Right now Tennessee is a single-party state. Republicans hold both US Senate seats, the Governorship, seven of nine US House seats, and over 70% of the General Assembly. This election looks unlikely to change any of that. The Democratic party is completely shut out of power, making it almost impossible for them to get donations. Who would donate to a party who can't do anything for them in return?
So what's your party to do? You keep running joke candidates, because you can't get any viable ones to take you seriously. Candidates can't get money without the hope of winning, and in our system you can't get political power without money. You have to break that cycle. You have to appeal to someone with lots of money, and appeal to the voters in a new way as well.
There's one issue that can do that: getting money out of politics.
There are two major PACs right now dedicated to ending the influence of money in politics. Mayday PAC is raising money to unseat incumbents opposing campaign finance reform. I think there are plenty of those in our state! This PAC has eight million dollars in its pocket, plus matching donations. Clearly this is an issue that there's (ironically) some money behind. If the Democratic Party wants to regain seats in the US House, this is a great place to start.
Second, Wolf PAC is pushing for states to call a constitutional convention, to propose an amendment outlawing campaign donations. If your state-level candidates were advocating this issue, Wolf PAC could make a significant difference in whether they win or lose.
If the Democratic party wants to come back in this state, you're going to have to focus on this one issue. It's the one thing that will set you apart from Republicans, there's a lot of money behind it, and it puts you on the side the huge majority of the nation agrees with.
Oh, and it's the right thing to do.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
Ballot Order
The democratic party has selected their candidate for governor. He has no public policy statements, website, or twitter feed. He has an inactive Facebook group, a picture of himself with some fish, and his own name misspelled. From all appearances, this is the entirety of his campaign. Yet he won by a 2:1 margin.
How? He was first on the ballot. This isn't the first time.
There are two groups that should learn from this.
First, voters. If you don't know who you prefer in an election, don't just pick someone on the spot! All you do is water down the opinions of the informed voters, the ones that should be making the decision. If you don't have an opinion on one office, just don't vote for that office! Your votes for all the other offices will still count!
Casting a vote, any vote, is something you should take very seriously. If you're not prepared to do that, don't vote.
Second, legislators. Ballot order is fixed, by law, in alphabetical order by last name. Ballot order clearly has a significant effect on outcome, giving some candidates advantage over others. Laws should never, ever help particular candidates. That's undemocratic and unamerican.
Each voter should be presented with the candidates in a different, randomly chosen order. The uninformed voters who just pick the first candidate on the list would cancel each other out. If we're doomed to use these stupid electronic voting machines with no paper records, we should at least use them in a way that makes elections work.
And if anyone tells you that these machines can't be made to put candidates in random order, give the machine to me. I'll fix it for you. I won't even charge. This is not a technical problem. It's a legal problem, and it has a legal solution.
How? He was first on the ballot. This isn't the first time.
There are two groups that should learn from this.
First, voters. If you don't know who you prefer in an election, don't just pick someone on the spot! All you do is water down the opinions of the informed voters, the ones that should be making the decision. If you don't have an opinion on one office, just don't vote for that office! Your votes for all the other offices will still count!
Casting a vote, any vote, is something you should take very seriously. If you're not prepared to do that, don't vote.
Second, legislators. Ballot order is fixed, by law, in alphabetical order by last name. Ballot order clearly has a significant effect on outcome, giving some candidates advantage over others. Laws should never, ever help particular candidates. That's undemocratic and unamerican.
Each voter should be presented with the candidates in a different, randomly chosen order. The uninformed voters who just pick the first candidate on the list would cancel each other out. If we're doomed to use these stupid electronic voting machines with no paper records, we should at least use them in a way that makes elections work.
And if anyone tells you that these machines can't be made to put candidates in random order, give the machine to me. I'll fix it for you. I won't even charge. This is not a technical problem. It's a legal problem, and it has a legal solution.
Infrastructure Megaprojects: Water
Water stress is the resource challenge of this decade, and probably a few more to come. Much of the US has been in drought for the last five years, driving up food prices. Some estimates are that this drought has cost the US economy $150 billion dollars each year! Water tables are being drained faster than they can refill, and polluted beyond use. Some bodies of water are being diverted so much that they've become poisonous, or ceased to exist. We need new sources of water, and we need them now.
Unfortunately you can't just create water unless you have a lot of hydrogen lying around. But we're not lacking for water; we're lacking for potable water. We have all the water we need, if we can just clean it up a bit.
We need to build desalination plants to make the seawater drinkable. There are already several in the United States, and quite a few more around the world. This is not a new thing, it's just a question of scale.
How much water are we talking about? Looking at a couple sources, we can estimate that the US uses around 400 billion gallons per day, most of which goes to run power plants and irrigate crops. An average desalination plant (based on Australian installations) could do 60 million gallons per day, consume about 24 MW, and cost $1.8 billion. So to replace every source of fresh water in the US, we're talking about 6,700 desal plants, consuming 160 GW and costing $12 trillion.
Now, that's just an upper limit. There's no need to desalinate every last drop of water we use. Let's scale back a bit, and target 10%, which should be more than enough to relieve the water stress we're seeing. Now we're talking about 670 plants, 16 GW, and $1.2 trillion. That's eminently doable. And the system scales wonderfully. You can build it gradually over time. If you need more water later, you can build more plants.
Figure 3.5% salinity as a general average, so we're talking about having to find a home for 6 million tons of salt every year. That's enough to cause an environmental catastrophe if it's all in one place, so we need to plan for that. Luckily, the US presently produces 7-8 times that much salt in a year, so our economy could obviously absorb it.
Other resources are present in seawater. We'd be extracting 220,000 tons of potassium a year, about 1/5 our present production of potash. This has great possibility for fertilizers, though I can't speak as to the chemistry involved. We'd also get a comparable amount of magnesium, making us the world's fifth largest producer.
The total value of all those extracted solids comes several hundred million dollars a year. Trivial by comparison to the cost of the construction, but still, a nice offset to operating expenditures.
Of course, it's not just the coasts we're worried about; we also need a way to move the desalinated water from the sea to the midlands. We're talking about a huge aqueduct network. We already have quite a bit of experience building such things, but the scale would be unheard-of. Figure a trillion dollars to build the aqueduct network alone.
Now, we could do closed pipes, but I'm not sure that's what we want to do. Perhaps instead we should have open aqueducts, and let the water evaporate as it will. It will condense back out somewhere as rain, giving us the most efficient possible distribution method. Some combination of covered and uncovered aqueducts would probably be best.
Ultimately, the oceans will provide us with the only sustainable source of fresh water on the planet. We'll eventually have to start tapping it, and we're getting to that point.
Unfortunately you can't just create water unless you have a lot of hydrogen lying around. But we're not lacking for water; we're lacking for potable water. We have all the water we need, if we can just clean it up a bit.
We need to build desalination plants to make the seawater drinkable. There are already several in the United States, and quite a few more around the world. This is not a new thing, it's just a question of scale.
