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Occasional notes on politics, history, technology,
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Friday, June 27, 2008, 10:43 pm From the Clerk-Register. This afternoon's email message to my staff (who work in various separate spaces in three different buildings, one of them four miles away from the other two, and rarely gather together in one place in person):
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Thursday, May 1, 2008, 1:47 pm More Bad Economic News from the Deeds Office A "sheriff's deed" is recorded when a mortgage has been foreclosed and the property sold at auction. Hence, the number of sheriff's deeds recorded in the Register of Deeds office is a precise indicator of distress among homeowners in that county. By that standard, things are looking grim here in Washtenaw County, with the number of sheriff's deeds reaching previously unheard-of levels. There were 1,151 in calendar year 2007, compared to 703 in 2006 and 433 in 2005. And so far this year we already have 500. Here's the data by month and year since 2002:
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, March 31, 2008, 11:25 pm Speaking at the Ypsilanti school board meeting This evening, the Ypsilanti school board took up the issue of selling the long-closed Ardis school on Ellsworth Road to the Hidaya Community Center/Michigan Islamic Academy, which has offered $3.9 million for it. Earlier, sale of the property to the Salvation Army fell through. The proposed sale had aroused some opposition, some of it frankly anti-Muslim, and flyers were distributed in the neighborhood. About 300 people were at the meeting, and some 20 spoke during public comment (each with a gently but firmly enforced 3 minute limit). Here's what I said:
I'm happy to report that the school board approved the sale. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, February 25, 2008, 4:42 pm Some thoughts about campaign spending. (Also posted to Michigan Liberal.) In Jess Unruh's famous formulation, money is the mother's milk of politics. Nobody in a political campaign can be unmindful of this. Still, wealthy self-funded candidates such as Dick DeVos and Mitt Romney have demonstrated that it's not possible to simply buy electoral victory. Perhaps this is an awkward subject to raise in an election year where Democrats, for once, are raising more money than Republicans. But if we and our candidates are to make the best use of this advantage, we need to understand that a well-funded campaign has its own set of risks and pitfalls. My own cynical rule of thumb is that, the more money a campaign has, the higher the proportion that is wasted. In other words, when money is not a constraint, a big campaign stays in better hotels, eats better food, has a nicer headquarters in a more expensive neighborhood, etc., etc., things which do almost nothing to actually win the election. That's why, contrary to conventional wisdom, shoestring campaigns often beat well-funded campaigns. Recent news coverage of one of the presidential campaigns highlights lavish spending on catering and luxury hotels, and brings this issue to the forefront. Now, carping over specific items in one campaign might be a little unfair. Many of us have direct experience of the difficulties of quickly creating a large and temporary organization, when the tactical objectives are constantly changing, and all the participants are amateurs. But more than that, a large organization is inherently less efficient than a small one. The bigger the entity, the higher the overhead costs, the transaction costs, the communication costs. A great metaphor for this is construction. You can build a hundred identical houses cheaper per house than you can build one house. But a skyscraper costs enormously more per usable square foot than a one-story office building. In tangible political terms, what's necessary and what's wasteful depends critically on the context. A typical city council campaign doesn't need office space, but a gubernatorial campaign can't do without. When planning your campaign this year, or any year, here are a few thoughts I would suggest you bear in mind. 1. The big picture. A political campaign is brought into being to win an election. Don't lose sight of the main goal when making decisions on campaign activity and spending. 2. Ethic of frugality. Don't spend campaign money on a new coffeepot, when a volunteer could loan you one for free. Spend money on voter contact instead of creature comforts. Be a good steward for the money entrusted to you by your contributors. 3. Maintain some objectivity. When you're the candidate, it's easy to see each and every manifestation of the opponent as a personal attack that has to be "answered". All too often, when the candidate sees the other side has a radio ad, or a billboard, the budget goes out the window. Sure, sometimes the campaign plan has to adapt to circumstances, but don't waste money trying to keep up with your opponent's waste of money. 4. You can't keep it secret. As soon as you file each campaign finance report, people are looking at it. You may think that the thousand dollars spent at Victoria's Secret is buried at the bottom of page 137, but it may be in the blogs the next day -- or in your opponent's next attack piece. 5. Volunteers and candidate effort are more important than money. No amount of money can buy enthusiastic support. Paid staff are easier to control and direct than volunteers, but if you can't recruit and motivate volunteers, you're not going to win. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Sunday, February 17, 2008, 8:12 pm Presidents Day Fundraiser My term as County Clerk is up at the end of the year. I love the job and I've accomplished a lot, but there's lots more to do. Hence, I'm seeking re-election in the August primary and November general election. I have no definite word on who my opposition will be, but there have been plenty of rumors, and I need to be ready. My campaign committee is holding a Presidents Day Fundraiser on Monday, February 18, 5pm, at Leopold Brothers Brewpub, 523 S. Main Street, in downtown Ann Arbor. Many of us are mourning the impending loss of this place; here's a chance to visit Leopold's before it closes. Alternatively, if you can't make it on Monday, but wish to contribute to the campaign, make checks to Kestenbaum for Clerk-Register and send them to P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. No cash or corporate checks. What happens at a political fundraiser? Essentially, people come in, drop off a check in a bowl near the door, mill around, eat, drink, and talk about politics or whatever. At some point, somebody stands up and introduces all the politicos who are present, and I make a very brief speech. Food is free, alcohol costs. Pretty much like a party, other than that. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, January 14, 2008, 5:30 pm Presidential Primary: Two Dramatic Updates! First, I was sued this morning. Nothing personal, though. Local Libertarian Party activist and attorney David Raaflaub sued the Secretary of State, the county Election Commission, and the County Clerk, asking for the presidential primary law to be declared unconstitutional, and for an injunction against holding the primary. Mr. Raaflaub argued that being required to disclose which party primary he is voting in is a violation the Michigan Constitution's guarantee of ballot secrecy. (I know those of you in states with party registration will find this hilarious.) This afternoon, Judge Timothy Connors dismissed the suit. Second, we have heard from the state Bureau of Elections that, due to an error in ballot programming, Uncommitted and Write-in votes will be counted together in many counties. In order to untangle the mess, they will have to do hand counts.
