The Primaries GOP Song Remains The Same

Some of the updated news this weekend about the ongoing march towards the 2016 Presidential Election:

• Mitt Romney decided not to run for a third try.  He may have noted two things against him: the establishment wing of the Republicans had their boy Jeb Bush already, and the social conservative wing had their boy Huckabee (who could have pummeled Mitt as THE Not-Mitt candidate in 2012).
• Lindsey Graham decided to put his name out there.  Which elicited about three mild "yays" from his Beltway fanbase and a shrug from everyone else out there.

I was wondering when a politician like Graham was going to make the gesture.  The primary field for the Republicans right now skews to two types of candidate: the economic-minded and the evangelical/social-minded.  Until Graham popped up, they really didn't have anybody covering the third: foreign policy issues.

While the Republican Party as a whole is social conservative, some candidates are more dedicated than others.  Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister, for God's sake.  Santorum campaigns hard on an anti-gay, pro-fetus platform.  Carson pretty much only has his public devotions/social agenda to back his campaign.  Of the remaining professional elected officials, Jindal leans more on the God's Party ideology than on their economic or managerial work as governor.

And while the Republican Party as a whole is totally dedicated to cutting corporate taxes for the uber-rich and deregulating everything into privatized markets, some are more tax-cut and spending-cut than others.  This is where the "establishment" type candidates harken, such as Jeb and Christie and Rand Paul and Perry and Walker.  This is where the likes of Carly Fiorina would run their campaigns, as business-savvy leaders of industry and masters of finance (which, all things considered, they are not).

That leaves out the other foundation of the modern GOP, the foreign policy wonkery.  Ever since the Cold War, there's been a faction of the Republicans obsessed more with international relations (do as we say) and handling foreign threats (nuke 'em from orbit) than with domestic issues.  Ever since Nixon in 1968, there's been at least one candidate who presented themselves as "the serious adult" in the room when it came time to deal with Soviet Russia.  That was Bush the Elder in both 1980 (losing to Reagan's more social-conservative platform) and 1988 (beating out Dukakis who couldn't pull off that idiotic look of him driving a tank) and 1992 (losing to Clinton who ran on the economy).  In 1996, there was Richard Lugar, who lost out to Dole who still commanded some foreign policy cred as a long-standing Senate leader: this was against a field of Social candidates (Buchanan, Dornan) and Economic (Alexander, Gramm, Forbes).  In 2000, Dubya was clearly running on social ("compassionate conservatism") and economic platforms alongside Keyes (he may have been an ambassador as a career but his topics were clearly about God, God, and more God) and Forbes (tax cuts, obviously), leaving the foreign policy issues mostly to McCain.

By 2008, the Republicans had lost their reputation on foreign policy dealings having alienated our allies and wasted lives and money on two unfunded and unpopular wars.  Yet McCain was one of the front-runners that open season exactly because of his foreign policy creds.  Everyone else was either social con (Huckabee, Keyes, Hunter) or the tax-cut business con (Romney, Ron Paul).  Giuliani might have counted as a foreign policy candidate except his experience stopped at being mayor of New York, which left him with domestic policy (law and order) and tax-cutting stances: his only foreign policy stance was "9/11".

To note, 2012 was a screwy election cycle: the real platform for the Republicans that year was "Who was more Anti-Obama"?  That primary was out-of-whack in that nobody could really step up as a foreign policy candidate: nearly everybody tripped over themselves trying to present themselves as the uber-religious candidate (Santorum and Bachmann in particular) or the uber-tax-cut candidate (Romney, Paul, Perry, Cain, Johnson).  The only candidate with any serious foreign creds was Hunstman, and he didn't last long or gained much support.

Lindsey Graham is going to find the same problem.  After the disastrous Bush the Lesser presidency where the dark day of 9/11 led to a prolonged invasion/occupation of Afghanistan and an unnecessary and wasteful invasion/occupation of Iraq, the entire nation seems burned out when it comes to foreign affairs.  Obama's handling of Libya, Syria, Egypt and the rest of the Middle East is a prime example: he's avoided commitment of ground troops or peacekeeper efforts, using diplomatic efforts to try and minimize the ongoing bloodshed of the civil wars dotting that region and relying on local military forces - the Kurds against ISIL, local allies elsewhere - to avoid further entanglements.  It hasn't been pretty - the Syrian war in particular has become a nightmare of refugees, extremist strife, and unending terror - but there's little else the American public will support.

The Republican candidates running on foreign policy as a primary topic will confront the same disconnect from voters.  Most of the party's base is angered up on more localized matters: immigration, abortion, taxes, gutting Obamacare, guns, and hating Obama forever and ever.  Mostly the same agenda the GOP supported in 2012.  If there's any foreign policy issue they'll discuss, it's BENGHAZIGATE, which after three separate congressional investigations is still the same non-scandal it's been since 2012.  Worrying about wars overseas means little to a GOP Tea Party base that wants Obamacare nuked and the Mexican border turned into the barbed-wire trenches of WWI.

Graham's not going to go very far if he thinks he can win on foreign policy.  This isn't 2008 when the legacy of the Bush/Cheney wars was on the line, or 1988 when warming up relations between the US and USSR was a really big deal.  This is 2016, same as 2012 and pretty much the same as 2008 and 2000 and 1996: the primaries platform is Hate Clinton Obama (which in 2016 may well be Hate Clinton again).