How much water are we talking about? Looking at a couple sources, we can estimate that the US uses around 400 billion gallons per day, most of which goes to run power plants and irrigate crops. An average desalination plant (based on Australian installations) could do 60 million gallons per day, consume about 24 MW, and cost $1.8 billion. So to replace every source of fresh water in the US, we're talking about 6,700 desal plants, consuming 160 GW and costing $12 trillion.
Now, that's just an upper limit. There's no need to desalinate every last drop of water we use. Let's scale back a bit, and target 10%, which should be more than enough to relieve the water stress we're seeing. Now we're talking about 670 plants, 16 GW, and $1.2 trillion. That's eminently doable. And the system scales wonderfully. You can build it gradually over time. If you need more water later, you can build more plants.
Figure 3.5% salinity as a general average, so we're talking about having to find a home for 6 million tons of salt every year. That's enough to cause an environmental catastrophe if it's all in one place, so we need to plan for that. Luckily, the US presently produces 7-8 times that much salt in a year, so our economy could obviously absorb it.
Other resources are present in seawater. We'd be extracting 220,000 tons of potassium a year, about 1/5 our present production of potash. This has great possibility for fertilizers, though I can't speak as to the chemistry involved. We'd also get a comparable amount of magnesium, making us the world's fifth largest producer.
The total value of all those extracted solids comes several hundred million dollars a year. Trivial by comparison to the cost of the construction, but still, a nice offset to operating expenditures.
Of course, it's not just the coasts we're worried about; we also need a way to move the desalinated water from the sea to the midlands. We're talking about a huge aqueduct network. We already have quite a bit of experience building such things, but the scale would be unheard-of. Figure a trillion dollars to build the aqueduct network alone.
Now, we could do closed pipes, but I'm not sure that's what we want to do. Perhaps instead we should have open aqueducts, and let the water evaporate as it will. It will condense back out somewhere as rain, giving us the most efficient possible distribution method. Some combination of covered and uncovered aqueducts would probably be best.
Ultimately, the oceans will provide us with the only sustainable source of fresh water on the planet. We'll eventually have to start tapping it, and we're getting to that point.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
August 7 2014 Election: Judicial Retention and Local Offices
So I've covered the legislative races, but there are others. Right now there's a heavily-politicized retention election for judges. A
bi-partisan commission says all the judges are doing a good job. I plan to vote for retention on all judges, to avoid politicizing the judiciary.
There are also elections for several local positions, a few of which are even competitive! Frankly, I don't know enough about any of those elections, so I plan to abstain. If you have opinions on any of these races, please share!
Now, there's one thing I will comment on. Frankly, I think this school board has done a terrible job by allowing standards to fall as low as they have. When students can't be given a grade less than 50, we're not teaching any more, we're babysitting. My gut response is to thrown out the entire board and try again. But anyone with even the slightest bit of information should ignore that and act on actual data. And please share that data!
Oh, and Bob Schwartz is running for Republican Executive Committee, Senate District 20. When I met him during the 2010 campaign, he was a reasonable and thoughtful individual, not one of the usual Fox News crowd. I plan to vote for him.
There are also elections for several local positions, a few of which are even competitive! Frankly, I don't know enough about any of those elections, so I plan to abstain. If you have opinions on any of these races, please share!
Now, there's one thing I will comment on. Frankly, I think this school board has done a terrible job by allowing standards to fall as low as they have. When students can't be given a grade less than 50, we're not teaching any more, we're babysitting. My gut response is to thrown out the entire board and try again. But anyone with even the slightest bit of information should ignore that and act on actual data. And please share that data!
Oh, and Bob Schwartz is running for Republican Executive Committee, Senate District 20. When I met him during the 2010 campaign, he was a reasonable and thoughtful individual, not one of the usual Fox News crowd. I plan to vote for him.
August 7 2014 Elections: State Legislature
TL;DR
Puttbrese, Aljabbary, Mancini, Rawlings are the only candidates in competitive primaries that I can say seem better than their opponents. I'd recommend voting for any of them who appear on your ballot.
Long version
There are only a few competitive races in the state legislature, at least in Davidson county, which is really unfortunate. I hate people running unopposed; it makes the election meaningless. Decisions are made by the people that show up, so if you feel like you could do well holding elected office, I encourage you to consider it. If you're thinking about it, talk to me, and I'll help you think!
I'm going to list links to each of the candidates on the Davidson County sample ballot, and add whatever information I can to each one. There are few details for most of their position statements, and usually the only one that's really specific is whether they would or would not accept all the free money the federal government is trying to hand Tennesseans. But you can probably tell that by the (R) or (D) anyway.
I contacted all of them I could, to ask their position on Wolf PAC and approval voting, and their responses are noted below. Most did not respond at all, which makes then an automatic "no" in my book. If you're not willing to tell people where you stand on the issues, you shouldn't be asking to represent those people.
Also, this isn't necessarily a complete listing of candidates for the general election in November. I fully expect more candidates to show up there. This is just the primaries for the two major parties.
19th Senate District
Sterlina Inez Brady (R)
No information, at all. No webpage, no Facebook page, no Twitter feed, no contact information.
Thelma M. Harper (D)
The incumbent in this district. She did not respond to my requests for positions.
Brandon J. Puttbrese (D)
He responded to my tweet about money in politics. That alone makes me support him.
21st Senate District
A race with no incumbent!
Mwafaq Aljabbary (R)
I spoke to Mwafaq on the phone for a long time. He was interested in the issues I asked about, but didn't have a defined position, which is reasonable. Can't expect people to make up their minds immediately. He's very busy, very involved, and has been for years. He works with anyone, regardless of party or religion, and has the history to back that up. Very interested in integrating immigrant communities. Very opposed to corruption and regulatory capture, which is unusual for a Republican. He also has a masters degree in city planning (or something close to that, I didn't get the exact degree written down), so he's very interested in public transportation. Overall, I liked this candidate quite a bit.
Diana Cuellar (R)
She responded to my emails, and said she'd look into the issues. I never heard anything past that.
Quincy McKnight (R)
I never heard anything from this candidate at all.
Mary Mancini (D)
Another candidate I spoke to on the phone. She was amenable to Wolf PAC. She's been around the political scene for a while, and previously wrote a law requiring Tennessee to use paper ballots! She's still in favor of that, and eliminating gerrymandering is also one of her issues. Another candidate I like.
Jeff Yarbro (D)
Again, no communication, at all.
If you're voting in the Republican primary in this district, I'd strongly recommend Aljabbary. If you're voting Democrat, I recommend Mancini.
50th Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
Troy Brewer (R)
Bo Mitchell (D)
51st Representative District
The only one of these candidates I heard from was Rawlings, who is on board with Wolf PAC. I can't even tell the difference among any of the Democrats from their websites.
Brian L. Mason (R)
Joshua Rawlings (R)
Puttbrese, Aljabbary, Mancini, Rawlings are the only candidates in competitive primaries that I can say seem better than their opponents. I'd recommend voting for any of them who appear on your ballot.
Long version
There are only a few competitive races in the state legislature, at least in Davidson county, which is really unfortunate. I hate people running unopposed; it makes the election meaningless. Decisions are made by the people that show up, so if you feel like you could do well holding elected office, I encourage you to consider it. If you're thinking about it, talk to me, and I'll help you think!
