I just read David Brooks’s column in today’s New York Times: “The Values-Vote Myth”. Usually, I don’t agree with much that Mr. Brooks, a conservative, has to say. But this article gave me pause, and I wrote the following letter to him. Since he probably won’t read it, I thought I’d share it with the five other people that read this blog. 🙂 Send me your thoughts if you have the time.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

“The Values Vote Myth” is the first column you’ve written that I have ever agreed with in its entirety (well, except for the fact that every time the word “liberals” appears, it still manages to sound like a dirty word). With all of the “liberal” talk about fear and loathing in the Red States, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how this election cycle was driven by Liberal Fear. My thoughts, if you are interested, are the following: It is ironic that the “liberal” press blames the loss of the election on the cowardliness in others’ hearts, as if liberals were the would-be fearless leaders of a cowering, weakened populace. Liberals *are* very afraid (and for many good reasons, in my opinion). What Conservatives seem to have figured out is how to define the election in terms of one, over-arching fear: fear of terrorism (although slightly peppered with a dash of homophobia, for good measure). In the face of that fear, nothing else matters, at least to 52% of voters. Liberals and Democrats failed twice-over in their inability 1) to reassure voters on their competency to handle national security, and 2) to shift the terms of the debate to what they see as the other, equally important threats to our national security: erosion of civil liberties, inadequate health care, a failing public eduational system, and disasterous environmental policies. Bush is actually scarier to liberals than terrorists are. It was perhaps an impossible task, but Democrats failed to show why America should be more afraid of Bush[ies] than Osama Bin Laden[s]. Democrats didn’t miss the boat in this election: they just got on the wrong one. And it was fear that made them do it.

Addendum: As long as Democrats fail to face their own worst fears with courage and conviction, their losses will be many and ignoble, their victories hollow and few.

The National Tragedy has unfolded, but at least this time it is a clear national tragedy. I’m not going to repeat the sentiments of the other 56,350,113 americans who didn’t vote for Bush here (there’s only so many curse words I can think of at the moment!), but I can point you to the website of Robert Vanderbei, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Princeton, who compiled a county-by-county version of the familiar Red-Blue map, which shows which counties voted for Bush and which for Kerry, and which were about 50/50.

Looking at this map gives me more hope than most anything else I’ve read the last few days– it shows that even in the starkest of Red states people aren’t happy with the President. Like I’ve heard said, now that the election is over, we need to get behind the President, and in front of him, and next to him, and all around him, and watch him like a hawk. He may have an ultra-conservative agenda, but at least we’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming down that slippery slope towards fascism.

Check out the map here: Election 2004 Results

Oh, and in happier news, we’ve added some pictures of our recent trips to Lyons and the Loire Valley in “Sturchography”.

If there’s only one website you consult when putting away your laundry, make it this one:
How to Fold a Shirt. It actually works!

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Laura and I both completed our absentee ballots, to be mailed off tomorrow. So if the election were held today, Kerry would win by a landslide, at least in Minnesota. I really didn’t enjoy voting for Kerry (he’s supposed to be liberal? pfft!), but I’ve temporarily succumbed to the “a vote for {Nader, Cobb, R?ger Calero, Insert Leftist Candidate Name Here} is a vote for Bush” logic. That logic is flawed in so many ways, but so is our electoral system, so that’s what you get. Two-party systems can’t represent the views of most people, because political philosophy is not an either-or question, despite all of the Republicans’ “for us or agin’ us” rhetoric. I’d like to think there would be room for several major parties all over the political spectrum, but that would involve some kind of change in the way votes are tallied, in order to make sure that every voter can vote their conscience without feeling like they’re going to end up with a) a candidate who wins an election with far less than a majority of the popular vote (e.g. Jesse Ventura in 1998) or b) the candidate who you would least prefer getting into office (Nader voters in 2000 who ended up with you-know-who as president).

At any rate, the Instant Runoff style of voting seems to be making at least some headway in this country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting, and I was just taking a look online at another style of voting called Condorcet http://electionmethods.org/Condorcet.htm. You can read up on the specifics on those sites– the practical upshot is that a voter ranks candidates in order of preference– and if one candidate is not the first choice of a majority of voters, then the second choices of those voters kicks in to help decide who should win (and so on until one candidate has an absolute majority). So I could have voted for David Cobb as my first choice, and then John Kerry, and nobody (not even that nagging little voice inside my head) could have called my vote a “spoiler”.

It’s definitely time for something different in the way we elect our leaders; I don’t think I’m the only one unhappy with the choices we’re presented. Life is full of tough decisions, but we have control over this one!

Coming home from the poissonnerie this afternoon, I met a little black dog named Mikey (which in French sounds like my-KEY), and his person, a very friendly woman who lives on the 4th floor of our building. Dogs and children make such great reasons for talking to other people, no matter what country you’re in. Anyway, as we walked up the stairs together, chatting about our apartment’s former tenants, about Madame’s children, and of course, about Mikey and his “habitudes,” Mikey himself stopped on every landing to roll around on the welcome mat in front of each door–his polite way of marking his territory. It was all a very welcome and serendipitous meeting, since I had been feeling kind of cut-off everyone but store clerks and bureaucrats, who aren’t really interested in engaging you in small talk as you look for correct change or important documents, respectively. Upon our arrival on the 4th floor landing, Madame said good-bye, and graciously suggested that if we ever needed anything, to please come knock on her door. Quelle gentillesse! (How nice of her!) Our conversation did not last long enough for me to find out what kind of profession Madame is in, but one thing is certainly clear: she is probably not a bureaucrat.