Linux Monday

Linux Monday: 'Tis the season to go shopping -- or not

Back in October I made the full commitment to Linux: I purchased a new computer and ordered it with no operating system. Within a couple hours I'd installed and migrated everything, and not a hitch since.

You may not be ready to go that far, but you can still save some bucks by ordering a machine with Linux (generally Ubuntu) pre-installed. Here's one and another articles about vendors.

Or: DON'T buy a computer; install Linux on your old one. This person got a full-blown, non-minimalist GNOME desktop loaded in just 105 meg of memory:

Amazing. This puts it within striking range of Pentium III machines, in terms of memory. Or at least machines with 128 or maybe 192Mb, like this one did.

True, you can get smaller desktops with very sparse installations, in other distros as well. But this comes with all the bells and whistles, from the word go.

For the geeky, another guide to that Linux directory tree.

Here's yet another guide to the Linux directory tree.

One of the problems we Linux geeks face is that we're dismissed as "one percent" of the market. That 1% figure is incvariably used. Thing is, it's hard to track because, as a free as in beer operating system, we can't cite any sales figures. This project is trying to remedy that 1% stat.

A history of viruses on Linux: "Most of the viruses found on Linux are fairly harmless. That doesn't mean they don't exist though. Be sure to keep an eye on what your downloading and where you're going on the Internet and you will most likely stay virus free. An occasional virus scan wouldn't hurt either."

Sue Dvorsky Re-elected

Sue Dvorsky Re-elected

Iowa Dems make the smart move of sticking with Sue Dvorsky as state party chair for the next two years. That's two Dvorskys re-elected in a month, what with husband Senator Bob winning another term.

Sue Dvorsky came on to chair the IDP relatively late in the 2010 cycle--post-candidate recruitment and post-primary. It was a crappy year for Dems, no doubt. But Dvorsky did her best with the cards she had, and the party's field program won national praise:

"The Three Iowa judges who ruled that same-sex marriage was legal were all roundly defeated, thanks to a blizzard of ads and heavily conservative turnout. But every vulnerable Democratic member of Congress was re-elected, thanks to a stellar, caucus-honed Democratic ground game. Once again, Iowa is an exception. "

With Terrace Hill now in Republican hands, Dvorsky takes on a more prominent role as party leader and spokesperson. And there's a lot going on in 2011: sometime this spring the congressional and legislative map gets reshuffled, which will mean tough decisions and more candidate recruitment than usual. And though the action is mostly on the Republican side, there's the perennial fight to keep the caucuses first, which will require swift and decisive moves.

And fair notice to any would-be primary challengers: the Dvorskys were among the earliest and most enthusiatic Obama supporters in 2007.

The Fox News Primary

The Fox News Primary

Dick Morris of consultant infamy offers a sound bite for the Screw Iowa national media:

The short list of contenders for the nomination will not be chosen in the early primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire will not impose their will on America. America will impose its will on Iowa and New Hampshire.

The quarter finals will not be waged in the cornfields of Iowa or the former mill towns of New Hampshire. They will be held in the living rooms of America among the Fox News audience!

Shane Vander Hart of Caffeinated Thoughts, one of the state's better righty blogs, offers a solid eight point rebuttal that's mostly bipartisan applicable. Except that MSNBC isn't a full-fledged party propaganda arm like Faux is.

Naturally, as a diehard Iowa Firster, I'm more inclined to Vander Hart's viewpoint. Even the right wing noise machine needs some raw material, whether it's made up factlets or made up events, and the action in Iowa is something to fill air time. Which they'll need a lot of once all their Special Commentators quit to go back to campaigning. ("If you ever see me sign up for a gig on Fox News, it'll be a clear indication that I've decided to run for president -- that's not in the cards anytime soon, thanks." Mitt Romney told Leno this week.)

But just like 2007, I expect the August GOP straw poll to finish off more candidates that the caucuses themselves. Despite Romney's big effort and first place finish, the important thing that came out of Ames was Mike Huckabee beating Sam Brownback in the de facto Fundamentalist Primary. Sam stumbled along for a few weeks after that, but Ames was the key moment in the Huckabee win. Look for the same dynamic between Huckabee, Palin, and Rick Santorum next summer. There's only one room for one of the three. It won't be Santorum, of course, but cCan Vander Plaats keep the band together for Huckabee? (Extending the comparison: Haley Barbour is this cycle's Tommy Thompson.)

As for Palin, Todd Dorman predicts:

With her resources, clout and following, I think Palin will have a solid base in this state, if she runs. She’ll do plenty of obligatory small events, and likely will be lavishly praised for exceeding low expectations. She can tell the Woodbine Twiner and the rest of us to take a hike because her supporters don’t care what we write about her. They’ll just check her Facebook page.

But while she signs books at the Spirit Lake Wal-Mart, there's already grumbling about Palin ignoring New Hampshire.

Over the long haul, I see the 2012 Republican cycle looking like the 2004 Democratic cycle. Is the priority playing it safe with an "electable" candidate, with Mitt Romney in the Kerry role? Or do they follow their hearts and go with the unorthodox base-inspiring candidate, with Palin as the Republican Howard Dean?

Democrats chickened out in the last three weeks of the 2004 cycle. We have to beat Bush, you know. They can't attack John Kerry -- he's a war hero! But I don't see Republicans going that way. Primary voters showed a willingness in this year's Senate races to embrace purity at the risk of victory. They won anyway in Kentucky, but threw away Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, and technically (but not really) lost Alaska.

So still looks to me like Palin, which Tom Harkin says Obama needs to hope for.

And looking ahead, I'm not buying this quote:

"I think I will serve as secretary of state as my last public position and the probably go back to advocacy, and probably on behalf of women and children."

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Washington Post, apparently ruling out a presidential campaign in 2016

---

Last call: Godfather tonight, 11:00, IMU.

Thursday Clips

Thursday Clips

Caucus Watch I: Branstad says Straw Poll: Be There Or Else to GOP candidates and hints at possible pre-caucus endorsement [mrsubliminal]romney![/mrsubliminal] Of coursw we all know WWBVPD (Huckabee again) so that internal Iowa GOP holy war will continue...

