Los Angeles County Voters To Decide If Porn Actors Must Wear Condoms

LA County's measure B, if passed, would require actors in porn videos to wear condoms for vaginal and anal sex.  The measure is supported by doctors and health organizations and opposed by the porn industry, some libertarians,

I ran into this while discussing the elections with my mom when we were in LA last week.  Here's the measure description from Smarter Voter:

Measure B is a citizens' initiative measure that qualified for placement on the ballot based upon a sufficient number of registered voters signing a petition proposing this ballot measure. If approved by the voters, the measure would adopt an ordinance amending the Los Angeles County Code, adding Chapter 11.39, entitled "Adult Films," to Title 11, Health and Safety, and amending Section 22.56.1925 to Title 22, Zoning. To the extent provided by State law, the measure is intended to be applicable throughout the County.

The proposed amendment would require producers of adult films to obtain a public health permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (the "Department") in order to engage in the production of adult films for commercial purposes, and to pay a permit fee set by the Department to offset the cost of enforcement. The measure would require the use of condoms for all acts of anal or vaginal sex during the production of adult films, as well as the posting of both the public health permit and a notice to performers regarding condom use. Producers are required to provide a written exposure control plan describing how the ordinance will be implemented. A "producer" means any person or entity that produces, finances or directs adult films for commercial purposes.

Violation of the ordinance would be subject to both civil fines and criminal misdemeanor charges. The Department would be authorized to enforce the provisions of the ordinance, including suspending or revoking the public health permit due to violations of the ordinance, or any other law including applicable provisions of the Health and Safety Code, blood borne pathogen standard, California Code of Regulations, or the exposure plan of the producer.

Suspension or revocation of the public health permit requires notice and an opportunity for an administrative review, unless the Department found or reasonably suspected immediate danger to the public health and safety, in which case the Department could immediately suspend or revoke the public health permit, initiate a criminal complaint, or issue a fine, pending an administrative hearing.

The measure, if approved by the voters, may only be repealed by a subsequent vote of the electors or by an amendment of the Los Angeles County Charter superseding the ordinance. The Board of Supervisors is authorized to amend the ordinance by a majority vote in order to further the purposes of the measure.

This measure requires a majority vote of the qualified voters in the County of Los Angeles who cast votes in the election.

Costs of treating HIV

As I went through the arguments for and against in the voter pamphlet, the For people clearly had more specific and compelling arguments.  Their biggest listed concern is about the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the cost of treating those infected.  For example: 

". . . the lifetime cost of treating an HIV infection is more than $567,000. Since these performers are not provided health insurance by porn producers, this cost is most likely to be borne by taxpayers of Los Angeles County, as health care provider of last resort. The taxpayers are subsidizing the porn business."

The anti-argument was full of tea-party like rhetoric such as:

Safe sex practices are a good idea. However, they shouldn't be forced on adult film actors. Our individual rights have been fading fast since the Patriot Act.
Do-gooders such as New York Mayor Bloomberg seek to create a nanny state where our behavior is increasingly regulated for our own good. Bloomberg decreed that people must buy soft drinks in small cups, because they could become obese if they bought larger sizes. Measure B declares that adult film actors would have to wear condoms during filming. This isn't much different than regulating the size of soda a person can buy. Do you like the idea of busybodies forcing people to do what is healthful for them? If not, vote NO.

Industry Size in LA County

Neither side offered specific numbers such as number of companies involved or the number of actors involved.  Or even the economic impact of the porn industry on Los Angeles County.  Here's what the anti-folks write:

"Measure B would destroy the adult film industry in Los Angeles County, and it's quite a big industry here."

Not too precise there.  Is it over 1% of LA County's economy even?   A 2009 Economist article is also vague:

The adult-film industry is concentrated in the San Fernando Valley—“the Valley” to Angelenos—on the northern edge of Los Angeles, so the slump in porn is yet another factor depressing the local economy. Pornography had been immune to previous recessions, so the current downturn has come as a shock.

Felicia A. Reid at PolicyMic  gives more detail:

As famously depicted in the 1997 film Boogie Nights, the San Fernando Valley has been the epicenter of the global pornography industry since the 1970s, producing an estimated 90% of all American porn. Though the industry's primary business is escapism and pleasure, its products are also extensions of human biology and socialization. As such, it is at the seldom-acknowledged vanguard of social media and technological innovation.

Though figures vary, Americans spend about $4 billion annually on pornography, and the Valley generates some $9-$15 billion each year. To give the numbers perspective: the minimum is more than the 2011 revenues of the NFL, NBA and MLB individually — the maximum, just under their revenues combined.

Presumably the difference between what Americans spend and what the Valley generates comes from overseas.  In any case, the impact on LA County should be noticeable if the pornographers move out.  But City of Los Angeles (not the County) already passed a similar ordinance in January 2012.


Audiences Don't Want To See Condoms

The porn industry says their clientele don't want to see condoms:

Measure B would destroy the adult film industry in Los Angeles County, and it's quite a big industry here. Film producers tried using condoms during the HIV scare of the 1990s, and people refused to watch the movies.

Reid writes that condom use is mandatory in gay-porn.



Worker Protections

Reid also quotes Dr. Weinstein, arguing this is a workplace safety issue:

Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has long supported prevention measures. "Porn is the only industry in California where employees are forced to expose themselves to dangerous diseases in order to work." In a 2010 interview he noted, "In any other job, we require companies to protect their workers even if it costs more money for the employers. Why should the porn industry be any different?" 

SWAAY (Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You ) which seems to offer a view of the porn industry from the sex workers' perspective, reports opposition to mandating condom use:  

In June of 2011, a meeting was held with a Cal-OSHA advisory committee in Los Angeles, California. Upwards of seventy adult performers attended the meeting and unanimously voiced their opposition to barrier protection mandates. A new draft of the law was discussed in which some compromises may be made, such as non-barrier-protected oral sex. However, adult industry professionals still maintained the position that they do not want Cal-OSHA's involvement and prefer the right to choose whether or not to have barrier-protected sex on camera.

Porn Industry Already Having Economic Problems

And, it seems, the porn industry has already been seeing declines as the Economist article cited above suggests.  A January 2012 CNBC article on the LA Porn Convention begins:

"Online piracy continues to nip at the earnings of studios . . ."

