In June 2010 via Proposition 14, California radically changed the way candidates are elected to public office. Previously, candidates running for office appeared only on their party’s ballot in the primary election. Then, the winner from each political party and any independents who qualified for ballot access would move on to the general election. Then, for the general election in November, voters could choose between one Republican, one Democrat, and any number of third party and independent candidates for almost every office contest.
Proposition 14 changed all that. Now, under the “Top-Two Open Primary Act,” all candidates desiring to run for public office, regardless of party affiliation or preference, will appear on a single combined ballot in the primary election. Likewise, all voters, regardless of party affiliation or preference, are permitted to vote for any candidate on this combined ballot. Then, only the two candidates who receive the highest and second-highest number of votes move on to the general election. So, for the general election in November, voters can only choose between two candidates. Both candidates could be in the same party, different parties, or with any combination with independent candidates. Also, the candidates can choose whether or not to list their party affiliation on the primary and general election ballots. In other words, the top two overall vote-getters, not the top vote-getter from each political party, get on the general election ballot.
Interestingly, the change does not apply to all offices. It only includes State-oriented offices, like U.S. Senate, U.S. House, State-wide offices, State Senate, and State House. It does not include U.S. President, county, and local offices. Nonetheless, the new election process could be a seismic change in California’s democratic process. But was it?
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Oct 19, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
Got to give them both kudos for self-deprecation and, frankly, some clever jokes. And let’s give credit where credit is due: Romney was Letterman to Obama’s Leno — funnier, harder-edged, less forumlaic.
Watch them both and judge for yourself: Let us know who you think was funnier in the comments section below:
ICYMI, yesterday afternoon, The RP was the special guest on MSNBC’s hot new afternoon talk show, The Cycle, co-hosted by The RP’s friend — and contributing recovering politician — Krystal Ball.
After Krystal kindly promoted a certain spectacular year-and-a-half-old Web site, The RP gave a spirited defense of No Labels, the grassroots movement he co-founded that now involves more than 500,000 Americans in efforts to promote bi-partisan problem-solving as a means to fix our broken political system.
If you haven’t had the chance, please be sure to check out the No Labels Web site, and if you support their mission, sign on to the important cause.
If you are a fellow fan of MSNBC’s The Cycle who just learned about The Recovering Politician through Jonathan Miller’s appearance on the show this afternoon, we wish you a very hearty welcome!
Don’t forget to check out NoLabels.Org, the web site of the grassroots movement co-founded by Miller (We call him”The RP”) that has brought together more than 500,000 Democrats, Republicans and Independents in critical efforts to promote bi-partisan problem-solving to fix our broken political system.
We also encourage you to surf through The Recovering Politician, a web site dedicated to civil dialogue, led by those who’ve served in the political arena and now are using their experiences to offer lessons to fix our political system. Here’s a sampling of some of our most popular posts and contributors:
MSNBC’s commentary crew is also represented by Michael Steele –whom you also know as the former Lt. Governor of Maryland, as well as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Michael has shared with RP readers his vision of the new American Dream, and assessed both President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Our most popular writer, hands down, has been contributing RP and former Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith. Jeff’s first piece — the story of his rise into national celebrity, his dramatic fall that resulted in a prison term, and his hopes for redemption — put the RP on the national map, earning recognition from New York magazine’s “Approval Matrix.” Jeff’s followup — about love and sex behind bars — drew in nearly 100,000 readers, literally crashing the Web site. Every few weeks, Jeff offers a political advice column — “Do As I Say” — and just this week, he shares the ugly fate of convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky as he enters prison.
We believe in Freedom and Equal Opportunity. We are optimists. We are idealists, not ideologues. We believe in American ingenuity.
As this election season draws towards its conclusion, Democrats need to talk about our beliefs, our moral values, and what and who we care about.
At our recent Democratic National Convention, Democrats delivered moving messages based on moral values. The diversity of the speakers and participants emphasized over and over: “We’re all in this together.” The stories on-stage supported “We care about each other.” The economic theme emphasized “middle class expansion, not top down” and was based on the moral value, “equal opportunity.” The Convention was purposely short on policy, and long on visual images complete with verbal cues that emotionally touched the American people.