Back in caucus season 2007 I had regular updates on Caucus Date Leapfrog, as Michigan and Florida tried to cut in front of us in line. Still watching that, as always: It seems Florida Republicans will not be holding an early primary, but are looking at a late 2011 straw poll instead.

This cycle, like last, Republicans hold the governorship and legislature so they set the primary date. It was the GOP that drove Florida's efforts to go early last cycle, in what proved to be the end of the ball game: Rudy Giuliani bet all his chips on this hand but McCain won and (after skipping that Ames straw poll, Mr. Branstad!) somehow was the last candidate left standing.

On the Democratic side, who can forget Hillary Clinton's jet touching down for the "victory" speech the moment the polls closed and the campaigning ban ended, or Obama's press team releasing their take on the results ("Obama zero delegates, Clinton zero delegates"). Of course the party wimped out in the end and seated the entire delegation with no penalty except a longer cab ride to the hotel.

Less noticed: Florida night was when The Baby Daddy Who Must Not Be Named finally hung it up. It was a week before Super Tuesday, and if you check those California returns you'll se a 10 percent or so (if I remember right) of the early vote going to Edwards. Bet those folks wish they could walk to another corner of the room like us Iowans.

Joe Scarborough is the first significant Republican to seriously bash Palin.

Johnson County Dems regroup tonight for their monthly meeting; 7 PM at school district office.

And I'm still looking for folks to join me tomorrow night at 11 for The Godfather. IMU, 5 bucks, free for students. The Don says be there; you gotta problem wid dat?

Remembering Dodd and Richardson

Remembering Dodd and Richardson

One of the drawbacks of horse race political coverage is that folks tend to forget the officials who retire, voluntarily or semi-, as soon as they announce. Don't people like, say, North Dakota's Byron Dorgan or New Hampshire's Judd Gregg seem like ancient history, even as they're voting in the lame duck Senate session?

Back in Caucus Season 2007, Iowans got to know a couple of the people who are stepping down way better than any Americans outside their home states.



Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd would have been giants in a no prohibitive favorites caucus year like 1992 or 2004. But they were in the deadly Asterisk Zone in the polls in in the year of the rock stars -- Obama, Hillary, and the Baby Daddy Who Must Not Be Named.

(C'mon, admit it. How many of you Iowa Democrats have trophy photos of themselves with John Edwards hidden in some back drawer gathering dust? I'm 'fessing up, but I'll just as quickly add that I caucused for Obama.)

Dodd, who offered a farewell speech yesterday to the Senate where he served 30 years, literally moved to Iowa to campaign. Seriously. He enrolled his kids in the Des Moines public schools, and I took to writing "Sen. Chris Dodd (D-IA)". He ended it on Caucus Night itself, to no one's notice. No great concession speech, just a note on the crawl below Obama or Huckabee. After the results got number-crunched, we saw that Dodd had earned one county convention delegate in the whole state.


The high point of the Dodd campaign: Jefferson-Jackson 2007.

Richardson stumbled along another week to New Hampshire. His real Iowa support was somewhere in the 10 percent range, just below viability, I remember that dynamic of the night of January 3 all too well, as I was chairing my caucus. The little-stated reality of the Iowa Caucuses is that, after all the fun and excitement of the cattle call every-candidate events and the invasion of the national media and the personal phone calls from US Senators and the chummy-chummy invitation only "clutch" events, the actual moment of Caucus Night is crowded and miserable.

I live in an Iowa City precinct near, but not part of, campus, and Hillary Clinton was barely at viability on the first go-round. Poor Chris Dodd's five bodies quickly dispersed, and we settled into a stand-off. After everyone realigned, Obama had to hang onto all his people to claim a fourth delegate out of my precinct's seven. Edwards was barely hanging onto two and Clinton was barely at viability.

Bill Richardson was five people short of viability and sticking together -- but to gain that delegate, someone else would have to give up a delegate. And even if the Richardson crew had all joined one group, it wouldn't have changed that 4-2-1 split. They had nothing to offer, no way to gain, and ran out of time. Similar scenes must have been repeated across the state.

So what happened after?

Chris Dodd's too-cozy relationship with the banking industry in the post-TARP context made him home state toxic even in still-blue Connecticut. Discretion was the greater part of Dodd's valor; rather than fight a losing fight he stood down. It was a sad way to end a 36 year congressional career; Dodd was truly courageous in the warrantless wiretap fight of 2007. But he took one for the team and it was the right call. The Dems not only held his seat and all six Connecticut House seats this year, we gained the governorship for the first time in two decades.

Bill Richardson also took one for the team and got screwed out of the Obama cabinet when spurious financial and ethical charges popped up after he was nominated for Secretary of Commerce. Rather than fight it out and distract the still-new administration, he withdrew his name, once again proving Nixon's old adage that the charge appears on Page One and the retraction is buried in the back section.

Richardson's considerable abilities are now denied to the people of New Mexico by term limits. He saw his lieutenant governor, who oh so briefly was governor-to-be during that cabinet nomination, lose her race. But Richardson, as Iowans know, is too smart and experienced to stay on the sidelines for long. With the spurious ethics and financial charges now cleared, look for his name to pop up in any Cabinet level speculation, or perhaps as a candidate yet again. New Mexico Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman is reportedly waffling on a 2012 re-election bid. Richardson, who was long seen as a senator in waiting during his House and cabinet career, was urged to drop his presidential bid during 2007 and instead challenge Republican Senator Pete Domenici. But then Domenici retired (under some duress) and Tom Udall took over the seat for the Dems.

As for Dodd, his caucus bid was a valedictory, his last campaign. Both Richardson and Dodd have been mentioned for the cushy lobbying gig as chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.

But in a piece predicting the paths of the 13 departing senators, Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner writes: "(Dodd) is one guy who might actually move back home." Dodd became a father at a relatively late age. As he used to joke on the campaign trail, he got mail from both the AARP and diaper services. He'll watch his daughters grow up and write some books, and in the long run his image will recover from the late-term tarnish.

Legislative Meetings

Legislative Meetings: A Matter of Emphasis

One of the annual post-election, pre-session rituals in our parts is a set of meetings between local governments and area state legislators. The big ones happened early this week, and showed some differences both in emphasis and news coverage.