Jordan Weissmann writes in the Atlantic Monthly that porn producers are having the same problems as newspapers:

". . . the big production companies have seen their profits shrink by as much as half since 2007, as audiences have fled to aggregators such as XTube and YouPorn that offer up a never-ending stream of free naked bodies."

So, the big questions not clearly answered yet seem to be:

1.  What will the impact of the law be on the spread of std's among porn actors and the community at large?  (Presumably they also have sex off camera.)
2.  What will the impact of the law be on the sales of porn?
3.  Will porn studies move out of LA County?  (Perhaps all those vacant houses in Las Vegas could house the new porn center.)
4.   Is the porn industry seeing the same decline that newspapers are seeing due to do-it-yourself porn posted for free online?

 

Arguing Over The Biggest Threat To Fair Elections

KCRW's To The Point brought together for people with different expertise on elections today.  I was struck by Steven Rosenfeld's rather churly tone and lack of concern about voting machines being manipulated.  Panelist Victoria Collier rebuked him for a recent alternet post claiming election machine activists were alarmists. (link below) He kept putting down the voting machine skeptics by saying it was old news and there were bigger threats.  To me, it seems voting machine fraud may have been on the radar a while, but that the problems haven't been addressed.  Because the proof of tampering is hard to get, and doesn't make good television, we're not getting compelling coverage. Is all this simply headline inflating to get more readers?

By the end of the show, though, I got the sense that he wasn't dismissing voting machine problems as much as saying there are bigger threats to the election - voter suppression, for example - than rigging the machines.

My sense is that it all depends on which jurisdictions are targeted for which type of election manipulation.  Are the voting machines a real threat in this election or just a potential threat?  Without transparency, we really don't know. 


For those who know nothing about the concerns about voting integrity, the show is a good place to start.  For those who know more, it raises questions and possibilities.  I thought Ion Sancho offered some reassurance, given the work he's done in his district, but that there are so many other places that aren't anywhere near there.  The key point he made - I think it was him - was that you have to have objective, non-partisan election officials.  A bad system with good people will work, but a good system with bad people won't.

Here's a link to the show.  It follows the piece on Sandy, seven minutes in. 

Could Voting Machines Steal the Election? (1:07PM)

In the year 2000, "hanging chads" on Florida's paper ballots put the presidential election in doubt. Two years later, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which provided federal subsidies for states to buy electronic voting machines that don't use paper at all. Dispute is raging over what it could mean for the integrity of next week's election. Both campaigns and many political pundits say Ohio could decide the election.  How secure are its voting machines?

Guests:

• Victoria Collier: writer and election integrity activist, @Votescam
• Steven Rosenfeld: AlterNet, @srose14
• Dan Tokaji: Ohio State University
• Ion Sancho: Leon County Elections Division

Links:

• Collier on how to rig an election (Harper's)
• Rosenfeld on voting machine activists are scaring people unnecessarily
• Rosenfeld's 'Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting'

What I got out of this is:

1. Voting machine tampering is still a serious issue
1. 1/3 of the machines do NOT use paper backups that can be verifiable
2. tampering with the machines is invisible and while there are ways to identify problems - ie discrepancy between exit poll results and actual results -  these things have to be followed up on.  
3. as I said in a recent post, most people are skeptical about voting machine "conspiracy theories" and reluctant to call for hand counts
2. There are better systems for keeping the machines accountable - listen to Ion Sancho on the audio - but you also need better people
3. Other issues - voter suppression - may be a bigger threat in the election next week
4. All of these are important issues and arguing over which is the most important is probably counterproductive
1. 
   

Is The Election Going To Be Electronically Stolen?

"Why is Mitt Romney so confident?
In states where the winner will be decided by less than 10%, of the vote he already knows he will win. This is no tinfoil hat conspiracy. It’s a maths problem. And mathematics showed changes in actual raw voting data that had no statistical correlation other than programmable computer fraud. This computer fraud resulted in votes being flipped from Democrat to Republican in every federal, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial election since 2008 (thus far) and in the 2012 primary contests from other Republicans to Mitt Romney."

 This comes from a UK Progressive magazine article alleging massive voter machine manipulation across the US in the 2012 Republican primaries and the 2008 and 2010 elections. It goes on:

This goes well beyond Romney’s investment control in voting machine maker Hart Intercivic and Diebold’s close ties to George W. Bush. Indeed all five voting machine companies have very strong GOP fundraising ties, yet executives (including the candidate’s son Tagg Romney) insist there is no conflict between massively supporting one party financially whilst controlling the machines that record and count the votes.

The whole article is here. 

So far, the only coverage I can find on this story is on blogs and political websites, but my experience with the Anchorage Municipal election in Anchorage last April have made me much more aware of the potential for election fraud.  In that election about half the polling places ran out of ballots;  a Fundamentalist Christian political operative sent out emails telling their members they could register to vote the day of the election [which he knew to be false] which resulted in significantly higher numbers of unregistered voters showing up and disrupting the election, and a election officials were told if voting machine seals were broken to not worry about it.  I learned a lot about voting machines and how susceptible they are to tampering.  People were upset when there were no ballots, but most people were resistant to the idea of election manipulation.  I also began to read the Brad Blog, which covers election fraud.  There's nasty folks out there who believe in winning by any means possible. 

But I also learned how - yawn - resistant most people are to these issues. 

The UK Progressive article goes on to cite retired NSA analyst Michael Duniho who investigated voting in his home state of Arizona:

When Duniho applied a mathematical model to actual voting results in the largest voting precincts, he saw that only the large precincts suddenly trended towards Mitt Romney in the Arizona primary – and indeed all Republicans in every election since 2008 – by a factor of 8%-10%. The Republican candidate in every race saw an 8-10%. gain in his totals whilst the Democrat lost 8-10%. This is a swing of up to  20 point, enough to win an election unless a candidate was losing very badly.

Here's a new (posted Friday night) video from The Intercept of Duniho and another plaintiff in the their suit against Pima County discussing why they are suing.




Basically, they are asking for accountability of the voting tallies, to randomly compare numbers of the voting machines against a hand count.  Something, as I understand it, the Anchorage Assembly seems to have agreed to for the next Municipal election.