Here's a pretty good, but probably not perfect, list of the affected counties: Alger, Alpena, Antrim, Arenac, Baraga, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Gogebic, Grand Traverse, Houghton, Iron, Jackson, Keweenaw, Leelanau, Lenawee, Luce, Mackinac, Manistee, Marquette, Montmorency, Ontonagon, Oscoda, Otsego, Presque Isle, Roscommon, Schoolcraft, Wexford. Bottom line, if this is a close election, it will be a very long night. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 4:44 pm Today's message to my staff: polls and New Hampshire.
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 10:50 pm Bad Economic News from the Deeds Office A "sheriff's deed" is recorded when a mortgage has been foreclosed and the property sold at auction. Hence, the number of sheriff's deeds recorded in the Register of Deeds office is a precise indicator of distress among homeowners in that county. By that standard, things are looking grim here in Washtenaw County, with the number of sheriff's deeds reaching previously unheard-of levels. There were 1,151 in calendar year 2007, compared to 703 in 2006 and 433 in 2005. The month just ended had 147, which is the highest monthly total in years, perhaps ever. Here's the data by month and year since 2002:
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Sunday, December 16, 2007, 11:35 pm Presidential Primary: Q&A (I sent this out to my staff last week; it was picked up and posted to the county's public web site, and it will also appear in the next Washtenaw Legal News.) Everywhere I go, people ask me about the presidential primary. When will it be held? What will the choices be? Will my vote be secret? Many of you are probably hearing those questions, too. So here are some answers: The Michigan presidential primary will be held on Tuesday, January 15. In Washtenaw County, no other issues or races are on the ballot. The State will reimburse localities for election costs. Voters will have to check a box to choose the Democratic or Republican ballot. If you vote by absentee ballot, you'll need to select a party ballot on an attached form. If you vote at the precinct, you'll get a form with your application to vote. If you don't select one party's ballot, you can't vote in the presidential primary. Under the law, the ballot selection information (the list of who chose a Democratic or a Republican ballot) will be transmitted to the state party chairs for them to use, most likely in direct mail and phone calling. It is to be kept confidential from anyone else. After the primary, I expect that a federal judge will strike down that restriction. Depending on the ruling, that could mean the lists of Democratic and Republican primary voters become public information. Or, possibly, the judge could order that the lists be destroyed without any disclosure. Therefore, chances are, many people will know which ballot you selected. However, the CONTENT of your ballot, who specifically you vote for, is completely secret. Whether you choose a Democratic or Republican ballot, you can vote for any one candidate, OR "uncommitted", OR write in a name which has been properly filed with the State. The Republican candidates on the ballot are: Sam Brownback, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and Fred Thompson. The Democratic candidates on the ballot are: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich. Four other Democratic candidates, under pressure from Iowa and New Hampshire, withdrew their names from the Michigan ballot. These candidates are Joe Biden, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. Write-in votes WILL NOT COUNT in the primary unless the write-in candidate files an affidavit of identity with the State by January 4. It's very unlikely that any major candidate not on the ballot will file such an affidavit, since such a filing could be used against them in the New Hampshire primary. If there are enough "uncommitted" votes to earn delegates, those delegates will be elected at congressional district conventions. Very likely, supporters of various candidates will converge to try to win those "uncommitted" delegate seats. That being said, both national parties are penalizing Michigan for the unauthorized early primary. Republicans have reduced Michigan's delegate count by half. And planning for the Democratic National Convention in Denver next summer is going forward on the assumption that Michigan won't have a delegation there at all. No hotel space, nor seating section on the convention floor, have been allocated to Michigan. Possibly the delegates will end up being seated, after the presidential nomination has already been settled. We election officials aren't happy with this whole state of affairs, but it's our job to conduct the election according to law. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, November 27, 2007, 10:31 pm Yet another chapter in the presidential primary saga. Or, two chapters, actually. First, in an appalling decision, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings and upheld the constitutionality of giving only major parties access to the list of voters in the primary. The decision was four to three, with the solid bloc of four right-wing Republicans (Young, Markman, Corrigan, and Taylor) outvoting the two Democrats (Kelly and Cavanagh) and one disaffected Republican (Weaver). Michigan Supreme Court justices are nominated by party conventions, so their party labels are widely known, except on the ballot, where they are listed as "nonpartisan". Election officials, including the Michigan Association of County Clerks, had urged the Secretary of State not to appeal the original court ruling, given the now very limited time left to prepare for the election. It will now be essentially impossible for overseas absentees, such as troops in Iraq, to participate in the election via absentee ballot. The Traverse City Record-Eagle did a great editorial about this. An excerpt:
The Supreme Court ruling meant that the January 15 primary sprung back to life without much time for election officials to prepare for it. But then another chapter opened. With the Michigan Democratic Party now looking toward the primary rather than caucuses, and with the Michigan Republican Party worried that a meaningless Democratic primary might motivate a lot of crossover votes from Democrats for Ron Paul, there was a push to change the law, to put the complete list of Democratic candidates back on the ballot. The House met yesterday, and passed a bill that would put Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Biden back on the primary ballot, notwithstanding their earlier filing of withdrawal papers. But H.B. 4507, as rewritten, does more than just that! It strips out the "secret list" provisions from the presidential primary law. It undoes a recent Court of Appeals decision which prohibited local clerks from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot applications. And it reforms the scheduling of school board elections, which most districts now have annually in May, in favor of odd-November OR even-November OR even-August. We county clerks have been calling for some of these things for years. So, notwithstanding the last-minute change in the candidate list (a royal pain for programming and printing the ballots), I like this bill now. Unfortunately, though it passed the House, it didn't get two-thirds for immediate effect. But they should get another shot at that today. Today, the State Senate may or may not take action on the bill. As the legal saga has unfolded, I've posted some updates to Daily Kos:
