I am … unhindered by talent

Gravel? I’d never actually heard of him, and at this point he’s pretty much out of it, so it’s all a moot point. The ordering of everyone else is roughly as I would have guessed, although I didn’t expect such a big jump between Obama and Clinton. Nice to see that it correctly deduced that Huckabee and I live in different universes. I can’t decide if I actually want Huckabee to get the nomination in the hopes that he just has to then lose the election. I think not, though, ’cause there’s always that chance that he’d win. And then we’d have to move. And I’d be sad.

Who should you vote for?

Mike Gravel				114
Barack Obama				109
Hillary Clinton				57
John McCain	-12
Ron Paul	-33
Mike Huckabee	-123

You expected: Barack Obama
Your recommendation: Mike Gravel

Party: Democratic
Born: 1930, Springfield, Massachusetts
Family: Married twice. Two children and four grandchildren
Career: US Army; Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps; taxi driver; barman; brakeman; property developer
Political career: 3rd Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, 1965-6; US Senator from Alaska 1969-1981. Environment and Public Works and Finance and Interior Committees; chaired the Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees
Hot topic: Fair tax
Did you know? Born to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Marie Bourassa and Alphonse Gravel; Mike spoke only French until he was seven years old
Supported by: Ralph Nader

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As far as I can tell, most of the major news outlets have yet to report the details of yesterday’s Democratic Caucus results from Stevens Country, MN. The county DFL chair Peter Wyckoff has, however, sent out the results, allowing me to fill that key gap. Arguably the best news of the evening is that there were 540 total votes, which is way up from 192 votes in 2004. Not being in Morris, I don’t have anything concrete to say about the reasons for this, but an increase in participation is almost certainly to the Good.

As far as those silly candidate like things go, Obama pretty much cleaned up in Stevens Country, mirroring his success in Minnesota in general:

It’s hard for me to make a lot of immediate sense out of the results nationwide as they seem extremely scattered. One thing that I think is interesting, though, is that Clinton only carried more than 60% in one state (Arkansas - her previous home), while Obama carried 8 states with more than 60%, two of which were over 70% and one (Idaho) with a whopping 80%! OK, I realize that 80% of the handful of people in Idaho aren’t going to swing a national presidential election, but the fact that he carried so many states so strongly does seem to speak to larger questions of electability in November.

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In a well written and thoughtful endorsement that (not surprisingly) focuses on tech related issues, they’ve gone for Obama and McCain (with a strong preference for Obama between the two).

Obviously technical issues aren’t the only important issues facing the country, and silicon valley tech issues aren’t necessarily always the same as general science issues. Nothing was said about the war in Iraq, for example, and while they wisely include things things like math and science education in their focus issues, there’s no mention of the continuing struggle over the stain of creationism in that education.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful summary of positions on an important set of issues.

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The last seven years of mismanagement, deception, and chest thumping give one at least slight pause before owning up to being from the U.S. out here in the wide world beyond Kansas. Obama’s win in Iowa, however, is something we can all be proud of regardless of the final result in November. To quote the NY Times:

Mr. Obama’s victory in this overwhelmingly white state stood as a powerful answer to the question of whether America was prepared to vote for a black person for president.

The caucus result does have a very scary side in Huckabee’s success:

Polls of Republicans entering the caucus sites found that nearly 60 percent described themselves as evangelical Christians, and by overwhelming numbers they said they intended to vote for Mr. Huckabee.

This is exactly the crowd that semi-elected Our Fearless Leader, and we’re all in trouble if they lead us down another garden path.

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