My concerns, based on what I saw in April Municipal elections, are these:

• Cognitive dissonance - people's belief in American democracy is so strong, that reports of election fraud are met with disbelief.
• People whose party wins, are even more reluctant to want to pursue allegations of election fraud.
• Because the fraud happens on computer chips, totally unseen, people have trouble understanding it.  ("Said Duniho, 'It is really easy to cheat using computers to count votes, because you can’t see what is going on in the machine.'”]
• Because most Americans are statistically illiterate, statistical evidence of voter fraud means nothing to them. 

 When the Romney votes start coming in a week from Tuesday, how many people are going to just accept the election and how many will be listening to the evidence that I'm guessing will also come in about vote tampering? At the very least, we need to take the charges seriously and have them investigated.  For that to happen, enough people have to get angry enough to write letters and/or take to the streets.  Seriously.  Remember the quote above about how all the voting machine companies are owned by people with a big stake in Republican candidates. 

Thanks to Gryphen who has a video up with an interview with Duniho's NSA colleague Dennis Campbell (and editor of UK Progressive magazine.)

Remember too, this could be wrong.  We don't have collaborating alternative sources.  But it feels worth paying attention to. 

[UPDATE Nov 5:  I've done another, related post - Arguing Over the Biggest Threat to Fair Elections. ]

[Video Fixed, Sorry] Baseball And Other Value Sources Of State House Candidate Andy Josephson

My goal was to interview pairs of candidates running against each other with a focus on what their personal values are and how those values might affect the decisions they would make if elected to the legislature.  It seems to me their basic values are more revealing than asking questions about current issues.

I thought I'd start with the two candidates running for the House in my district - the new district 15.

Basically this is Northern Lights on the north, Pine and Boniface on the east, Tudor to Elmore to Dimond on the south, and New Seward, MacInnes, LaTouche on the west. 

I thought it would be fairly easy because I knew both candidates.  I've known Democrat Andy Josephson's father, not well, for a long time.   Dick Traini, the Republican, graduated from the Masters of Public Administration program 25 years ago and had been my student.  He's told me that his education has given him a much broader view of local politics and an understanding of the balance of public and private interests than he would have had.  He's also been my local Assembly member for a long time.  (Assembly is a non-partisan office and Dick has been a registered Independent until fairly recently.)  I've voted for him, though in this race I did contribute to Josephson's campaign.  Dick knew that but he agreed right away to participate. I was able to get Andy's done fairly quickly.  But Dick's Assembly obligations got in the way and we weren't able to schedule a time to do the video.  Before I left for LA I let Dick know I was going to proceed without his video, since there wouldn't be enough time before the election when I got back. 

Andy Josephson

Basically, my idea was to probe the candidates to find out what their basic human values were, where they came from, and how they would affect their legislative decisions.

I wasn't going to edit - I would just let it run as they spoke.  That way there'd be no issues about my trying to make one candidate look better than another.  (It also would be a little slower than the video people normally see on television where there are lots of cuts, where the pauses are edited out, etc.)  I did start the interview and then stopped it and started over as the candidate - who is not used to doing video interviews - got a better sense of things.  He was also tapping the table and causing the camera to jiggle.  I've left out the original beginning.  Other than that, this is just what he said.

I've marked different parts of the video so you can jump to topics you want to hear. Click on the dots on the video bar at the bottom of the video screen.





Basically, Andy Josephson's values are influenced strongly by American culture;  by family, including playing baseball (starting about 2:40); and from friends.  His response to how he would decide on legislation starts at about 5:40 and is worth watching. This includes advice from trusted mentors who have more experience in the legislature than he has, the reality of time and needing to prioritize bills by importance, how it affects his district and what his constituents care about.    I asked how he'd handle demands from his party that conflicted with his values. I also asked if there were any dealbreakers - issues that he felt too strongly about to compromise.

So this will be my experiment on this.  I don't have a problem with something being entertainment as long as it's also substantive.  But when doing political videos, editing raises questions of whether I'm tyring to bias the video, so I've left the video pretty much what he said without editing.

I left out, as I said above, his first attempt at this.  The point was for him to feel comfortable and to express himself as well as he could without spending a lot of time.

I'd also say that he hasn't seen the finished product and thus has not approved or disapproved of it. 

LA Skeletons, Morning Glories, Gingko, Studebaker, And More

As we walked from the bus stop to my Mom's from the airport, and looked at the huge variation of vegetation, invasive species came to mind.  LA is an invasive species incubator.  I don't know if that's true, but so much grows here.  Of course if they stopped bringing in water from Northern California and the Colorado River, probably most things would just die.  (I looked and it is a big problem.  And animal species too.)

In any case, here some parts of the walk that attracted my camera eye.

Wall of morning glories

Health food store juices

I saw these leaves on this tree and I knew I'd seen them.  I mentioned to J I thought there was a bunch of these on the campus of People's University in Beijing where I taught 3 months about eight years ago.  And she said, "gingko"?  I looked it up when we got home and I'm relatively certain that's what this is.  There's a long description of gingko's at an Ohio State website which discretely says the female tree's fruit can be malodorous.  A forum at Chow is more direct:

the presence of a bunch of old (and quite beautiful to look at) female ginkos kept me from buying a house once, about fifteen years ago, just by the smell) (Boy, can you imagine a backyard full o' ginko and durian?!!!!)

RFGS

By Rich Gould-Saltman on Sep 30, 2004 02:30 PM

The campus where I attended college back east is filled with gingko trees, especially in the quadrangle. At certain times of the year, it was like walking into a sewer. Gingko seemed like a perfect name for a tree that was so "stinko."

By Jack Flash on Sep 30, 2004 03:24 PM

you must be referring to Penn. I went there for undergrad and the smell was horrible from the trees!!

By kelly on Sep 30, 2004 07:37 PM

Yup!

I couldn't resist.  The LA Times Sunday edition endorsed Obama for president. 

From Barry Leppan on the Studebakers Drivers Forum:

According to the Hamilton Spectator, the last Studebaker to be built (a 1966 Cruiser, 283 Chevy V8) came down the assembly line on the morning of March 17th, 1966, in Hamilton, Ontario.

However, some of our local Hamilton Chapter members, who worked there at the time, will tell you it was really produced the previous afternoon, March 16th.

It is most probable that the 16th is correct, and the press release and all the TV, etc. coverage took place the next morning, the 17th!