Tomorrow, Wednesday November 28, I'll be appearing, alongside Mark Brewer and other party and campaign people, on a panel sponsored by the Electionn Law Project, from 12:20 to 1:20 pm, in Room 132 of the University of Michigan Law School. Should be fun. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, November 20, 2007, 5:24 pm Presidential primary update. A panel of the Court of Appeals, last Friday, voted 2-1 to uphold Judge Collette's decision throwing out the presidential primary. Yesterday, the state filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court. Time to print ballots, prepare for the election, etc., is running extremely short. A couple of interesting documents to share: From the State Election Director. Chris Thomas (director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections) sent the following email this afternoon to all the county clerks:
From MACC. Second, a press release issued today by the Michigan Association of County Clerks:
In theory, we should know the outcome by lunchtime tomorrow. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, November 12, 2007, 11:40 pm Presidential primary tale grows longer. So much has happened in the last week that it's difficult to summarize briefly. First off, my friend Mark Grebner, along with a bunch of co-plaintiffs, sued in circuit court for a ruling against the presidential primary law. In particular, they challenged the parties' exclusive right to get lists of who voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Kept secret, those lists are worth an estimated $5 to $10 million. Judge Collette agreed, and ruled that it was unconstitutional to turn over the lists of primary voters to the two major parties, while keeping them secret from everybody else. To do so was to transfer public property to private interests, which takes a two-thirds vote in the Legislature (the primary bill didn't get two-thirds). Further, he ruled, the secrecy requirement abridged the rights of other political parties, and journalists. Curiously, the presidential primary law, as a cobbled-together compromise, contained a very unusual NON-severability clause, which provided that if any portion of the law were struck down as invalid, the entire law was invalid. Hence, Judge Collette was forced to strike down the entire presidential primary. (Here's a Detroit Free Press editorial and a Laura Berman column (Detroit News) praising the judge for the decision.) So the Legislature, still in session last Thursday before the two-week deer hunting recess, was expected to receive and re-enact a "cleaned up" version of the presidential primary law. But no! The proposed new version still had the unconstitutional secret-list provisions in it. The concept was to get two-thirds in both houses, in order to overcome the giving-away-public-property objection, while ignoring the other issues. The bill was unveiled late Thursday afternoon and rammed through the Senate. It got two-thirds there. But then, it didn't get two-thirds for "immediate effect". Normally, bills passed by the Legislature don't take effect until the following April. To give a bill "immediate effect" takes two-thirds vote. A law calling for a January 15, 2008 primary would be meaningless if it didn't take effect until three months after that. In other words, any bill to revive the presidential primary really needs two-thirds support in both houses. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives, meeting late into the evening, ended up not taking up the Senate-passed bill. Sensing Republican desperation to get the primary re-established, Democrats asked for the Moon: no-reason absentee voting, repeal of the voter-ID law, and allowing people to have different voter and driver addresses. Republicans refused to bend on any one of these, let alone all three. So the legislative solution seemed to have failed, as the senators and representatives headed off for the traditional deer hunting season recess — notwithstanding that only nine of them have hunting licenses. But no! The House and Senate are scheduled to return to session tomorrow, Tuesday, November 13, presumably to try again. Still, there is considerable opposition to the primary among House Democrats, and the likelihood of getting two-thirds there is slim. It didn't get two-thirds in the House the first time, and that was with the Governor fighting hard for it. My understanding is that the revived primary is no longer one of the Governor's priorities. Further, some of the legislators who recently voted for tax increases are facing recall efforts in their districts. A presidential primary would be an ideal opportunity to collect recall signatures. This probably dampens their enthusiasm to re-establish the primary. Why did the "cleaned up" bill still have the voter list provisions in it that were struck down by the judge? Because even though the state is determined to defy national party rules by having an early primary, the state Democratic Party is determined to follow national rules in not having an "open" primary, where voters select a party primary within the voting booth. Meanwhile, the Republicans are opposed to having a primary where the names of voters who selected one party or the other are public record (as they are in most states). Neither party really wants to have a Michigan-style open primary, the Democrats because that would provide another excuse for refusing to seat our delegates at the national convention, and the Republicans because they fear Democrats crossing over to vote for Ron Paul. The secret-list-for-state-parties-only is the "middle road" between letting everybody choose a primary privately, and letting everybody's party choice be public. Judge Collette ruled that middle road is illegal, but that's just a detail. And both state parties are plainly salivating over the exclusive mailing list they're expecting to get. One feature of the proposed bill is that it does all over again the process of selecting the candidates for the presidential primary. The option for a candidate to get off the ballot looks like it's still there, but (in the words of one of the drafters) it's a "hall of mirrors" — there's really no way out. So welcome back to the Michigan primary ballot, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden! Meanwhile, the Bureau of Elections (via email sent last Friday at 5:17 pm) has ordered all counties and localities to cease preparing for the January 15 primary, but not to throw away what's been