This has been a good year for politics, and a great year for any media that covers politics. Never before have the practitioners of the visual arts in politics -- editorial cartoonists -- had such easy material: working from the top down, the space above the top of the character's skull is easily used to define the remainder of the image and much of the message. Audio and visual broadcasting, as well as all manner of print, have had to work a little harder to maintain an audience for their offerings, but not much harder.
These things happen when the outsiders want to become the insiders. It helps their case if the outsiders can make it seem that they are valiantly trudging and slogging the path to insider-dom. At the risk of invoking a simile that could be all too apt, the outsiders might be tempted to compare their labors to that of Herakles at the Augean stables.
However, lacking an inclination to make classical references in the serious context of presidential campaigning -- an inclination that, arguably, could improve the orations of all candidates for president -- two contenders in particular have chosen to openly berate the processes of presidential nominations.
Bernie Sanders has repeatedly said that the Democratic presidential primary process is "rigged" against him. Donald Trump warned that he had better be treated "fairly" by the Republican nominating convention if the party is to avoid his wrath. (Since he seems to be the winner, let us assume that he no longer feels wrathful.)
The presidential primaries -- fair or foul?
(Classical references fail us at this point, so we must descend into the realm of baseball metaphors.)
Anybody in the Republican leadership who is smitten with the idea of Donald Trump as the GOP's presidential candidate is doing an excellent job of staying far out in left field. There continues to be a simmering desire that the upcoming party convention nominate somebody other than Trump who better represents the principles of the Republican Party -- in other words, for these people the outcome of the primaries does not fit with the intended ideals of the Republican Party and therefore should be overthrown. Inevitably, this would re-energize the Trumpian wrath.
Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters seem to think that next month's Democratic convention in Philadelphia is an opportunity to force their game into extra innings by capitalizing on the free-agency of the superdelegates. But this game is in the last half of the ninth inning, the Sanders team is trailing the Clinton team badly, Bernie is at bat, nobody is on base, and the count is full.
LWC conclusion: Everybody should look at the scores. There might have been some foul plays along the way (what game does not have them?) but Hillary and The Donald have won fair and square.
The Democratic contest is straightforward: after some out-of-the-park home runs -- notably in California, New York, Florida and Texas, the four most populous states -- Clinton's popular vote in the primaries is 15.8 million; Sanders' is 12.0 million. That is 57% to 43%. Without the much-maligned superdelegates, Clinton's delegate lead is somewhat slimmer: 55% to 45%. With superdelegates it becomes somewhat larger: 60 - 40. (Notably, the party's rules have actually favored the Sanders' candidacy in the awarded delegates, despite oft-repeated gripes about "rigging." ) If there were no superdelegates, and all the Democratic convention delegates were to be awarded proportionally according to popular vote results in primary elections, Clinton would still have the delegate majority. The choice of Democratic primary voters for the 2016 presidential election is Hillary Clinton.
On the Republican side: Consistent scoring with singles, doubles, triples and homers, ending with a grand slam in Indiana, gave Team Trump a solid advantage; everybody else was left with demoralized players. Trump enjoyed a cakewalk of forfeits for the remainder of the season. With everything put together, Trump has won more than enough delegates to be awarded the nomination at the Republican Party convention simply by following the rules (something of an irony, considering Trump's apparent disregard for behavioral norms).
The rules for the Republican nominating contests have been far more complex than those of the Democratic contests. While the Democratic delegates have been awarded proportionally to the popular vote, the Republican delegates have been awarded by a variety of formulas: proportionally; winner-take-all; winner-take-most; and maybe one or two other methods. Trump's popular vote of 13.3 million far exceeds that of his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz at 7.6 million, and represents about 46% of the total Republican primary vote. By the rules of the game -- even if by a plurality and not a majority vote -- Donald Trump is the presidential choice of the 2016 Republican primary voting.
Can the presidential nominating process be made more transparent and less chaotic?
Yes. But it probably will not happen. The U.S. Constitution balks in its pitches for qualifying and selecting candidates for president; it also takes no notice of political parties.
Such a change would require an unprecedented amount of political and legislative cooperation. Don't try to think about the bipartisan cooperation that would be needed, because before reaching that stage something even more difficult would have to happen: each political party would have to begin by arranging for intra-party consistency, and that would mean having cooperation among more than 50 Republican state and territory parties, and similar cooperation among more than 50 Democratic state and territory parties.
Only then could the various state legislatures begin crafting the laws needed to define, develop and implement a presidential nominating process that is different from, and hopefully better than, the one that we have now. I hope nobody holds their breath waiting for these things to happen.
Fortunately, there is an unending supply of editorial cartoons.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Public Higher Ed update -- Weary of negative politics? Here's a peek at the future of America (it has never looked better!)
June is a busy month. It is a month of endings and of beginnings -- springtime ends, summer begins (for us northern hemisphere types, at least); there seems to be a spike in marriage activities (thus the ending of an old lifestyle and the beginning of a new lifestyle); it is the biggest month for student graduations which herald the accomplishment of a major goal, and therefore the likely embarkation upon a new goal. Perhaps it would be better to refer to June as a month of transitions.
Frequent readers will know of my promotion of higher education, and of my involvement with Long Beach City College (LBCC) and its Foundation. I recently attended the annual ceremony recognizing those students who are recipients of scholarships that are awarded as they make preparations to transition into their next year of study at LBCC.