We, Democrats, in our hearts understand that no one makes it on his own without help from all of us. The stories around health care, women’s rights, sexual preference, discrimination — all spoke to our belief in the core values of Freedom and Equal opportunity: freedom from insurance company abuse, freedom from government intrusion into personal lives, freedom and equal opportunity to love and be loved.
Democrats love policy. We believe that if we simply explain issues, folks will understand. What we need now is to inspire people. What President Obama did when he made that historic run for President – stir the heart and soul of people who fundamentally believe in freedom, opportunity, ingenuity and optimism.
Here at the Economic Innovation Action Fund, we believe that a progressive economic agenda of growth and innovation and public-private partnerships is based on moral values. Education, Innovation and Infrastructure are not just policies. They are the foundation for the rebirth of our Democratic Party:
We believe in a better, more secure economic future;
We believe that every child should have an equal opportunity for a decent education;
Read the rest of… Paul Hodes: A Message About the Democratic Narrative
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 18, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The day (night really) that my life changed.
Not because of something I did. But because of something harmful I stopped doing.
We never know what the markers in our life will look like. The last time we pass a certain street, see a certain friend, embrace a loved one. We only find out afterwards and try to make sense of it after the fact.
Which is what happened to me on this night exactly 27 years ago. In fact, it was October 18th at around 2:30 am.
I had moved back home with my mother and was a listless, beleaguered and bewildered soul. I thought a string of bad luck I had recently endured had led me to drink excessively.
Turns out, I had the string of bad luck because I was drinking excessively.
I was up late alone watching the movie Reuben, Reuben –again. A movie about a rumpled, drunken curly haired poet who had traded whatever talent he once had to sponge off others he was happy to take advantage of—and time was running out for him. I suspect at the time I believed I related to something noble in his character–some potential he had but was throwing away. In retrospect, I related to the excessive drinking and manipulation of others–and mostly frittering away a life that could much more. In the final scene (after the one below), Reuben attempts suicide and before he can change his mind, accidentally dies.
That night 27 years ago after the movie ended, I walked the last bottles of booze out to the condo’s garbage chute and ceremoniously dropped them down one by one. And walked back inside.
And I have not had a drink of alcohol since.
It was perhaps my most important life turning point. I have never seen the movie since, but every October 18th I think of it. And thank God the end of that movie also ended a misguided and unfortunate period in my life. And that I have since—as a result of leaving booze out of my life—led a life that has given me the “much more” I sensed I was losing.
Why do I mention this?
I don’t say it to boast. Removing behavior that harms yourself and your loved ones, is not praiseworthy as much as common sense –and the least you’d expect of yourself. I suppose I share this because I know there are others out there tonight who feel alienated, lost, and confused and who may even be romanticizing destructive behavior by drinking to escape it all.
To them I hope to say, There is nothing heroic or romantic about wasting your life and hurting others.
And if you don’t agree, I believe you are confusing desperation for depth and self-absorption for self-reliance. And foolhardiness for uniqueness. And you are probably going to be the last person in the room to realize this. And that’s OK. You are, like me, about average.
And that’s a good thing. Because help is available. More help than ever in history.
And all you have to do to access it is to set aside the brilliant future you falsely imagine for yourself long enough to notice the unbearable reality of your present circumstances—and then pick up the phone and dial directory assistance on the telephone (411).
And then don’t hang up until you ask for the help you need.
And then breathe a sigh of relief that the awful movie of your current life is about to end. And a new story about your real future is about to begin.
And the new story of your life will still star you –not as an actor playing some imaginary part you thought you were supposed to but performed badly. Rather, it will be you simply playing yourself. A much more natural role that will introduce you to yourself. And allow those same people in the room to finally get to be around the person they’ve been waiting for. And here’s the best part. Eventually, you’ll come to like this person, too
The new movie could be about how to appreciate the poetry of a life lived by humbly following our better instincts –rather than merely rhyming words in the intoxicated hope of sounding clever. Or just about anything we want it to be.
