{"id":1489,"date":"2004-01-21T11:53:47","date_gmt":"2004-01-21T18:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8stars.org\/aa\/2004\/01\/21\/beat-the-spread\/"},"modified":"2004-01-21T11:53:47","modified_gmt":"2004-01-21T18:53:47","slug":"beat-the-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2004\/01\/21\/beat-the-spread\/","title":{"rendered":"Beat the spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had dinner last night with some friends, Drew and Farooq, and rather than watch George II deliver a pack of lies, platitudes, and empty promises, I insisted that we talk.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, talk turned to politics. Now, neither of these guys has any love for our current Dear Leader, but I was surprised at their antipathy towards Dean, which was not so much because of any of Dean’s policies, or even his personal style, but what the mainstream media has told us<\/em> his style is: angry.<\/p>\n

This surprised me on a couple of levels. Both of these guys are much smarter than me, and generally very well-informed. But in this case, they were making a judgment A) based not on platforms and policy, but on personality, and B) based not so much on the person’s actual personality as the conventional-wisdom story of that person’s personality.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ve been impressed by Dean–I haven’t decided for certain that I’ll vote for him, but it is looking that way. So I have my own biases. But when Farooq showed us how Dean is depicted on the Drudge Report, of all sources, to back up his point, I was a bit appalled.<\/p>\n

Aside from cracking that Dean’s too unstable to be the man with his finger on the button, both of them seemed to believe strongly that we need a safe bet candidate like Kerry to have any hopes of defeating Bush in November. I’ve been thinking about this, and I don’t agree.<\/p>\n

I suspect that if the election is anything but a blowout (which is very unlikely), it will be rigged. All it will take is a discreet call to Wally O’Dell<\/a> and some voting machines “patched” in some close races.<\/p>\n

Which is why we would need to gamble on a blowout. A safe candidate like Kerry might edge Bush in a fair fight, but without a blowout, and–in a rigged election–certain to lose. A riskier candidate like Dean might have a greater chance of losing a fair vote. In an election, though, where the opposition can rig the outcome a little but not a lot, we need someone who has some chance at beating the spread.<\/p>\n

This tinfoil-hat logic isn’t the reason I’m tending towards Dean, but it is something I’m tossing around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had dinner last night with some friends, Drew and Farooq, and rather than watch George II deliver a pack of lies, platitudes, and empty promises, I insisted that we talk. Inevitably, talk turned to politics. Now, neither of these guys has any love for our current Dear Leader, but I was surprised at their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}