Over $1.1 million in scholarships were awarded to somewhere around 700 students. All of the recipients were in attendance and each one was introduced and recognized individually. President Eloy Oakley welcomed the assembled crowd -- not only the scholarship winners, but friends and families, as well as donors -- with remarks that were warm, sincere, inspirational and concise (hard to do in five minutes, but he did so). It was a big crowd, but it is a big college.
The diversity of the crowd and the winners was striking. The General Assembly of the United Nations might be more diverse, but not by much. The LBCC student population is immigrant-heavy. Economically, it tends towards the left-hand side of the bell curves of national income and wealth measurements. There was lots of positive energy. Sure, being handed a pocketful of money will make somebody feel good. But it was energy that was looking beyond the immediate and into the future.
The winners were anywhere in age from young to old(er). I sat next to one of the older winners. A 50-ish fellow, originally from Cambodia, resident in Long Beach for 35 years now, and the father of three sons. He was proud of the fact that all of them are in college -- elsewhere than LBCC, at other institutions of California public higher education -- and so now the father is emulating the children by expanding his education. I was impressed by his enthusiasm and outlook on life. Much of this gentleman's formative life was during the chaos and tragedy of the Khmer Rouge regime and its aftermath. He probably carries some baggage from that time, but whatever weight is in that baggage did not seem to be holding him back.
The Scholarship Reception happened to be on the day after the California election. Notably for LBCC, one of the outcomes of the election was an impressively-large local approval of a bond measure that will enable the College to make infrastructure upgrades and repairs to classroom buildings throughout its campuses. (Thank you to voters in Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon!) Better classrooms means more students being educated, and more skills, knowledge and positive energy being put back into the community and the local and national economies. Everybody wins.
Diversity, lots of immigrants, modest means, positive energy, more voter-approved bonded indebtedness, enthusiastic and inspirational outlooks -- yes, it is California, isn't it? This is a state that has always been big on precedents, and as the most populous state, its precedents are big deals. With a population of 40 million, that which is California today will be America tomorrow.
My time as a student at Long Beach City College was long ago, way back in the 20th century. California was the most populous state then, too. Those were tumultuous times -- the country was wrestling with the social and economic issues loosened by the war in Vietnam, and by the civil rights and free speech movements. Nonetheless, the prevailing student energy then was much as it is today. The future looked good, and it turned out well. The future still looks good -- everywhere, not just in California.
The LBCC scholarship winners -- and the entire student body at the college, as well as students at colleges and universities throughout the country -- will return to their studies a few weeks before America votes to choose its leadership for the next four years. Now that the primaries are over (save for the one remaining in Washington, D.C.) the choice will be between a candidate who is clearly comfortable with diversity, immigration, and building on a foundation of already-existing positive energy; and another candidate who has demonstrated extreme discomfort with diversity and immigration, and proposes building on foundations of amplified fear, anger and distrust.
The voting choice is an easy one for me. Can you guess which one it will be?
Frequent readers will know of my promotion of higher education, and of my involvement with Long Beach City College (LBCC) and its Foundation. I recently attended the annual ceremony recognizing those students who are recipients of scholarships that are awarded as they make preparations to transition into their next year of study at LBCC.
The diversity of the crowd and the winners was striking. The General Assembly of the United Nations might be more diverse, but not by much. The LBCC student population is immigrant-heavy. Economically, it tends towards the left-hand side of the bell curves of national income and wealth measurements. There was lots of positive energy. Sure, being handed a pocketful of money will make somebody feel good. But it was energy that was looking beyond the immediate and into the future.
The winners were anywhere in age from young to old(er). I sat next to one of the older winners. A 50-ish fellow, originally from Cambodia, resident in Long Beach for 35 years now, and the father of three sons. He was proud of the fact that all of them are in college -- elsewhere than LBCC, at other institutions of California public higher education -- and so now the father is emulating the children by expanding his education. I was impressed by his enthusiasm and outlook on life. Much of this gentleman's formative life was during the chaos and tragedy of the Khmer Rouge regime and its aftermath. He probably carries some baggage from that time, but whatever weight is in that baggage did not seem to be holding him back.
The Scholarship Reception happened to be on the day after the California election. Notably for LBCC, one of the outcomes of the election was an impressively-large local approval of a bond measure that will enable the College to make infrastructure upgrades and repairs to classroom buildings throughout its campuses. (Thank you to voters in Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon!) Better classrooms means more students being educated, and more skills, knowledge and positive energy being put back into the community and the local and national economies. Everybody wins.
Diversity, lots of immigrants, modest means, positive energy, more voter-approved bonded indebtedness, enthusiastic and inspirational outlooks -- yes, it is California, isn't it? This is a state that has always been big on precedents, and as the most populous state, its precedents are big deals. With a population of 40 million, that which is California today will be America tomorrow.
My time as a student at Long Beach City College was long ago, way back in the 20th century. California was the most populous state then, too. Those were tumultuous times -- the country was wrestling with the social and economic issues loosened by the war in Vietnam, and by the civil rights and free speech movements. Nonetheless, the prevailing student energy then was much as it is today. The future looked good, and it turned out well. The future still looks good -- everywhere, not just in California.
The LBCC scholarship winners -- and the entire student body at the college, as well as students at colleges and universities throughout the country -- will return to their studies a few weeks before America votes to choose its leadership for the next four years. Now that the primaries are over (save for the one remaining in Washington, D.C.) the choice will be between a candidate who is clearly comfortable with diversity, immigration, and building on a foundation of already-existing positive energy; and another candidate who has demonstrated extreme discomfort with diversity and immigration, and proposes building on foundations of amplified fear, anger and distrust.
The voting choice is an easy one for me. Can you guess which one it will be?
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