What New York's Voting Machines Can Tell us about Democracy Assistance

Voters in New York City yesterday were confronted with a new voting system for the first time in about a century. While I had always liked casting my vote for Barack Obama and other recent candidates on the same type of machine, and perhaps even the same machine, that my grandparents used to cast their votes for Franklin Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia, not everybody shared this view. The new technology used on Tuesday generated some controversy as voters struggled to figure them out, glitches occurred and many were confused. Michael Bloomberg, the city’s mayor, referred to Election Day with the new machines as “a royal screw-up, and it’s completely unacceptable.”

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The Silence of the Republicans →

If anybody was so hopeful that they believed that the Republican Party leadership did not like the level of nastiness we have seen in recent months, they must now abandon that hope. It is hard to imagine that had a Democratic member of either house of Congress shouted "you lie" at President Bush during an address to congress in 2007-2008 we would have heard silence from Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid of the kind we have heard from the Republican leadership. Importantly, while it can be argued, although probably wrongly, that the anti-Obama fervor is no worse than the anti-Bush feelings of a few years ago, it cannot be argued that the two parties have engaged in this rhetoric in the same way.

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Barack Obama's Real Problem with the Jewish Vote →

Now that the Democratic Primary is finally and definitively over, we will probably begin to hear even more about Barack Obama's relationship, even his problem, with Jewish voters. Barack does have a problem with Jewish voters--there aren't enough of them. Lost in all the noise about Obama's supposed problems winning Jewish support, is that the latest polls show him winning this group by a margin of almost 2-1. If this constitutes a problem, Obama should wish for such problems with Christian and other voters as well.

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Threats of Recession and Other Recent Republican Rhetoric →

Why then are Republicans willing to talk about revolution, secession and other ideas that would destabilize our country and our democracy. One hopes that most of this can be simply chalked up to a party that is weak, defeated, directionless and out of ideas, but it may not be that simple. Perhaps the demonstrators and, more significantly their leaders, feel that for some existential, and undoubtedly irrational, reason the Obama presidency is a profound threat to their worldview, values and vision of the US. If that is the case we can only hope that these people remain on the margins. This is likely to occur as Obama's worldview, values and vision not only reflect those of a huge plurality of Americans, but will likely to continue to become more, not less, accepted over time.

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Anti-Terror Strategy after the War on Terror →

Rudy Giuliani seems to have joined Dick Cheney among the ranks of political has beens who still think President Obama will make us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he prefers a more thoughtful approach to the bluster and fear tactics upon which the previous administration relied. While Giuliani's comments, specifically his arguments that, based on Obama's address to the Iranian people, "terrorists will say, we can take advantage of the guy (Obama)," and attack the US, should not be taken too seriously, they offer an interesting insight not just into a man whose moment has come and gone, but into how political epochs come and go. The ridicule which greeted Cheney's comments and the comparative silence that greeted Giuliani's indicate that the War on Terror is over. President Obama's decision to abandon the term only underscores this.

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Should President Obama Be More Optimistic? →

For Obama the question of whether he should be more optimistic is somewhat different, and not just because the current economic situation is uniquely dire. To some extent this is a matter of style. Obama doesn't need to be more optimistic because he already is so essentially forward-looking and hopeful. In addition to being a young president with a young, happy family and confident, unflappable disposition, Obama's election, in the midst of this economic crisis, was itself a major triumph of optimism, for many the first such triumph during a particularly gloomy period in our history. Accordingly, Obama has an enormous reservoir of optimism on which he can draw. His presidency is based around the notion of hope. If he was more explicit about this feeling, constantly making upbeat predictions about the economy, or other overt statements of optimism, he would risk sounding foolish and lacking in seriousness and gravitas.

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Barack Obama and Ernie Shore →

Perhaps the best model for Barack Obama as he begins his presidency is an obscure pitcher named Ernie Shore who threw his last pitch in 1920 and is remembered by only the most intense baseball historians and sabrmetricians. More than 90 years ago, Ernie Shore was brought in to a game after the starting pitcher, whose first name coincidentally was George, had give up a walk to start the game. Shore proceeded to pick the runner off first base and retire the next 26 batters, essentially throwing a perfect game. This remains the greatest single relief pitching performance in baseball history and a task comparable to the one that now faces Obama. To continue the baseball imagery, if George H.W. Bush was, as Jim Hightower famously described him, a man who was born on first base and thinks he hit a triple, than Barack Obama is like a relief pitcher who was brought in to pitch with his team down by about ten runs and is somehow expected to lead his team to victory.

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