I'm going to list links to each of the candidates on the Davidson County sample ballot, and add whatever information I can to each one. There are few details for most of their position statements, and usually the only one that's really specific is whether they would or would not accept all the free money the federal government is trying to hand Tennesseans. But you can probably tell that by the (R) or (D) anyway.
I contacted all of them I could, to ask their position on Wolf PAC and approval voting, and their responses are noted below. Most did not respond at all, which makes then an automatic "no" in my book. If you're not willing to tell people where you stand on the issues, you shouldn't be asking to represent those people.
Also, this isn't necessarily a complete listing of candidates for the general election in November. I fully expect more candidates to show up there. This is just the primaries for the two major parties.
19th Senate District
Sterlina Inez Brady (R)
No information, at all. No webpage, no Facebook page, no Twitter feed, no contact information.
Thelma M. Harper (D)
The incumbent in this district. She did not respond to my requests for positions.
Brandon J. Puttbrese (D)
He responded to my tweet about money in politics. That alone makes me support him.
@swcollings I would push for a constitutional convention to reverse #citizensunited. Big money in politics is a huge problem. #tnsd19
— Brandon Puttbrese (@bjputtbrese) July 14, 2014
So if you're voting in the Republican primary in this district, you may as well not. And if you're voting Democrat, I recommend Puttbrese. 21st Senate District
A race with no incumbent!
Mwafaq Aljabbary (R)
I spoke to Mwafaq on the phone for a long time. He was interested in the issues I asked about, but didn't have a defined position, which is reasonable. Can't expect people to make up their minds immediately. He's very busy, very involved, and has been for years. He works with anyone, regardless of party or religion, and has the history to back that up. Very interested in integrating immigrant communities. Very opposed to corruption and regulatory capture, which is unusual for a Republican. He also has a masters degree in city planning (or something close to that, I didn't get the exact degree written down), so he's very interested in public transportation. Overall, I liked this candidate quite a bit.
Diana Cuellar (R)
She responded to my emails, and said she'd look into the issues. I never heard anything past that.
Quincy McKnight (R)
I never heard anything from this candidate at all.
Mary Mancini (D)
Another candidate I spoke to on the phone. She was amenable to Wolf PAC. She's been around the political scene for a while, and previously wrote a law requiring Tennessee to use paper ballots! She's still in favor of that, and eliminating gerrymandering is also one of her issues. Another candidate I like.
Jeff Yarbro (D)
Again, no communication, at all.
If you're voting in the Republican primary in this district, I'd strongly recommend Aljabbary. If you're voting Democrat, I recommend Mancini.
50th Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
Troy Brewer (R)
Bo Mitchell (D)
51st Representative District
The only one of these candidates I heard from was Rawlings, who is on board with Wolf PAC. I can't even tell the difference among any of the Democrats from their websites.
Brian L. Mason (R)
Joshua Rawlings (R)
Bill Beck (D)
Stephen Fotopulos (D)
Jennifer Buck Wallace (D)
52nd Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Mike Stewart (D)
53rd Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
John Wang (R)
Jason Powell (D)
54th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Brenda Gilmore (D)
55th Representative District
I haven't heard anything from either of these candidates. That makes me tend to vote against the incumbent, Odom, though that's pretty shaky ground.
John Ray Clemmons (D)
Gary Odom (D)
56th Representative District
Again, both candidates running unopposed.
Beth Harwell (R)
The incumbent in this district. She did not respond to my requests for positions, despite repeated requests. Very disappointed in my representative.
Chris Moth (D)
This candidate responded to me, and described himself as "deeply concerned about the influence of money in politics". Not a commitment to do anything, but it's something. He's unopposed in the primary, but I hope to have more information about his positions before the general election.
58th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Harold M. Love (D)
59th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Sherry Jones (D)
60th Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
Jim Gotto (R)
Darren Jernigan (D)
Stephen Fotopulos (D)
Jennifer Buck Wallace (D)
52nd Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Mike Stewart (D)
53rd Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
John Wang (R)
Jason Powell (D)
54th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Brenda Gilmore (D)
55th Representative District
I haven't heard anything from either of these candidates. That makes me tend to vote against the incumbent, Odom, though that's pretty shaky ground.
John Ray Clemmons (D)
Gary Odom (D)
56th Representative District
Again, both candidates running unopposed.
Beth Harwell (R)
The incumbent in this district. She did not respond to my requests for positions, despite repeated requests. Very disappointed in my representative.
Chris Moth (D)
This candidate responded to me, and described himself as "deeply concerned about the influence of money in politics". Not a commitment to do anything, but it's something. He's unopposed in the primary, but I hope to have more information about his positions before the general election.
58th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Harold M. Love (D)
59th Representative District
I never heard anything from this candidate, who is running unopposed except possibly by an independent/third party.
Sherry Jones (D)
60th Representative District
I never heard anything from either of these candidates, and they're both running unopposed in their primaries.
Jim Gotto (R)
Darren Jernigan (D)
Saturday, August 2, 2014
August 7 2014 Election: US House TN-7 Candidate Impressions
TN-7 has been redistricted out of Davidson County, but enough of greater Nashville is in TN-7 that I want to comment on this race as well.
Marsha Blackburn (R)
We all know what I think of Blackburn. She opposes network neutrality, opposes municipal broadband, and spends a huge amount of time trying to repeal the ACA without proposing a viable alternative. Buying insurance across state lines, while it may be a not-terrible idea, doesn't help people with pre-existing conditions, and the cost impact will probably be minimal. It also requires a single set of federal regulations for insurance companies, overriding state regulations. It's really interesting to me that she's all for states being able to trample on municipalities when it comes to broadband, but her idea of healthcare reform is nothing but the federal government trampling on states.
By her measure, all our problems are caused by government. Yet she describes herself as a "staunch supporter of the PATRIOT act," one of the biggest expansions of government power in history. She blames Obama for failing to deport refugee children, but refuses to fund the deportation. Oh yes, and she helped cause the government shutdown last year, and otherwise contributed to this utterly dysfunctional Congress. She's the worst kind of Republican: the kind that says anything it takes to get you angry at Democrats, whether it makes sense or not. She's not a Palin, or a Bachmann. Blackburn's worse; she's informed and smart, she just doesn't work for Tennesseans. She's a hypocrite. Anything that gets her out of office is probably a win.
Jacob Brimm (R)
Brimm's policy statements are somewhat vague, but not the usual anger-fueled talking points that we usually get from Republicans. I don't see anything I can deeply object to. Unlike most candidates, he responded to my request for comment on Wolf PAC! With a thoughtful answer no less! Same for approval voting. Even without those things, though, it would be hard for him to be worse than the alternative. I'd strongly recommend voting for Brimm in this primary.
Credo Amouzouvik (D)
Credo (as he goes by for obvious reasons) has a decent list of policy statements. None are particularly surprising or detailed, but nothing objectionable catches my attention. And he also replied to my questions, saying he wants to take money out of politics, and opposes the NSA spying on citizens without probable cause.