The placard for the car in the Studebaker National Museum reads March 16th, 1966.

Regardless, it brought to an end 114 years of vehicle manufacture under the Studebaker name.

A post at Cars in Depth by Ronnie Schreiber challenges that:

According to what I’ve read, and this seems to be confirmed in a few places, there’s no question that assembly of CKD Studebakers continued after the shutdown of the Hamilton, ON plant in at least two places, Australia and Israel, as those companies used up their last remaining kits and components. There is some indication that assembly in Israel continued through the end of 1966 and possibly into 1967, which would make them the last Studebakers ever that rolled off the lines.

 He's got some Israeli post cards up as part of his evidence.   In any case, the car above is over 45 years old.  I wonder how it passes the California emissions test.

This appears to be either an unripe persimmon or one that is more yellow than orange.  Or maybe it isn't a persimmon at all.

 

The people in the area around my mom's place go in for Halloween in a big way.  These two life sized skeletons were hanging from a three story house.  There is something more than a little disturbing about this.   I'll do some more Halloween stuff before we get back to Anchorage.  

Presidential Race As Sporting Event Part 2: The Computer Game - What if it's a tie?

The NY Times has a little game you can play on your computer to see the different ways the states could fall and how it would affect the election.

I got a tie, by giving Romney most of the 'tossup' states and leaving all the 'leaning' states where they were. (At least the NYTimes uses the neutral term 'tossup' instead of the LA Times' 'battleground' states.)

Click image to see it bigger and sharper - or click here to go to the NYT page

So what happens if my scenario - a tie - is the result election night?  It just turns out the Washington Post asked the same question yesterday.  They say there are 32 different ways to get to a tie.  And they say a tie doesn't look good for Obama.

If somehow, though, we got to a 269-vote tie, the task of electing the president would fall to the House of Representatives — the new one that will assume office in January. According to the 12th Amendment, each state delegation would cast one vote, with the winner determined by whoever wins more states.

Since we don’t know exactly what the House will look like, we can’t say with certainty who would have the edge. But it’s very unlikely that an Electoral College tie would wind up in Obama’s favor.

At the NYTimes you can move the states over to either candidate. Is this sport? Or is this just a clever graphic way of helping people grasp the effect of each state's electoral college votes? Probably a little of both, and it certainly plays into the "Winner - Loser" narrative I discussed in Presidential Race As Sporting Event Part 1.   Are they making equally clever graphics to show how to balance the budget?  As I'm typing that question, I'm thinking, "Yes, they did, and I posted about it."

Bookmark this page for election night.  It will be a handy way to keep track as the votes are counted.

This was not the Part 2 I had in mind, but it seemed appropriate.  I guess there will be a Part 3. 

The Presidential Race As A Sporting Event - Part 1

Anyone else getting tired of the sporting event treatment of the presidential election?

The political season, it seems, has less than a month to go and we're into the playoffs.  There are two basic themes I hear in the coverage:

1.  Who's up and who's down?  There's a sense of the multistage competition of gymnastics or diving.  Each event (from the primary elections to the debates) gives the candidate to gain or lose in relation to the other competitors.  The announcers discuss their strengths and weaknesses and what they are going to have to do to gain points and to avoid errors in each event. But there's also the one-to-one battle of boxing.  Other sports metaphors abound.   Some examples:

San Francisco Chronicle:

"Obama, Romney rematch could set TV ratings records"

Forbes:

"It’s almost kick off time to the second presidential debate. Before we begin, a few things to watch for—

. . . the key for Governor Romney will be to make a connection with the people in the audience who will be posing the questions. If Romney can make the people believe that he ‘feels their pain’, it will be difficult for Romney to be declared a loser tonight, no matter how well the President may perform. For President Obama, it is not just a matter of ‘showing up’, he is going to have to both defend the past four years and, more importantly, lay out a very clear vision for what he has in mind for the next four years. He will also need to find a way to be far more aggressive than his first debate performance without crossing the line into Joe Biden territory

From the Washington Post website:

More from PostPolitics

Second debate: Winners and losers

Chris Cillizza OCT 16

THE FIX | The second presidential debate is history. Who did the best? Who did the worst?

2.  Then there is the addition of fact checking this year.  It's been there in the past, but mostly it was done on blogs.  Now fact checking has gone mainstream.  This would seem to be a positive development.  Someone is paying attention to what people are actually saying, not just whether they look and sound presidential saying it.

But it's mostly "did he say X on this Tuesday and Y on Monday?"   Tuesday night I heard them checking whether Obama had used the word terrorism in his Rose Garden speech after the Benghazi consulate was attacked.  Yes, fact checking is important, and I applaud this addition to the scene.  But often it too becomes trivial.  What's missing are the bigger questions about policy and what it all means.

Generally,  the fact checking is just an extension of 1) - who is up and who is down?  We aren't checking facts in a quest for truth and understanding, but to get closer to determining who will win or lose.

For the media, it probably makes sense to treat elections the way they treat sporting events.  It reduces the election to a contest to determine the winners and losers, not to elevate everyone's understanding of the issues.  It raises suspense.  It doesn't require a lot of research or figuring out how to interpret complicated subjects like health care or the economy.   The hype brings in viewers.  More viewers mean more ad revenue.

And for most of us, it simply doesn't matter.

The candidates have figured out that most people already know how they will vote.  Because the winner is chosen by the electoral college vote and not the popular vote, most states aren't even in play.   Even if a candidate wins by a million votes in California, that extra million doesn't count for anything.

So, the candidates' focus is on the small group of undecideds in a few states.  270TOWin identifies eleven states.  (270 electoral votes are needed to win the election.)

The LA Times, in May, created a map that shows 8 "battleground" (sports announcers love war imagery) states.   Let's look at who the candidates are wooing. 