If I had to do a brief bio on Graham it'd be this:

Lindsey Graham - Senator, South Carolina
Positives: One of the leaders of the Senate for the Republicans for a long time.  Won in a hard-core conservative state on a regular basis despite the reputation of being a RINO, which proves decent campaign skill.  Has name recognition.  Resides in a key early primary state (South Carolina)
Negatives: He's not considered as far right on a lot of issues as the party base would like.  Has no national warchest to fund a major campaign (unlike Jeb, who's probably getting the keys to the Koch Brothers' billionaire storage closet as I type this).  He's been unusually bipartisan working in the Senate with Democrats, which really angers up the Tea Party base (this would be a Positive under normal circumstances but it's a huge Negative in these partisan primaries).  And just type in a Google search on "Lindsey Graham rumors": anybody who gets to be over 50 without getting married (or even having one questionable child out of wedlock) is gonna get labeled as "gay" whether they are or not.
Chances: Slim. If he's smart he's using this as an opportunity to put him out there as a Veep ticket balancer with the "foreign policy creds" to a candidate who's most likely winning on a social or domestic economic reputation.  As for his personal life - or lack of one - it's going to get investigated in a big way if he heads to a national stage.  Even if the rumors are wrong - it's entirely possible Graham is asexual or disinterested, or else very discreet with the whole hooker/mistress thing - he's not Mr. Popular with the Tea Partiers.
Character Chart: The thing that throws me is Graham's reputation for bipartisan work.  While he's coming to the table with clearly Republican (i.e., bad) positions he's at least trying to get Democrats to bring their ideas (i.e., weak) into the bills (that end up going nowhere).  He's not as pure an Active-Positive as possible - because his foreign policy aims still lean towards aggressive bombing and pray for divine intervention - but in this field of Active-Negatives in the GOP he's the closest they got.
And the voting base doesn't want Active-Positive...

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Only Two Things Come From Iowa: Corn and Political Pandering

A large number of potential 2016 primary candidates were in Iowa today to suck up to the Far Right crowd, some of them more obvious than others in their pandering.  A lot of cringe-worthy moments to worry about.  I'm still horrified by how our Presidential campaigning system is so bent that a single small state like Iowa can twist and pervert the national discourse like this.

From the Des Moines Register article, the main attraction names - plus a few late arrivals to the campaign start-ups - give us a good idea who the primary primarying Republicans are.  I can give you a brief summation of the candidates, and their chances this upcoming cycle, and even a quick guess at their Barber-graded Characters.  And so, welcome to the horror show:

Ben Carson - Surgeon, maybe Maryland (I am not certain which state he will represent)
Positives: Among Republicans, he's viewed as a credible anti-Obamacare critic, best-selling Christian spiritual author, anti-gay spokesperson.
Negatives: Has no elected or governing experience to speak of.  While the Constitution doesn't require such experience, any previous elective campaigning would at least provide the needed mindset and endurance to handle a rigorous national campaign.
Chances: His popularity among the Tea Party base is pretty strong.  He hasn't officially announced but there's been a few "Draft Carson" efforts going out there.  He's the "Outsider" candidate who can claim he's not corrupt as the "Insider" candidates on the list.  It all depends on if he can find enough financial deep pockets and how he handles himself in debates.
Character Chart: He's the most difficult to pin down as he doesn't have a track record in office to measure his style.  His world-view is akin to a Far Right religious conservative, and his anti-ACA positions show a hatred for government health-care controls.  He presents himself as a Passive-Positive (he may even harbor Passive-Negative habits) but his statements and actions lean Active-Negative.

Chris Christie - Governor, New Jersey
Positives: Presents himself as a populist elected official as a Republican who won in a heavily-Democratic state.  Can govern.  Can campaign as hard as needed.  Has a high public profile already.
Negatives: Simply put: he's Nixon without the subtlety or charm.  The guy has two modes: Bully and bullying.  While it's part of his appeal to the Far Right that he's such a bully towards "libruls" and critics, it's an abrasive leadership style that alienates real quick.  He's also the focus of an ongoing federal investigation into BridgeGate.  Even if Christie is cleared of direct involvement, his office clearly was behind a vindictive act that hurt the public: a form of "ratf-cking" on par with Nixon-like retributions back in the day.  These are not good signs.
Chances: Once popular, the stigma of BridgeGate and a crowded campaign field of competing "populist" figures has dropped Christie to the middle of the pack.
Character Chart: He's as close to the poster-child model of Active-Negative traits - aggressive, uncompromising, vindictive - any modern candidate can display.

Ted Cruz - Senator, Texas
Positives: Nobody can pander to the Tea Party base like Gatson uh Cruz.
Negatives: Spends much of his political capital showboating in Congress and sabotaging US House legislation, a breach of etiquette having a Senator undercut the House Speaker on a regular basis.  He may be (college-level) intelligent but he's not (street) smart.  The talk has it that he does not play well with others.  His personal hypocrisy - a Latino minority born outside the United States (he's CANADIAN, people!) who attacks Hawaiian-born Obama as illegitimate - makes him something of a joke candidate.  Except he's deadly serious.
Chances: As well as anyone who can pander to the primary voters with the meaty stuff of attacking Obama and Obamacare on a regular basis.  Campaigning and debating on the national stage are different matters, though.  The real GOP power-brokers - the CEOs and SuperPAC controllers - may prefer one of their own (Jeb Bush).
Character Chart: His public and political recklessness makes it hard to view him as an Active-Negative, but his ambitions and uncompromising habits are clearly in that mode.