prepared, since the primary could be revived. The courts were closed today (Monday the 12th) for Veterans Day, but the Secretary of State will appeal Judge Collette's order on Tuesday the 13th. The Bureau stated that she would file at the Court of Appeals, but more recent word is that she will go directly to the Michigan Supreme Court. Since the Supreme Court is nominated at state party conventions, they are likely to be very responsive to the interests of those parties. Note that the non-severability clause in the original presidential primary law limits their options to all or nothing: they can't throw out some clauses and save others, unless they can invalidate the non-severability clause itself, which seems unlikely. Will they be so shameless as to decide that it's perfectly okay to turn over lists of voters exclusively to the major parties? We're pretty close to the drop-dead date for scheduling a January 15 primary, especially if overseas absentee voters (e.g., soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq) are going to take part. There's already some talk of giving up on the January 15 date, and scheduling the primary later. But that would require legislative action, which might not be politically possible. All this last-minute furor must be giving fits to the New Hampshire official who is supposed to schedule that state's primary a week ahead of all others. UPDATES, Tuesday morning. (1) The legislative session scheduled for today has been canceled, and the next session won't be for another week. Presumably they decided they don't have the votes to get a new presidential primary law through in time. (2) The Secretary of State is still saying she's going to the Court of Appeals (Michigan's intermediate appellate court), not the Supreme Court. That means they'll get a draw of any random three-judge panel -- harder for the powers-that-be to predict and control. Unless they can get it into the Supreme Court this week, I don't see much chance for a timely reversal. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, November 12, 2007, 9:03 pm Update on a self-proclaimed icon. Those of us old enough to remember the early 1970s probably recall the adulation for the Guru Maharaj Ji, the "14 year old Perfect Master" (he seemed to be stuck at that age for some time). His smooth, fat, baby-faced visage smiled serenely from innumerable posters in college towns in those days, plastered everywhere by the vaguely sinister Divine Light Mission. Apparently, he had millions of followers. Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall had a scene ridiculing him. Later, he had some kind of falling out with his mom, and she renounced his divinity. It was the sort of ending you'd expect, and I hadn't given him much thought for the last thirty-plus years. Tonight I accidentally discovered, through Wikipedia, that he's still around, still preaching, but without claiming to be God. His face is older (he'll be 50 next month) but otherwise unchanged. He now goes by his civilian name: Prem Rawat. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Wednesday, October 10, 2007, 1:24 pm The Presidential Primary. We Michiganders have sure gotten ourselves into a pickle again. The Legislature enacted a January 15, 2008 presidential primary, defying the schedule laid down by both national parties. In compliance with national Democratic Party rules, it's a choice-of-ballot primary. But the lists of voters who chose the Democratic and Republican ballots would be disclosed only to the state party chairs, so as to mollify people who didn't want to leave a public record of which party's primary they voted in. For a little while, it looked like Michigan and Florida had won the game by scheduling such early primaries. But New Hampshire still has a lot of leverage, so pledges were extracted from the candidates not to campaign in either state. Of course, that didn't stop candidates from visiting Michigan and Florida for "fundraising". Then, the national Democratic Party decided to punish Florida (and presumably Michigan too) by taking away all delegate seats. This was widely seen as an empty threat. The two unauthorized primaries might be zero-delegate "beauty contests", but given the timing and the expected large participation, they could have a huge impact on the race. And by convention time, with the primaries over with, Michigan and Florida delegates would surely be welcomed back. But our presidential primary law has an escape hatch for candidates. Five of the eight Democratic presidential candidates (under pressure from New Hampshire and the national party) filed papers by the deadline yesterday to remove their names from the ballot. Dennis Kucinich's filing lacked his signature and was rejected, so he remains on the ballot, along with front-runner Hillary Clinton, and also-rans Mike Gravel and Chris Dodd. The Michigan presidential primary law has had that escape provision for some time; that was the mechanism by which the Democratic presidential primary was all but cancelled most years from 1980 to 2004. In retrospect, it was a big mistake to leave it in the law this year. Florida has a no-escape presidential primary, and we could have done that, too. I suppose the Legislature could retroactively remove the escape clause and force the four candidates back onto the ballot. That would smack of changing the rules during the game, but stuff happens when everybody plays hardball. On the other hand, the candidates who withdrew their names will be portrayed as having spat in the face of Michigan voters; it might seem awfully mean-spirited to drag them back to be humiliated in the "beauty contest". Technically, Michigan has not yet suffered any formal sanctions from the national party, and will not until a delegate selection plan is filed. Quite possibly, the state party could quietly abandon the primary for delegate selection, and go back to the February 9 caucus date that was originally planned. Even if that happens, the primary will not be modified or canceled unless both parties agree to it. We election officials will still have to do election preparations during the holiday season. Not only that, we will still be required to print two (or three) different ballots per precinct, and will still be required to ask every voter which party's ballot they want, all to comply with Democratic Party rules — for a primary rejected by the national party, and perhaps also abandoned by the state party. Since the Democratic front-runner will be essentially unopposed, the action will be on the Republican side. And the "closed primary" that was demanded by the Democratic Party will instead protect the Republican primary from crossover votes for Ron Paul. That is, unless the early caucuses and primaries shake up the Democratic race, in which case we will have hundreds of thousands of write-in votes to deal with. Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, October 1, 2007, 11:50 am From the Clerk-Register. This morning's message to my staff: about the state budget brinkmanship.