State- 270 To win list	% undecided	LA Times List	Total Reg Voters	Number of Undecided
Colorado	5	√	2,300,000	115,000
Florida	5	√	8,000,000	400,000
Iowa	5	√	1,500,000	75,000
Michigan	6		5,000,000	300,000
Nevada	5		1,000,000	50,000
New Hampshire	6	√	700,000	42,000
North Carolina	3	√	4,500,000	135,000
Ohio	4	√	5,600,000	224,000
Pennsylvania	4		6,000,000	240,000
Virginia	9	√	3,500,000	315,000
Wisconsin	2	√	2,900,000	58,000
Total USA:	1.4%		137,000,000	1,954,000

HTML Tables

   
According to this, all the media coverage we're getting is about  less than 2 million people, 1.4% of registered voters, who can't make up their minds.  Bill Maher's comment on this situation, summed up from this video, is:

"And that, in a nutshell, is America's celebrated, undecided voter: put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think-tank, searching out every last bit of information, high-minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please, they mostly fall into a category political scientists call 'low information voters,' otherwise known as 'dipsh*ts.'"

I imagine that people who can't make up their minds are NOT going to decide whom to vote for based on the issues.  It's going to be how they feel about the candidates.
So,  the candidates are pretty much ignoring the 135 million people who either have made up their minds already or are in states where the outcome is pretty certain and they're  pouring their campaign attention and dollars on the 1.9 million undecideds in the 'battleground' states.

The only thing the candidates want from the rest of us is money and labor to turn those undecideds  and to make sure their supporters vote.  I've heard of Anchorage political volunteers being used to call people in Colorado. 

The media, on the other hand, need all of us to watch or read or listen, so they are using the simplest and most successful story line they know:  a sports battle. 

This is politics as entertainment.  It's not politics as an opportunity for national discussion about our future.  It's not analysis of critical issues.  It's simple, black and white:  who's going to win and who's going to lose?  Foreign policy, the economy, the environment, education, war, and all the other burning issues we face are just tea leaves for pundits to ponder to predict who will win and and who will lose. 

And this probably isn't very different from every other election in our history. A little more divisive maybe, but just as simplistic. 

The Man Who Mistook His Son For A Tax Cap

In the title story in his award winning book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks writes about a patient,

 Dr. P is a musician who had problems with his visual images. He couldn’t recognize things around him, even his face, wife, foot, shoes, etc. Therefore, he grabbed his wife’s head to put on his head, because he thought that his wife was a hat. But, he has wonderful musical intelligence, he can do his activities if he’s singing, but he would forget everything and completely stop his activities when he’s interrupted from his singing.  [From Yuli Rahmawati's Weblog)

I was reminded of Sacks' book when I saw this sign, illegally located in a public flower bed (not maintained) at Lake Otis and 36th.  [Update:  A callback from the Municipality code enforcement said this sign was on a public right of way, but it is on private property.  He said they will only take down signs on the right of way that are a hazard.] 

Click to enlarge

I would recommend against voting for Don Smith - read his commentary about our 'entitlement' mentality and the list of freebies he would get rid of starting with free school meals* for poor kids - plus his opponent, Berta Gardner, is someone I've known and respected for a long time.

But I would recommend reading any of Dr. Sacks' books.

*In Finland,  widely reported to have the best school system in the world, all kids get free meals because they believe it helps them learn. 

"Might Create Jobs for $2 Billion"

Good thing I had my camera with me.  And I thought panhandling in traffic had been made illegal. 


Here's some context for non-Alaskans.   And the Governor's view.  Remember, he was a lobbyist for Conoco-Phillips before he became governor.

The Alaska Senator The Oil Companies Most Hate

 "This election will present two very clear choices for the people of Alaska:  Do we want to be an owner state or do we want to be an owned state?

Do we want to go back to the failed policies of 30 years that have left us with little to show or do we want a new direction, a new vision where we follow our constitution and get the maximum benefit for our resources?

[Note:  I always try to be objective and even-handed in my blog posts, but sometimes, there is only one right choice.  This really is about the richest companies in the world trying to snatch back $2 billion in taxes a year from the people of Alaska.  They're trying to get back to where things were before the FBI stepped in to expose the corruption in Juneau over oil taxes.  They've waited a few years and now they're back at it, buying legislators to pass their tax cut.  Those opposed to the tax in the Senate were both Republicans and Democrats. Watch the video.]




 This is the video tape that every Alaskan voter should see before the election.  Senator Bill Wielechowki lays out the argument against the Governor's plan to cut the oil companies' taxes by $2 Billion (yes with a B) per year.

For 30 years we had a policy of low or no taxes on the North Slope.  The philosophy was, low taxes will lead to more investment, low taxes will lead to more jobs, low taxes will lead to more oil.  [Thus ?] we have a 30 year experiment.  How did it work?

It failed.  For 30 years we peaked at 2.1 million barrels a day of oil.  30 years later in 2006 with a zero percent tax rate on 15 out of 19 fields we had 740,000 barrels flowing down the pipeline.  The policy failed. Jobs declined. Investment declined.  Production declined.  Do we want to go back to that failed policy?  Are you willing to work to insure that we don’t go back to that failed policy?

They hate him because he has fought hard against the Governor's bill and because he's able to articulate clearly and passionately why it's all wrong.  There's no vague ideology and empty promises of more jobs.  It's full of facts that show that there is no good reason for Alaskans to give any money to the oil companies and plenty of reasons not to.  Most of his short speech is quoted here.  It's heavy with facts. 

We have a new policy in place.  It’s called ACES.  It’s working and there are two people I need to pay homage to . . . two of the legislators who stood up and said enough is enough and filed the first oil tax bill are with us today.  It is Senator Hollis French and Representative Les Gara.   

So how has that new policy worked?
Since we passed ACES, we’ve had all time highs in jobs every year since the bill passed.  We’ve had all time highs in investment every year since the bill passed.  We’ve had all time highs in the number of companies doing business in Alaska every year since the bill passed.   

We have more people working on the North Slope today than ever in the history of the state.  We have more  invested in the North Slope than ever in the history of the state.  We have a 253 percent increase in the number of companies doing business in Alaska in the oil patch.  I’d say it’s working pretty well, wouldn’t you?

I remember I was running six years ago and people were saying, “Are you going to raid the Permanent Fund?   Are you going to have an income tax?  Or a sales tax? Because the failed policies left us with nothing.  

Norway came to Alaska and studied our Permanent Fund.  

They started their Permanent Fund 19 years after ours.  They did it with less oil than ours.  Our Permanent Fund is worth 42 billion dollars.  Norway’s permanent fund is worth 600 billion dollars.  We have lost hundreds of billions of dollars because of the failed policies of 30 years.  We’re not going back to that are we?