Daniel Cramer (D)
Cramer's position on the Keystone Pipeline: "I don’t see the risks being worth the benefits but I am willing to listen to detailed arguments for or against as they are provided." That says a lot about the man. It says that he's capable of deferring judgement until more information is obtained. It says he's capable of changing his mind. It says he's willing to talk in public about things he doesn't fully understand. I love that in a candidate.
He's one of the few candidates I've seen that makes a point of saying he opposes the NSA's domestic spying abuse! He mentions H1-B visas, which is another issue that's often ignored. And he strongly opposes Citizens United.
Both Democrat candidates in this election hold positions I agree with, on the issues that matter to me. I'd be happy with either one in Congress. Cramer, though, has the advantage that he had public policy statements on those issues before I asked. Domestic spying, corporate money in politics, H1-B visas, those are issues that he thought important enough to put up on his site without prompting. That makes me lean towards him over Credo.
Marsha Blackburn (R)
We all know what I think of Blackburn. She opposes network neutrality, opposes municipal broadband, and spends a huge amount of time trying to repeal the ACA without proposing a viable alternative. Buying insurance across state lines, while it may be a not-terrible idea, doesn't help people with pre-existing conditions, and the cost impact will probably be minimal. It also requires a single set of federal regulations for insurance companies, overriding state regulations. It's really interesting to me that she's all for states being able to trample on municipalities when it comes to broadband, but her idea of healthcare reform is nothing but the federal government trampling on states.
By her measure, all our problems are caused by government. Yet she describes herself as a "staunch supporter of the PATRIOT act," one of the biggest expansions of government power in history. She blames Obama for failing to deport refugee children, but refuses to fund the deportation. Oh yes, and she helped cause the government shutdown last year, and otherwise contributed to this utterly dysfunctional Congress. She's the worst kind of Republican: the kind that says anything it takes to get you angry at Democrats, whether it makes sense or not. She's not a Palin, or a Bachmann. Blackburn's worse; she's informed and smart, she just doesn't work for Tennesseans. She's a hypocrite. Anything that gets her out of office is probably a win.
Jacob Brimm (R)
Brimm's policy statements are somewhat vague, but not the usual anger-fueled talking points that we usually get from Republicans. I don't see anything I can deeply object to. Unlike most candidates, he responded to my request for comment on Wolf PAC! With a thoughtful answer no less! Same for approval voting. Even without those things, though, it would be hard for him to be worse than the alternative. I'd strongly recommend voting for Brimm in this primary.
Credo Amouzouvik (D)
Credo (as he goes by for obvious reasons) has a decent list of policy statements. None are particularly surprising or detailed, but nothing objectionable catches my attention. And he also replied to my questions, saying he wants to take money out of politics, and opposes the NSA spying on citizens without probable cause.
Daniel Cramer (D)
Cramer's position on the Keystone Pipeline: "I don’t see the risks being worth the benefits but I am willing to listen to detailed arguments for or against as they are provided." That says a lot about the man. It says that he's capable of deferring judgement until more information is obtained. It says he's capable of changing his mind. It says he's willing to talk in public about things he doesn't fully understand. I love that in a candidate.
He's one of the few candidates I've seen that makes a point of saying he opposes the NSA's domestic spying abuse! He mentions H1-B visas, which is another issue that's often ignored. And he strongly opposes Citizens United.
Both Democrat candidates in this election hold positions I agree with, on the issues that matter to me. I'd be happy with either one in Congress. Cramer, though, has the advantage that he had public policy statements on those issues before I asked. Domestic spying, corporate money in politics, H1-B visas, those are issues that he thought important enough to put up on his site without prompting. That makes me lean towards him over Credo.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Infrastructure Megaprojects: Energy
Without energy, nothing happens. That's not a hyperbole; nothing happens if
there's not energy. No water is pumped, no food is moved to market, no
computers or lights turn on, and come winter we all freeze to death. It
seems fitting to start our megaprojects list here.
Electricity is our most efficient means of moving energy from place to place. There are many ways of generating electricity, but most have significant downsides. Fossil fuels pollute to varying degrees, and need continuous exploration to find new sources. (The negative effects of fracking for this purpose are tremendous. But that's another post.) Wind and photovoltaic solar cells are weather-dependent, and thus unreliable for continuous demand. Hydroelectric dams can only be put in a few places.
There are only two developed means of generation which are both emission-free and weather-independent. The first is nuclear. A well-designed and well-maintained nuclear plant is one of the safest means of power generation ever conceived. Adding up all the deaths due to nuclear accidents, those numbers don't come close to the damage of coal plants. Most nuclear accidents in the world have been due to old designs that were not properly fail-safe; there are vastly better designs now. Spent fuel rods can be reprocessed, eliminating most of the waste disposal concerns. And research into thorium reactors could further enhance both safety and pollution concerns.
But there's an even better way. Solar thermal power is completely pollution-free. It has all the upsides of a large-scale photovoltaic plant, and none of the down-sides. It can run at night, doesn't require complex chemical processes to build, and has no lifetime constraint. Right now there are about 1.5 gigawatts of installed solar thermal power in the US, with another 4 GW in planning.
Average electricity consumption in the US is on the order of 500 GW, about two-thirds of which is fossil fuel based. A large solar thermal plant can generate ~300 MW, so about a thousand solar thermal plants could eliminate fossil fuel plants entirely. Cost of construction for solar thermal plants is about $5500/kW, meaning it would cost ~$2 trillion to get the grid entirely off fossil fuels. That's a lot of money, but it's only about 4x the cost of the interstate system. Divide it up over 40 years, and we're talking about $50 billion a year. That's significant, but it's only about 1.5% of federal spending. What we would gain would be far greater than what we would lose.
Ecological benefits are obvious: our particulate and carbon emissions go way down. Economic benefits are high as well, as our fossil fuels now become something we can sell on the world market, rather than something we must burn here just to keep our civilization going. We'd become a huge supplier worldwide, greatly increasing our soft power. Along with this, we should improve our infrastructure links to Canada and Mexico, allowing us to become a net exporter of electricity and helping improve those countries as well.
Now, that's just the macro picture. There would clearly need to be a robust program in place to retrain whatever workers were displaced by the shift. And there would be second-order effects as electricity prices drop, possibly shutting down other plants. There's no changing one thing without changing fifty others, and we'd want to minimize the overall damage as much as possible. But once the shift was over, having a large, distributed, clean, free source of electricity would make the United States and our neighbors far better countries to live in.
Electricity is our most efficient means of moving energy from place to place. There are many ways of generating electricity, but most have significant downsides. Fossil fuels pollute to varying degrees, and need continuous exploration to find new sources. (The negative effects of fracking for this purpose are tremendous. But that's another post.) Wind and photovoltaic solar cells are weather-dependent, and thus unreliable for continuous demand. Hydroelectric dams can only be put in a few places.