I missed the Monday city meeting between the legislators and the Iowa City council. So I can't really tell you if the news coverage (PC, DI) focused on the juicy, paper-selling bar issues simply because the details of budgets are dry and dull, or if the neo-Prohibition agenda is really all this city council is interested in.

I'm reminded of Wikileaks yet again: Several of the officials at this meeting have off the record told me they agree that the 21 year old drinking age is a failure. Most prefer the "keep it out of the schools" compromise of 19 to my old enough to fight old enough to drink rights issue preference for 18. Yet none will say so in public.

---

I was able to attend most of the meeting Tuesday morning between legislators and county officials. I can't compare news coverage, because I was the only reporter on hand. But from what I saw, the list of topics appeared more diverse: unfunded mandates (a perennial issue: Feds kick stuff down to the states, states kick things down to the cities and counties), the state's new "must issue" gun permit law, and the ongoing Regency mobile home park problem.

Weapons laws were a big concern for county attorney Janet Lyness and sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek. "I don't think anyone intended the law to allow people to carry guns into courthouses," said Lyness. "We would appreciate a change or clarification."

"It's ludicrous to allow anyone to carry a weapon without showing they are competent," said Pulkrabek.

"Those of us at this table voted against that," said Rep. Mary Mascher (D-Iowa City). Other returning Democratic legislators on hand were senators Joe Bolkcom and Bob Dvorsky and Rep. Nate Willems.

One new face was also present: Rep.-Elect Jarad Klein (R-Keota), who defeated Riverside Democrat Larry Marek last month. "There are already exemptions for state and federal, bit not for (counties)," Klein said of the weapons law.

At the same time, and more generically, Klein said to the all-Democratic contingent of county officials: "I'm still at the stage where I'm listening and learning, even if we don't always agree."

"The mobile home issue has in some places become a very predatory issue that takes advantage of people," said county treasurer Tom Kriz. "It's a problem throughout the state. 99 treasurers will tell you the same thing."

But Lyness saw some progress locally. "The fact that (Regency is) trying to do some of the abandonments properly is a start. At least we have an attorney identified who we can work with."

Bolkcom said he and other legislators hope to put together a comprehensive mobile home bill.

Johnson County supervisors are currently considering a rural property maintenance ordinance (several large courts are conveniently located just outside city limits). "We don't have any property maintenance regulations in this county," said supervisor Janelle Rettig. "We have some responsibilities that we let go."

Mascher pushed back on the county's characterization that last year's across the board state budget cuts were 'irresponsible.'

"When we don't have the revenues we don't have alternatives," said Mascher. "The other options were not viable. I understand it puts counties and everybody else in a difficult position."

---

So that's the meeting I went to. Back to the one I didn't:

Iowa City's dogged emphasis on cracking down is further proof that, as they promised last spring when they passed the ordinance, 21 bars was just the first step. It's Iowa City's magic economic recovery plan: Get rid of the drunks and people will buy more jewelry and high-end glorified t-shirts. All they need now is a magic big flat parking lot that will fill up only with retail shoppers and not with University students and staff.

We haven't seen the last of this from the bar side, either, as Leah Cohen of BoJames comments on my Facebook:

Forces are at work for a broad based exemption to the 21 ordinance that may bring students out in 2011. That seems to be the only thing they vote on and it would influence council elections. The council put in the live music exemption while we were in the middle of the vote, so they cannot argue the illegality of another broad exemption being on the ballot.

So does that mean 21 Bars, Round III? Maybe so. But as events of the last three years show, and as Monday's Iowa City-legislator talk shows, ultimately any effort is doomed to failure unless the student-tavern coalition can recruit and elect candidates. Where's my Freak Power?

King Calls Farm Deal "Reparations"

King Calls Farm Deal "Reparations"

Steve King (R-Fox News) does it again, using not even code words:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who's been one of the most vocal opponents of the Pigford settlement for black farmers, has taken to cable news and the floor of the House to speak against the settlement. King's argument is that the bulk of the Pigford II claims are fraudulent because there are fewer black farmers than claimants -- a flimsy argument when you consider that many African-Americans lost their farms over the past few decades due, in part, to USDA discrimination that denied them loans -- which is the point of the settlement program.

On Monday night, he suggested that President Obama, as a senator, may have been prejudiced to help the black farmers.

"Figure this out, Madame Speaker: We have a very, very urban Senator, Barack Obama, who has decided he's going to run for president, and what does he do?" King said. "He introduces legislation to create a whole new Pigford claim."

He then said the claims -- which stem from discrimination against black farmers in the 1980s and 1990s -- are "slavery reparations."

Exhibiting the racial sensitivity he'll no doubt show chairing the Immigration subcommittee.

I knew people were going to go wacko over the prospect of a black president, but I always figured it would happen before the election, not after. Just a sign of how bad Bush screwed up... All the excitement about the new sheriff coming to town, followed swiftly by:

The Geek Tact Filter and Johnny Paycheck in the Age of Wikileaks

The Geek Tact Filter and Johnny Paycheck in the Age of Wikileaks

The weekend's Wikileaks crisis, with its leak of hundreds of thousands of "secret" diplomatic documents, smacks head on into two of my favorite quandries: honesty in communication and the relentless flow of free information in the digital age.


Diplomacy: Two of these guys are too scared to throw poop at the third guy and want the fourth one to do it for them.

Every human lies every day as a survival tactic. Heck, even apes know how to diplomatically lie -- or, more generously, how to situationally vary their behavior and messages. Every chimpanzee knows you don't mess with the alpha male unless you want a beat-down. You pant-hoot submissively and share your bananas, even if you really want to fling your feces.

It's part of why "Take This Job And Shove It" topped the charts. Speaking your mind is a powerful fantasy. Yet check that lyric more closely:

I'd give the shirt right off of my back if I had the guts to say...
Take this job and shove it I ain't workin' here no more

Despite the proletarian triumph of the chorus, Johnny Paycheck never actually tells the boss off. He's just grumbling about it to his buddies. He has to be... diplomatic.

