Humor

Losing A Key Constituency

I don’t usually do deep political analysis, particularly when it comes to getting down and dirty with demographics, but I’m fascinated by this story, and it seems particularly appropriate on Halloween:

An analysis of state-wide records by the Poughkeepsie Journal reveals that 77,000 dead people remain on election rolls in New York State, and some 2,600 may have managed to vote after they had died. The study also found that Democrats are more successful at voting after death than Republicans, by a margin of four-to-one, largely because so many dead people seem to vote in Democrat-dominated New York City.

In light of today’s holiday, on which, like Kwanzaa for blacks and Cinco de Mayo for Mexicans, this demographic is particularly celebrated, I’m going to ask the question that nobody seems to ever ask, and one that the Republicans have to be asking themselves: how have they lost that key demographic, the metabolically challenged?

Admittedly, the Dems don’t have the dead vote locked up in the same way that they do the black vote (only four to one, rather than the ten to one they traditionally get from the African American community), but that’s still a huge “fog a mirror” gap. And the implications have to be frightening for the Republicans. After all, this is the largest demographic group of all–there are many times as many dead people as there are living ones, and that’s likely to remain the case for some time to come, and probably forever, unless we develop radical life extension technologies.

So far, the GOP has been fortunate, because, whether due to apathy, or barriers thrown up at the polls, the dead don’t tend to vote at all, by and large. But perhaps, if they could not only get many of them to switch party affiliation, but also mount a huge GOTDV drive, they could actually take advantage of this huge potential voting block, and take away a traditional Democrat advantage.

So what is it about the Dems that appeals to the non-living voters?

It really is a mystery, at least at first glance. You’d think that dead people would be naturally conservative. What more static, unchangeable state can there be, after all, but the grave? And after all, it isn’t the Republicans who want to tax the dead. You’d think that these people would be voting their pocketbooks, even if the leather in them is rotting away. And yet they still continue to pull the donkey lever.

It can’t be the entitlements: they’re all at a stage of their life at which they don’t really need the Social Security and Medicare any more.

Is it abortion on demand? That wouldn’t seem to be a life-or-death issue (so to speak) for people well beyond their prime child-bearing years. And state of health.

Is it the war? The dead have little to fear from war. Their stuff’s not going to get broken, because their descendants have it now, and what they didn’t pass on, the Democrats taxed away. As for the last measure of devotion, how much worse can it get than being dead? That can’t be it.

How about gun control? Well some, perhaps even many, of the dead may be dead as a result of guns. But given all of the other frailties and diseases that come with being human, it seems unlikely that this is a significant number of them. I can’t imagine that this is what appeals to them about the gun-control party.

Support for the UN, and immigration? Well, here’s a good possibility. After all, most of the dead aren’t American citizens. Of course, the ones that aren’t, aren’t eligible to vote, either. But then, neither are dead people, so this hardly seems to be a major barrier.

You know, I think we may have it.

The key for Republicans is to really tighten up on the voting rolls, and only allow American dead to vote, and actually require, you know, IDs and stuff. Of course, we can expect the Dems to scream in outrage, about “voter intimidation,” etc., to such a policy.

You know, on second thought, maybe we should just put up a fence around graveyards.

Political Commentary

Blowback

There are probably more loathsome human beings, but it’s hard to imagine one that came as close to becoming president as Senator John Kerry.

And you know, this insulting-the-troops thing has to be driving him nuts, because he probably was taking a slam at Bush, but it backfired. A smart politician would apologize, and say that he didn’t intend any insult to the troops themselves, but Kerry’s not a smart politician. I don’t think that going on the offensive (and I mean that in more than one way, with his comment about Tony Snow and Rush Limbaugh) is going to play well with the independent and moderates, regardless of how much it gives orgasms to the net roots. In particular, when he talks about how he’s always supported the troops, it just provides another opportunity for his opponents to remind people of the 1972 Senate testimony, in which he accused them of being war criminals.