There are only two developed means of generation which are both emission-free and weather-independent. The first is nuclear. A well-designed and well-maintained nuclear plant is one of the safest means of power generation ever conceived. Adding up all the deaths due to nuclear accidents, those numbers don't come close to the damage of coal plants. Most nuclear accidents in the world have been due to old designs that were not properly fail-safe; there are vastly better designs now. Spent fuel rods can be reprocessed, eliminating most of the waste disposal concerns. And research into thorium reactors could further enhance both safety and pollution concerns.
But there's an even better way. Solar thermal power is completely pollution-free. It has all the upsides of a large-scale photovoltaic plant, and none of the down-sides. It can run at night, doesn't require complex chemical processes to build, and has no lifetime constraint. Right now there are about 1.5 gigawatts of installed solar thermal power in the US, with another 4 GW in planning.
Average electricity consumption in the US is on the order of 500 GW, about two-thirds of which is fossil fuel based. A large solar thermal plant can generate ~300 MW, so about a thousand solar thermal plants could eliminate fossil fuel plants entirely. Cost of construction for solar thermal plants is about $5500/kW, meaning it would cost ~$2 trillion to get the grid entirely off fossil fuels. That's a lot of money, but it's only about 4x the cost of the interstate system. Divide it up over 40 years, and we're talking about $50 billion a year. That's significant, but it's only about 1.5% of federal spending. What we would gain would be far greater than what we would lose.
Ecological benefits are obvious: our particulate and carbon emissions go way down. Economic benefits are high as well, as our fossil fuels now become something we can sell on the world market, rather than something we must burn here just to keep our civilization going. We'd become a huge supplier worldwide, greatly increasing our soft power. Along with this, we should improve our infrastructure links to Canada and Mexico, allowing us to become a net exporter of electricity and helping improve those countries as well.
Now, that's just the macro picture. There would clearly need to be a robust program in place to retrain whatever workers were displaced by the shift. And there would be second-order effects as electricity prices drop, possibly shutting down other plants. There's no changing one thing without changing fifty others, and we'd want to minimize the overall damage as much as possible. But once the shift was over, having a large, distributed, clean, free source of electricity would make the United States and our neighbors far better countries to live in.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
August 7 2014 Elections: Governor Candidate Impressions
The below are my impressions of each candidate in the upcoming August 7
primary elections for Governor of Tennessee. These impressions are
not scientific, and are based solely on their websites and any knowledge
I happen to have of them. The below should be weighted exactly as much
as you weight my opinion on anything. Overall, what I'm trying to do is
see which candidates I cannot vote for, and narrow the field.
Please, nobody take anything I say as an attack or an indictment. I'm
not trying to be mean; I simply have to make observations, some
unflattering, to direct my vote correctly.
Republican Candidates
Mark Coonrippy Brown
(Warning: there's an auto-play video at this link. Bad etiquette on the part of the Tennessean, but there's no candidate site.)
Brown appears to be a guy running to make a specific point, not to win. I enjoy the video, actually. He seems to be a normal human being, I don't get the usual anger or superiority complex that you get from a lot of candidates, nor do I get the idea that he's trying to make emotional appeals. But without detailed position statements it's difficult to give him a good description. I'm not really convinced he'd make a good governor. "There are simple solutions for simple problems" is a nice phrase. Unfortunately, in my world, for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong. But it's difficult not to like him, for the two minutes you see of a video.
Bill Haslam
The incumbent is running on his record, which I'm not really going to judge right now. For objective information, I can say that he seems to have reasonable organizational skills, can communicate in English, and that the state hasn't utterly collapsed under his administration. He has, however, completely failed to come up with an alternative Medicaid expansion, which kinda screws a lot of Tennesseans. So there's that.
Basil Marceaux Sr.
I can only let this candidate speak for himself.
Donald Ray McFolin
(Warning: there's an auto-play video at this link. Bad etiquette on the part of the Tennessean, but there's no candidate site.)
Another candidate running to make a specific point, this one about special needs education. Again, he seems like a normal person trying to make the world better with whatever platform he can get.
Democratic Candidates
Charles V. "Charlie" Brown
No website, no position statements, no comments from the candidate at all. Just a facebook page full of people asking what he stands for, and with the candidate's name misspelled.
Kennedy Spellman Johnson
Another candidate with no website and no detailed position statements. Well, you can go here, but there's nothing to see. I can't say anything about this candidate.
WM. H. "John" McKamey
An actual website! With positions! Only a few, and they're very vague. (Education is good. People making more money is good.) Nothing obviously objectionable, but it's like a bare-minimum campaign, only one step up from not having a site.
Ron Noonan
This candidate doesn't even have a facebook page, just a twitter feed. Another not particularly serious candidate.
TL;DR
Out of the four Republican candidates, Haslam is the only one with a chance of winning. If you don't support Haslam, either because he's Haslam or because you don't like incumbents, I'd probably go for McFolin.
Out of the four Democrat candidates, the only one that looks even remotely serious is McKamey. I don't know why I'd even consider voting for any of the others, and they're not doing anything to convince me I should.
Slim field.
Republican Candidates
Mark Coonrippy Brown
(Warning: there's an auto-play video at this link. Bad etiquette on the part of the Tennessean, but there's no candidate site.)
Brown appears to be a guy running to make a specific point, not to win. I enjoy the video, actually. He seems to be a normal human being, I don't get the usual anger or superiority complex that you get from a lot of candidates, nor do I get the idea that he's trying to make emotional appeals. But without detailed position statements it's difficult to give him a good description. I'm not really convinced he'd make a good governor. "There are simple solutions for simple problems" is a nice phrase. Unfortunately, in my world, for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong. But it's difficult not to like him, for the two minutes you see of a video.
Bill Haslam
The incumbent is running on his record, which I'm not really going to judge right now. For objective information, I can say that he seems to have reasonable organizational skills, can communicate in English, and that the state hasn't utterly collapsed under his administration. He has, however, completely failed to come up with an alternative Medicaid expansion, which kinda screws a lot of Tennesseans. So there's that.
Basil Marceaux Sr.
I can only let this candidate speak for himself.
Donald Ray McFolin
(Warning: there's an auto-play video at this link. Bad etiquette on the part of the Tennessean, but there's no candidate site.)
Another candidate running to make a specific point, this one about special needs education. Again, he seems like a normal person trying to make the world better with whatever platform he can get.
Democratic Candidates
Charles V. "Charlie" Brown
No website, no position statements, no comments from the candidate at all. Just a facebook page full of people asking what he stands for, and with the candidate's name misspelled.
Kennedy Spellman Johnson
Another candidate with no website and no detailed position statements. Well, you can go here, but there's nothing to see. I can't say anything about this candidate.
WM. H. "John" McKamey
An actual website! With positions! Only a few, and they're very vague. (Education is good. People making more money is good.) Nothing obviously objectionable, but it's like a bare-minimum campaign, only one step up from not having a site.
Ron Noonan
This candidate doesn't even have a facebook page, just a twitter feed. Another not particularly serious candidate.
TL;DR
Out of the four Republican candidates, Haslam is the only one with a chance of winning. If you don't support Haslam, either because he's Haslam or because you don't like incumbents, I'd probably go for McFolin.
