Politics

While I did start this blog primarily so I, too, could wax rhapsodic about cycling, I had other things I knew would creep (or in this case charge) in at some point. The other biggies in my life are politics - if there was a twelve-step for political addicts I'd need the 24-step version, and Buddhism. Today I'm not going to babble about my faith, since that's not really my thing (live, don't talk) but about politics.

I am a "small l" libertarian. For those who aren't familiar with the "small l"/"large L" argument in libertarian politics, it boils down to whether or not you are a member of the Libertarian Party (I'm not) and adhere to traditional libertarian philosophy on all subjects (I don't). Where I fall is in the "the smallest amount of government intervention possible" camp. Some things work better in the market, some things work better with a little regulation, and some things need to be managed by a central power. The trick is balancing and making sure that the managing is helping things run better.

That isn't really what I wanted to talk about today though. What I'm interested in discussing is the presidential primary, and my hopes for the races. I'll start by saying that I didn't vote for President in the last two elections. I'm registered Democrat, in California, which let me avoid the "I need to vote for the Dem guy or the state might go for the other one", given that the odds of California going for GWB were pretty slim. Gore didn't excite me, Lieberman made me not want to vote for the ticket. The next round was Kerry/Edwards and I couldn't think of a single reason to vote for them, especially since their whole campaign was "We're not Bush/Cheney" which wasn't anywhere near enough for me. In both of those elections I did vote on state and local issues, as well as the congressional candidates, I just skipped over the President.

This year I was hoping there would be someone to care about, there's not. What I'm hoping for now is a brokered convention. In essence this is where nobody makes it to the convention with enough votes to be the nominee. That means lots of politicking and trades to try and put together a coalition large enough to win, very similar to what you see on a regular basis in parliamentary governments with more than two political parties. It won't make a huge difference, since it would be intra-party politicking and not inter-party, but it could actually make for an interesting race.

It is possible, if not likely, that the Republican race will go that way. If Mormon-Mitt can get himself back on track and pull in some delegates before Super Tuesday there could be four semi-viable candidates left after it, with the votes split enough to bring them all to the convention with a fighting crew behind them. Unfortunately, the Democrats have pretty much been narrowed down to two rock stars and a bubblegum pop star trying to stay viable. If they stay split it would mean that Edwards could control the convention and short of coming home tonight to find my house a smoldering crater I can't think of many things that would upset me more.

There will be more political posts to come. Especially on days like this where I don't bike commute because of meetings, only to find out that the meeting was moved to a different day without anyone letting me know. Oh well. I'll hopefully get some miles in on the trainer when I get home tonight.