I am now calling out John Kerry.  You are a cheater.  I have been working for the Dean campaign for over a year.  I was depressed by what happened in Iowa and NH, but I thought that all the accounts of push-polling and fake early morning Dean calls couldn't be true.  I've changed my mind.

We have about forty people at Dean HQ in Seattle this evening.  Five of us have been robo-called by John Kerry tonight.  I was robo-called on my cell phone.  My cell phone number is not in the phone book.  It's not in the voter file.  No one has it.  The only place you could get my cell phone number is through our supporter list.  Someone from the Kerry campaign is digging through our lists of supporters and pulling out their phone numbers.

Fuck you John Kerry.  I will no longer vote for you...  not even in November.  I'm sorry you can't get your own damn supporters without pillaging our lists.  I have worked my ass off walking all over Seattle for over a year, doorbelling and cold-calling people, to put together that list of names.  I have a job, a wife, and other interests that I have sacrificed to my commitment to Howard Dean's campaign.  You have voided all of my hard work with theivery and the boring sound of your recorded voice.  Again:  Fuck you.  I actually find this to be an instructive allegory of your political career.

Your candidacy is based on the same sort of lies and misinformation that made GW Bush popular.  How do you like the sound of Howard Dean's stump speach coming out of your mouth?  How does it feel to say that you have battled special interests in Washington despite having taken more money from them than any other senator in the past 15 years?  You have reached "frontrunner" status by mortgaging your house and garnering opportunistic media coverage.  Good for you.  You really do know how to be a slime-ball.  All those unproductive years in Washington have clearly taught you something.  I hope it serves you well.  Before the war vote, you were my favorite Senator.  I looked forward to seeing you make your case for the presidency.  Now, I think you are lower than dirt.  Do I sound pissed off?  Good.  I am.

And don't call me again.  By the way, we are keeping track of this up here.  We are going to report this shit.  We'll see if anyone cares.  But, they will find out about this.

If I've learned anything about Iowa besides what a bad idea it is to hand the party's nomination process to 100,000 Mid-Westerners that have been saturated with advertising and campaigning for three months, it's that finishing better than expected is just as important as winning.  

With this in mind, by what criteria can the various candidates claim to have exceeded expectations in New Hampshire?  I will define this as a finish that generates positive momentum for the candidate in question.

Kerry:  He needs to win.  Does he need to win by a large margin?

Dean:  Dean needs to win or lose by a margin of less than 5 points.  Or, does he have to win to get real momentum?

Edwards:  A third place finish.  Does he need to finish within 10 points of Dean?

Clark:  Also needs a third place finish.  I think he just needs to beat Edwards.

Lieberman:  Needs to top 10%.

Kucinich:  Needs to find a date.

Sharpton:  Needs to find NH.

The results of the American Family Association's gay marriage poll are in, and all I can say is:

Good job, everyone!

wired article

In response to the disgusting treatment of Rachel Corrie's trafic death (see Kos front page story), I have decided to publish the correspondance I received from one of my dearest friends while she was in Palestine.  This friend (whom I call Beatrice) was in Palestine right before Rachel Corrie took her place.  They knew each other.  They were doing the same thing.  When Rachel Corrie was murdered, it probably meant more to me than to most people.  I had spent the better part of two months wondering if something like that would happen to my friend.  The family and friends Rachel left behind have had to confront a grief that I feel lucky to have escaped.

I agonized over whether or not to publish these letters.  I worry that I am endangering innocent people.  I also worry that I am breaking a confidence.  In the end, I was encouraged to post them here, because it seems that one source of hope for the people these letters describe is that their stories will be told and heard by people who are able to do something about their situation.

I would call readers' attention to the way "Beatrice's" impression of her surroundings changed in the two months she was in the occupied territories.  I do not mean to condone terrorism, or introduce further bias into what is already a complicated situation.  For her part, I know "Beatrice" feels that she is merely balancing an unbalanced equation of reporting what is truly going on in the occupied Palestine.  I think the value of these emails lies in the stories of the people who are affected by this conflict, and in understanding how much privelage and security we must leave behind before we are capable of real empathy for their miserable situation.

Note that I have changed most of the names.  Rather than substitute stereotypical Islamic names for the many Palestinians described below, I have simply given them one- or two-letter abbreviations (although the letter does not necessarily appear in their real names).