Johnny Cash may have actually decked the boss in "Oney," but the song ends before it actually happens... and he's only willing to chance it on the day he retires. Just like I played "Take This Job And Shove It" as the last song of my last shift as a country DJ. (Shocking factoid: the bald lefty blogger with the beret did two years as the long-haired country DJ with a cowboy hat.)

Yet we look down on our political leaders, call them "liars," for behaving just like the rest of us monkeys. Just like Johnny Paycheck, the politicians talk differently in front of the boss -- that would be us -- than in private. The more public the communication, the less direct and honest it becomes.

The striped pants diplomatic set are just like us working stiffs, secretly wishing they could speak their minds. Germany's Merkel is wishy-washy, France's Sarkozy is an idiot, the king of Saudi Arabia wants us to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

There's a reason country singers and standup comedians are more "honest" than politicians: the stakes are lower. What's just happened, in country music terms, is the diplomats have turned around on the barstools at the union hall and discovered that the foreman has been listening to every word. Only with nukes. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "fired."

There's no such thing as "in private" in the internet age. People know too much about us, but just as important we know too much about them. The person who didn't get the job because of That One Facebook Picture loses, but so does the prospective employer.

We are all Star Trek's Deanna Troi, sensing everyone's thoughts whether we want to or not. We are Superman hearing the whole world's cries for help all at once and having a nervous breakdown.

Does the world at your fingertips information age mean we have to cope with TMI 24-7? It's a fundamental change in human communication and interaction as it's been all the way back to the trees.

Will our proud species go all de-evolution and sink into the pablum of PR-speak, afraid to risk offending anyone and becoming less as a result?

There's a better answer: healthy acceptance of the truths we don't like to hear.

Near the dawn of the internet age, in 1996 (One Million BC in blog years), MIT's Jeff Bigler came up with the notion of the Geek Tact Filter:

Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

"Geeks," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. This is because when nerds were growing up, they continually got picked on, and their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "They're just saying those mean things because they're jealous. They don't really mean it."

So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can't do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn't be taken that way.

Perhaps the real importance of Wikileaks is that in the 21st century, we are all geeks, and the Geek Tact Filter our new social framework.

But the real question is, will Ahmedinijad and Kim Jong Il see it that way?

Monday clips

Back from the Turkey Platter

That six day stretch with no posts that ended yesterday was my longest spell without writing in at least the five years since I started taking this thing seriously. Here's some of what I read and digested, besides turkey, over the break:

This harsh piece at Down With Tyranny about doings at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC or "D Trip" in Beltway shorthand) includes as one of its key players a name familiar to Iowa pols:

I bet you've never heard of Ralston Lapp Media, Global Strategy Group, Dewey Square Group or GMMB... unless you're an Inside the Beltway politico, steeped in Democratic Party politics. Then you know them quite well; you have to to do business in DC. Let me start with Ralston Lapp, a K Street media company whose website's front page justifies itself with a Washington Post quote from another year: "One of the principal architects of the Democrats’ takeover of the House." Among their clients this year were Arizona Blue Dog Gabrielle Giffords and Kentucky Blue Dog Ben Chandler, each of whom eked out a narrow win against a reactionary opponent. Another client, Jerry McNerney (CA-11), is slightly ahead as votes are still be tabulated almost three weeks after election day. Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), another of their 2010 clients, was defeated by Quico Conseco 49-44% (just half of Rodriguez's 2008 voters turning out for him 3 weeks ago). Here's a list of checks reported to the FEC from the DCCC's I.E. Committee to Ralston Lapp Media...

(long list)

I don't have the Ralston Lapp fee structure, but I've been told that they probably get a 15% commission on any advertising created, although my guess is that they share that percentage with the media buying firm.

One of the two partners in Ralston Lapp is John Lapp, somewhat better known as a longtime DCCC insider.

Iowans, of course, know Lapp from the Tom Vilsack re-elect in `02, followed immediately by the Dick Gephardt caucus campaign in `03-04. Lapp's most recent Iowa work was with Team Conlin.

The piece isn't so much a hatchet job on Lapp as it is an indictment of the whole system that pumped hundreds of thousands, even millions, into the (often losing) campaigns of Blue Dogs who abandoned the President and Speaker on all the tough votes, while leaving progressives who took those tough votes twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.

A Daily Kos piece on the death of the California Republican Party - remember back in the Reagan era when that was part of the GOP electoral college firewall? The problem for Golden State conservatives is demographic, as Pete Wilson bet the ranch on xenophobia:

Everyone who isn't in denial knows what the California GOP must do to survive:

Drop the demagoguery about illegal immigrants because it scares off the fast-growing Latino electorate.

With a brief shout-out to Our Own Steve King in the last line.

To keep Krazy King kompany, The Ten Scariest Members of the House freshman class.

A Tea Party waiting to happen: Dick Lugar (you 2000 had to look it up, 1996, caucus Republicans remember him from the Asterisk Zone in the polls) is the next Mike Castle, doomed to primary death.

A clip-n-save guide to the main vulnerabilities of the top ten likely GOP presidential contenders. Romney's weak spot is listed as health care, not religion.

Of course, I made my prediction last week, and at Kos brooklynbadboy concurs:

Now, if Romney couldn't beat an unprincipled, untrusted McCain, or an unknown, low-budget Huckabee, how is he going to beat a well-funded, nationally known true believer like Palin? Romney could try and outflank an evangelical megachurcher like Palin with culture warrior stuff, but does anyone believe they're going to trust a Mormon over one of their own? Especially one who has been all over the place on abortion? With Tea Partiers, Neocons and evangelicals naturally aligning for Palin, the path for Romney to win will have to involve tearing her down. He couldn't do it to Huckabee after investing $50 million of his own money and years of effort in Iowa.

So this brings us to the likely matchup, Obama v. Palin.

45 2/3 states AND we win back the House AND we save all those senators who won squeakers in `06 like McCaskill and Tester and Webb. You betcha.

Still looking for folks to join me Friday Night at 11 for the Godfather.

Wilburn Stepping Down

Wilburn Stepping Down; Where's My Freak Power?

Our fair city's one time Bikin' Mayor Ross Wilburn tells the Gazette that he's not running for city council next year, which kicks off the 2011 election season.