Carly Fiorina - CEO, California
Positives: One of a handful of women candidates who can broaden the "appeal" of the Republican platform.  Can claim executive experience as a business leader.  She's not as batsh-t crazy as the other prominent woman candidate on the GOP ticket (more on her later).
Negatives: No elective office or political experience.  She ran a poorly managed Senatorial campaign that ended in a bad loss.  Her track record as CEO - the only real thing she's got - isn't good (was forced out at Hewlett-Packard).
Chances: Slim.  She might run on a platform of "we need a CEO as President", but Romney tried that and didn't win over voters.
Character Chart: There's little on her political resume to confirm a style or world-view, but previous experience with CEO Presidents - Hoover, Bush the Lesser - points to either a person with uncompromising (Hoover) habits or a hands-off administrative style (Bush II).  Considering Fiorina's more aggressive management styles, she leans towards Hoover.  That puts her in the Active-Negative camp.

Mike Huckabee - Governor, Arkansas
Positives: Populist political figure from a strongly conservative political region (Southeast).  Can govern.  Knows how to campaign in a congenial style.  Remained a well-known figure on the national stage - by being on Fox Not-News as a pundit - after his failed primary campaigning in 2008.  He polled well as a possible candidate in 2012 (and showed enough awareness to tell it wasn't going to be a good election cycle for Republicans and stayed out of it).  Has legitimate religious conservative cred (ordained Baptist minister).  Can not only pander to the Tea Party base, he can do so without looking like it.
Negatives: Not exactly trusted by the anti-tax crowds still dominant in the backrooms of the GOP leadership (which is ridiculous as GOP dogma is too firmly obsessed with tax-cutting for anyone to violate that rule).  Has been away from elected office long enough for people to forget any good stuff he'd done as governor.  His time as a fear-monger on Fox Not-News will turn away moderate voters.  His early campaigning comments - going after "family values" issues and insulting Beyonce (?!) - are not exactly endearing him to any younger voters.  And that's not even going into legitimate scandals - granting clemencies to violent offenders who promptly killed (again), a son who killed a stray dog under obscure circumstances - that can become millstones in a national campaign.  Worst of all, Huckabee's advocacy of his religious beliefs - his failure to even respect the No Religious Test requirement IN THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF - threatens the sanctity of Separation of Church and State.
Chances: While he won't get the deep-pocket backers the way Jeb Bush (or even Mitt if Romney decides to make one more try) will, Huckabee has a high chance to use his charm and campaign skills to make a serious go at the nomination.
Character Chart: I stated earlier how the Republican Party is dominated by Active-Negatives and has an Active-Negative platform, yet needs a Passive-Positive candidate to appeal to regular voters.  Huckabee can present himself as a Passive-Positive better than any other candidate... but he's so Active-Negative with his strict religious convictions that he'll likely lean that way.

Sarah Palin - Mayor, Alaska (I refuse to list her brief term as Governor: SHE QUIT THE JOB AND NEVER FINISHED IT)
Positives: I'd like to think I'm not being biased against her, but I honestly cannot see anything about her that can be listed as a positive thing.  Maybe the fact she can present herself as a populist figure... except that she's really not that popular anymore.
Negatives: The phrase "batsh-t crazy" applies to Palin.  Has burned so many bridges in public and in private to the point where most of her Republican media fans from 2008 don't seem to want to talk about her eight years later.  She's currently polling near the bottom of the candidate list.  Her track record in elected office hasn't impressed.  The more people got a look at her (lack) of political skills the more they recoiled.
Chances: Next to nil.  She's putting her name out there as a mixture of pride and self-promotion: after all, her political posturing is how she makes her money.
Character Chart: Much of her political career and personal traits lean towards an aggressive, self-serving pattern.  She'd be a good fit in the Active-Negative category, with the only difference between her and previous A-N types is a lack of intelligence or skill (the closest equivalent would be Andrew Johnson... shudder).

Rick Perry - Governor, Texas
Positives: Long-serving governor of a major state.  Can govern.  Can campaign at the state level at least.  Made massive revisions to how the governor's office ran and how the state government functioned.  At least kept Texas voters - which is a sizable voter base - happy.
Negatives: Has a mixed record as governor, including current indictments for extortion and abuse of office.  Hasn't won over Hispanic voters with his very meager pro-immigrant moves as he still campaigns publicly on harsher anti-immigration policies.  The 2012 primary campaign was such a public disaster - he had a brain fart during a debate that was so painful even his opponents tried to help him - that he's got a long way to show he can genuinely campaign at a national level.
Chances: In this crowded primary, he's bumping against better public speakers (Christie) and populist figures (Huckabee) that can steal his thunder.  He may garner some deep pockets from the rich state of Texas but he's competing against the backroom reach of the Bush clan for that as well.
Character Chart: His track record as governor - hard on veto usage, rare to compromise, sticking to the Far Right political dogma on most issues - has him as an Active-Negative.

