Can I interest you in Chicken or Sh*t for dinner?

There is a meme on Facebook this morning with a clip from a New Yorker article.  The quote says "I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart.. (and says) 'Can I interest you in the Chicken.. or would you prefer a platter of shit with broken bits of glass in it.'"

My first reaction was that that was typical New Yorker - left good, right bad.  So obvious a decision that only a moron could make the wrong choice.  So to look at the polls these days, it pretty much an even race:  43 to 43 leaving 14% undecided or voting for someone else.  If you ask the New Yorker, that means about half the country is too stupid to see what a glorious option we have in Mrs. Clinton - 43% so stupid that they would opt for the unthinkable.  They epitomize the entitled, intellectual elitist class in America.  They have the answers and you should all just sit back and let them run things.

In reality, both candidates are mortally flawed.  Neither is likely to have a presidency that will bring us to the shining city on the hill.  Clinton is too partisan, like President Obama, to see anything coming from the other party as useful. Her track record going back 30 years into Arkansas is dubious at best and the few things she puts on her resume as successes, like killing Bin Laden, are hard to quantify her specific contributions. Her baggage is certainly heavy, but her supporters are more than willing to carry it for her.  For her, being the first female president would be nice and were she to have a successful presidency, she might be able to toss some of that baggage off the train.

Trump is not politically partisan, but his privileged life offers a world view that limits his vision of how to solve complex problems like urban poverty.  He has catered to and expressed political beliefs that land in the center of Republican, Democrat and Libertarian camps.  Mr. Trump probably does not need a career change to politics to make money or live the high life so it's fair to say, he probably is not doing this to raise his living standards.  He is bitterly hated by moderates who thought they controlled the Republican party.  Bitterly hated by the left, except a few years back when he gave to their campaigns.  He is certainly not a jewel to conservatives.

Could ego be in play for both of these two?  Duh!  But then who runs for president that does not have a world class ego?

You don't have to look far to see what can be described as terminal flaws for either candidate.  Which is why this has become an election about "Never Trump" or "Never Clinton" and apolitical people have a much harder time sticking their toes in the dirty pond of  either camp.  Except for a few genuine Libertarians or Greens (aka New Communists,) undecideds are struggling with which shit dinner they can swallow.

The hard part is assessing how either might do. You can look at the web sites or listen to their speeches, but that only tells you what they say they want to do - what they think you want to hear. How do you know what they want or what they will or can actually do?  I want to start a company and become a billionaire, and I have lots of great ideas,  but my track record does not have many of things necessary to achieve that goal so it will never happen.

President Obama gave us exceptional speeches in 2008 and had many believing he would be a transformational president and he said he would be.  We would see peace in the world, poverty would be reduced, illnesses cured, the seas would halt their rise, the global warming would be brought under control... That was a fairy tale, not because they weren't lofty goals, but because the guy espousing them had no track record of any achieving any of them.  Wanting something badly and speaking passionately about it is not sufficient to achieving it.  His skill set was decidedly insufficient to achieve them and too few looked at the track record to see if it matched his vision.

I am a strong believer that you have to look at history to read the future.  It is not a perfect barometer, but, as they say, zebras do not change their stripes.  Mr. Trump has had some pretty good successes in building his business - but there have been casualties along the way in failed ventures, failed marriages etc. It has not been pretty. The successes can be argued to outweigh the negatives though.  However he has a track record of impertinent language, or just speaking without thinking and he is not an exceptionally strong delegator, but has hired a broad range of men and women based on accomplishments. There are few who can negotiate as well and few who understand finance as well. He is certainly an alpha male driven to succeed - but his world is business, not government and it is not clear if the skill sets can intermingle.

Mrs. Clinton is an alpha female, equally driven to succeed but without the track record to underwrite it. She does however, have a lifetime working in government where the lines of success and failure are more gray because there is always someone else to blame and projects are so involved, credit for success can always be taken.  There are also 30+ years of enemies who have a long memory and will bring up the areas where she failed like Whitewater real estate deal and dubious connections to a savings and loan. Her email server, destroyed emails and the debacle in Benghazi weighs heavily on many minds.  But she does know how Washington works - at least from a front seat in the gallery.  Her time as a Senator and Secretary of State give her an advantage of experience that will take Mr Trump many years to appreciate.

With Mr Trump and Mrs. Clinton, we may well feel we have only the option of cold shit soup or hot shit sandwich.  Either way the election will be decided at this point by the undecided.  Those that see the flaws in both and struggle to find focus on how either might succeed in the role of President.  To them I say turn off the TV, and spend some time researching the accomplishments of both and matching that up to what they say they want to do for the country.  That will tell them everything they need to know.

Kaine attempts to slay able Mike Pence

Last nights Vice Presidential debate was painful in many respects.  The moderator lost control from the start, and that fed the constant interruptions and off topic answers.  I expect may did not tune in for the entire debate and who could blame them.

Governor Kaine tried to slam Mike Pence repeating 3 or 4 times - (paraphrased) Trump said he wants to prosecute women for having an abortion.

So here's a test... Do you believe Kaine?  Is that what Mr Trump said? And more importantly, is that what he meant or what he actually believes?

Here's the answer... Last year, Trump was asked specifically, that "IF abortion were illegal, should women be prosecuted." It was a gotcha question - and being a political neophyte, Trump assumed the reporter was asking a straight forward question along the lines of "will you uphold a law - (even if you don't agree with it)" - so he answered honestly - if it were illegal, I guess, yes. The question was not - "Hey Donald, should we make abortion illegal and jail any women who has one?" 