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Thursday, August 23, 2007, 11:50 pm New York Times Outraged at Murder Case Acquittal. I came across the following editorial this evening, published May 1, 1854 (paragraph breaks added for readability):
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, August 6, 2007, 4:38 pm From the Clerk-Register. Today's message to my staff: about the voter ID law
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Thursday, July 26, 2007, 4:05 pm From the Clerk-Register. A recent message to my staff: the perils of email
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, July 24, 2007, 9:30 pm From the Clerk-Register. Today's message to my staff: a Blink link
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, July 16, 2007, 3:58 pm From the Clerk-Register. Today's message to my staff: it happens every summer
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Thursday, July 12, 2007, 11:31 pm Another press clipping. The Ann Arbor News ran an article on the front page about the latest passport regulation. More than that, they quoted me and even included a (dour, balding) photo:
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, May 29, 2007, 11:22 am Personal Best from the Fray. The online magazine Slate has a reader comments section called "The Fray". I've been a sometime participant in the Fray, and though most of the things I have written there have long disappeared, a few remain today on Slate's web site, and six of those carry the coveted check mark that means "Fray Editor's Pick". The comments function is about to be completely rebuilt, and I'm guessing that the old comments will disappear. I'm copying a few of them here, so I can find them later. 1. Nixon and McGovern. I wrote this in response to a Slate piece about Nixon the Populist:
2. Two Columbus Circle. During the controversy over whether to preserve 2 Columbus Circle, Timothy Noah (Chatterbox) challenged its chief defender to call it beautiful. I wrote as follows:
3. The Pulitzer Prize. Jack Shafer ridiculed the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. I was one of many who responded:
4. Disappearing Gas Stations. In an article about the shortage of oil refineries, Daniel Gross (Moneybox) went on to bemoan the loss of gas stations in Manhattan: In New York, the least obtrusive component of the petroleum supply chain.the neighborhood gas station.is an endangered species. Nearly 20 percent of Manhattan's gas stations have disappeared since 1999, according to Monday's New York Times. And it's getting worse. Gotham's remaining gas stations are generally located on the far East or West sides.formerly commercial and industrial areas with easy access for delivery trucks and motorists. But these are precisely the areas that savvy builders are now seeking to develop. The gas station I used to frequent, on a run-down corner at 92nd Street and First Avenue, was demolished last summer to make way for a 32-story hotel/apartment building. That struck me as remarkably uninformed about the consolidation of oil retailing, so I wrote the following:
5. Jackson, the Whigs, Slavery, and the Civil War. Fred Siegel's piece When History Meets Politics contained so many dubious assertions that it was vigorously disputed by the author of the book he praised. I was involved in the Fray debate to rebut other dubious ideas about mid-19th century America. Here are three postings:
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — On this day three decades ago, a northern Kentucky nightclub was destroyed in one of the worst fires in American history. When my wife was growing up in Northern Kentucky, one of her high school graduation events was held at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, in Southgate (just a few miles south of Cincinnati). It was a nightclub and a familiar venue for high school proms, wedding receptions, and so on. Many famous performers appeared there over the years. The original building was built in 1937, but it had been greatly expanded over the years with little or no safety inspection or enforcement. It postdated Prohibition, but locals thought of it as an old speakeasy, and it was said to be a headquarters for illegal gambling. On May 28, 1977, a fire broke out in the building, apparently caused by faulty aluminum wiring. The cheap building materials burned rapidly and generated toxic fumes. In the vast, crowded Cabaret Room, the exits were unmarked and access to them was constricted. About two thousand people escaped from the building that night, but 165 died — most of them in the Cabaret Room. Until last year, I had not known about Walter Bailey, a teenage busboy who saved hundreds of lives. More than a thousand people were packed into the Cabaret Room, watching a comedy act, unaware of the fire raging at the other end of the building. Bailey ran down the long hallway, jumped on stage, grabbed a microphone, warned the audience to evacuate, and pointed out the exits. Most of the crowd did escape safely. Two minutes after Bailey's warning, fire and thick smoke exploded into the room. Wikipedia has an article about the fire. There's an edit war still going on over whether the fire that burst into the Cabaret Room was a backdraft or a flashover. The location of the Supper Club (at the end of a long driveway some distance back from the road) has never been built on. Some rubble still remains there. There has been some agitation for a memorial at the site. Survivors and families are gathering there today to observe the anniversary. Three years ago, when I first posted about the fire in my blog, I started a QuickTopic comment page. That board now contains comments from quite a few people who experienced the disaster either directly or indirectly. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 12:56 pm Mulberry, 1991-2007. Mulberry was a small black-and-white tuxedo cat who came to us in 1991, when Katie Geddes found her as a tiny, motherless kitten on her farm near Grass Lake, Michigan. Back in 1990-91, on M-Net (local Unix-based conferencing system), "mulberry" was an anonymous writer, also known as "Thisbe Alcestis". Mulberry fascinated us all with postings of original poetry, often done as commentary on M-Net happenings and people. The real identity of Mulberry was a much-speculated-upon mystery. Some of us had figured it out by the time this kitten came along, and so it was natural to endow her with the name of the secret alter ego of the woman who had given her to us. Even some time after that, I remember when John Perry, one of the M-Net board members, disclaiming knowledge of who was writing the mulberry postings, declared that as far as he was concerned, "Mulberry is Larry Kestenbaum's cat." Being motherless, Mulberry grew up a bit undersocialized. The arrival of another, older cat in our household seemed to help her mellow out a bit, but she was always feisty about being crossed, and very shy or skittish with strangers; she never fully trusted anyone besides me and Janice. We still have around our house a number of those plastic rings (about an inch-plus in diameter) from the tops of plastic milk jugs. Mulberry liked to play a game with these. She bring one of these rings to me or Janice and mew, in a particular warbling way, for us to throw them across the room. She would chase after the ring, sometimes knocking it around in a frenzy, and finally capture it. Then she did a very clever cat thing: she would put her paw down on one side of the little hoop, so that the other side rotated upward, and grasp the rising edge in her mouth. She would triumphantly bring the ring back, drop it within our reach, and mew for it to be thrown again. I don't think she played the ring toss game in the last year or so of her life, but she was still doing it from time to time even as a fairly old cat. Some cats engage in habits which become almost ritualized, and no cat I have known was more into this than Mulberry. When she was a young cat, she got into habit of attacking me every night about 11 pm. I came to dread this, but I also knew that once it happened, it was over for the night. Much later, when we would confine her to our room for feeding (to keep the other cats from eating the medicine in her food), she would take a few