Does anyone want to talk about Gary Condit anymore, the idiot politician who put my hometown, Modesto, CA, in the national spotlight? (So now everyone will remember Modesto, if at all, for his weird hair and idiocy instead of for being the hometown of George Lucas). Any thoughts on if he had Chandra Levy knocked off?
The thing that gets to me most about the story is that while this was happening, alot of liberals in the media were crying fowl saying "Why aren't we concentrating on *real* news?", and Dan Rather refused for awhile to do a story on the controversy, etc. While obviously this matter deserved to be pushed out of the spotlight after Sept. 11th, is it really a total non-issue? Shouldn't we _care a whole lot_ if a United States representative was possibly involved with murdering someone, and shouldn't we do everything in our power to find out? Or are these types of prospects so disturbing to us that we can't bring ourselves to consider them and relegate them to "fringe conspiracies" (i.e. the Vince Foster "suicide")?
Let me know what you think,
DMC
Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution? -Jack Black
Come on CRZ, you know what life is like here. Condit was the talk of the town for awhile. Actually though, Modesto has gotten big enough where you could go to someplaces in town and not hear a word about it. But a lot of old timers apparently did at least find it intriging. What I could not stand were all the namby pampy, middle-aged supposedly "conservative" Democratic home-owning voters in the area who were willing to totally support Condit no matter what and would not even listen to the reports or the investigation. HELLO?! Isn't a possible *murder* a lot more important than the fact that you think your local boy looks cool on TV? It's these same idiots who may vote Condit back into office this year. Scary thought.
DMC
Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution? -Jack Black
It's not that it wasn't an important story, it's that, as always, the media covered it relentlessly, news or no news. Yes, it is important if a congressman possibly had a person murdered, but is conjecture and vague allegations more important than any other news story at the time?
Well, I mean I don't believe for a second that Condit had her MURDERED. But then, I don't own a home and I'm not Democratic either. Also, I don't actually live in the county, come to think of it. ;-)
I'd love to see George House win, but only because I'm good friends with his nephew - he's probably a little too "extreme" for the majority of the voters in the district, though. Stuff that works for Hughson don't necessarily work in Da Big City, you know.
Actually, House dropped out of the race for money reasons. Also, yes most of what was going on was accusation with no real proof as of yet, but you have to admit that the media had him on the ropes for awhile and, due to that, there may have been a major break in the case. I just wish they would have stuck with it to either prove him guilty of something or innocent of everything. But then I guess all of us wish Sept. 11th never happened.
I agree with CRZ about the more conservative political make-up of the valley, but as it fills up with Bay Area people, the valley is quickly going the way of the rest of California as far as I can tell- liberal. Why else would there be so much support for a Democrat (let's stop calling him a "conservative Democrat") whose only claim to fame so far is doing a good Bill Clinton impersonation?
DMC
Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution? -Jack Black
Only SF and LA are liberal in California. The rest of the state is pretty conservative.
The problem is that LA and SF are the two population centers of the state (yes, I said center, and I know there can't be two centers. Bite me.) so they over-represent the state.
If you went county by county in CA, you would see a much different picture than you do when you look at CA as a block of votes in a presidential election.
Of course, that could just be my inherent "Small towns get fucked by the liberal masses" mentality again.
For the record - San Diego probably leans to the right. Wilson was the mayor of SD at one point, for example. We are much less liberal than LA. You would never see a Willie Brown type come out of San Diego county.
Of course, that could just be my inherent "Small towns get fucked by the liberal masses" mentality again.
Us Big City folks call it the "because you happen to live 10 miles away from your neighbor instead of ten feet, you should get more votes" mentality.
I mean, really, the fact that North Dakota gets a many Senators as your State despite having less than 2% of the population of your State doesn't piss you off? A little?
And hey, be glad you get any Senators at all. I don't have any. This is despite the fact that states with less population than DC get two Senators apiece. The liberal masses here are really flexing their muscles, let me tell you.
Or maybe this is just my inherent "City folks get fucked by the conservative rural areas" mentality. Although to tell you the truth I actually don't have that much against rural areas. It's the suburbs I can't stand.
Moe
Farooq is the man so hit your knees and start praying!
But it evens out in the House. My state [Oklahoma] is losing a Representative. What you said makes me curious as to how many Congressmen the sparsely populated states wind up with--I should go look it up.
By the way, you should hope your state never loses a House seat, because redistricting is a huge pain in the ass!
"Worship the Hardys, but you know--eat a salad once in a while."--Stevie Richards.
It doesn't even out in the House. It's closer to even, so the more populous states are still at a disadvantage in the Senate. Maybe disadvantage is not the right word. Handicapped is better. Not that I'm really complaining. I understand that this is how our country is set up. This is also why I dismissed any talk of abolishing the Electoral College. It makes as much sense as the Senate does, to me at least, so I say get rid of both. And all states get at least one Representative.
House members from smaller states also have more influence. Here's why.
There are many more opportunities to move up for a Representative of a small state. There are three higher offices (2 Senate seats and the Governorship) where the constituency is the same size, or at least pnly 2 or 3 times as big.
In bigger states, the only way to move up is to run for a statewide seat that's 20 or 30 times bigger than your seat, or maybe you can run for Mayor if you're in the right place.
As a result, there isn't a lot of incentive for reps from a small state to stay in the House, when often it's real easy for them to get elected to the Senate or Governor. When the House is a close as this one, the party leaders want to retain as many incumbents as they can. So they give out some plum goodies to the house members who are thinking of running for higher office to entice them to stay. As I've pointed out, that's usually reps. from smaller states.
Moe
Farooq is the man so hit your knees and start praying!
that's true, but I think you are exagerrating the effect it has. For example, the Speaker is from Illinois, not what I'd call a small state. Gephardt's from Missouri, again, not a small state. Dick Armey is from Texas. True, the party won't want them leaving and will try to get them to stay in the House, but most districts are not competetive, so it really doesn't matter.