The lack of polling data available for Washington State has been frustrating.  We should be an important state this year, because we are the first Western state with a diverse demographic base.  It's looking like the race may be effectively over after Iowa and New Hampshire, but if it's not, we will certainly either severly strengthen or weaken the anti-Dean.  I can't understand why states like Pennsylvania get polled, but we do not.  I conducted my own phone poll of party officers in my legislative district to get an idea of the candidates' support here.

Post your suggestions here for altering the format of the debates with the purpose of making them more entertaining and more informative.  I'll start with an idea I had while posting to an earlier diary:

1. Fine a candidate $5000 in campaign funds every time he/she fails to answer the question (as judged by a panel of political science professors) or goes over time.  The fines go into a large pot that is tracked by a giant jumbo-tron display over their heads.  At the end of the debate, the panel votes on the winner, and that person takes home the loot.
2. Line up a dozen journalists to be the moderator.  Every time one asks a question, the candidates all secretly press a button on their podiums that indicates whether they think it's a good question or not.  A moderator can keep asking questions until a majority of the candidates vote "bad" on a question, then he goes to the back of the line, and the next moderator steps in.
3. When candidates hit the time limit, the academy awards music is pumped in.

The Dean campaign has largely been characterized as a struggle between the Democratic party elites and a loud and disaffected "leftist" branch of the party.  This characterization is assumed in every discussion about Howard Dean's candidacy.  Dean supporters defend their candidate as a moderate who is an honest straight-talker.  Opponents deride him as an opportunist who is too liberal for mainstream America.  The assumption underlying this debate is that Dean's success as a presidential candidate will be determined by how well he can move towards the ideological middle of the political spectrum.  Those on both sides of this argument miss the real difference between the Dean campaign and those of his opponents.

At issue is our party's fundamental presidential election strategy.  Howard Dean is not specifically trying to persuade moderate Republicans to vote for a Democrat.  He is trying to expand the size of the left.  By using some actual numbers from the last election, we can get some idea of the task before us.

Here is a joke that is circulating via email.  I received it from life-long friend of my family.  I feel like I need to share it here, and my response to it.  I don't want to share it because I think it is very interesting, or because I think my response to it is very clever.  Rather, I am embarrassed that I couldn't construct a better response to someone who I love very much.  Many of my closest friends are Republicans.  I am hurt by the tone and content of the rhetoric they distribute.  Yet, for all my education and passion, I think I can't do any better than to sound like an idealogue.  How should liberals respond to these vicious attacks?  I remember Noam Chomsky saying once that the victim of mud-slinging is in a no win situation.  All he can do is deny the allegation, but that only reinforces the connection between himself and the charge.  Is there no other way?  How do we defend ourself from bad arguments and mean-spirited attacks?  Please give your ideas...

The joke from my friend,

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican -- which she expressed quite openly.  One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and more welfare programs. In the middle of her heart felt diatribe based upon the lectures from her professors at school, he stopped her and asked her point blank, "How are you doing in school?" She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she had to study all the time, never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying.  That she was taking a more difficult curriculum. Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Mary doing?"  She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "All she has is barely a 2.0 GPA," adding, "and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies." To explain further she continued emotionally, "But Mary is so very popular on campus. College for her is a blast...  She goes to parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over." The father then asked, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a two point." He continued, "That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of the GPA." The daughter, visibly shocked by the father's
suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without and Mary has done little or nothing; she played while I worked really hard!" The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

My reply,

Hey -,

Sorry I haven't written for a while...  Meggan and I are trying to find time to make a trip to Southern California to visit all of our friends down there.  I don't know whether the humor of the story you sent is supposed to derive from stupidity of the father, but in any case I have stories for you, too!

A recently married woman who is the interim director of a dispute resolution center in Seattle went to a city council meeting to request funds so that her office could continue to help save the court system from time-consuming litigations and to help disputants find their own solutions to their problems.  While there, she was reduced to tears while watching everyone from suffering AIDS patients to volunteers at centers working to keep children off of drugs beg and plead for the funds necessary to keep themselves, or their work, alive.  They were denied, of course, because there are enough Republicans in Washington state that every proposed state tax increase has been voted down for years, and existing levies have been repealed.  The missing funds are fatal for even the most successful programs, like Head Start, because the Republican party controls national politics and has diverted federal support to tax breaks for the wealthy.  Welcome to the Republican party.  Ha!  Funny, isn't it!!