I hope you don’t miss out on it. I’m grateful every day—but especially on this day every year–that I am not missing out on mine.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Oct 18, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
The Politics of Tech
Check out the tech behind Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking free-fall. [Extreme Tech]
In a story that is becoming more familiar over time a major wireless provider has started selling information on their users that they have collected. This time it is Verizon that has been exposed. Verizon is accused of selling customers’ geographical locations, app usage, and Web browsing activities, this of course raises privacy questions and could possibly brush up against federal wiretapping law. [CNET]
The Pirate Bay has moved its entire file-sharing operation to the cloud – making what was already a hard organization to pin down for law enforcement even trickier. This move should make the Pirate Bay effectively raid-proof. [TorrentFreak]
A woman who lost her hearing due to a tumor and created a helmet that translates ambient vibration into vibration that the inner ear can interpret and “understand.” Adversity is the mother of invention? [Amelia Marzec]
Amazon admits it makes no profit on its Kindle sales. I didn’t see that one coming. Of course, Amazon counts on their Amazon store leading the industry in e-book sales. [Forbes]
By Artur Davis, on Thu Oct 18, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
In a recent speech to the Accuracy in Media conference, “ObamaNation: A Day of Truth,” contributing RP Artur Davis had high praise for former President Ronald Reagan, saying that “Reagan took liberty and freedom, which are very imaginative concepts, and he gave them a power they had never had before.”
Speaking of the media, Davis said, “They don’t matter as much as they used to matter. That’s just the reality. Think about it: The New York Times—their own ombudsman says that their liberalism permeates their newsroom. Their own ombudsman says that they treat the liberal agenda as a cause to be nurtured instead of something to be inspected or analyzed. Their own ombudsman said that.”
You can watch his full speech below, or read the transcript here:
It takes 250,000 crunches to burn 1 pound of body fat.
If I did 200 crunches a day, everyday for the next 4 years I could hope to burn 1 pound of fat. Not exactly the best return on investment. In fact thats not worth my time or anyone else’s, So why are so many people under the impression that crunches, sit-ups give you a lean sexy core? Not sure the answer but it is the wrong impression we are getting.
As I mentioned in the last post the tissue is not best loaded the way we do crunches. It is actually best loaded the other direction. So this is all a matter of purpose. We have to ask ourselves; “What is the purpose of doing this exercise?”
If the purpose is to do crunches to burn your body fat off, you better get use to doing a lot of them. If the purpose is to work the abdominal muscles then you can expect that crunches will strengthen that motion greatly the more you do them. But are they the best option?
Maybe? Maybe not. Again this is all a matter of purpose. Which leads me to programming and more specifically core programming.
From an anatomical view the “core” is a group of muscles, at the center of the body that move in conjunction with other muscle group (particularly the extremities). I believe we short change ourselves by only looking at the center of bodies to strengthen our core. You must realize that our entire body is our core. All muscles move in harmony with eachother to create movement, they do not and have never acted in isolation.
So to give you a visual of what I am talking about picture this. Your abs are really sore after a good workout and you go to the grocery store and reach on the top shelf for something. What do you notice? Your abs contracting or bracing as you lift your arm overhead to pull something off the shelf. Ok another example; you take your groceries to the car, you open the car door and you notice that you can feel your abs contracting as you open the door. “But I only thought the abs or “core” were worked when we bend over?” Your core’s purpose is to decelerate movement, so as you reach for something your core is decelarating the movement for acceleration to occur. One more visual.
Let’s say we are working out, doing squats. Your abs are still sore and while you are squatting I add resistance to your left shoulder (as if to push you over) what do you notice. Your abs or “core” engaged. It is decelerating the movement so you don’t fall over. Moral to the story is situps and crunches are not the only way to develop your core muscles. In fact doing core movements on the ground (as in a plank) is not the only way to work your core. I would be willing to bet that you would get more from core programming on your feet than you would on your back. To back my claim, how many times a day are you laying on your back? One and that is to go to sleep. Point made.
Let’s talk about purpose:
In order to get to where we are trying to go, we have to have a purpose behind it. So if we are talking about core program design and specific workouts we can do targeting that part of the body, we have to have rhyme and reason. So what is the point of you doing crunches? If its to build abdominal strength/endurance in that particular motion, I would say that is a great purpose. If it is to burn body fat and give you an 8 pack, I would find a better purpose. So let’s evaluate a variety of goals and where core programming would fit in.
