In case you haven’t been watching, there is an election coming up. The major parties will most likely have their candidates determined by the end of Super Tuesday, February 5th. It seems the whole thing has been more like a reality TV show than ever before, but since it will determine the leader of the greatest nation on earth, it behooves us to pay attention.
Here is a great tool for determining which candidate best matches you on the issues. There are a few of these in play, but these two seem to be the best. The USA Today version includes sliders to adjust for varying importance and the questions in the WQAD (Illinois, Iowa) are a little more involved.
I do not yet have a recommendation, but here are some interesting (I hope) observations.
If you don’t like what Hilary Clinton is saying, wait till next week, it will probably change. John Edwards’ purpose may be to make Barack Obama look less liberal. After chiding Obama for doing more talk show appearances than news shows, the Republicans seem to have decided it may work for them as well. Mitt Romney is very good at 2nd place, he may do the same in the general election. Rudy Giuliani is playing the equivalent of football’s “prevent defense.” As John Madden used to say, “the only thing it prevents is winning.” Fred Thompson seems to think the best strategy is to convince everyone that he doesn’t want the job, but if we beg him to, he’ll do it anyway.
I think that the best voting strategy is for the voter to decide their stand on the issues then pick the candidate who best represents those and hope they aren’t lying.
Truth Be Told, the only thing I am sure of is that Hilary Clinton lies (or changes her position) continuously and either hopes the voters won’t notice or won’t care… it worked in New York.
Nice… glad you’re back blogging.
Enjoyed reading your message.
At my writers club I asked if there was anyone in America who had gone on business trips with their spouse and felt that qualified them to do their spouses job? Except Hillary Clinton.
One of the other writers said that it was his understanding that Brett Farve was not going to play quarterback this week end; his wife was. She has lived with Brett for more than 8 years so she must be qualified.
Rather than trying to force delenopmevt of specific energy technologies (clean or dirty), in my opinion the single most effective action the government could take would be to provide some assurance of stability in policy — whatever policy that is. Let me give you two examples of projects that I have personally been involved with.As a result of the energy crisis of the 1970’s, NSF, and later DOE, supported research in alternative energy sources. I got my Ph.D. in engineering supported by one of those projects, which was for methane production from solid waste and agricultural residue. By 1979, a pilot-scale plant, with a capacity of 100 tons/day of feedstock was constructed. But the program basically died when national energy policy changed with the change in administrations in 1981. Those who had invested in alternative energy programs — no matter what the actual technology — lost their shirts. In addition, those of us who had invested our time creating the necessary expertise were left with no real market for our services. In the mid 1980s, I helped design a major energy pipeline that would move crude oil from west coast oil fields to gulf-coast refineries. (It may be hard to believe, but the west coast of the U.S. was a net oil exporter at that time.) Initially, the project was all funded by small private investors. After the preliminary design work was complete and construction permits were obtained, the project was purchased and completed by the Goodyear Tire Company. The pipeline was built at a cost of about $1.4 Billion of their money. But then energy policy changed again. The citizens of California decided they would not allow oil drilling off the coast. (There’s a LOT of oil out there…) Without that additional production on the west coast, there soon was no surplus oil to ship east. The pipeline eventually shut down and the equipment was sold off. Even if interest in off-shore California oil is renewed, the best method of transport is gone. Again, a policy decision adversely impacted a project that made good sense under the policy in place when the project was conceived, financed, and constructed.Why would ANY private investor (big or little) invest in a project that is likely to be a financial disaster, based on the policies that could be implemented with the next change in adminstration (or the administration after that)?Please note that this is not a beat-down of either the “green” philosophies or “drill-drill-drill” theory of energy production. I’ve worked for both teams! But these are big, expensive, time-consuming projects, with long time frames for achieve profitability. We’ve got to have a fixed target to aim for.