It's been so long since Iowa City has had a "normal" city council election that we don't even know what one looks like anymore. 2005 was dominated by Mid-American Energy dumping half a million bucks into the No on public power campaign, 2007 was 21 Bars Round 1, and in 2009 we in effect had no city election at all.

Last cycle progressives dropped the ball during the candidate recruitment phase, giving business-backed Terry Dickens and Susan Mims a de facto bye against students Jeff Shipley and Dan Tallon. The young guys lost by three to one in record low turnout.

Local lefties were distracted at filing time for the 2009 election, already focused on Janelle Rettig's supervisor campaign which, with Larry Meyers' death, happened way sooner than expected. The other big distraction in 2009 was the football season, which reached its 9 and 0 Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx peak right around Election Day. That year we won all the squeakers, at least until Ohio State; this year we lost every heartbreaker. Worst of all was that series-ending Badger game which gives my Wisconsin relatives bragging rights for several years. We could so be 11-1 right now instead of 7-5 and some Cereal Bowl before New Years...

That football tangent was a too-obvious Hunter Thompson homage, as my writing goal is to create a clean and sober version of Gonzo Journalism. I'm hoping to find plenty of fear and loathing in 2011, with the incoming Republican regime and the upcoming caucus cycle to inspire me.

Football is cruel and so is the irony of city politics: If students had run in 2007's turnout wave, we'd have three or maybe four on the council to this day. But without the vote magnet of the bar issue directly on the ballot, the flood turned into a drought, and the 21 forces had the votes to get Prohibition through the council.

Ross Wilburn went unopposed in 2007, spending that election cycle co-chairing the Obama caucus team with now-state party chair Sue Dvorsky. He was all-but-unopposed in 2003, beating lefty gadfly Karen Pease with 71%, a record that stood until Dickens and Mims broke it in 2009. His stand down marks a return to a de facto three term tradition for the city council that dates back to the 1970s establishment of our godawful hybrid district system. Dee Vanderhoef was the first to try for a fourth term in 2007 but lost; in `09 Connie Champion was the first to actually win a fourth.

Wilburn's "District A" turf is basically the west side with a small slice of the south side where Wilburn and predecessor Dee Norton came from. So the candidate has to live there, potentially win a primary there, then win city wide. Insert my obligatory plug here for a larger council, two year terms and small, true, precinct-sized districts; that would guarantee two or three students on the council.

But that charter rewrite I dream of won't happen by next year, so we need to deal with the map we have. Local business-type conservatives are too smart to be distracted by Republican caucus season; they've shown a remarkable ability over the years to keep their eyes on the local prize, where the money is. They united early behind Dickens and Mims, and scuttled their own recruit Mark McCallum once Champion decided to run again. It's a guarantee they'll have a candidate to replace Wilburn.

Will the left? It won't be me; I've been there and done that candidate thing with poor results. If I were to run for something, it would be an Iowa City version of Hunter Thompson's campaign for Sheriff of Aspen: Freak Power In The Rockies. I even wrote my tentative platform in 2009 but no one carried that ball, either that cycle or in the Bar Wars of 2010. And with my libertarian-left streak running head-on into the do-gooder "public health" context of 21 Bars Round 2, where "progressive" was defined as "take rights away from people," I'm not even sure if I qualify as "left" by Iowa City local politics standards anymore...

Thompson's "The Battle of Aspen" is, despite the dated Sixties context, the single greatest piece on grass roots organizing, a must-read for anyone interested in taking on entrenched local power structures. Just search and replace "heads" with "students."

And that, fundamentally, is why I won't run for the city council; I'm old enough to be two of the candidates I'm seeking. I was so desperate for student representation that I actually voted for this dude. We've got 25,000 students in a city of 60,000, and they hold zero of seven council seats instead of the three or so that demographics merit. What good does it do them to have another geezer like me - a grandpa, no less! - in office, even a sympathetic one? No, the students need one of their own.

We haven't had one of those in 30 years, since David Perret won a second term in `79. He was kind of a hybrid: a student with townie roots, which is the kind of candidate we need if the goal is electing someone young, which is my goal. Someone who can attract both the young vote and get some votes from mom and dad's friends who knew you when you were THIS high. Someone like a Brian Flaherty (happy birthday, bud!) except he's set down his roots in Coralville. Or an Allie Panther, who did work beyond her years co-chairing the Roxanne Conlin committee with Regenia Bailey, and who's part of the Hamburg Inn Panther family. (I namedrop the names of my friends without consulting them, in the great tradition of Gonzo. As Doctor Thompson once said: "I wrote there was a rumor. I made up that rumor.")

Bailey is also up next year, coming out of District C (the north side and downtown). The two at large seats up are Matt Hayek, fresh off the 21 bar win that he linked his name to, and Michael Wright, the lone no vote on the panhandling ordinance.

So that's the lay of the land 11 months out from Election Day and roughly 8 months till filing time. The bar issue is likely to be as dead as Free Silver and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff by next fall, with a corresponding drop of student turnout back to normal (i.e. zero) levels. We'll have to see what a local political agenda looks like when it's driven by something other than Love The Hawkeyes Hate The Students and Terry Dickens' personal distaste for hobos begging outside his jewelry store.

Political Scientist: Voters Stupid

Dumb and Dumber

Dumb = the best explanation yet of the election results, from U-Wisc political science professor Charles Franklin:

In my questions to Franklin, I noted that the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who'll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.

Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point. "I'm not endorsing the American voter," he answered. "They're pretty damn stupid."

Dumber = Frank Rich sees a path to victory for a President Palin:

Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so. Democrats, who gloat that she’s the Republicans’ problem, may be humoring themselves. When Palin told Barbara Walters last week that she believed she could beat Barack Obama in 2012, it wasn’t an idle boast. Should Michael Bloomberg decide to spend billions on a quixotic run as a third-party spoiler, all bets on Obama are off.

I'm not so convinced; even if Bloomberg would run (which I doubt) I don't see him as the type of candidate who can tap into Perot-type voters. Check the 1992 map at US Election Atlas. Remember this site has the colors flipped so red is Dems and blue is GOP. The green is where Perot won and the light blue and pink is where the major parties won with low percentages, meaning Perot did well.