bites of food, then urgently demand to be let out of the room. Let out, she would wander into the living room and back for no apparent reason, then return to our room to finish the meal. She did this day in and day out for quite a while. All her life, Mulberry never liked it when somebody made the bed, and would remain on the bed, mewing insistently, while we tried to straighten the sheets and pull up the covers. Mulberry was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease some years ago, and was treated with prednisone. Cats tolerate steroids much better than humans do, and as long as she had her medicine, she was fine. On occasion, she would lose her appetite and hence not get the medicine, and her condition would further suppress her appetite until she was dehydrated. So we would pack her off to the veterinarian, who would inject some prednisone, and she'd be fine again. But when Janice came home Friday evening, Mulberry was considerably sicker than usual, and was extremely weak and passive. She barely even bothered to object when put in the cat carrier and taken to the veterinary ER. It turned out that in addition to being dehydrated and unable to keep food down, she was jaundiced and in liver failure. Possibly she had liver cancer (quite common among cats), or possibly it was a side effect of the prednisone. Either way, any treatment would be difficult, invasive, expensive, and of dubious usefulness. We had to euthanize her. It's ironic that the same medication which kept her alive these last seven years may have destroyed her liver. Former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas had a similar fate. Even "miracle" drugs can carry a downside. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Short notes:
....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — The Lost Convention. Congress proposed the 21st Amendment (repeal of Prohibition) in 1933, and specified that ratification would be through state conventions rather than state legislatures. Michigan was the first state to act. The ratification convention was scheduled for April 10. Delegates, elected only a week earlier, voted 99-1 to ratify the repeal amendment. Unlike other state elections and conventions, none of this was documented in the 1933 Michigan Manual. In 1951, a fire at the state archives destroyed most of the records. The election and convention has sunk into such obscurity that people knowledgeable in Michigan political history had never heard of it. I myself didn't know about it until I came across it in a 1933 newspaper. Of course, I wanted to collect the information for Political Graveyard. Over the last few months, I gathered data from county and state archives, and from newspapers published at the time. I'm delighted to report that I now have all the delegate and candidate names. I didn't try to collect and reconcile the vote totals. Here's the report: Delegates to Michigan Convention to Ratify 21st Amendment. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, April 30, 2007, 6:33 pm Our presidential primary. It's time I wrote something about the scuffle over whether Michigan will hold a presidential primary. I spent much of Friday and Saturday in Gaylord at the statewide county clerks' conference, where this was a big topic of discussion. The county clerks as a group are opposed to holding a presidential primary, but they are starting to be resigned to the fact that it's likely to happen. This is a complicated story, so I'll break it down into just a few points: (1) No "open" primary. Selection of delegates to national party conventions is governed by national party rules. Democratic national rules require that any presidential preference primary or caucus be limited to people willing to call themselves Democrats, or at least, people who are participating in the Democratic primary. That's no problem in most states, where people register by party to participate in primaries, or openly choose a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. But it doesn't work in Michigan, which allows voters to choose a party primary in the privacy of the voting booth. One of the events which precipitated this rule was the 1972 Michigan presidential primary, which was won by George Wallace. It was clear from the geographic distribution of results that a great many Republicans, seeing no contest in their own party primary, had "crossed over" to give Wallace a win that was seen as not the expression of Michigan Democrats. Similarly, in 2000, many Democrats voted in the Republican presidential primary, boosting John McCain to a win over George W. Bush. Among self-identified Republicans, Bush won, but they were swamped by non-Republicans, and all the votes counted the same. The 2000 crossover vote was especially large because there were no Democratic candidates on the ballot. Rather than participate in the primary, Michigan Democrats held a caucus, essentially a party-run election. More on that below. (2) A new primary law is proposed. Last December, the Democratic and Republican state party chairs seemed to have come up with a joint proposal for a presidential primary law. The plan (which didn't work) was to sneak the bill through the legislature in the last days of 2006. The text of the bill was kept secret, but eventually the details leaked out. This bill has never actually been introduced, but it's still the only proposal on the table. Knowledgeable lobbyists expect that, quite soon, it will suddenly come screaming out of committee and be voted through the House and Senate in a matter of hours. The proposal contemplates a presidential primary, on a date to be determined jointly by the party chairs, but probably February 5, 2008. It will be choice-of-ballot primary — voters will have to openly request a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. However, the written list would be kept secret from everyone except the state party organizations. (3) Republicans know they're in a pickle. Republicans are pushing the presidential primary, and are ready to make the compromises needed to make it happen, because they have nowhere else to go. They have never run a mass participation statewide caucus, and are not very interested in devoting the millions of dollars in party resources it would take to do so. If the law is totally unchanged, a Republican-candidates-only presidential primary will take place February 26 or so. Assuming it's not rendered irrelevant by earlier events, gleeful Democrats will be free to take part. This prospect does not excite Republican leaders. (4) Democrats DON'T know they're in a pickle. Democrats are in a strong negotiating position, not just because the Republicans are desperate, but because the party leadership mistakenly thinks they're "ready" to hold a caucus on Saturday, February 9th. Three years ago, the Michigan Democratic caucus was saved from being a train wreck by becoming irrelevant, so that only activists took part. Had Howard Dean not withdrawn a few days earlier, there is no possible way that the party could have handled a serious turnout. Just for example, there were just 18 caucus sites in all of Washtenaw County — compared with about 164 voting precincts. Some of those 18 sites would have been overwhelmed with as many as 10,000 or 20,000 voters — in the very compressed time frame of just a few hours. In terms of facilities, parking, supplies, volunteers, there's just no way that could work. And Washtenaw was probably one of the better organized counties. Statewide, we could have had at least hundreds of thousands of people giving up, frustrated and angry. Yes, there was Internet voting available, but didn't work well either. An estimated 72,000 people tried and failed to cast a ballot that way. A better implementation would help, but I hear nothing from the party about lessons learned from last time. (And of course Internet voting is feasible ONLY because there's no secret ballot in the caucus.) (5) Joining the crowd. February 5th is turning into a nearly national primary. On the one hand, how important could Michigan be if we're voting on the same day as California, New York, etc.? On the other hand, "Super Duper Tuesday" will get wall-to-wall media coverage, and our voters are going to want to take part. I'm saying this