Rick Santorum - Senator, Pennsylvania
Positives: Actually ran a competitive campaign in the 2012 primaries, coming closest to being the Not-Mitt Romney candidate.  Is consistent on backing major issues dear to the GOP voting base.  Can be the only candidate to seriously challenge Huckabee's religious creds.  Under normal conditions for the Republican primaries, he'd be a front-runner and near-lock.
Negatives: Is a national punchline to a sick joke (do NOT Google his name).  Hasn't held elective office since 2007 (which is actually a serious problem for other front-runner types like Jeb Bush, but it hurts Santorum more as he lacks the broad power base Jeb maintains).  While he's a hard campaigner on social issues - anti-gay, anti-immigration, pro-fetus - his economic/tax stances aren't as well-known.
Chances: Still has some support in Iowa (due to the high count of social conservatives in-state) which can translate to early primary/caucus wins.  But he doesn't have the deep-pocket support the other big name candidates have.
Character Chart: His consistent social conservative stance points to an uncompromising world-view, again this points to an Active-Negative trait.

Scott Walker - Governor, Wisconsin
Positives: Won election in a relatively progressive state, and survived multiple attempts at ousting him from office (including a serious recall effort within his first term), which shows serious campaign skills.  Has imposed a hard governing style on issues, and has supported conservative platform "reforms" popular with the Tea Party base.  While it's bad for the rest of us, it's a positive for Walker in that he's in tight with the powerful and wealthy Koch Brothers.
Negatives: For all his election wins remains one of the more divisive political figures in the Midwest.  Hasn't polled well even in Iowa.  Hasn't officially put his name in, although his ambition for the Presidency is known.  He's currently the focus of a "John Doe" criminal investigation, which may not end any time soon (despite every effort by the GOP powers to kill it).
Chances: While he hasn't made it official, it's merely a question of when at this point.  His polling doesn't look good, but his backing - the Kochs - puts him in play.
Character Chart: Has an aggressive governing style that definitely puts him in the Active column.  His uncompromising stances on most issues makes him a clear Active-Negative type.

Missing from this list: Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio. Either they aren't at Iowa or haven't informally announced (despite signs and statements of interest).  There's a couple of others I haven't even named, but until I see official confirmation they've put in for the effort I won't name them.

Jeb Bush is not listed as a speaker but I've already reviewed him as an Active-Negative.

In recent weeks, Mitt Romney has expressed an interest in running yet again.  Even after the loss to Obama in 2012.  He's either delusional, thinks the current field isn't better than he is, or thinks that in 2016 the Democratic candidate (right now that's Hillary) will be easier to beat.  While this doesn't look like a Passive-Negative trait for Mitt to keep seeking the White House, it does fit if you look at his persistence as a form of Duty to his personal beliefs (also, the Barber charting method is not absolute: Characters can fall right on the line between Active/Passive and Positive/Negative, meaning Mitt can harbor Active-Negative as well as Passive-Negative traits).

It's horrifying to document so many A-N types running for the Presidency: that's because I can't find evidence right now any of the major Republican candidates showing the primary traits of an Active-Positive.  I don't see many candidates who view compromise and deal-making as legitimate power tools (which are part of the Adaptive trait of A-P types) or any candidates who will approach the Presidency with an affirmative, We-Can-Do-This world-view.  Worse, I can't see any Passive-Positives: those with genuine Congenial traits that make them personable and easy-to-work with even political opponents (Huckabee comes closest, but his God-In-Government stance is a key sign he's not).

I'm not about to say which candidate has the best chance.  Personally, I'm terrified any of them have a serious shot at the White House.  None of them (Active-Negatives) are what we need right now - pushing a harsh GOP platform opposed to basic human decency over immigration or gay rights, pushing a harsh tax-cut and social-benefits-cuts platform doomed to cause more deficits and financial hardships - to lead the nation past 2016.

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The Future 2016 Campaigning: What Matters More, the Party or the Candidate?

Still in the process of typing up Jeb Bush's bio for a prediction of his Presidential Character, but while doing so I have to come to terms with where the political parties are this coming 2016 election cycle, and which candidates are actually going to survive the primaries to stand before the electorate on November 2016.

It's particularly troubling that the Republican Party is getting packed with wannabe candidates lining up already for the campaigning and fund-raising.  Jeb Bush has put his name in, but so have other big names like Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie and Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker and a slew of others, with current interest from the last guy Mitt Romney weighing his chances against Jeb!  This is on top of the more fringe names like Ben Carson and Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina.  There's about thirty-three possible names on the list for the GOP right about now.

Meanwhile for the Democrats, it's pretty much Hillary Clinton and a list of progressive officials that the more liberal party base are praying puts their names in.  Actually there's about twenty-three possible names, but there's not as much eagerness for people to jump in because Hillary's the one big name and few others seem likely challengers (of course, kinda said that back in 2008 too...).

And while I'm struggling over how to classify each possible candidate - the ones who have an honest shot at winning, that is - one stumbling block I'm finding is the power expectations - one of Barber's key points - that the voting party bases will use to judge those candidates.

The sin of the modern primary system is how it's not the party bosses making deals in back rooms that matter: it's how those party bosses motivate their base to show up to vote in the primaries.  The primaries make and break the candidates: whoever can pander best to the base in each state - which doesn't go by population importance, the state order goes by how easy those states are manipulated - gets the early support and the momentum to secure the nom.