But I recommend you listen to the video.  Wielechowski isn't some party hack.  He's a regular guy, a Mr. Smith Goes to Juneau, who looked around and saw how bad it was and got angry.  He's taken a stand that makes him a prime target for the oil companies who are taking advantage of Citizens United to get their $2 billion gift from their delivery boy in the Governor's Mansion in Juneau.  If they spent $100 million and succeeded in getting a Senate that supports their $2 billion a year tax cut, it would be the best investment in Alaska history.

Watch the video and see why oil company execs hate him so much.  See how clearly and well he exposes the fraud the Governor is trying to commit against the people of Alaska.


We have villages in Alaska without running water or sewage systems, but our Governor, a former ConocoPhillips lobbyist, wants to give back $2 billion a year to some of the richest companies in the world.  The governor is supposed to represent all the people of Alaska.  We've had governors like Hickel and Hammond, even Palin,  who have stood up to the oil companies.  But he wants to give them this money and in return we get vague mantras, but no promises, about jobs, jobs, jobs. 

The video was made Saturday, September 22, 2012 at a gathering of people in support of Save Our Oil and supported by a resurrected Alaska Backbone - the bi-partisan group that formed when ConocoPhilips bought ARCO.  Backbone demanded the state and feds hold out for better conditions before the deal was approved.

The key to preventing this giveaway is to elect enough coalition friendly senators to continue to block the oil companies' assault on the people of Alaska.


Who are the Senators in the Bi-Partisan Working Group?  From the Backbone website:

Senator Bill Wielechowski • Senator Bert Stedman • Senator Joe Thomas • Senator Joe Paskvan • Senator Linda Menard • Senator Lesil McGuire • Senator Johnny Ellis • Senator Gary Stevens • Senator Kevin Meyer • Senator Don Olson • Senator Hollis French • Senator Bettye Davis • Senator Tom Wagoner • Senator Lyman Hoffman • Senator Dennis Egan • Senator Al Kookesh

The Alaska Redistricting Board whittled away at the districts as much as the Supreme Court would let them.

Coalition Incumbents running against each other:

• Senators Kookesh (Southeast) and Stedman (Southeast) are running against each other in Southeast, so one of them will be gone.  
• Senator Joe Thomas (Fairbanks) was redistricted so that he is facing Senator John Coghill (Fairbanks).  

Coalition Incumbents lost in the primaries to anti-coalition Republicans:

• Senators Linda Menard (Palmer)  
• Tom Wagoner (Kenai).  

Redistricted into more conservative districts:

• Senator Joe Paskvan (Fairbanks).
• Senator Bettye Davis (Anchorage).  
• Senator Bill Wielechowski (Anchorage).
• Senator Hollis French (Anchorage).

New District with no Senate Incumbent (Anchorage)

• Senate District H: Democratic Representative Berta Gardner v. Republican Don Smith

Here's the list of Senate Candidates adapted from the Division of Elections.

Sen Seat	Republican	Democrat (unafilliated for Seat N)
A	John B. Coghill Jr. (Republican) P.O. Box 58003 Fairbanks, AK 99711 Phone: (907) 488-7886 Candidate's web site: http://www.johncoghill.com	Joe J. Thomas (Democrat)* 879 Vide Way Fairbanks, AK 99712 Phone: (907) 457-6710 Candidate's web site: http://www.alaskansforjoethomas.com
B	Pete Kelly (Republican) 511 East Slater Drive Fairbanks, AK 99701 Candidate's web site: http://www.petekellyforsenate.co	Joe Paskvan (Democrat)* 3275 Riverview Drive Fairbanks, AK 99709 Phone: (907) 474-0551
C	Click Bishop (Republican)**(see comments) 3365 Sandvik Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99709 Phone: (907) 479-3969 e-mail: click@clickbishop.com Candidate's web site: http://www.clickbishop.com	Anne Sudkamp (Democrat)** P.O. Box 83304 Fairbanks, AK 99708 Phone: (907) 479-5192 e-mail: anne.sudkamp@gmail.com Candidate's web site: www.annesudkamp.com
D	Mike J. Dunleavy (Republican) 1830 E Parks Hwy, Ste A-113, PMB #550 Wasilla, AK 99654 Phone: (907) 841-0399
E	Charles R. "Charlie" Huggins (Republican) 3375 N Edgewater Drive Wasilla, AK 99623 Phone: (907) 373-6419 e-mail: reelectcharliehuggins@gmail.com Candidate's web site: www.charliehuggins.com	Susan M. Parsons Herman (Democrat)** 3101 E. Palmdale Dr. Wasilla, AK 99654 Phone: (907) 376-8281
F	Fred J. Dyson (Republican) 12239 Lugene Lane Eagle River, AK 99577 Phone: (907) 694-3744	Martin J. Lindeke (Democrat)** 16111 Cline Street Eagle River, AK 99577 Phone: (907) 354-4402
G	Bob Roses (Republican) 8200 E. 2nd Avenue Anchorage, AK 99504 Phone: (907) 350-0684 Candidate's web site: http://www.bobroses.com	Bill Wielechowski (Democrat)* 1300 Farrow Circle Anchorage, AK 99504 Phone: (907) 242-1558 e-mail: wielechowskiforsenate@gmail.com Candidate's web site: www.wielechowski.org
H	Don Smith (Republican) 2121 Tudor Hills Court Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: (907) 529-6170	Berta Gardner (Democrat)** 1405 Matterhorn Way Anchorage, AK 99508 Phone: (907) 274-1334
I	Paul D. Kendall (Republican) 1342 Hyder Street Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: (907) 222-7882 e-mail: pauldkendall@yahoo.co	Johnny Ellis (Democrat)* 1231 W. Northern Lights #533 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: (907) 223-7724
J	Bob Bell (Republican) P.O. Box 92520 Anchorage, AK 99509-2520 Phone: (907) 272-5160	Hollis S. French II (Democrat)* 2640 Telequana Drive Anchorage, AK 99517 Phone: (907) 244-7135 e-mail: info@frenchforstatesenate.com Candidate's web site: www.Frenchforstatesenate.com
K	Lesil L. McGuire (Republican)* 2022 Kimberly Lynn Cir Anchorage, AK 99515 Candidate's web site: http://www.lesilmcguire.com/	Roselynn Cacy (Democrat)** 11930 Johns Road Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: (907) 344-1261
L	Kevin Meyer (Republican)* 4020 Winchester Loop Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: (907) 349-6511 Candidate's web site: http://www.senatormeyer.com	Jacob O. "Jake" Hale (Democrat)** 3561 Hollyberry Cir Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: (907) 351-6762
M	Anna I. Fairclough (Republican) P.O. Box 771112 Eagle River, AK 99577 Phone: (907) 694-7090 Candidate's web site: http://www.annafairclough.com	Bettye Davis (Democrat)* 2240 Foxhall Drive Anchorage, AK 99504 Phone: (907) 337-2034
N	Catherine A. "Cathy" Giessel (Republican) 12701 Ridgewood Road Anchorage, AK 99516 Phone: (907) 345-5470 e-mail: Cathy@Giessel.org Candidate's web site: www.CathyGiessel.com	Ron Devon (Non-Affiliated) -  ** Nominating Petition Candidate 6520 Italy Circle Anchorage, AK 99516 Phone: (907) 301-1601
O	Peter A. Micciche (Republican) P.O. Box 1544 Soldotna, AK 99669 Phone: (907) 262-6165
P		Sen. Egan* is the only legislator not up for election this year.
Q	Bert K. Stedman (Republican)* 118 American St. Sitka, AK 99835 Phone: (907) 821-2378 e-mail: bertstedman@yahoo.com Candidate's web site: www.stedmanforsenate.com	Albert M. Kookesh (Democrat)* P.O. Box 91 Angoon, AK 99820 Phone: (907) 788-3615 e-mail: amkookesh@gmail.com
R	Gary L. Stevens (Republican)* P.O. Box 201 Kodiak, AK 99615 Phone: (907) 486-4205	Robert J. Henrichs (Democrat)** P.O. Box 1000 Cordova, AK 99574 Phone: (907) 424-7783
S		Lyman F. Hoffman (Democrat)* P.O. Box 763 Bethel, AK 99559 Phone: (907) 543-3583
T	Allen Minish (Republican) P.O. Box 118 Chitina, AK 99566 Phone: (907) 823-2280	Donald C. "Donny" Olson (Democrat)* P.O. Box 241248 Anchorage, AK 99524 Phone: (907) 240-3795
*Were Coalition Members in last Legislative Session, but if Republicans gain majority, not guaranteed next time **Likely Coalition Members in future Legislsative Session

