tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post6985372628483136219..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Oy, BaiJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-19183047827294711622010-12-15T11:02:18.139-06:002010-12-15T11:02:18.139-06:00The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the...The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).<br /><br />Every vote, everywhere would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.<br /><br />The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).<br /><br />The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR (6), CT (7), DE (3), DC (3), ME (4), MI (17), NV (5), NM (5), NY (31), NC (15), and OR (7), and both houses in CA (55), CO (9), HI (4), IL (21), NJ (15), MD (10), MA(12), RI (4), VT (3), and WA (11). The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, and WA. These 7 states possess 76 electoral votes -- 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.<br /><br />http://www.NationalPopularVote.comtotohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247335901450384827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-34646104268454718332010-12-15T09:23:05.224-06:002010-12-15T09:23:05.224-06:00Rick and all,
I took a crack at this a while ago:...Rick and all,<br /><br />I took a crack at this a while ago:<br /><br />http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/08/oy-bai.html<br /><br />Go down to the last two paragraphs, and you'll have an answer.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-63620622080538178642010-12-14T19:39:35.197-06:002010-12-14T19:39:35.197-06:00The solution, Prof J, is for some colorful politic...The solution, Prof J, is for some colorful political scientist to become one of the beltway go-to quote sources. Come up with a quotable opinion on a moment's notice and you're in.* From there you start writing Op-Eds for the Washington Post and New York Times, then you get a blog on the WaPo or a column in the Times. Make interesting appearances on Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough. Have a solution to Ev. Ry. Thing. Then you start attending the cocktail parties and frequenting the watering holes, all the time providing good quote fodder. Voila! No longer ignored. No longer an Egghead.<br /><br />*The Congress reporter from AFP, Olivier Knox, is wont to quote poli sci profs at Middlebury College. <br />To wit:<br /><i>"It's a local calculation made in a national context," said Matt Dickinson, a political science professor at elite Middlebury College in Vermont. "It fits the times."<br /><br />"The Democrats running now are banking on hopes the voters do not have incredibly short memories, but can look back over four years and saying 'hey we inherited this mess'" from George W. Bush, Dickinson told AFP.</i><br />Source: <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j1Ip5SlfxRqAEUqlhiWzNUX32ScQ" rel="nofollow">AFP: US lawmakers face home-front skeptics</a><br /><br /><i>"The fate of health care reform will depend a lot more on what Barack Obama does and the Senate does than on Ted Kennedy's legacy. Ultimately, it will rise or fall on its own merits," said Eric Davis, a political scientist with Middlebury College in Vermont.</i><br />Source: <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jqKMsCqY1zMB0fuFXcLDpFqklYLg" rel="nofollow">AFP: Democrats: Honor Kennedy with health care overhaul</a><br /><br />Why not you?Jamesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-60213118630158484552010-12-14T17:41:36.139-06:002010-12-14T17:41:36.139-06:00Does Matt Bai make political scientists into Cassa...Does Matt Bai make political scientists into Cassandras?<br />We say what's going to happen, and the Matt Bais of the world have convinced each other that we're wrong, so we get ignored as ivory tower eggheads.Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-12624042536965557572010-12-14T15:44:47.233-06:002010-12-14T15:44:47.233-06:00Who is the audience for this kind of drivel? Absol...Who is the audience for this kind of drivel? Absolutely, it is the beltway elites. They LOVE Matt Bai. They defend Matt Bai. They quote Matt Bai. <br /><br />Sophisticated? They chat among themselves every night over drinks at their local after-work watering hole, and from thence the beltway narrative is evolved. Matt Bai then writes it up with the conceit that everyone thinks and believes exactly what he wrote up. And the beltway loves it, because that "everyone" who Matt Bai pretends -- or actually believes -- is the majority of the American people, is actually the majority of his friends and colleagues in the beltway. <br /><br />They love it so much they quote it, they link to it, they work it into their own narrative, and thus, the whole beltway press is writing up what Matt Bai believes, and believe what Matt Bai believes, believing that it is the wisdom of the American People. That's how that works. It's the ultimate self-sustaining information bubble.Jamesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-54521986559243059412010-12-14T15:07:11.846-06:002010-12-14T15:07:11.846-06:00The great unanswered question is, why does drivel ...The great unanswered question is, why does drivel like Bai's keep getting propagated? As with Broderesque bipartisanism, who is the audience for this stuff?<br /><br />The conventional answer is 'Beltway elites / Villagers,' but presumably those people tend to be both politically sophisticated and partisans one way or the other, not an obvious audience for Bloomberg 3rd party fantasies.<br /><br />For that matter, who IS the audience for this stuff? I'm sure there are a great many people who dislike politics and have a vaguely positive impression of Michael Bloomberg; if made to take a poll they would likely say they they favor him running. But they also probably avoid political journalism like the plague, and never heard of Matt Bai.<br /><br />I can see it as a kind of ritual, an invocation of an imagined bipartisan past intended only to prove that Bai is a worthy, serious person - but even as ritual, who is it aimed at?Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-12033979969735066172010-12-14T11:21:19.082-06:002010-12-14T11:21:19.082-06:00Well as we saw in 2000, it could also lead to Obam...Well as we saw in 2000, it could also lead to Obama winning an electoral college majority despite losing the popular vote (or vice versa).Ron E.noreply@blogger.com