Which is why it might not matter if a Republican candidate is Active-Positive or if a Democratic candidate is Passive-Positive or if a Libertarian candidate has a sense of humor.  If the party wants an Active-Negative to represent them, the candidates who don't fit that want won't win.

Here's the problem I'm finding about the Republican Party: the party base - the Tea Partiers, the Second Amendment Fetishers, the small-government-drown-it-in-Grover's-bathtub crowds - seems so eager to want an Active-Negative type serving as their President.  They want someone who will restrict and slash government services, cut taxes on the rich (while raising taxes on the lazy poor), deregulate businesses to run amok in a Free Market free-range, shut down the borders against illegals, and wage war against The Dreaded Other despite the costs.  A lot of behavior that history shows falls to Active-Negatives under what Barber called the "I Must" mindset that drives A-Ns to compulsive, unshakable agendas.

But at the same time, the party base recognizes that such A-N types are difficult to elect to office anymore.  The last official A-N we had in the White House - Richard Nixon - made the personality so toxic that anyone with that overt a trait would be shunned by regular voters (the most recent A-N who wasn't officially in charge - Dick Cheney - reinforced that toxicity).  So the party leadership is trying to manufacture, promote, or encourage the illusion that their "establishment" candidates - the likes of Jeb, or even what they tried with Romney last time - will run "positive" campaigns pursuing "reforms" on topics like education and immigration and job creation.  All the while hiding the facts that their platforms don't have any real solutions for those topics, just decades-old talking points and all pointing towards the same answer (tax cuts and deregulation).

The Republicans have an Active-Negative agenda, yet they need a Passive-Positive - another Reagan with the charm and skill to avoid the issues and project a congenial persona - to sell it.

So I'm watching a Republican Party go schizoid over the possibilities of who they want as their Presidential candidate.  There aren't many Passive-Positives left in the Republican ranks due to the purity purges that left most of the leadership as Active-Negatives.  On that list Wikipedia has, most of the major names lean A-N in terms of adhering to reactionary agendas (hi, Christie!  hi, Scott Walker!  And yes, hi Jeb!).  The more far-out candidates - Bachmann, Santorum, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz - may present themselves as charismatic but they're not impressive with congeniality skills on the level of Reagan.  I'd already tagged Romney as a Passive-Negative, even if he puts back in for another campaign he still fits that trait best.  The only one of the named candidates that could conceivably play Passive-Positive with the populist skill as Saint Ronnie is Mike Huckabee.  And yet even that persona masks a hidden Active-Negative leaning due to Huckabee's religious hardline worldview.  It hadn't helped Huckabee that he's spent years in the echo chamber of the Far Right Noise Machine, which reinforces a negative worldview not only upon its audiences but also on its presenters.

For the Democrats, the madness of the campaigning isn't as severe: the base eagerly wants another Active-Positive, just one that's more active than Bill Clinton and Obama have been.  The only real problem there is that the primary leader - hi, Hillary! - is an unrepentant Active-Negative, which is why a lot of "Draft Elizabeth Warren" efforts are ongoing.  I mean, is Martin O'Malley a bridge too far, or are Democrats wary of having another Irish guy follow right after the Irish Obama?

I keep promising a review of Jeb Bush.  I gave away the Spoiler of how Jeb's an Active-Negative at heart, but I'll try to explain how I got to that as an answer.

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Predicting Presidents for 2016: Ere It Begins

My personal blogging challenge for the year of 2015 is to cope with the pending headaches of 2016 by attempting to predict each potential political candidate's Presidential Character.

This will follow the system established by James David Barber, who used a basic four-grid chart using two baselines: the energy invested in the Presidency (Active-Passive), and the personal perception placed/will place on the role of being President (Positive-Negative).  This gives us Active-Positive, Active-Negative, Passive-Positive, and Passive-Negative.

The terms used can be confusing because there are multiple meanings to each word.  People get confused about the word "Active" for example, thinking that can apply to Presidents who on a personal level bounce off the walls like hyperactive children.  The word "Active" here applies to how much energy that President puts towards being President: does he go to the job with confidence and vigor and conviction, does he view every policy fight as a good reason to wake up in the morning?  George W. Bush is a good example of the confusion: in personal habits he was very active and engaged with others, but when it came to the Presidency he was decidedly disconnected and more reactive to situations than active, which puts him in the Passive category.

Positive and Negatives might lead to confusion as well.  "Positive" here is the mindset that being President is a good thing, that the powers of the Executive office can be effectively used, that the role of the Presidency is flexible enough to do anything necessary to achieve goals that benefits others (Barber calls it the "I Can" mentality).  "Negative" is the mindset that the Presidency is dangerous (even in your own hands), that there are limits to the office and that things should be done in a procedural manner, that the President cannot or will not derive any satisfaction from the performance (Which falls under "I Must" mentality).

Using these definitions, Barber wrote his first book on Presidential Character in 1972 about then-President Richard Nixon who was about to embark on his re-election campaign.  Barber warned that Nixon showed signs of being a self-destructive Active-Negative type, akin to his predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson and to Woodrow Wilson.  Barber noted that Nixon's desire to face crises - even those self-created - would lead to an obsessive fight over a failed agenda that would collapse Nixon's entire administration.