(The exception is Jefferson County, Iowa, where the then-active Natural Law Party swept the Maharishi vote.)

Perot did best in two kinds of places: very empty rural counties and high-growth exurbs where voters had no roots in the local political culture. Assuming she were nominated - which is what I'm betting at the moment - Palin is going to hold those kind of folks anyway. What, are those folks going to abandon the candidate who embodies all their primitive resentments for the mayor of New York City? NEW YORK CITY?!?



No, the only independents Bloomberg could win are the David Broder beltway types who still dream of the Good Ole Days of "bipartisanship." They hold up the Pure Independent as the ideal voter. You know, the ones who Vote For The Person Not The Party© and Study The Candidates® and who no longer actually exist outside of the rapidly vanishing landscape of print newsrooms.

While I'm betting: I'm betting Branstad can't deliver for Romney and Vander Plaats scuttles Mittens yet again. Remember, the GOP establishment could barely deliver half the primary vote for Branstad, and that was against the flawed BVP as the candidate. The only way Romney wins Iowa is if he joins Mike Huckabee's church, because the Christianist base of the Iowa GOP won't vote for a "cult member."

So 101 weeks out I'm making my prediction: a Sarah Palin nomination followed by a 45 2/3 state Obama landslide. He loses Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina in Dixie, and Utah (NOT Alaska!) and Nebraska's 3rd District in the west (as you may recall from Obama's Omaha win in 2008, the Big Red state allocates electors by district).

When I think "rural district" I see the vast grill your own steak nothingness of Nebraska 3 (the western three fourths of the state and Coach Tom Osborne's old seat--how the hell did he actually lose a statewide Republican primary when he ran for governor in 2006?) But the folks over at Daily Yonder apparently think of Ricky Stanzi's Ped Mall commies as "rural." Oh, the dangers of mixing sports heroes and politics. This from a guy who caucused for Bill Bradley.

The folks down Yonder sum up the House results thus:

Republicans won the U.S. House Tuesday largely by winning districts with high proportions of rural voters.

Two-thirds of the 60 House seats switching from Democrat to Republican in this election were in the congressional districts with the most rural voters.



Before the election almost half (61) of the 125 most rural districts were held by Democrats. By the end of the day Tuesday, the number of rural Democrats had been cut to just 22. Just 18 percent of the most rural House districts are now represented by Democrats.

That seems to include IA-01, dominated by Waterloo, Dubuque and the Quad Cities, and IA-02, where over half the population is in Linn and Johnson counties. The only "urban" district is the 3rd, ironically the one represented by a rural Democrat.

I could apply the same critique to the district I grew up in, Ron Kind's WI-03; that's La Crosse, Eau Claire and some Twin Cities suburbs. Daily Yonder also includes black majority seats in Mississippi and Georgia. But the more I quibble with the list specifics, the more I make their larger underlying point. Personally I'm more inclined to the elegant simplicity of Professor Franklin's theory.

Godfather at Bijou

An Offer You... naah, I'll just let the man say it



Anyone else want to see the Greatest. Movie. Ever. on an actual movie screen? The UI's Bijou is having 11 PM showings of The Godfather on December 3 and 4. I'm going Friday the 3rd; Robert DeNiro is hosting Saturday Night Live that weekend and no Godfather fan would want to miss that.

Five bucks for old people, free for UI students (I got your 21 bar alternative right here.) Who's with me? But wait, there's more: Goodfellas the next weekend.

If you can't wait, or if you want a refresher course before the big screen big event, AMC is having a Turkey Day Godfather marathon. Just I and II, so we can be Thankful no III. If you've seen it as many times as me, you can catch the censorship (they even edit the Italian swearing).

Can't find a clip of my favorite scene of the entire trilogy, which comes immediately after Sonny gets whacked: Tom Hagen has to tell The Don. Brando earns the Oscar (the only offer you CAN refuse) just from the facial expressions, as he shifts from grieving father to tactical Godfather and back again.

Winners and Losers

More Losers Than Winners

One of the duties listed in the job description of Self Appointed Pundits is compiling a post-election list of Winners and Losers. This year, that's both easier and harder than usual, because the big winners are so obvious and the bright spots for my team so few. (I've already tried bragging that Roxanne Conlin won a county).

So I'm a couple weeks behind on this task, but I've been looking below the surface and have finally come up with my list. My left-wing bias helps me identify more Republican losers and Democratic winners than the results merit, but that's my job. I've also got more losers in general, maybe because I'm feeeling negative in general.

The Biggest Loser - Daniel Dirkx, Iowa's own Sharron Angle. Late-starting Democratic replacement candidate Dan Muhlbauer took over Rod Roberts' House seat for the only Democratic gain in the state, in large part becaue of Dirkx being "the worst candidate ever."

Winner - Rep. Curt Hanson. Despite the ugly environment, in which his home town senator Becky Schmitz lost, Hanson actually increased his winning margin in the House 90 rematch with Steve Burgmaier. And that was without the entire political infrastructure of the state descending on his district like it did in the 2009 special election.

Loser and Winner - Rep.-Elect Brian Moore (D R). I hate turncoats, but one has to admire the shameless chutzpah of a guy who lost a Democratic state senate primary in June, then jumped to the GOP in August and knocked off incumbent Rep. Tom Schueller in November.

Loser - David Hartsuch. The only Republican legislator who sought another term and lost. Hartsuch was knocked off in the primary by eventual winner Roby Smith, leaving the post of Nuttiest Wingnut in the Legislature open. (Unfortunately, there's plenty of new contenders for the job.)

As consolation, Hartsuch wins the David Levy Memorial Award. Levy was the Long Island Republican congressman who got knocked off in a 1994 primary and thus, like Hartsuch, was the only Republican incumbent to lose re-election in a landslide year.

Winner - Rep.-Elect John Wittneben. Held Marcy Frevert's open seat for the Democrats on tough turf.

Loser - Selden Spencer. Yeah, it was a bad year for Democrats, and the race against Rep. Dave Deyoe was always going to be uphill. But despite good fund raising and a lot of residual name ID from his 2006 congressional race, Spencer finished under 40%. Reminds me of that 2006 cycle when every lefty blogger in the state was talking up Spencer's chances against Tom Latham, and everyone except me was ignoring Dave Loebsack. Which brings me to...