Out of the four Democrat candidates, the only one that looks even remotely serious is McKamey. I don't know why I'd even consider voting for any of the others, and they're not doing anything to convince me I should.
Slim field.
Monday, July 28, 2014
August 7 2014 Election: US House TN-5 Candidate Impressions
Ah, TN-5. The office I ran for back in the day. I learned a lot from that experience, but that's for another post.
The below are my impressions of each candidate in the upcoming August 7 primary elections for US House of Representatives, Tennessee fifth district. These impressions are not scientific, and are based solely on their websites and any knowledge I happen to have of them. The below should be weighted exactly as much as you weight my opinion on anything. Overall, what I'm trying to do is see which candidates I cannot vote for, and narrow the field. Please, nobody take anything I say as an attack or an indictment. I'm not trying to be mean; I simply have to make observations, some unflattering, to direct my vote correctly.
Our incumbent Jim Cooper is running unopposed in the Democratic primary this year. There are four Republican candidates, a much smaller field than 2010. I'm sure there will be several "independent" (including third-party) candidates in the general election come November, but those don't show up on the August 7 ballot.
Chris Carter
Great quote: "Never before in my lifetime have I witnessed such a frightening distortion of Americanism and assault on personal liberty as I have witnessed in the creation and implementation of ObamaCare." Apparently the last two Presidents shredding the fourth amendment, and holding and executing Americans without trial, are absolutely nothing compared to the ACA.
Carter blames the ACA for all the evils of the healthcare world, but doesn't propose any workable solutions. Blames the deficit on Obama's "socialist programs" and waste. (For the record, the deficit reached its current absurd proportions under Bush, and has gone down every year under Obama. Don't believe me? Look up the raw numbers.) He favors a flat tax, even though that would make the deficit vastly worse and hurt the poor tremendously. And worst of all, he uses quotes to indicate emphasis!
Unfortunately this is the typical Republican candidate these days: utterly uninformed, and just repeating the Fox line whether it makes sense or not. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Ronnie Holden
I have zero information about this candidate. All he seems to have is a Facebook page, and on that page all he does is share the latest Fox meme. From that I think we could reasonably expect that he'd be another generic Republican candidate, possibly minus the communication skills.
"Big John" Smith
An interesting candidate. He's clearly very religious, but unlike much of the religious right, I don't get the usual overwhelming impression of self-righteousness from this man. My impression from his words is that he is truly humble. I don't see any specific indication that he wants to consciously impose his religious beliefs on others by declaring Christianity to have special legal status, though he clearly can't separate his policy statements from his religion.
He's also the only Republican candidate I've seen so far for any office that specifically opposes the influence of money in politics, and he seems to understand that the only way out of our deficit mess is to grow the economy. And hey, he references The Twilight Zone, which is big points in my book.
Now, it's still all Obama's fault, even though the economy collapsed two years before he became President. He totally misrepresents the Occupy movement's goals, and doesn't display much compassion for those on welfare. (No outright contempt, though, which is better than most Republican candidates.) He thinks God gave Israel all the relevant land, and opposes the existence of a Palestinian state on those grounds. And at one point he equates all of liberalism, socialism, communism, and the antichrist.
But you can't ask too much, I suppose.
Bob Ries
I'm not analyzing Bob Ries's website this time. See, I met Bob Ries in 2010, when we were both running for US House TN-5. (He lost the primary to David Hall, so we weren't directly opposed.) We spoke for some time about one thing and another, and I came to the definite conclusion that he was not someone I would want in Congress. I won't go into more details; it was four years ago, and there's just no need to pick on the man. But I can't recommend voting for Bob Ries.
Jim Cooper
If you're voting in the Democratic primary, it really doesn't matter what I say here, because you've only got one candidate! But for completeness, his website is above.
He's got a good list of issue statements, including intellectual property, wonder of wonders. (I'm not 100% convinced he's got a good policy, but at least he's aware of the issue, and claims to strive for balance.) And I appreciate the fact that he has links scattered throughout his text; a familiar style! Cooper has a 65% match rating with me on POPVOX, which is twice what either of our Senators get. If Cooper wins, I won't be terribly disappointed.
The below are my impressions of each candidate in the upcoming August 7 primary elections for US House of Representatives, Tennessee fifth district. These impressions are not scientific, and are based solely on their websites and any knowledge I happen to have of them. The below should be weighted exactly as much as you weight my opinion on anything. Overall, what I'm trying to do is see which candidates I cannot vote for, and narrow the field. Please, nobody take anything I say as an attack or an indictment. I'm not trying to be mean; I simply have to make observations, some unflattering, to direct my vote correctly.
Our incumbent Jim Cooper is running unopposed in the Democratic primary this year. There are four Republican candidates, a much smaller field than 2010. I'm sure there will be several "independent" (including third-party) candidates in the general election come November, but those don't show up on the August 7 ballot.
Chris Carter
Great quote: "Never before in my lifetime have I witnessed such a frightening distortion of Americanism and assault on personal liberty as I have witnessed in the creation and implementation of ObamaCare." Apparently the last two Presidents shredding the fourth amendment, and holding and executing Americans without trial, are absolutely nothing compared to the ACA.
Carter blames the ACA for all the evils of the healthcare world, but doesn't propose any workable solutions. Blames the deficit on Obama's "socialist programs" and waste. (For the record, the deficit reached its current absurd proportions under Bush, and has gone down every year under Obama. Don't believe me? Look up the raw numbers.) He favors a flat tax, even though that would make the deficit vastly worse and hurt the poor tremendously. And worst of all, he uses quotes to indicate emphasis!
Unfortunately this is the typical Republican candidate these days: utterly uninformed, and just repeating the Fox line whether it makes sense or not. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Ronnie Holden
I have zero information about this candidate. All he seems to have is a Facebook page, and on that page all he does is share the latest Fox meme. From that I think we could reasonably expect that he'd be another generic Republican candidate, possibly minus the communication skills.
"Big John" Smith
An interesting candidate. He's clearly very religious, but unlike much of the religious right, I don't get the usual overwhelming impression of self-righteousness from this man. My impression from his words is that he is truly humble. I don't see any specific indication that he wants to consciously impose his religious beliefs on others by declaring Christianity to have special legal status, though he clearly can't separate his policy statements from his religion.
He's also the only Republican candidate I've seen so far for any office that specifically opposes the influence of money in politics, and he seems to understand that the only way out of our deficit mess is to grow the economy. And hey, he references The Twilight Zone, which is big points in my book.
Now, it's still all Obama's fault, even though the economy collapsed two years before he became President. He totally misrepresents the Occupy movement's goals, and doesn't display much compassion for those on welfare. (No outright contempt, though, which is better than most Republican candidates.) He thinks God gave Israel all the relevant land, and opposes the existence of a Palestinian state on those grounds. And at one point he equates all of liberalism, socialism, communism, and the antichrist.
But you can't ask too much, I suppose.
Bob Ries
I'm not analyzing Bob Ries's website this time. See, I met Bob Ries in 2010, when we were both running for US House TN-5. (He lost the primary to David Hall, so we weren't directly opposed.) We spoke for some time about one thing and another, and I came to the definite conclusion that he was not someone I would want in Congress. I won't go into more details; it was four years ago, and there's just no need to pick on the man. But I can't recommend voting for Bob Ries.