Purpose #1: Reduce Body Fat to Uncover 8 Pack
Well if all you are doing is crunches than your rate of return is minimal. The key to body fat reduction lies in nutrition not exercise. We cannot out exercise a bad diet. Genetics will always play a role but most of us are not genetic marvels that can eat what we want and still stay lean. However, to increase the likelyhood of the reduction of body fat, using more muscles will burn more calories. So, doing core exercises such as wood chops would be great for the metabolic increase, at the same time strengthen the areas we are looking to target.
Read the rest of… Josh Bowen: The Core — The Center of Our Universe, Volume 2
Krystal Ball advises that you check out this week’s piece from Buzz Feed Politics, “Making Mitt: The Myth Of George Romney.” Here’s an excerpt.
Everyone agrees: Mitt Romney is not like his father.
The late Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate George Romney is remembered as a principled man of spontaneity and candor. His example is regularly invoked by both admirers of his son’s disciplined campaign style and critics of Mitt’s back-and-forth pandering. George, it is said, told the truth about the Vietnam War before it was popular to do so, with an unfortunately worded comment about “brainwashing” by U.S. government officials that cost him the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. “Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills,” historian Rick Perlstein wrote in Rolling Stone earlier this year. “Heeding the lesson of his father’s fall, he became a virtual parody of an inauthentic politician.”
This rejection of his father’s example, the thinking goes, is what has made Mitt a more successful presidential candidate — self-controlled but hard to pin down, flipping from moderate to conservative to moderate once again. It is observed that Mitt would never draw a line in the sand like his father did in 1964, when George dramatically “charged out of the 1964 Republican National Convention over the party’s foot-dragging on civil rights,” as the Boston Globe’s authoritative biography, “The Real Romney,” put it earlier this year. Outlets from the New York Times to the New Republic have recalled this story of the elder Romney’s stand against Goldwater’s hard-line conservatives. Frontline’s documentary “The Choice 2012” reported it as a formative event: “when Goldwater received the nomination, Mitt saw his father angrily storm out.” A Google search for the incident produces hundreds of pages of results. In August, Washington Postcolumnist E.J. Dionne cited the episode to write that Mitt “has seemed more a politician who would do whatever it took to close a deal than a leader driven by conviction and commitment. This is a problem George Romney never had.”
Only George Romney did not walk out of the 1964 Republican National Convention. He stayed until the very end, formally seconding Goldwater’s eventual nomination and later standing by while an actual walkout took place. He left the convention holding open the possibility of endorsing Goldwater and then, after a unity summit in Hershey, Pennsylvania, momentarily endorsed the Arizona senator. Then he changed his mind while his top aides polled “all-white and race-conscious” Michigan communities for a “secret” white backlash vote against LBJ’s civil rights advances — a backlash that might have made a Goldwater endorsement palatable at home. Finding the Republican label even more unpopular than civil rights in Michigan, Romney ultimately distanced himself from the entire party, including his own moderate Republican allies.
Exactly where the 1964 myth entered the public consciousness is difficult to pinpoint, but it has been promoted by Mitt, who made one of its earliest print mentions in an interview during his 1994 U.S. Senate campaign. (Romney’s longtime spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom did not respond to an inquiry about Mitt’s recollection of the incident.) “[My father] walked out of the Republican National Convention in 1964, when Barry Goldwater said, ‘Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,'” he told Bay Windows, a LGBT interest magazine in Boston.
In June 2010 via Proposition 14, California radically changed the way candidates are elected to public office. Previously, candidates running for office appeared only on their party’s ballot in the primary election. Then, the winner from each political party and any independents who qualified for ballot access would move on to the general election. Then, for the general election in November, voters could choose between one Republican, one Democrat, and any number of third party and independent candidates for almost every office contest.
Interestingly, the change does not apply to all offices. It only includes State-oriented offices, like U.S. Senate, U.S. House, State-wide offices, State Senate, and State House. It does not include U.S. President, county, and local offices. Nonetheless, the new election process could be a seismic change in California’s democratic process. But was it?
ICYMI, yesterday afternoon, The RP was the special guest on MSNBC’s hot new afternoon talk show, The Cycle, co-hosted by The RP’s friend — and contributing recovering politician — Krystal Ball.