Winners - Iowa's Congressional Democrats. If you had told me before the polls closed that the Democrats would suffer a 60+ seat loss in the House, I would have shuddered in horror -- heck, I still am. But I would have believed it. But a 60+ seat national loss... with Boswell, Braley and Loebsack all surviving?

Losers - Eric Cooper and Jonathan Narcisse. Cooper, the Libertarian nominee for governor, explicitly said his goal was the 2 percent of the vote his party needed to jump from minor party status to full party status. He also explicitly said Terry Branstad had the race in the bag, so you could spare a vote for him. He was right about the Branstad-Culver margin, but barely got halfway to the 2 point mark.

(Lost opportunity: What if Cooper had camped out in Iowa City and tied himself to the student side of the 21 bar referendum? He could have picked up a couple thousand votes just from people who skipped governor on their ballots, let alone what he could have taken from Culver and Branstad.)

Narcisse, meanwhile, maintained the fiction that he was going to win all the way to the end, but finished as a None Of The Above footnote. Even so, his "Iowa Party" fell just short of the 2 percent line (1.8) so Cooper gets listed first.

Winner - Jon Murphy. Yeah, he lost the auditor race. But even with his late start he ran even with the rest of the ticket, and David Vaudt had to at least spend a little time looking over his shoulder. Here's hoping we see more from Murphy.

Loser - Scott Ourth. The highly touted Democratic candidate in Kent Sorensen's vacant house district set all kinds of first timer fundraising records, but finished well behind tea partier Glen Massie.

Loser - Brenna Findley. With her Steve King 'credentials' (?) and pledges to join other Republican AG's in suing to block health care reform, Findley was the GOP's great hope (as evidenced by her impressive fundraising). But she was just too ideological and underqualified. Tom Miller saw this one coming, adjusted late, and outperformed the rest of the Democratic ticket.

Winner - Iowa Constitution. Despite the bigotry-driven defeat of the Supreme Court justices, Iowans weren't willing to go as far as the risk of a full rewrite to make discrimination legal.

Winners - Iowa's other judges. Iowans got it wrong by tossing the Supremes, but at least they got it right by tossing the judges they wanted to toss. There was no throw them all out collateral damage on the lower courts.

Loser - John Rooff. In a seat that Tami Wiencek gained in 2006 - one of the few Republican pickups in the nation that year - the former Waterloo mayor fizzled. Part of that is Democrats had an outstanding candidate in Anesa Kajtazovic, but in a year where Republicans were winning all over the place, Rooff should have been more competitive.

Loser - Cate Bryan. Iowans for Tax Relief invested heavily in her House District 2 primary win, yet she was the only Republican who lost as Sioux City rebooted its entire legislative delegation.

Losers - Johnson County Republicans. This was a target-rich year for Republicans, and my party's soft white underbelly was exposed in many places. (Pat Murphy winning with just 51 percent in Dubuque?!?) And the Iowa City bar issue was a major wild card; student precincts actually leaned a bit more Republican than the rest of The People's Republic.

Democrats left a quarter of the Iowa House uncontested, while Republicans did much better at finding candidates. But the exception is in my county. As they have for several cycles, Republicans scored a complete goose egg on candidate recruitment. Not that she wouldn't win big anyway, but Mary Mascher hasn't seen a GOP challenger since 1996. Dave Jacoby's challenger actually left the GOP to run as a Libertarian. When the Libertarians outscore you in candidate recruitment, you have a problem.

Blame Blame and Blame

Blame Blame and Blame

Ezra Klein blames Joe Lieberman for Democratic losses in the senate.

Alexander Burns of Politico blames - or credits - choice for keeping Democratic losses from getting even worse.

Craig Robinson's blame for GOP losses in Iowa CDs 1, 2, and 3 goes in order to name ID, party registration, and Brad Zaun.

And Kyle's mom blames Canada.

Linux Monday returns

The Return Of The Son Of Linux Monday

In which I return with the week-starting tech obsessions.

Sone tips on maximizing laptop battery life, which if you think a bit could be applicable to your Windows or Mac too.

Also with some cross-platform value, and maybe even some criminal application: 70 things every geek should know. "Know" does not necessarily equal "do".

Less applicable, and just toi be counter-productive and scare you off: moving to the command line.

The obligatory Windows bashing: ten ridiculous Windows errors.

And finally, operating systems as dogs.

Coulter: Repeal 26th Amendment

Coulter: Repeal 26th Amendment

Don't give the Iowa City council any ideas, Ann Coulter:

We must repeal the 26th Amendment.

Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote....

Those of you who have made it to age 26 without dying in a stupid drinking game -- and I think congratulations are in order, by the way -- understand how insane it is to allow young people to vote.

It would almost be tolerable if everyone under the age of 30 just admitted they voted for Obama because someone said to them, "C'mon, it's really cool! Everyone's doing it!"

It would make more sense to give public school teachers and college professors 20 votes apiece than to allow their impressionable students to vote.

The scary thing is how many townies here in The People's Republic (???) seem to agree with her.

Hispanic Republicans Object To Steve King

Hispanic Republicans Object To Steve King

Hispanics saved the Senate, Democrats are saying, and with good reason given the improbably re-election of Harry Reid in Nevada, Barbara Boxer's easier-than-expected win in California, and Michael Bennet's hairsbreadth survival in Colorado.

One of the very, very few things Bush 43 had right, back in 2003 or so, was the demographic imperative of increasing the Republican Party's share of the Hispanic vote. It was a brief moment, between the xenophobia of California's Proposition 187 (which drove a whole generation of California Latinos into the arms of the Democrats) and the "don't make me push 1 for English" mentality of Tom Tancredo and Iowa's own Steve King. America is becoming more and more Hispanic, and as long as Republicans keep relying on a lily-white base, their days are numbered.

King, who once referenced herding illegal immigrants like cattle, is in line to chair a House immigration subcommittee under the new GOP regime, and ¡Somos Republicans!, "the largest and fastest growing Hispanic Republican Organization in the Southwest," objects:

Steve King has used defamatory language that is extremely offensive to Hispanics, which is found in numerous congressional records. We believe Steve King’s behavior is not appropriate for a high-level elected Republican who might be in charge of a committee that handles immigration rules...