Seasoned politicians are tuned into questions like that and they are very good at side stepping and filibustering without answering because they recognize what is happening.  One of the reasons Trump won his partys nomination is that support for him came largely from people who are sick and tired of professional politicians who speak out of the sides of their mouths.  And sick of a media that has such a bias politically that they pull stunts like that.    

The funny thing is, moments earlier in the debate, Kaine said as governor, he had to approve putting 5 people to death in Virginia, against his belief in capitol punishment, because it was the law and he believes as governor, he has to follow the law not his own morals.  If Pence had his wits about him, he might have said right back to Kaine - "so you had to put people to death against your personal belief, if Virginia had a law that women should go to jail if they have an abortion, would you follow-through?" That would have been a great moment.

So, in context, does Donald want to put women in jail for having an abortion? Or was Tim Kaine really playing on his supporters ignorance of the context of the exchange between Trump and the reporter?

That question can be applied to almost every Tim Kaine attack on Mr Trump last night.  Was the quote accurate and in contect, or did Kaine twist it, playing on what he believes are ignorant supporters.  That's not a hard one to answer.

Sore Losers are the only Guarantee in November

No doubt about it, when the election results come in, supporters of whomever looses will be furious and the accusations of voter fraud and cheating will abound.  If it's close, the supreme court will likely be called in and that will raise the stakes and emotions even higher.

Should Hillary win, she will not very likely get majorities in either the house or senate.  There is a possibility that she will have learned from her husband that success can be achieved by working with the opposition.  It's not clear if republicans are willing to reciprocate.  The elephant in the room is the looming replacement of Justice Scalia.  The court has been a tit-for-tat replacement for years and only on the rarest of occasions has a seat changed from conservative or liberal or vice versa.  There are some old and frail folks on the court on both sides and the next president will shape the politics of the court for a generation - perhaps longer if appointments go to younger judges. The elements of her campaign designed to reel in the left - like free college, raising taxes on the rich will not happen because she will not get the legislative mandate.

Should Trump win, no one really knows what to expect.  It's hard to tell if he is pandering to the right or if he really plans to enact plans like building the wall.  I expect he will focus on domestic issues and stay away from international affairs, but if something big happens, all bets are off.  If he wins and keeps the congress, he should have an easy time with justices - and the right will be happy.  Every step he takes to dismantle Obamacare will be meet with visceral opposition, but if it does not get funded, it will die.  Since so much of the move to green energy has been by administrative decree and rule making - side stepping congress, it will be interesting to see where Trumps efforts to put the breaks on go.  Cutting subsidies for electric cars, cutting regulations that closed coal fired power plants. and hundreds of EPA rules that affect a variety of business.  If he does this right, he will succeed in growing the economy, but since he does not have the media on his side, he will have a rolling fight every step of the way.

We should be prepared for a few very rough November - January.  Maybe a few prayers for heavy snow and bitter cold will soften the blow.

How about some rules for debates

Post debate pain is sinking in.  The media insists that we have a winner and a loser.  But the measures are arbitrary and no one knows what scoring rules to use.   Actually, the real winner is likely to be the one that best matches your political perspective anyway.

So I propose the following rules and measurement tools.

1 - Timers are on but there is a filibuster twist.  Excluding the time the moderator(s) take to ask questions, candidates are suggested to take no more than 2 minutes to answer.  Regardless, they can see the timer and they can see the differential timer between the aggregates of the participants.  As the debate comes to a close - lets say one candidate used 8 minutes more time than the other - so when the debate reaches 8 minutes (or whatever that differential is) to go, the other candidate gets all that time with no rebuttal for the other one.  This will serve to keep answers short and sweet.  If the differential is less than 2 minutes - no award.

2 - Scoring:   For each question where the participants actually answer the question - 1 point.  Where they don't answer but just criticize the opponent, -1 point.
For each rebuttal where they address a specific accusation or counter point - 1 point.  Where a rebuttal is used to go off topic or criticize an opponent -1 point.  NOTE: If they satisfy the part where they earn the point and use remaining time to go off topic or criticize - then no points are deducted.

If they call an opponent a name or make a personal attack - 2 point deduction,  So if candidate A calls B an idiot - deduct 2.  If B suggests A is a bigot, racist, homophob or is fat - deduct 5 points. This is not that same as saying they are wrong on policy - but is a measure of civility in the debate.

If a candidate interrupts another, - 1 point deduction.  This can be somewhat arbitrary in application - but should be used only if the candidate being interrupted is stopped from speaking or forced to change the direction of reply.  So if one is speaking and the other mutters "wrong" - and the first continues to speak - this may be rude but is not a deduction under these rules. If they say "wrong" the the first stops and replys in any way - the other is charged 1 point.  The rude factor is addressed below.

Moderator bias adjustment.  Moderators always have a political perspective.  If a moderator displays bias by a) fact checking (even if correct)  b) asking questions in a attacking manner etc, then a 5 point bonus to the candidate they are against.  Call this the Candy Crowley or Lester Holt rule.

Finally, a demeanor bonus of 3 points is applied to each participant who can make it through the whole debate without eye-rolls, sighs, yawns, checking watches, or displayiIng other annoying non-verbals.  NOTE: This  is nearly impossible to achieve on either side.

There - take this scoring to your next debate and see who really wins.  The alternate version says to add 100 points at the end to the one you supported going in.