Other Voices

George Will, in today's Washington Post, says "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. ... It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?" (McCain Loses His Head)

Caucasian Males - Vanishing Demographic?

I've found some interesting statistics having to do with the national delegates selected at the Texas Democratic Party State Convention.

Of the 227 Texas delegates to the Democratic National Convention, 126 were allocated based on the district-level primary vote. Another 42 at-large delegates were selected at the state convention in proportion to their candidates' success in the caucus process. In addition, 56 party leaders and elected officials (25 pledged and 31 unpledged) got to go. There were an additional 3 unpledged add-ons selected at the convention.

I found this chart of the diversity goals for the Texas delegation.

- http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6207

Out of 202 district-level, at-large, and unpledged delegates selected, the goal was to select at least 72 Hispanics, 54 African Americans, 9 Asian Pacific Islander Americans, and 1 Native American. The goals for ethnic diversity add up to 136. But, the convention exceeded these goals, selecting 78 Hispanics, 75 African Americans, 11 Asian Pacific Islander Americans, and 5 Native Americans. That adds up to 169, leaving 33 Caucasian delegates - 16 of which were party leaders and elected officials and got to go anyway!

So, of the 168 national delegates selected at the state convention, only 17 were Caucasian? Can this be right? Am I missing overlap of the ethnic classification? (The Statement of Candidacy form says to select only one ethnic group.) And this when almost 50 percent of the Texas population is 'White non-Hispanic'?

Now, how about male versus female.

According to recent Pew Research polls, nationally, 60 percent of men identify themselves as Republican or Republican-leaning. And McCain leads Obama 55-35 percent with Caucasian males. (By the way, of the people who identify themselves as Democrats, 23 percent are Black and 11 percent are Hispanic.)

I did a quick scan of the delegate list from the Texas Democratic Party. If you look at the 168 delegates chosen at the convention (disregarding the party leaders and elected officials), it comes out to be 94 women and 71 men (with one not listed). Maybe that's representative of the gender split in the Texas Democratic Party.

- http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/TX-D.phtml

Of the district level delegates, the count was 66 women and 57 men. You would expect this to be close since we were instructed to select an equal number of men and women in each of the 62 caucuses (two - one each for Obama and Clinton - for each of the 31 senatorial districts). The different totals result from caucuses electing an odd number of delegates. (The count was 50-50 when there were an even number of delegates to be chosen, and 16 women versus 7 men, when an odd number of delegates was selected.)

Finally, of the 42 at-large delegates - the convention's Nominations At Large committee's tool for effecting ethnic, gender, and other diversity goals - they picked 27 women and 15 men.

So, of the delegates selected at the convention, there were 93 women and 72 men. I guess this somewhat compensates for the fact that the people in charge are mostly men. It turns out that the only group that has more men than women is the PLEO (party leaders and elected officials), where men lead women 41-18.

Does this mean that the Texas Democratic Party needs to reach out to Caucasian males to add some diversity to the organization? Or maybe this is just Fun With Numbers and it doesn't really matter who goes to the national convention!

NOTE: This post was written three weeks ago - before the Democratic convention (where the Texas delegation didn't actually get to vote).

Social Animal

(updated below)

I look forward to hearing what David Brooks has to say on TV and reading what he writes in the New York Times. Since Palin's selection as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, I've been waiting for him to validate my belief that she's unqualified and McCain's judgement defective. I'm waiting for him to either denounce McCain's pick, explain how she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, or explain why it doesn't matter.

But, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe he doesn't think it's his place. Maybe he thinks that if she is unacceptable, it will eventually become obvious. Or maybe I'm missing something. Could she actually be qualified? It seems pretty obvious to me that she's not. But it's also pretty obvious that a lot of Republicans think she is. How can that be?!

David Brooks, in his latest column for the New York Times, The Social Animal, doesn't address my concerns about the McCain/Palin ticket. But he hints at something that I think is important and that might be helpful in understanding the cognitive dissonance people like me are experiencing with politics.

Brooks states that we are "deeply interconnected with one another". His point is that the Republican Party needs to do more to nurture the social institutions providing the scaffolding our individuality is built on.  But he's also saying something else about what it is to be human. This is at least the second time recently that Brooks has referred to the connection of the self to social relationships (see The Neural Buddhists published this past May).

Maybe the reason there is so much cognitive dissonance in politics is that Democrats and Republicans live in separate social realities, speaking separate languages!

I like to tell people that one of my favorite activities is thinking about thinking! But, when it really comes down to it, that's not a very easy thing to do. So, in the end, I spend less time thinking about thinking and more time just thinking about thinking about thinking! And talking about thinking about thinking! (I can be a silly guy!)

I am very interested in how we construct our concepts of self and the world we live in. And how we use these constructs to navigate our way through life. I'll share more of my thinking on philosophical topics in future posts but, for now, let me just mention a theory of knowledge known as Social Construction. This theory explains that a lot of what we perceive as facts about the world only exist by social agreement. For example, a twenty dollar bill only has value because we agree that it has value. Otherwise, it's just a piece of decorated paper.

Social Construction may be helpful in trying to begin to understand how Democrats and Republicans can hold such opposing opinions on so many issues of the day - and with such confidence! We live in different socially constructed worlds! As David Brooks might say, this sounds pretty "airy-fairy".  But there's something to this.

It's easier to assume that the other guys are either stupid or dishonest and stop thinking about all the contradictions. That's certainly easier.  Too easy!  That's the cartoon version of reality!

I'm still thinking about it.

UPDATE: I was encouraged to see David Brooks' column of September 15, 2008, Why Experience Matters, where he points out that: "Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared" and states that Sarah Palin "has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness"!  Thanks, David.

Where to start? How about politics!

A letter to the editor:

John McCain's reckless pandering to gynocentrists and the religious faction of the party in choosing an unprepared running mate exacerbates the desperate position Republicans find themselves in.  His choice is demeaning to women and insulting to those of us who grew up believing in a Republican Party that stood for reason, competence and responsibility.  I am embarrassed watching respectable Republicans pretend that she's qualified for the position. Where are America's true conservative leaders?  Will Republicans have to wait four more years for a candidate worth going to the polls for. 

OK, so maybe 'gynocentrists' is too fancy a word.  And, yes, that's an awfully long sentence.

By the time this was actually published in one of our local newspapers - several days after McCain's choice of Sara Palin and my initial reaction - the story had evolved, as had my thinking.  At this point, this position doesn't appear as desperate as I would have thought.  But maybe the exacerbation part is still to come.

While it might sound like I'm a Republican based on my letter, I'm not.  I was trying to speak with the people I was trying to influence, not at them.  When it comes to politics these days, I don't think Republicans and Democrats can hear each other.  Maybe it's a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

Republicans seem to have constructed a reality where McCain's selection of Palin establishes his social conservative credentials.  Never mind that he almost chose Joe Lieberman!  His motto is 'Country First', but he chooses a running mate who is not ready to be president, or even ready to talk to the press for that matter. Doesn't anyone see this as putting the lie to his motto?  Isn't he putting politics first?  

I feel like a kid about to cry out that the emperor has no clothes, but first looking around and wondering if I'm the only one who sees it.  What's going on?  Does it not matter whether she is qualified?  Can it be that she is qualified?  I'm waiting for David Brooks or George Will or Pat Buchanan or, at least, David Gergen to speak up! Maybe it's going to take someone like Chuck Hagel or Richard Lugar to tell their fellow Republicans that she is unacceptable.

We'll see...