And if this story develops legs like a centipede, and extends for another week into the election, and the Dems don’t do as well as they are currently drooling for, guess who will get the blame? Not that he ever had a prayer, but that will be the end of any hope, even on his own part, that he will get the Dem nomination again.

[Update a few minutes later]

Kerry obviously never learned the first lesson of holes (i.e., when in one, stop digging). Now he’s insulted the troops again:

I am a retired US Navy Senior Chief who spent 21 years serving in the nuclear navy. I read Kerry’s statement and took it as an insult. I just heard his press conference and now take offense that he thinks I’m “crazy” because I was insulted by his remarks last night.

As others have said, like Howard Dean, he’s a gift to Republicans that just keeps on giving.

You have to wonder just how powerful Rove’s mind-control beams are to get them to behave this way.

[Update]

For those wondering what this is about, here’s the video on youtube.com. And as one commenter pointed out, if he meant to insult Bush, that’s kind of ironic, considering that the president has a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, with better grades than Kerry got.

[Update about 4:37 PM EST]

Bush is going to make a speech shortly that had been previously planned, but he will now take the opportunity to respond to Kerry’s remarks. Time to put on some popcorn.

[Update a little before 6 Eastern]

Austin Bay has further thoughts:

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Space

Pork Launchers 1 And 5

The Chair Force Engineer continues to be unimpressed with the Ares program:

Of course, the problem here is that we are sticking with “shuttle derived” instead of pushing technologies that have been developed since the early 70’s when the shuttle was finalized. The EELV programs have taught the industry how to reduce the marginal costs of added launches and how to streamline the processing of the Delta & Atlas rockets. And it’s also clear that the shuttle hardware was never capable of meeting ambitious flight rates, which are the only way to make spaceflight more cost-effective.

If Congress insists that NASA retain the shuttle workforce to the maximum extent in its moon launcher planning, the “Direct Launch” proposal is the smartest way of launching human missions to the moon.

Of course, it’s that congressional insistence that’s the real problem, and what will probably prevent the president’s vision from being implemented. And don’t tell me it’s not pork, Mark.

Space

Not Quite Doomsday

Jeff Foust describes the current situation with Centennial Challenges. It’s not quite as bleak as earlier reports, and the issue may be resolved in conference. But as Jeff points out, even it not, it doesn’t affect any prizes currently funded; it just prevents NASA from initiating any new ones. That’s still a bad thing, but not as bad as pulling money out of prizes that people are currently working toward.

War Commentary

Rape Is Fine With Them

Here’s a depressing story. The rape-condoning Aussie Imam retains support not only in his country (he’s lived in Australia for almost a quarter of a century, but doesn’t speak any English), but in Britain as well:

Al-Hilaly, in his sermon, also caused offence by saying women were mostly to blame for adultery. ‘When it comes to adultery, it’s 90 per cent the woman’s responsibility,’ he said. ‘Why? Because a woman possesses the weapon of seduction.’

Waleed Aly, a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, condemned al-Hilali and called for his resignation, saying his views sought to normalize immoral sexual behaviour.

‘We would have liked to have seen some form of fairly strong censure just given the magnitude and the gravity of the comments,’ Aly said.

But other prominent Australian Muslims refused to criticise the mufti. Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, the chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, who is visiting Australia, sprang to the mufti’s defence. ‘I know he is one of the greatest Muslim scholars on earth and Australia is blessed with him,’ Sajid said.

This is a culture that is simply incompatible with a liberal democracy.

Space

Would Apollo Have Survived?

…if Jack Kennedy had? That’s an intriguing question that Dwayne Day is asking in today’s issue of The Space Review. Unfortunately, the data isn’t yet available.

And I’m continually amused by Democrat space supporters who still buy into the Camelot myth, and think that we’d be on Mars long ago had only Oswald (or whoever they may think actually did the deed) missed, when he clearly wasn’t that big on space. In fact, based on the speech cited in Dr. Day’s article, he would have been solidly behind the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which basically declares space off limits, at least philosophically, to exploitation and settlement, through its ban on claims of sovereignty.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!