HTML Tables

Actually, Bill Wielechowki is a pretty nice guy, and maybe the oil company people actually like him personally and hate someone else more. But they sure don't like his strong stand against changing the taxes and would love to see his opponent win.

[UPDATE 9/26/12:  Someone emailed me this link to Alaskans United to Stop Our Oil Wealth Giveaway (that's a mouthful)  for more information.

Last Week Republicans Thought Taxes Were Evil, Now They Think People Who Don't Pay Taxes Are Evil!

Until last week, all I heard from Republicans was that taxes were evil and should be avoided if at all possible.  For years, Grover Norquist has been twisting Republican congressional arms to sign a taxpayer protection pledge.

Some members of congress major in tax loopholes and when they graduate from congress they get high paying jobs helping the wealthy avoid taxes.  And Romney, we've been told, avoids taxes with the best of them including off-shore accounts in the Caymans and Switzerland.  When you fly over to check on your accounts it's probably tax deductible too.

Yesterday my head spun as it followed the Republican tax philosophy tennis ball being slammed in the other direction.   I learned that Romney disdained the 47% of Americans (actually US households, not people) who didn't pay income taxes.  You'd think he'd admire their ability to legally avoid income taxes, just as he thinks we should admire his ability to avoid taxes.  But no, it turns out he doesn't.  They think they're victims, he said.  Hell, all this time I believed that Republicans thought people who PAID taxes were victims.

He also thinks they're all Democrats or at least they plan to vote for Obama.  If that's true, then why doesn't Romney just concede the election now?  After all, there must be other US tax paying Americans like myself who plan to vote for Obama.  If just 3.1% of us income tax payers voted along with the 47% deadbeats - in the right states of course - Obama would win.

Mitt, I hate to tell you this, but what people say they believe and what they actually do are two different things.   I know because I live in the socialist Red state of Alaska where we follow the Republican Wally Hickel's (may he rest in peace) Owner State philosophy.  We collectively own the oil on the North Slope (and elsewhere) and we collectively get paid dividends on it.

Just yesterday our Republican governor's Revenue Commissioner announced that this year's checks would be  $875[8].    And big families like yours Mitt, five kids, get seven checks!  We're all like shareholders in the state of Alaska. We don't pay state income taxes, we don't pay state sales taxes, and we get a check from our collective ownership of the state's natural resources.  Yes, we're all victims, dependent on the state.  And just like corporate victims whose companies get federal contracts and various tax breaks, we use the money to create jobs.

And we're a red state that will, without a doubt,  vote for you in November Mitt.  I hope you can explain all this to me. 

Click here to see a CBS fact checking and explaining post of the 47% figure here.

Assembly Work Session Hears Judge Hensley Again on Voting Problems

I went to the Assembly work session today with Judge Hensley, the consultant who investigated the problems with the April 3, 2012 Municipal election.

I got there twenty minutes late.  Actually, I thought this was going to be a two hour follow up on the earlier working group with Assembly attorney Julia Tucker.  So I was surprised to see Hensley and most of the Assembly there.  Hensley was finishing his report as I arrived and then took questions.  There was no amplification and the Judge spoke softly facing away from the audience.  Plus something (heating?) was making a lot of noise. The whole meeting took about 30 minutes.  You can listen to the Municipal recording of the meeting.  [You have to go to Archived Videos and Agendas.  Hensley's Report Worksession is at the top today, but will move down as new videos are added.  You can also try one of these:

MP3 Audio

MP4 Video

(there's only audio on the video)]

The written report and the supplemental can be found:


June 30, 2012 Report 
July 24, 2012 Report

You can see other documents relating to the April 3, 2012 election at the Municipal Clerk's election page.

Hensley's Report Overview:

He said his first question was to determine if someone tried to manipulate the outcome of this election.  The answer is no.