That book was published and in the stores about two weeks before the Watergate break-in was found out.  It cemented Barber's reputation and his four-grid chart.  For the most part since then Barber's predictions about subsequent Presidents - except for Carter who was more Active-Negative, and for Clinton who was Active-Positive (but who did lean towards the Passive-Positive traits on a personal level) - bore true.  (It should be noted that the traits are not absolutes: even Negatives may show Positive leanings, and Passives may be remarkably Active and influential in the Executive office).

So before I go delving into the early list of 2016 candidates - a wave of Republican hopefuls just beginning with Jeb Bush and now Mike Huckabee, sure to be followed by 25-80 more - I need to clarify just what it is we'll need as voters to look at when evaluating the clowns jumping out of the election car.

Above all, the biographies of each candidate needs to be parsed and investigated.  Barber relied on the prime developing years of each President's youth, college years, early professions, marital pursuits.

In terms of professions, Barber examined the private professions as much as the public offices held, campaigns lost or won, and in each office he identified a key crisis or decision that either influenced further actions or confirmed the traits developed in the man's youth.

From such studies, Barber looked for these elements (from his book's first chapter):

• Personality: in Barber's view it "shapes performance".  "...the degree and quality of a President's emotional involvement in an issue are powerful influences on how he defines the issue itself, how much attention he pays to it, which facts and persons he sees as relevant to its resolution, and finally what principles and and purposes he associates with the issue." (4th edition, p.4)
• Pattern: the Personality follows certain patterns based on Character, World View, and Style.  Style (not charisma: nearly every President had his charms) is the easiest to spot: it's his habitual way of offering rhetoric, handling personal relations, and doing homework. (p.5)  The World View is another phrase to describe the person's primary belief structure and how he/she interprets the reality around him/her.  Character is based on what experiences have been "engraved" onto the person by outside persons/forces: it's how you confront conflicts (and Character is What You Are In The Dark).
• Power Situation: That is, the moral and political climate into which the person becomes President.  What are the expectations of the office by the President as well as everyone else: voters, Congressional leaders, foreign powers?  The expectations of the office have changed much since Washington's heyday, and have changed even further after major economic (Great Depression) and political (Watergate and the ongoing scandal climate) and social (Slavery/Civil War/Reconstruction/Jim Crow/Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, etc) events that altered everything.  When we elect someone, we are expecting the elected official - the President - to perform his duties to resolve the crises and conflicts at hand.  Those expectations influence - either by confirming or denying - the President's pre-existing Character and World View.

So what this means for me is three-fold:

• I gotta find published biographies of each of the candidate I'll be looking to profile.  Some will be easy to find, others not so.  And autobiographies will be ignored whenever possible, as those are too self-serving (tigers cannot see their own stripes: Republicans cannot admit to their own flaws...).
• I need to identify any major crisis or conflict in each candidate's track history.  For Jeb it's relatively easy: his governor's performance is a matter of public record.  For the "private" citizens who've never held public office, their private sector performances would have to do, which is trickier to apply to public needs.
• I need to get this all done in a timely fashion.  There's only 50 weeks now until 2016 itself rolls up and there's going to be about, what, 80 of these guys to review? 

As a side note, why should we expect about 80 or so Republican hopefuls running for 2016?  Because Obama.  Obama is finishing up his second term, capped off by the 22nd Amendment, meaning he won't be able to use his national popularity - it's gone up, by the by - to remain in office.

Making 2016 more enticing is the (flawed) cyclical trend of voters generally bouncing from one party to another even after a popular President leaves office: the thinking is that after 8 years of a Democrat in the White House, middling voters will allow a Republican back in.  Never mind the actual history where popular two-termers had a follow-up from his party win again.  SEE Bush the Elder following Reagan, Truman following FDR, Van Buren following Jackson, Taft following Teddy.  And it should include Nixon following Ike if not for Cook County ballots and Gore following Clinton if not for that damned butterfly ballot in Palm Beach county.  The notable exceptions are of course the unpopular two-termers Bush the Lesser and Nixon (whose unpopularity stained Ford's chances in 1976): in that vein, we'd have had Tilden a Democrat after the disaster that was Grant's administration if not for a broken Electoral college that allowed the corrupt Republicans in Congress to shove Hayes into office.  You'd be surprised how few two-termers there have been...

As for my homework assignment, Jeb Bush is the obvious lead-off.  He's local, he's made his moves, he's got easy-to-find resources within my reach for study.  Granted, I already have a bias against the man - mostly for logical performance-based disasters he inflicted on my state, but also for one very personal and admittedly irrational reason - but I will try to be fair.

Happy New Year!

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It's Not 2016 Yet, Still Getting Primaried To Death

Posted with comment:

A sure sign that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is planning to do more than just “explore” a run for the White House in 2016 is the fact that he is severing ties, erasing connections and alliances that could “complicate” a presidential campaign.

Given the size and scope of Presidential campaigns anymore, and the massive costs generated by constant campaigning to fund all of it in the first place, we're pretty much into the first year of a two-year program to destroy our love of civics.

There will be more to post about Jeb's interest in destroying the United States after all the fun he had the first time he did in 2000, but for now all I gotta say is this: expect at least 20 80 more Republican hopefuls - the obvious disasters like Christ Christie and Scott Walker, the surprising gamblers like Bob Corker, the hopeless clowns like the two Ricks (Santorum and Perry) - to declare in the next few weeks, because it's all fund-raising at this point and the ones who get the most money the earliest gets the head start in Iowa.

