Maslow's Political Blog

(For whatever reason, this is a very meandering post.  I always return to the topic at hand but.......... tangents abound.  You've been warned) In 2008, America elected a fellow named Barack Hussein Obama by a pretty large margin in the electoral college (365 VS 173).  According to the popular vote, the vote was 52% against 45%.  (This is because the electoral college lumps the votes of delegates from states together.  That is, if 4 million vote for one candidate and 3 million vote for another, all the electoral votes go for the candidate with 4 million votes.  If the winning candidate gets 6 million votes, s/he still gets all the electoral votes.  It's a reasonable argument to say the system has some quirks, especially because the electoral college always overrules the popular vote.  There have been 3 presidents elected while losing the popular vote: President Rutherford Hayes in 1876, President Benjamin Harris in 1888, and President George W. ...

I haven't written any more of my promised columns about the 2010 candidates because something bothered me greatly about the one I wrote about Iott.  While on the one hand, what he did and what he said in his defense shows either an incredible ignorance or an abhorrent insensitivity about the Holocaust, he certainly is not in any way a Nazi.  You can judge his judgement, but you can't judge his politics.  This is different than the following individuals: Art Robinson, who is running to represent the 4th district of Oregon.  He believes AIDS is not a disease, but merely what God uses to kill gay people.   He also believes blacks are inferior to whites, a belief which he teaches to his homeschooled children. Sharon Angle, Harry Reid's main opponent in Nevada, told members of the Hispanic Student Union “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”   I’m not sure if that’s racist or just stupid, but it's something worth noting. Tom Emmer, who is r...