Second task, if no one intentionally tried, how did it happen?  Someone took their eye of the ball - leadership in the Clerk's office for sure and while the Assembly had the right to expect the Clerk to run the elections well, clearly the Assembly needs to keep some oversight.  


Basically felt that the key problem was the failure in ballot allocation in not realizing that turnout would not be like 2011 or 2010.

I don't really think that there was anything terribly significant said that you couldn't find by just reading the reports.  The audio is just 29 minutes so if you really want to know, you can listen to it. 

I didn't feel the Assembly was particularly deep in their questioning.  Flynn did ask about the variety of ballots (there have to be different ballots because there are so many small special service districts that have elections.)  Johnston asked about training for workers.  Traini, Drummond, and Jackson-Gray asked about the voting machines. 

New metal seal for ballot bags and voting machines

After the meeting I spoke with the Clerk and a staff person.  One change they have worked out already is to get more secure seals.  They are metal and it will be very clear if they are tampered with and they are numbered so people can't simply replace them with another tag.  (I believe someone said the old plastic ones were also numbered.)  They are also hoping to reconstitute the Technical board to hand count random ballots for at least three precincts. 

Romney's Cotton Candy Acceptance Speech

Reading through Romney's acceptance speech again, a few days later, it's cotton candy.  It's soft, sugary, fluffy, and full of air.  There's absolutely no substance.  When you try to sink your teeth into it, it simply evaporates.

It has the signs of being designed by the marketing department - based on focus group feedback about what words and phrases push people's emotional buttons and then written to push them.  Neither reality nor honesty is a factor.  Tell them what they want to hear.  But since there are almost no facts, it's safe from the fact checkers.   It's the same stuff as glossy magazine ads - empty promises that Americans, individually and collective, can be an impossibly and perfectly beautiful people.

It's guys in the back room poring through the data and coming up with a formula to grab the audience.   But unfortunately for Romney, it's based on data, not on a caring or even intuitive sense of the people behind the data.


Note:  When I got to the end of this post, without having covered that much of Romney's acceptance speech, I asked myself why I was doing this?  Who cares?  Does it matter?

It only matters if people think this is more than just marketing, if people actually believe that there is something here.  So for that reason alone, it makes sense to go through the speech.  My approach is to try to pull out of it the key parts and to try to get at what the speech is about.   And to show there isn't any meat.  It's basically empty words.

Going through the speech, these are the themes that I see.  They aren't necessarily in order in the speech, but rather are scattered about and sometimes they overlap:  

• Trying to show different constituencies that the Romney's presidency would care about them.
• To outline what Romney believes the USA is all about.
• To outline why Obama should be replaced by Romney. (And why people who had hoped that Obama would do great things, should now abandon him for Romney.)
• To show that Romney has both the personal and professional skills necessary to fix the problems Obama hasn't fixed.

In this post I'm just going to focus on the first theme, showing the different constituencies Romney tries to touch.  Or more realistically, those marketing guys in the back room saying, "We need to get various demographics."

Romney's a product and this is an attempt to interest consumers into buying the product.  [Mind you I don't expect much different at the Democratic convention, but I suspect the marketing team will do a better job of connecting with the prospective consumers.]

My quotes come from NPR's transcript of the speech.

The Independent Voters and maybe some Democrats:

"Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than what divides us. . .

But today, four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future.

It is not what we were promised."

Parents, Small Business Owners, Students:

"Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who's living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity.

Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team.

Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future."

Norman Rockwell miniatures of the perfect America.

And those struggling to get by:

"You deserved it because during these years, you worked harder than ever before. You deserved it because when it cost more to fill up your car, you cut out movie nights and put in longer hours. Or when you lost that job that paid $22.50 an hour with benefits, you took two jobs at 9 bucks an hour and fewer benefits. You did it because your family depended on you. You did it because you're an American and you don't quit. You did it because it was what you had to do.

But driving home late from that second job, or standing there watching the gas pump hit 50 dollars and still going, when the realtor told you that to sell your house you'd have to take a big loss, in those moments you knew that this just wasn't right."

Immigrants:

"When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty, or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom just ninety miles from Castro's tyranny, these new Americans surely had many questions. But none doubted that here in America they could build a better life, that in America their children would be more blessed than they."

Well, at least the white European immigrants coming through Ellis Island and those escaping communism in Cuba.  Those coming from non-communist Central or South America or from Asia aren't as directly recognized.

Even astronauts:

"God bless Neil Armstrong."

Will this blessing be backed with cuts to NASA's budget?  Maybe a fire sale of NASA assets to private companies?

And women.  Oh yes, he didn't forget women:

"Those days were toughest on Ann, of course. She was heroic. . . I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. . . Ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to.  . .

When my mom ran for the Senate [she lost by a huge margin], my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, "Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?"

I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.  [But he didn't choose a woman as his running mate.]

Of course, the PR guys writing this don't seem to realize that this next quote could just wipe out all their other attempts to win women voters:

"He [Dad, George Romney] convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. He moved to Detroit, led a great automobile company and became Governor of the Great State of Michigan."

 Maybe the guys will be impressed that Papa Romney got a beautiful young actress, but women aren't going to be excited about him talking her out of her Hollywood career to move to, yeah, Detroit.

And, of course, a coded wink to the religious conservatives:

"As president, I will protect the sanctity of life. I will honor the institution of marriage. And I will guarantee America's first liberty: the freedom of religion."

Even though he didn't say it explicitly, they knew he meant - fight abortions, fight gay marriage, and support such evangelical goals as getting prayer back into public spaces.



How much time should I actually spend going through this speech?  Did anyone actually expect him to say anything?  It's really a pretty cynical speech.  To me, these mentions of the various constituencies are just that - mentions.  They don't reflect a deep understanding of who these constituencies are.  They don't hone in on the issues that might resonate with them - except the religious conservatives.  Rather they are a marketer's attempt to convert focus group data into some votes.

More telling is that there is no substance.  It's simply various ways of saying "Obama failed, but I'll deliver" with nothing that offers how he's going to do it.  Well, yes, his 5 point plan is going to create 12 million new jobs by cutting regulations and taxes and giving parents school choice, and cutting the deficit.  How he's going to cut taxes and the deficit without pretty much shutting down the government he didn't explain.

It's a speech that needed to cover certain things, and I guess it did, but without grace or wit or, as I've said already, substance.