Jim Cooper
If you're voting in the Democratic primary, it really doesn't matter what I say here, because you've only got one candidate! But for completeness, his website is above.
He's got a good list of issue statements, including intellectual property, wonder of wonders. (I'm not 100% convinced he's got a good policy, but at least he's aware of the issue, and claims to strive for balance.) And I appreciate the fact that he has links scattered throughout his text; a familiar style! Cooper has a 65% match rating with me on POPVOX, which is twice what either of our Senators get. If Cooper wins, I won't be terribly disappointed.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
August 7 2014 Election: Senate Candidate Impressions
The below are my impressions of each candidate in the upcoming August 7 primary elections for US Senator from Tennessee. These impressions are not scientific, and are based solely on their websites and any knowledge I happen to have of them. The below should be weighted exactly as much as you weight my opinion on anything. Overall, what I'm trying to do is see which candidates I cannot vote for, and narrow the field. Please, nobody take anything I say as an attack or an indictment. I'm not trying to be mean; I simply have to make observations, some unflattering, to direct my vote correctly.
US Senate, Republican Primary
Christian Agnew
This candidate apparently believes that English should be the official language of the United States, but doesn't have very high standards about its use. Putting aside my revulsion at poor use of language, I like that he actually tries to explain that Common Core is a voluntary state-led program, not a federal mandate. Other than that, his positions are generic Republican: blame our problems on the ACA, illegal immigrants, welfare abuse, foreign aid, and deficit spending. Also, don't take his guns. Nothing particularly interesting here.
Lamar Alexander
Our incumbent has the usual disease of incumbents: they often don't state their ideas or positions, they just run on their record and how much money they've raised.. The specifics of Alexander's record he chooses to point out are wholly unremarkable: balance the budget (how?), repeal the ACA (and replace it with what?), and oppose Obama at every possible turn regardless of what he's actually doing.
Joe Carr
Again, a generic Republican candidate. He'll defend our rights to own guns, number one issue. Makes me feel better, I can't go a week without someone trying to take my guns away. Number two issue, government waste, specifically like ACA and TARP. Reasonable people can differ over whether spending $180 billion a year to provide insurance to the poor is wasteful, but TARP was a loan that was 97% paid back and certainly saved thousands of jobs, so calling it wasteful is just misinformed.
And apparently we need to both lower taxes (specifically on the rich, since he supports a flat tax) and balance the budget. Where does he plan to cut over a trillion a year out of spending? No clue, but you can not do that without gutting at least one of the military, social security, or medicare. There isn't enough spending elsewhere to do it. Carr gives the usual Republican buzzwords, with the usual complete lack of thoughtfulness or detail.
George Shea Flinn
Few stated positions, and seems to focus most of his attention on the ACA, with a little to spare for border security. To his credit, he proposes a semi-detailed alternative to the ACA, and seems to have some clue what he's talking about, unlike most Republican candidates. He does repeat some of the more bizarre talking points, though. (Where in the ACA does it give Washington control of my medical decisions, again?) I find his lack of position statements on other issues unfortunate. One of the few is a statement on Iraq and Israel which, frankly, shows very little knowledge of the history or the situation. Dr. Flinn is clearly capable of some degree of independent thought, which is better than most candidates do, but he's still pretty isolated from broader reality.
John D King
Once again, the usual three or four Republican position statements, though in this case clearly typed by the candidate himself. Quite a bit of misinformation, and there are zero details as to how he would improve the lives of Americans. Except the rich, who of course pay too much in taxes. Entitlement programs (first among which are Social Security and Medicare) are "ridiculous", and clearly to be eliminated, presumably to afford those tax cuts for the rich.
One of his more amusing claims is that a "huge portion" of our deficit spending goes to foreign aid. Try $50 billion out of a $900 billion deficit. Also, he says that much of this money goes to places where "the majority of their population would like nothing more than to destroy us and our way of life". I'd love to know where those places are; most people just want to be left alone, no matter where they are. And $3b of that aid goes to Israel every year. Does he want to cut that? Unclear, but I doubt it.
Brenda S Lenard
Lots of position statements. (The first is on the Constitution, and the text is amusingly copied straight from whitehouse.gov. Not sure what the significance of that is.) She's all about how horrible the economy is, but doesn't propose any particularly novel or useful ideas: lower taxes, reduced regulation, cut spending. (I'm totally unclear how that last one is supposed to create jobs, but it's a talking point, it doesn't have to make sense.) Her education platform says that schools must operate in transparency, but there's no indication of what that means on a practical level, or how it would help anything. On every issue, there are nice little essays, and relatively little misinformation compared to other candidates. But there are no details, and it's all based around the usual Republican talking points. No apparent original thoughts.
This is getting boring.
Erin Kent Magee
Now this guy has original thoughts! He wants to "win the war on terrorism" by "dispatching the National Guard to control crowds of dissidents", and by "designating Radical Islam as a cult (not a religion entitled to protection under the 1st Amendment)". He's all about the second amendment, but the first? Gut it. I suppose the message of this candidacy is that, yes, Republican candidates could be worse.
So there we have it, a wholly unremarkable field of candidates. I don't expect any one of them would act particularly different than any other. Out of them, I'd probably pick Lenard or Flinn. They at least have repeated fewer of the usual lies.
US Senate, Democrat Primary
Terry Adams
Well-written policy statements on a decent number of issues. Many are typical Democrat talking points. But they're real Democrat talking points, not the caricatures Republicans set up. If your only picture of what Democrats stand for is "bigger government, more taxes", look at this guy's site. It's a good example of reality. He's also got some original ideas which, on the surface, make some sense. He supports an amendment to get money out of politics, which none of the Republican candidates mentioned. I'm not jumping up and down saying he's the next Jed Bartlet, but best guess is that I'd feel good with Terry Adams as Senator from Tennessee.
Gordon Ball
This candidate also has well-written policy statements on a wide range of issues. His includes a brief and reasonable statement in favor of the Second Amendment, which is unusual for a Democrat. He both praises and criticizes the ACA, meaning he's capable of nuanced thought. This is another candidate I'd feel good about winning.
Larry Crim
Mr. Crim seems to have a lot of ideas, but his website is almost incomprehensible. I'm not going to lie to you and say I read it all. I don't see anything I strongly object to, but just the fact that his campaign website is that badly organized doesn't speak well to his organizational skills or support.
Gary Gene Davis
Again, this website is very difficult to read, and I don't see much that resembles policy statements or ideas.
The Tennessean provided a decent summary of the Democratic candidates a couple weeks ago.
TL;DR
The Republican candidates are mostly interchangeable, and often frighteningly ignorant. Which candidate you should vote for depends, of course, entirely on your priorities. Unfortunately, our broken voting system doesn't let you express honest opinions due to strategic concerns. If you want to vote for the Republican candidate who I'd be most likely to like, I'd go for probably George Flinn or Brenda Lenard. If you want to defeat the incumbent at all costs, Crim appears to be the frontrunner. And if you're afraid of Crim because he's Tea Party (not an unreasonable position), clearly you should vote for Alexander. For me, I'd probably vote Alexander in this primary.