Here's another story:

One of my mother's closest friends, -, contracted cancer while he was temporarily without health insurance.  He had worked hard his whole life to accumulate enough wealth so that he, his wife, and their daughter would be comfortable when he retired.  Unfortunately, in the United States the Republican party has stonewalled every attempt at health care reform, so that unlike Costa Ricans and Canadians, Americans don't have any federal health coverage.  - spent every last bit of his savings trying to stay alive.  From his own pocket, he had to pay the inflated fees for health care that are driven through the roof by insurance companies, kept in business by our dependence on them.  Near the end of his life, when it was apparent he would lose his battle against cancer, - declared that it would have been better if he had just given up and died immediately so that his daughter could have gone to the university of her choice and his wife would have been able to grieve for a short time in the house they had purchased together rather than feel lonely in an empty apartment and reenter the work force right away.  For -, fifty years of sweat and hard work was worth the feeling that he had failed the ones he loved most in this world.  Welcome to the Republican party!  Ha ha!!

Here's one, last cute story:

Republicans cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans so that they could invest their money in companies that increase their value by shipping American jobs overseas.  In this way, they increased their own personal worth and practiced trickle-down economics in China, India, and Indonesia.  Then, they started an expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq that they had been dreaming about for 15 years, and ensured that generations of people accross the globe will hate and fear our country.  The combination of the war and the tax cuts resulted in a federal budget deficit so huge and unmanageable that retiring baby boomers threatened the federal government with bankruptcy.  Social services and community services were killed off altogether, sending the United States back to the days before the New Deal, when the poorest Americans lived like Haitians and had no hope for self-improvement.  Grover Nordquist and Karl Rove called this "starving the beast".  They and other Republicans gave each other high-fives and hand shakes.  They had ensured that nobody would be unfairly taking their "hard earned" income.  Welcome to the Republican party!  Ha ha ha.  I'm in stitches.

I'm sorry if I didn't think your email was funny.  As a scientist dependent on federal funds to do important biomedical research, I can't laugh at a Republican party that learns its science from the Bible and its morality from summer blockbuster action movies.

The results of this bad and tragically unfunny mixture are:

1. Republican politicians using federal grant funding programs to tell scientists what they can and can't study.
2. Republicans ignoring the consensus of the scientific community on everything from global warming to the availability of cell lines for stem cell research.
3. Republicans allowing Christian doctrine like creationism to be inserted into public schools and court houses.
4. The recruitment of Christian missionaries to important positions of federal charity at the national and international level, even when they are overseeing the distribution of aid to groups with whom they have traditionally been uncooperative (Muslims, atheists, etc.).
5. The legislation of hatred and intolerance towards homosexuals and immigrants.
6. The maintenance of a punitive justice system based solely on punishment and incarceration that functions prejudicially towards minorities and the poor.

As a private citizen, I can't laugh at a Republican party that:

1. Tells doctors how they are supposed to practice medicine by outlawing abortion procedures even when they necessary to protect the mother's health, and by seeking to eliminate the use of marijuana as a medicine without subjecting it to the same tests or standards applied to other drugs.
2. Tells churches who they can and cannot marry, and tells individual states to whom they may or may not grant a civil union.
3. Establishes ideological litmus tests for states and foreign governments to receive federal support.

P.S.  I'm also sorry if your note was meant to point out the idiocy of Republicans who think that personal income is similar to academic grading.  You should know that my college did not use a letter grading system, so that students would not be distracted or discouraged by the idea of competition with their peers.  Reed college graduated the second highest number of future PhDs in the country while I was there, right between CalTech and MIT.  And, despite the college's disdain for ranking systems, was recently listed as one of the five most academically rigorous universities in the nation.  The usefulness of grades is for teachers to give students feedback that they can use to judge their own improvement in a discipline.  On the other hand, income represents exchangeable resources.  If it is in one person's Hummer automobile, it is not buying medicine for a sick child.  The reason why democracy works in America is that we believe in maintaining a balance between rewarding success and paying for the system that provides the freedom to move one's self out of abject poverty or difficult circumstances.  My wife and I tithe 10% of our income every month to our church in addition to the taxes we pay, and we donate even more money to various charitable causes.  We are not rich, yet we manage to be happy and comfortable.  It is certainly true that if we horded all of our wealth, or spent it for our own amusement, we could have more extravagant lives.  But, we feel good knowing that we are doing our part to give others the same opportunities that we have had.  We also know that as our personal resources grow, we are more and more indebted to a society that cares for its poor and trains valuable new innovators and workers.

Love,
Alex