elections Archives - Page 3 of 10

Suggestions: work for/be a candidate

At least two of them are from Colorado

dems
This is what happens when I ask for suggestions for retirement.

Tom the Mayor said: Howz about picking a good person, and making them the next POTUS! Volunteer, My friend! Make a difference!

My problem is that I’m not ready to pick a candidate yet. See all those people pictured? Who ARE they?

Which is what people obviously said about Steve Bullock, governor of Montana; Wayne Messam, mayor of Miramar, Florida; and Sean Moulton, congressman from Massachusetts’ 6th district. None of them got enough support to get on the debate stage this week. Neither is 89-year-old Mike Gravel, former U.S. Senator from Alaska, but he’s running a different type of campaign.

Beyond them, I know little enough about John Delaney, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swalwell, Tim Ryan, Michael Bennet, and John Hickenlooper to say, je ne sais pas. I do know the latter two are both from Colorado and that I love saying Hickenlooper.

Maybe after the debates (and maybe not yet). Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Julian Castro, Tim Ryan, Bill de Blasio, and Jay Inslee will debate Wednesday, June 26. The second group, who will debate Thursday, June 27, will feature Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swalwell, Andrew Yang, and John Hickenlooper.

Kevin, from my hometown, with whom I went to college, suggested: run for a local office. Show the world what a good politician looks like. Probably not happening. I was going to suggest that I have too many skeletons in the closet, but then I looked at the guy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I now realize I have NBO idea what that threshold is anymore.

Alison, my ex-SIL, recommended: Try to see all the annual meteor showers. Now THAT’s a swell idea! Here’s a calendar. “The meteor showers listed are the easiest to observe and provide the most activity. Particular attention should be noted to the time and moonlight conditions. All these showers are best seen after midnight. Some are not even visible until after midnight.”

For reasons too complicated to explain, listen to Midnight At The Oasis – Maria Muldaur.

I’m still taking your suggestions, which, as noted, I can totally ignore.

New York State primary June 25

7 candidates for 2 Family Court Judge slots

Election 2019 Back in January, the Governor signed a bill that moves all New York State primary elections, federal, state, and local races, to June.

In many ways, this is a very good thing, one I’ve supported. In previous years, the federal races – Congress, US Senator – were in June, with the others in September. The autumnal primaries were too late, giving the incumbent an unfair advantage.

To the surprise of many, the change went into effect right away. This has meant that the petitioning to get on the ballot took place in April rather than July.

One of the candidates for Family Court Judge, a countywide race, showed up at my door recently. I was thinking she wanted my signature on her petition. No, she wanted me to support her in the actual race. Given her door-to-door effort and her record, I think I will vote for her.

Yikes, there are SEVEN candidates for Family Court Judge for two slots. Of the other six, one I won’t vote for is the lawyer who screwed up the amount I needed for closing on the house we live in, leaving me $1800 short. He may be qualified for the court position, but it’s my one chance for vengeance.

Additionally, there are two candidates for one county court judge, and three candidates for one city court judge on June 25.

Finally, there’s a contentious race between two candidates for Albany County Comptroller. I know one of them personally. A supporter from the other camp Instant Messaged me to tout the qualifications and non-racist bona fides of his candidate.

The candidate I spoke with indicates that, in all of these Democratic primaries, the winner of those races will almost certainly be elected in November, because that’s the way it is in Albany County. That’s why I’m enrolled in a party.

I remain irritable that we in upstate New York can only vote from noon until 9 p.m., quite possibly the shortest primary slot in the country. Yet people in New York City, Long Island, some NYC suburbs, and Erie County (Buffalo) can vote from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

2020 election: I don’t care (yet)

Yeah, dissect the candidates on the issues, but not on personality quirks, which the incumbent will surely exploit. I’m not willing to say that someone ought not to run.

Election 2020 Is it just me, or are the discussion about the Democratic candidates in the 2020 election feel 1) counterproductive and 2) WAY too early? Hey, if you’re excited by a candidate, then fine. Go work for her or him.

But too much of the rhetoric I’m seeing seems to tear down people before the race has even started. By this standard, NO ONE is qualified to be the nominee. One can write off everyone who’s running, or thinking about it, as too old, too shrill, too corporate, too Harold Stassen, throws things, is wrong on one issue or the other. Trump wins in 2020 against a fractured Democratic party.

Yeah, dissect the candidates on the issues, but not on personality quirks, which the incumbent will surely exploit. I’m not willing to say that someone ought not to run. The announced candidates, shockingly, are imperfect, but are infinitely better than the current occupant of the White House. I’m unconcerned about Starbucks’ Howard Schultz launching a third-party candidacy; early signs suggest he won’t last.

As Mark Evanier noted last month: “The Democratic National Convention to select their next presidential nominee will take place July 13-16, 2020. Someone might have a lock on it before then but maybe not too far before then. In any case, 7/13/20 is 1 year, 5 months… from now. I do not have to start thinking about whether I want it to be Bernie or Beto or Elizabeth or Kamala or any of the 7,244 others who will toss their chapeaus into the ring or be seriously mentioned.”

I’m an old poli sci major, but right this moment, I can’t be too concerned. “I can wait to see who else becomes a possibility and what all the contenders have to say, even about issues that do not yet exist. I can wait until the debates and — most of all — the inability to raise money whittles the field down to a dozen or so.” Yeah, maybe there will be 23 or 37 people in the first half of 2017, but that won’t be the case six months from now.

