this was intended to be a surprise or not. It seems like it was presented as a surprise.

America’s birthday might be good time to take stock of the last few years, so here’s a little excerpt from Hunter S. Thompson’s ESPN column from September 12, 2001.

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives … It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerrilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won’t hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

Twice this week I’ve come across this quotation from Eric Hoffer[1]:

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

The more I think about this statement, the more I realize how much it applies to religion, politics, pop music…even websites and magazines. As soon as a great idea spreads, it gains followers, and as soon as something has followers, it tends to lose focus, gain weight, and die. If power corrupts, then apparently popularity kills.

Upon reading more on Hoffer, I came across this little gem:

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

This is a perfect distilling of what I have always suspected to be the case among people who are excessively prideful in their nationalism, religious fervor, or racial superiority. When you have nothing to call your own, when you have nothing about yourself to take pride in, you have no choice but to attach your identity to the various labels and teams assigned to you by fate.

1.) His Wikipedia entry screams conflict, as it appears that conservatives and liberals are fighting to prove their positions with his words.

I once had some friends[1] who were your typical Rush Limbaugh-loving conservatives who loved to complain about welfare programs. CNBC offers a nice slide show on your tax dollars at work. It basically breaks down like this:

42% - Military
22% - Healthcare
10% - National Debt
8% - Anti-Poverty programs
4% - Education and social services
4% - Law enforcement
3% - HUD
3% - DOE, Environment, Science
1.5% - Agriculture

So let’s say welfare programs as we know them are split between social services and anti-poverty programs. Let’s be generous and say welfare programs take up 5% of your tax dollar. So if you gave the US $1,000 in taxes, that means you spent $50 on welfare programs. I realize $50 is a lot of money for something you hate, but when the money is pooled, can’t you just pretend you didn’t spend that $50 on welfare and that I gave $100 for it? Does it really matter that much to you?

1.) They are no longer my friends because when I repeatedly requested that they not send me pro-Bush, pro-Iraq War emails, they did not stop doing so. I told them I would block their email addresses if they continued, and they did, so I blocked them and have not spoken to them since 2004 or so. I wonder what they think of Bush, Saddam, WMDs, etc., now.

The media seem legitimately surprised that Giuliani and Romney performed so poorly in the primaries that they dropped out. Am I the only person who knew neither of them had a chance? This country had a hard enough time electing a Catholic in the 60’s; it will be a long time to never before we elect a Mormon. And a New York City mayor? That might impress the East Coast, but that’s not going to impress the rest of America, especially given his checkered personal life as well as his consorting with thugs like Bernard Kerik (which you have to admit, is almost a pre-requisite for running New York City).

Everybody thought McCain was down for the count, now it’s him and…Huckabee? OK, Huck I seriously didn’t see coming, but it makes sense for the evangelical voters left in Romney’s vaccum. And Huckabee, interestingly enough, seems to have almost as much oratorial charisma as Obama.

If there’s one underlying lesson here, it’s that America loves a flyover land candidate. Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, and McCain are not east coasters. Clinton gets to have the best of both worlds in that she’s technically a Southerner and a New Yorker. Both George Bushes managed to have it both ways as well by fooling people into thinking they’re a Texas family, when in fact they were born, raised and schooled in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

So the formula for a presidential candidate is: flyover land + charisma = candidacy. It also helps to have a compelling narrative (McCain the war hero, Bill Clinton the poor boy done good), but that’s not a necessity. Lord knows it didn’t work for John Kerry. By the way, I think Hillary Clinton gets some narrative charisma by proxy from Bill.

The formula is so tried and true that it’s working for a woman and a black man. So far, it looks like Obama’s superior charisma may win him the Democratic nomination.

If nothing else, I’m excited that not one of the candidates appears to be a drooling moron who can’t so much as conjugate a verb without a script.

This Just In: Romney endorses McCain, because Romney sure ain’t gonna do Huckabee any favors.