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The Real Voter Scandal Continues: The Turnout Sucks, Florida 2014 Primary Edition

(update: hello to the people linking in via Crooks and Liars.  Thank you Batocchico for the promotion! please check out the other recent articles while you're here...)

So here we are in Florida, 2014, everyone in the state knows what is at stake - GET RICK "NO ETHICS" SCOTT OUT OF OFFICE - and we get our August Primary up and everything.  And there are actual choices for both major parties this primary: Democrats choosing between Crist or Rich; Republicans choosing between Scott (augh), Cuevas-Neunder, or someone named Yinka. (slow pause)  Yeah, well, anyway, there's every reason to think that with choices to be made for the big state-wide vote, we'd see a large number of voters showing up.  We've got 11 million-plus registered to vote, and although the NPA voters couldn't vote in the party primaries we've still got 8 million or so Republicans and Democrats on file available to make their choices known.

And what happens with the voter turnout?

We've have rat farts that made a bigger impact on things.

(copied from the Tampa Bay Times)

Governor - GOP Primary

5802 of 5804 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Name Party Votes Vote % Scott, Rick (i) GOP 833,585 88% Cuevas-Neunder, Elizabeth GOP 100,585 11% Adeshina, Yinka GOP 16,880 2%

Governor - Dem Primary

5802 of 5804 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Name Party Votes Vote % Crist, Charlie Dem 620,689 74% Rich, Nan Dem 214,111 26%

According to the state's Supervisor of Elections page, there's 4,152,489 Republicans, 4,608,759 Democrats (with NPA and third parties at 3,083,202).  I'm counting less than a million voters turning out for Republicans, waaaay less voters turning out for Democrats.  Less than a million for each party.  That's less than 25 percent (a quarter) of registered voters this Primary.  Our turnout didn't even get to the 39 percent failure I railed about in the FL-13 Special election a few months back.

WE ARE NOWHERE NEAR EITHER PARTY MAKING A MAJORITY DECISION ON WHO THEY WANT AS THEIR CANDIDATES.  We are nowhere near a 50 percent of voter turnout, where a solid majority of fellow Floridians can stand up and say "hey, this is who we want representing our interests!"

To hell with the screeching over "voter fraud" (which happens on such a meager scale - less than a percent - to be non-existent), the real screeching needs to be over the FAILURE of registered voters to actually show up and f-cking vote.

Because this is what happens when those registered voters don't show up: their interests will not be addressed.  Their real-world needs such as good jobs at good wages, working schools, functioning roads and bridges, clean water, affordable housing and utility bills... none of that will be properly addressed because we'll end up with elected officials who KNOW that a majority of Floridians didn't even care enough to show up.  Those officials know all they have to do is indulge the voters who DO show up, who always show up regardless, and they'll be able to keep their comfy, full-pension-in-4-years jobs.

And the voters who DO show up?!  They're the wingnuts.  The extremists.  The single-issue crazies obsessing over hating gays, worshiping guns, shooting doctors, and nuking the social safety nets like Medicare Social Security and Medicaid.  This is why abortion remains a major campaign issue even when a majority of Americans don't even consider abortion a Top 10 Topic: it's still red meat for the extremist voters, and the politicians know who they have to pander to.

It may be so easy for a majority of citizens to tune out, to disengage, to walk away from politics because of all the negativity and social warfare (some of it literal).  But that disengagement has a price: OUR NEEDS AS A STATE AND AS COMMUNITIES SUFFER.  They suffer because the needs of the minority (by number, not ethnicity) extremists will be sated at the expense of the many.

Worse, the minority group getting the special treatment above all others tend to be the uber-rich billionaires making themselves richer by getting their cronies they elected to hand over more and more tax breaks and free access to our public funds.  And then people wonder why income inequality has become a huge problem: IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE LETTING THE CROOKS WIN RE-ELECTION.

This is frustrating.  This is insane.

It ought to be illegal.  There ought to be a rule making damn sure no election is certified until a solid majority (I'd love for it to be 60 percent super-majority) of voters available for that election have placed their ballots for counting.  And if that means extending the voting times, so be it (and have the parties PAY for those extensions: it'd be a good way to force them to get better at GOTV efforts).  If people don't like the choices being offered, every election - even the closed party primaries - ought to have a blank space to add a write-in vote.

WE OUGHT TO HAVE OUR ELECTIONS BE BUSINESS AND SCHOOL HOLIDAYS TO GIVE PEOPLE ENOUGH FREE TIME TO SHOW UP AND VOTE (most people don't even realize they have a right to leave work for an hour to go vote, and because they work during election hours few of them even make the effort).  We ought to move elections to Fridays or Saturdays, on weekends: this isn't 1880 when people had to travel during business hours to the county courthouse to file their ballots while they conduct business in-town.

We can do these things: except we can't.  BECAUSE BOTH MAJOR PARTIES PROFIT FROM THE BROKEN ELECTORAL SYSTEM.  Yes, even Democrats.

I remember from a political science class back in college where two professors discussed how political parties figured out a rule: that the fewer people who showed up to vote, the EASIER it got to control that election's results.  Because the ones who always turned up were the single-issue wingnuts, and those were easy to manipulate and control.  If voter turnout grows, the number of more moderate, more complex-thinking voters who can't fit within the square pegs increases to where the campaigns can't dictate the results (which really scares them, 'cause they hate to get off-message).  I'd love to remember what the name of that rule was: I did not write it down then because it was tangent to another topic discussed that class.