in response to county clerks who predict public outrage over "wasting" $10 million in scarce state dollars on the primary. I'm guessing there will be greater outrage if it turns out that Michigan ISN'T taking part in what may be seen as a national presidential election. (6) Choice of ballot. Michiganders are used to the "open" primary system, so the choice-of-ballot system is likely to face some hostility. Opponents, including some the county clerks, darkly predict that voters will revolt at having to tell which primary they're voting in, and will yell at or even assault precinct workers. But it's pretty silly to call choice-of-ballot "un-American" when most of America has been doing it for years. There are bad memories of the last two-party presidential primary, in 1992, but in that case, advance registration of party preference was required — and those party preferences were painstakingly collected from voters for a couple of years. But then both parties changed the rules in the week or so before the primary, creating a lot of confusion. (6) The secret lists. The presidential primary proposal (as it currently seems to stand) would immensely complicate election administration by requiring that those choice-of-ballot decisions, once announced in the polling place, would be written down and kept secret from everyone but the parties themselves. In other words, there would be three poll lists in every precinct. One would be the poll book for the names of all the voters; one would be the list of Democratic primary voters, and one would be the list of Republican primary voters. The local clerks would be required to transmit the Democratic and Republican lists to the county clerk, and destroy all other copies. The county clerks would then transmit these lists to the secretary of state (retaining no copies), and the secretary of state would send them to the Democratic and Republican state party chairs. The lists would be non-public records exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Many problems arise with this. Ballots are serially numbered, and the ballot number (which appears on the tear-off stub) is recorded in the poll book for each voter. This is necessary to account for used, unused, and spoiled ballots. But presumably the Democratic ballots would be numbered in a different range than the Republican ballots? It would then be obvious who had which ballot from the poll book, which has to be public as part of the transparency of the election process. Any solution to this is going to involve vast trouble for election administration. Some people will apply for absentee ballots. How will clerks know which ballot to send them? If the absentee ballot application includes a line about which party ballot to send, will they make the application also non-public? Concern for the purity of elections (guarding against absentee ballot fraud) ought to foreclose that. If the clerk sends both ballots, what happens if the voter marks and returns both? In any case, if the law provides that the information is revealed to the party chairmen but not anyone else, expect some litigation. That might tie up the process in further knots, and make it even less likely that presidential candidates will regard Michigan as a good place to invest time and attention. (7) Robo-calls. Critics point out that the parties will use their secret lists of names for robo-calling, which of course they will. So perhaps the same bill will be made more appealing and more unstoppable by adding a provision that prohibits political (or any other) robocalls. Arguably that would be unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds, but Indiana's law has been upheld so far. Stay tuned for more developments! ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Thursday, March 29, 2007, 11:37 pm "Political Graveyard" in the New York Times, 1851-2006. As creator of the web site by that name, I'm always interested in clues about how the phrase "political graveyard" was popularized. This evening, I tried doing a search for the phrase in the New York Times archive, and turned up some interesting stuff. Though "political cemetery" shows up as early as 1858 (and then not again for decades), the phrase "political graveyard" did not start to appear in the Times until the 1870s. Based on what I found, two 19th century American political figures played significant roles in making "political graveyard" a common term: Henry L. Clinton and Thomas C. Platt. Clinton was a New York City politician who (at least according to the articles in the Times) was noted for readily changing his political stripes. In February 1872, he made a speech denouncing Tammany Hall's power in Democratic politics. So, when he became an ally of Tammany, excerpts from his old speech were quoted in New York Times articles in 1875 and 1878 (emphasis added in all quotes): The Sachems [Tammany Hall leaders] invite the Democracy [Democratic Party] to wear the threadbare, cast-off political garments of Tweed and Sweeny: to steep themselves in dishonor; to wear the garlands of political infamy, and to enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard. Perhaps influenced by that speech, which must have been printed in other papers for the Times to be able to quote from it word for word three years later, an Iowa newspaper editor (quoted in the Times) used the phrase in an August 1875 campaign dispatch: These reports are not from one or two locations alone, but are general; and while all is zeal and animation in the Republican ranks, the funeral cortege of Democracy [Democratic Party] slowly wends its way to the political graveyard of annihilation and oblivion. Though it postdated the 1872 speech, this Iowa report was apparently the first time the phrase "political graveyard" appeared in print in the New York Times (August 18, 1875). But after these three occurrences, there was nothing more of the term in the New York Times for more than a dozen years. "Political graveyard" returned to the news in 1888, and there were fourteen articles using the term in the fifteen years from 1888 to 1903. Of these, one was about the British House of Lords; the rest are about American politics. And in all but two of these, "political graveyard" is used to refer to what happens to the careers of politicians who disobey New York State Republican boss Thomas C. Platt. The first one, in December 1888, was about Platt's irritation over his scant chances of being appointed to the Cabinet by president-elect Benjamin Harrison: The succeeding of any other New-York man will not compensate Platt, who could not get a substitute who would as effectively fill up his political graveyard as he would himself. A little later, in 1890, a column or editorial, titled "The Assassin Method", denounces Platt and his control of the New York Republican Party, saying: He has two instruments with which he does his work-- the corruption fund and the political graveyard. He rules through cupidity and fear, and appeals to the meanest motives of the human soul. The next reference, from May 1890, is an article about the Republican state committee doing Platt's bidding: The object was to denounce Hamilton Fish, Jr., and Frederick S. Gibbs for their treachery to the party during the session of the Legislature, and to warn all who acted with them that they are marked for slaughter labeled for PLATT'S private political graveyard. Another article, soon after, refers to the same purge in similar terms: Mr. Platt has enlarged the area of his political graveyard, and has left marked places for Messrs. Gibbs, Fish, and the eight or ten other Republicans who stood by them. Still another editorial in 1891 denouncing Platt: Any Republican who sought advancement by nomination for office or by official appointment would have to discard all independence, sink his self-respect, and become wholly subsurvient to the Platt machine. If he presumed to oppose or to question the decrees of the Boss he would be consigned to the political graveyard, and only the sordid and submissive would be admitted to the rewards of party activity. A politician named Milholland opposed Platt, in April 1894, so: Into his political graveyard Platt proposes to put the doughty Milholland. A piece in January 1895 chronicles a brief