When I say “I don’t care yet” about the 2020 election, that’s not 100% accurate. I follow the announcements and the reaction to the same from the left and right. It’s that I’m not all that interested in talking about it yet. Give me until September 2019 when the landscape becomes clearer.

SATIRE: Dukakis Announces 2020 Bid: “Everyone Else Is”

On a related matter, a good friend floated the suggestion that perhaps Presidential and Vice-Presidential contenders need to run as a team right from the declaration of intent, rather than AFTER the selection of the Presidential candidate. I oppose this, in part because if one goes down in a scandal, real or imagined, it taints them both. Imagine if John Edwards had agreed to partner with Barack Obama in 2008. Edwards’ behavior would have sunk them both.

Former Vice-President Al Gore turns 70

We’re seeing corporate, political, and societal mobilization against the climate crisis on a scale that would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago.

There’s a lot about Al Gore, 45th Vice-President of the United States, under Bill Clinton, that seems misunderstood to me.

It is suggested that he ran such a lousy campaign when he ran for President in 2000 that he lost his home state of Tennessee. But it is understood in some circles that
egregious intimidation and disenfranchisement of certain voters wasn’t limited to Florida.

The former college roommate of Tommy Lee Jones didn’t say he invented the Internet. The then-senator did create and introduce the High Performance Computing Act of 1991, which “led to the development of the National Information Infrastructure and the funding of the National Research and Education Network (NREN).

“The act built on prior US efforts of developing a national networking infrastructure, starting with the ARPANET in the 1960s, and the funding of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFnet) in the 1980s. The renewed effort became known in popular language as building the Information superhighway.”

“A spirited defense of Gore’s statement penned by Internet pioneers Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf (the latter often referred to as the ‘father of the Internet’) in 2000 noted that ‘Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development’ and that ‘No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution [to the Internet] over a longer period of time.'”

There was the kiss of his wife Tipper at the 2000 Democratic national convention. From all reports he wasn’t the wooden figure he had been portrayed.

“Claire Shipman of NBC speculated… the kiss sent a message. It signaled that Al Gore (unlike some presidents we know) is a faithful husband. Excellent point; imagine what would have happened if the Clintons had dared such a scene. Though some viewers were charmed by the Gore kiss and others squirmed, no one doubted that it was based on reality. There you have what really makes it seem odd. The kiss struck everyone as a political gesture based on truth, and nothing is rarer than that.”

Then there’s his wonky slide show presentation An Inconvenient Truth, which won the Academy Award in 2007 as Best Documentary, Feature.

Did any of this actually ‘save the world?’ “OK, you got us. Ten years after the movie’s release, climate change is still a growing threat and a polarizing issue, with record-breaking heat unable to stop skeptics from tossing snowballs on the Senate floor.

“But we’re also seeing corporate, political, and societal mobilization against the crisis on a scale that would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago, and there’s no question the film played a big part in getting us there.”

As Albert Arnold Gore Jr. said recently, “In 2017, Mother Nature certainly got our attention with a series of devastating extreme weather events. Our thoughts continue to be with the people of the US Gulf Coast, Puerto Rico, and California as they recover from the floods, powerful hurricanes, and wildfires made ever-more severe by our warming world.”

Black History Month: Skin Deep

Seven ideas to help Boston become a more welcoming place to all

Bring Black History Month to the classroom by teaching your students about the work and lives of influential African-Americans

Presbyterian Church USA resources to understand and combat racism

The arc of history bends towards justice quote originally came from Theodore Parker

Celebrating the Afro-Puerto Rican ‘Father of Black History’ Arturo Schomburg

Jimmy Durham, Victoria soldier

In 1887, African-American cane workers in Louisiana attempted to organize—and many paid with their lives

Fredi Washington negotiated bigotry and made her way in the movies; the black celebrity from Hollywood’s Golden Age who revealed the complexities of passing for white

When cops raided a hip 1970s London cafe, Britain’s Black Power movement rose up

AND EVEN TODAY

From online troll to white supremacist leader: exposing the lie behind one man’s rise

Cheap White Whine: Racism, Affirmative Action, and the Myth of White Victimhood

Racism, fundamentalism, fear and propaganda: An insider explains why rural, white Christian America will never change

Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV Statement on Leaving His Church after Speaking Out against White Supremacy at MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS

Defiance In The Cold Sunshine: The Martin Luther King March overshadowed by racist profanity

Banned – Reports of Voter Suppression Tactics Pour In From Alabama Election

I used to lead tours at a plantation; you won’t believe the questions I got about slavery

Owning My Racism: a sermon given at First Parish Church in Billerica, MA on January 14, 2018

Boston. Racism. Image. Reality. A better Boston? The choice is ours; the final installment of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team’s series on race showcases seven ideas to help the city become a more welcoming place to all

MUSIC

Skin Deep – Playing For Change and Buddy Guy; the song includes over 50 musicians from coast to coast featuring Tom Morello, Billy Branch, Chicago Children’s Choir, and Roots Gospel Voices of Mississippi

Shakedown – Valerie June

Jumpin Jive – Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers; from the movie “Stormy Weather” (1943)

Black Pearl – Sonny Charles and Checkmates, Ltd.

Quincy Jones Has a Story About That