For Democracts, it's a toss-up between Adams and Ball. I can't tell enough difference between them from their websites to decide between them. If this is your dilemma, I'm afraid you'll need to gather more data. Either seems like they would do a fine job.
I'm disappointed that there is little or no mention by anyone about the abuses of the NSA. One Republican candidate may have mentioned it briefly, but only just. Clearly both parties are completely on board with the destruction of our privacy rights.
US Senate, Republican Primary
Christian Agnew
This candidate apparently believes that English should be the official language of the United States, but doesn't have very high standards about its use. Putting aside my revulsion at poor use of language, I like that he actually tries to explain that Common Core is a voluntary state-led program, not a federal mandate. Other than that, his positions are generic Republican: blame our problems on the ACA, illegal immigrants, welfare abuse, foreign aid, and deficit spending. Also, don't take his guns. Nothing particularly interesting here.
Lamar Alexander
Our incumbent has the usual disease of incumbents: they often don't state their ideas or positions, they just run on their record and how much money they've raised.. The specifics of Alexander's record he chooses to point out are wholly unremarkable: balance the budget (how?), repeal the ACA (and replace it with what?), and oppose Obama at every possible turn regardless of what he's actually doing.
Joe Carr
Again, a generic Republican candidate. He'll defend our rights to own guns, number one issue. Makes me feel better, I can't go a week without someone trying to take my guns away. Number two issue, government waste, specifically like ACA and TARP. Reasonable people can differ over whether spending $180 billion a year to provide insurance to the poor is wasteful, but TARP was a loan that was 97% paid back and certainly saved thousands of jobs, so calling it wasteful is just misinformed.
And apparently we need to both lower taxes (specifically on the rich, since he supports a flat tax) and balance the budget. Where does he plan to cut over a trillion a year out of spending? No clue, but you can not do that without gutting at least one of the military, social security, or medicare. There isn't enough spending elsewhere to do it. Carr gives the usual Republican buzzwords, with the usual complete lack of thoughtfulness or detail.
George Shea Flinn
Few stated positions, and seems to focus most of his attention on the ACA, with a little to spare for border security. To his credit, he proposes a semi-detailed alternative to the ACA, and seems to have some clue what he's talking about, unlike most Republican candidates. He does repeat some of the more bizarre talking points, though. (Where in the ACA does it give Washington control of my medical decisions, again?) I find his lack of position statements on other issues unfortunate. One of the few is a statement on Iraq and Israel which, frankly, shows very little knowledge of the history or the situation. Dr. Flinn is clearly capable of some degree of independent thought, which is better than most candidates do, but he's still pretty isolated from broader reality.
John D King
Once again, the usual three or four Republican position statements, though in this case clearly typed by the candidate himself. Quite a bit of misinformation, and there are zero details as to how he would improve the lives of Americans. Except the rich, who of course pay too much in taxes. Entitlement programs (first among which are Social Security and Medicare) are "ridiculous", and clearly to be eliminated, presumably to afford those tax cuts for the rich.
One of his more amusing claims is that a "huge portion" of our deficit spending goes to foreign aid. Try $50 billion out of a $900 billion deficit. Also, he says that much of this money goes to places where "the majority of their population would like nothing more than to destroy us and our way of life". I'd love to know where those places are; most people just want to be left alone, no matter where they are. And $3b of that aid goes to Israel every year. Does he want to cut that? Unclear, but I doubt it.
Brenda S Lenard
Lots of position statements. (The first is on the Constitution, and the text is amusingly copied straight from whitehouse.gov. Not sure what the significance of that is.) She's all about how horrible the economy is, but doesn't propose any particularly novel or useful ideas: lower taxes, reduced regulation, cut spending. (I'm totally unclear how that last one is supposed to create jobs, but it's a talking point, it doesn't have to make sense.) Her education platform says that schools must operate in transparency, but there's no indication of what that means on a practical level, or how it would help anything. On every issue, there are nice little essays, and relatively little misinformation compared to other candidates. But there are no details, and it's all based around the usual Republican talking points. No apparent original thoughts.
This is getting boring.
Erin Kent Magee
Now this guy has original thoughts! He wants to "win the war on terrorism" by "dispatching the National Guard to control crowds of dissidents", and by "designating Radical Islam as a cult (not a religion entitled to protection under the 1st Amendment)". He's all about the second amendment, but the first? Gut it. I suppose the message of this candidacy is that, yes, Republican candidates could be worse.
So there we have it, a wholly unremarkable field of candidates. I don't expect any one of them would act particularly different than any other. Out of them, I'd probably pick Lenard or Flinn. They at least have repeated fewer of the usual lies.
US Senate, Democrat Primary
Terry Adams
Well-written policy statements on a decent number of issues. Many are typical Democrat talking points. But they're real Democrat talking points, not the caricatures Republicans set up. If your only picture of what Democrats stand for is "bigger government, more taxes", look at this guy's site. It's a good example of reality. He's also got some original ideas which, on the surface, make some sense. He supports an amendment to get money out of politics, which none of the Republican candidates mentioned. I'm not jumping up and down saying he's the next Jed Bartlet, but best guess is that I'd feel good with Terry Adams as Senator from Tennessee.
Gordon Ball
This candidate also has well-written policy statements on a wide range of issues. His includes a brief and reasonable statement in favor of the Second Amendment, which is unusual for a Democrat. He both praises and criticizes the ACA, meaning he's capable of nuanced thought. This is another candidate I'd feel good about winning.
Larry Crim
Mr. Crim seems to have a lot of ideas, but his website is almost incomprehensible. I'm not going to lie to you and say I read it all. I don't see anything I strongly object to, but just the fact that his campaign website is that badly organized doesn't speak well to his organizational skills or support.
Gary Gene Davis
Again, this website is very difficult to read, and I don't see much that resembles policy statements or ideas.
The Tennessean provided a decent summary of the Democratic candidates a couple weeks ago.
TL;DR
The Republican candidates are mostly interchangeable, and often frighteningly ignorant. Which candidate you should vote for depends, of course, entirely on your priorities. Unfortunately, our broken voting system doesn't let you express honest opinions due to strategic concerns. If you want to vote for the Republican candidate who I'd be most likely to like, I'd go for probably George Flinn or Brenda Lenard. If you want to defeat the incumbent at all costs, Crim appears to be the frontrunner. And if you're afraid of Crim because he's Tea Party (not an unreasonable position), clearly you should vote for Alexander. For me, I'd probably vote Alexander in this primary.
For Democracts, it's a toss-up between Adams and Ball. I can't tell enough difference between them from their websites to decide between them. If this is your dilemma, I'm afraid you'll need to gather more data. Either seems like they would do a fine job.
I'm disappointed that there is little or no mention by anyone about the abuses of the NSA. One Republican candidate may have mentioned it briefly, but only just. Clearly both parties are completely on board with the destruction of our privacy rights.
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