moment of magnaminity during Platt's earlier rise to power: He finally abandoned his political graveyard and declared a general amnesty to all who had been at war against him. In June 1896, Platt's propensity for revenge is cited again: Mr. Platt keeps a political graveyard in which there are said to be many unoccupied plots. In August 1896, apparently he had a scare: Platt's friends took the alarm, and the "boss" himself seems to have had visions of the spooks that might troop from his political graveyard with substantial knives in their voluminous sleeves. It wasn't until July, 1900 (for the first time since 1878), that the term "political graveyard" was used in a New York Times article about American politics unconnected to Tom Platt. It was in a quote from an unnamed Democrat critical of William Jennings Bryan: "If we make a mistake," said an Indiana man of great experience in party conventions, "this will be but a funeral march to a political graveyard." Many of these uses of "political graveyard" are in quotations or editorials rather than in the Times' own reportorial prose. None of the quotations are from Platt himself, but I'm guessing that he must have used the phrase frequently, given the way it stuck to him for so long. There's a further oddity. The Times uses "political graveyard" 21 times from 1900 through 1937. Then, it disappears, with no mention for more than a dozen years. Was it out of fashion, or perhaps banned by the newspaper's style book? Hodding Carter brought "political graveyard" back to the Times in June 1950, with a Times Magazine article about Southern politics. The term has appeared in 45 articles since 1950 -- most recently (October 1, 2006) in reference to my web site. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 12:11 am Buttermilk for the gamblers? From the New York Times, December 4, 1951:
I came across this while looking up information on corrupt New Jersey mayors for The Political Graveyard. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Monday, March 19, 2007, 11:36 pm A note about presidential politics. I generally prefer to focus my time and attention on local rather than national politics. Still, the presidential race sets the tone for everything else, and I can't help but have opinions about it. I've been saying for some time that I don't expect any of the four "front-runners" (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani) to be their party's nominees for president. That prediction is looking pretty good right now, notwithstanding the old saw that Republicans always nominate their front-runner. McCain is fading fast, and it is inconceivable that the Republicans will nominate someone as liberal on social issues as Giuliani. Meanwhile, Obama (appealing but untested) and Clinton (heavy baggage and weak speaking skills) seem to be focused on one-upping each other. John Edwards looks better and better. He's already been through a national campaign, and shows strong signs of having learned from the experience. He has come up with well-thought-out specifics on a number of issues, notably health care. So, I might as well say it, I'm supporting Edwards. I'm usually pretty cautious about future elections, and a lot can change in the next year and a half. Still, George W. Bush retains enormous influence in the Republican process. A recent poll shows that GWB has 75% support in his own party: a feeble number by historical standards, but a commanding number for intraparty skirmishes. Hence, it will be impossible for next year's Republican presidential nominee to distance himself very far from the miserable failure in the White House. We Democrats have managed to blow huge advantages in presidential elections before, but I'm guessing that won't happen this time. ....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Tuesday, March 13, 2007, 10:42 am Last Saturday in Otsego. My friend David John Alway (1950-2007) was a big, brilliant, awkward guy from a family of big, brilliant, awkward guys. His resemblance to the Cowardly Lion was often remarked upon. According to one of his brothers, a personality analysis once accurately characterized Dave to be both "workaholic" and "rebel". He accommodated those two sides of himself by strict compartmentalization: during the week he was a corporate drone for Upjohn (one-time pharmaceutical giant) in Kalamazoo, Michigan; on weekends, he participated in science fiction conventions, writing, and especially music (the folkish "filk" music of that community, heavy on parodies and sf-literary references). Long before I met Dave, I knew him through a personal zine he published, the North American Therianthropic Journal (circulation, I think, equal to the 25 members of an amateur publishing association). With desktop publishing magic available to few at the time, he hugely outdid my own pseudo-pompous Proceedings of the Institute for Obscure Studies (a takeoff on the "Institute for Advanced Studies" at Princeton), which was collated together with his and others for distribution. The therianthropy of his title was quite serious, however. Dave's passion was for half-human mythological beasts such as centaurs and mermaids, extending even to the risqué possibilities. He was the kind of engineer who finds delight in Legos and wooden trains and other such interesting toys. And you'd better not have been in a hurry if you asked Dave to explain something. I heard that on one long car trip, he spent many hours recounting for his fellow passengers the entire history of the federal highway system. I was baffled by his politics. He called himself a Democrat (and even donated to the Democratic National Committee), but he was an extreme Libertarian on every issue we argued. Or perhaps he was putting me on. When I moved to Ann Arbor from Ithaca, N.Y. on a very hot day in the summer of 1990, Dave was one of the folks who showed up to help us unload the truck, though Janice became very concerned that Dave was over-exerting his ponderous frame in the heat. Some time in the 90s, the takeover or collapse of Upjohn left Dave with early retirement; he and one of his brothers moved several miles north of Kalamazoo to the small town of Otsego, Michigan. Dave's house includes a long common room with a high, peaked ceiling. And this space became a venue for regular, all-day gatherings of SF-community musicians and singers. I was invited to each one, but to my regret, I never made it out to Otsego while Dave was alive. When Dave died from a heart attack last January, one such event had already been scheduled for Saturday, March 10. The family (which is to say, Dave's siblings) decided to go ahead with the gathering "To Commemorate Dave's Love of the Arts" (as the invitation stated). On Saturday, there were, oh, some fifty people in attendance, some from as far away as Chicago or Pittsburgh, or as close as Kalamazoo. There were several of us from Ann Arbor. The "traditional" memorial service, starting at 1:30 pm, consisted of Dave's siblings speaking about their departed brother, the audience sitting in rows of chairs. Around 2:30 pm, food was set out, the chairs were rearranged into approximately a circle, and playing cards were distributed. I received the four of clubs. The first suit was Hearts, and the holders of the cards were called on by the concert mistress in numerical order. Many of the guests had brought musical instruments and sometimes even their own compositions, often parodies or on science fiction themes. Others sang a capella or karaoke style, or did readings. Most of them were quite good. Newcomers had been cautioned at the outset to respond with (at least) polite enthusiasm to each and every performer, because "those who are excellent now used to be not-so-excellent, and those who are not-so-excellent will, in time, become excellent." When my card was called, I swallowed my misgivings, stood up, and recited Poe's "The Raven" from memory. It seemed the right thing to do under the circumstances. Around six o'clock, when the cards had run out, many pizzas appeared, and there was a lengthy break for dinner. Afterwards, the group reconvened in the circle, the cards were redistributed, and the game began again, albeit more somberly. Some links:
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