And so, nothing will get done.  At least, not by the parties' separate leaderships.

If anything is going to fix this, it's going to have to be from the voters ourselves.  WE NEED TO SHOW UP AND VOTE.  We need to make our voices heard.  We need to get state amendments on-ballot to reform our broken electoral system.  We need to get 8 million voters showing up for Primaries.  We need to get 11 million voters showing up for the General Election.

We need to wake up, and we need to get in the faces of the status quo a-holes running our political parties into the ground.  They need to respect the voters better, and that means showing up and making them aware we are not their puppets.

Dammit, Florida.  GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.

P.S. just for the Love of God DO NOT VOTE FOR RICK "MEDICARE FRAUD" SCOTT.  I'm serious.  Rick Scott is not running for Governor to work for our state: Rick Scott is running to make money for Rick Scott.  That is all he represents.  Just PLEASE do not vote for him...

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Liveblogging the Florida Primary 2014 (w/ UPDATES)

I'll be at work for most of the day and early evening, but by 8:30 PM or so I'll be updating this day's entry with current notices.  I'll be tracking the Governor candidates and any Polk/Tampa Bay oriented races.  Here's hoping a lot of Republicans are voting for the other two names on the ballot other than Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott...  Keep an eye for updates please and thank ye, you seven blog readers. :)

UPDATE: 7:35 PM
So far just seeing online info on the local races in Pinellas County.  There's a boatload of Latvalas running for office over there.

UPDATE: 8:31 PM
Well dammit.  That was anti-climatic.  I just got home from work to watch on television as Nan Rich is conceding her race against Crist (currently winning 74 percent) while I'm seeing on the screen tracker that Rick "No Ethics" Scott is pummeling Cuevas-Neunder at 88 percent.  DAMMIT, REPUBLICANS, YOU HAD ONE CHANCE TO PROVE YOU STILL HAVE SOULS.  Instead you bought into Scott's snake-oil sales pitch AGAIN.  ...I dunno why I bother with you people...

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Get Out The Vote, Florida: Tuesday August 26th

The Early Voting is done here in Florida.  Now, the regular vote day is set.

Tuesday, August 26th.

Find your precinct.  It's on your voter ID card.

Find your ballot.  Everyone has one, even the No-Party-Affiliate voter (Yes, NPA voters: YOU CAN AND SHOULD TURN UP TO VOTE THIS TUESDAY).

If you're Democrat, you've got a major decision to make: vote for Charlie Crist to run as your candidate, or vote for Nan Rich.

If you're a Republican, you've got a major decision to make: to NEVER VOTE FOR A CROOK LIKE RICK SCOTT AND INSTEAD VOTE FOR ONE OF HIS PRIMARY CHALLENGERS.  I mean, okay, C'mom Republicans, show some goddamn sanity once in your lives and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE FOR THAT MEDICARE FRAUD.

I mean, it's been four years of this crook trying to pull stuff like this:

...But, in practice, the Scott administration has erected barriers to public records, marginalized the use of Sunburst and interpreted the state's Sunshine laws in a way that open government advocates say has set back the clock on Florida's open records tradition.

"They don't turn over anything unless they get caught,'' said Steve Andrews, a Tallahassee lawyer whose two-year legal battle over a property dispute with the state produced thousands of documents raising questions about many of the administration's practices.

Andrews spent 18 months getting copies of text messages that he was repeatedly told by the governor's staff did not exist. He is suing the governor's office for violating the state's public records laws, alleging the records he has received are incomplete and, in some cases, altered.

The governor acknowledged for the first time last week that he uses a private email account but issued a blanket denial that he uses it for public business. He also accused Andrews of harassment...

...Scott spokesman John Tupps said the governor's office "now discourages the use of text messaging by employees because text messages are hard to catalog due to the digital nature of the message."

But thousands of records obtained by Andrews and the Times/Herald indicate that the governor's staff may have violated that policy when dealing with communication about politically-sensitive information, or when lobbyists and well-positioned Republicans want to communicate with the governor's top advisers.

For example, when Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel Vinyard met the governor and staff from the governor and attorney general's offices at the Governor's Mansion on a Sunday in February 2012, he arranged and discussed it with Scott's then-deputy chief of staff, Carrie O'Rourke, via text messages. Records show they were meeting to discuss, among other things, a potential settlement regarding the BP oil spill...

And that's just the stuff they reported last week.  He's been pulling more unethical stuff than that his entire term.

Please for the Love of GOD, Florida voters, make this his ONLY term in office.

There's a perfectly good conservative candidate in Elizabeth Cuevas-Neunder sitting right there on the ballot, you Republicans can easily vote for her.  Granted, I'm registered NPA, plus I'm also voting for Crist (or Rich, depending on who wins the Democratic nomination) regardless this November partly because the GOP stranglehold on state-level politics is obscene.  But still, you all, WE ALL can do a hell of a lot better than having that Medicare-Fraud, accountability-avoiding, free-loading, cronyist rule-breaking SOB Scott on the general ballot this November.

PLEASE.  Vote anyone BUT Scott.  For the Love of GOD...

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