Though it is constitutionally impossible that a mere Congressional “statute” will decide who gets to be a citizen, we believe that this insensitive and constant assailment on our Hispanic Community may push Hispanics further into the Independent, Libertarian or Democrat Party. Moreover, Hispanic voters were crucial in electing seven new Republican Hispanics to Congress and two new Republican Hispanic governors. However, Hispanics also vehemently and strongly rejected those Republicans that utilized harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and opted for a Democrat, as it occurred in the West Coast, Colorado and Nevada.

Republicans have a choice: embrace the future of a multicultural America, or stick with Steve King's vision for short term gains and long-term unviability. Even as a Democrat, I'd be happier with a Republican Party that was more appealing to, and senitive toward, Hispanics. But I suspect they'll stick with the xenophobes. Can't have anyone talking Meskin in front of y'all in the Wal-Mart checkout line.

Quit The Blue Dogs, Boswell

Quit The Blue Dogs, Boswell

In my latest Register post I argue that Leonard Boswell should adapt to the new realities of the post-election landscape by quitting the defeat-decimated Blue Dog coalition.



Go there to read it; today's Deeth Blog Exclusive Content is a classic awkward moment from caucus season. Me at the Hamburg Inn with Boswell and a Blue Dog fellow traveler, ex-DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. (Koni took the pic.)

Only GOP action is likely for next caucus season, despite that 24 hour Russ Feingold boomlet. Attention Rick Santorum: Losing a home state senate race isn't a great launch pad to the White House. Ask former senator George McGovern (1984) or former Illinois congressman Abe Lincoln... wait a minute.

No, Russ's brief "on to 2012" comment at his election night defeat party was probably a reference to state seat mate Herb Kohl, who's on a lot of likely retirement lists, rather than anything about primarying Obama.

The corollary to the candidate who uses defeat as a launching pad is the one who runs for president rather than lose for re-election. Oklahoma Democrat Fred Harris invented this back in 1972, and John Edwards parlayed it into second place on the ticket. 2012's best bet for this strategy: Scott Brown from Massachusetts.

In any case, with all the caucus activity on the GOP side, we'll see less Hamburg Inn and more Pizza Ranch.

Number Crunching Part 2: The Under Vote

Number Crunching Part 2: The Under Vote

During the first full week of early voting in Johnson County, when students were flocking to early voting sites by the hundreds and even the thousands (over 1300 in a day at Burge dorm), the million dollar question among Johnson County politicos was: are they marking the whole ballot? Or are they just voting on the bars?"

Just to remind my out of town readers: the Iowa City bar issue dominated the Johnson County political landscape to the exclusion of almost all else this fall.

The main campus precincts are dorm-dominated 3 and 5, apartment-dominated 11, 19 and 20, and mixed town-gown 21. (11 and 19 also have some senior housing but are mainly student.) There's also one dorm, Mayflower, in 22, but that's a townie-dominated precinct. 1 and 13 also have significant chunks of student apartments, but 1 also has the large Oaknoll senior complex.

With that in mind, let's look at the Iowa City voting patterns. It's weird for the very LAST thing on the ballots to get the most votes, but that's what happened here with the bar age issue. Also included are the governor's race, which got a handful more votes than the Senate race, and Justice Baker's retention (or lack thereof), which was listed first and got a few more votes than the other two.

Precinct	Voters	Bars	Governor	Baker	Bar under	governor under	Baker under
IC01 Roosevelt	773	742	747	639	4.0%	3.4%	17.3%
IC02 Hall of Fame	930	908	915	804	2.4%	1.6%	13.5%
IC03 Quad	1537	1519	1212	771	1.2%	21.1%	49.8%
IC04 Lincoln	1334	1294	1302	1091	3.0%	2.4%	18.2%
IC05 UI Library	1497	1477	1054	602	1.3%	29.6%	59.8%
IC06 Mercer	1248	1208	1234	1079	3.2%	1.1%	13.5%
IC07 West High	552	502	539	436	9.1%	2.4%	21.0%
IC08 Weber School	1563	1493	1548	1317	4.5%	1.0%	15.7%
IC09 All Nations	1056	1020	1039	894	3.4%	1.6%	15.3%
IC10 MYEP	845	813	822	706	3.8%	2.7%	16.4%
IC11 Courthouse	1147	1134	919	622	1.1%	19.9%	45.8%
* IC12 Grant Wood	1139	1005	1131	970	11.8%	0.7%	14.8%
IC13 City Transit	674	656	646	533	2.7%	4.2%	20.9%
IC14 Mark Twain	1205	1161	1188	1047	3.7%	1.4%	13.1%
IC15 SE Jr High	897	870	885	786	3.0%	1.3%	12.4%
IC16 Lucas	1758	1704	1737	1520	3.1%	1.2%	13.5%
IC17 Hoover	1448	1404	1432	1241	3.0%	1.1%	14.3%
IC18 Longfellow	1238	1205	1192	1047	2.7%	3.7%	15.4%
IC19 Rec Center	1302	1285	1109	760	1.3%	14.8%	41.6%
IC20 Senior Center	1229	1205	1050	739	2.0%	14.6%	39.9%
IC21 Horace Mann	1092	1067	1006	779	2.3%	7.9%	28.7%
* IC22 Shimek	1505	1347	1369	1079	10.5%	9.0%	28.3%
IC23 Regina	1133	1108	1118	981	2.2%	1.3%	13.4%
IC24 City High	1451	1409	1411	1202	2.9%	2.8%	17.2%
IC25 Lemme	1560	1504	1542	1329	3.6%	1.2%	14.8%
total	30113	29040	28147	22974	3.6%	6.5%	23.7%

(* The undervote for the bar issue in 12 and 22 is misleadingly high; those precincts include some rural voters who were not able to vote on it. That rural vs. city breakout isn't ready yet; note that 12's under vote on governor and judge is extremely low while 22, with a dorm in it, is relatively high.)

Typically a high-profile ballot issue in Johnson County will see about a 10% undervote. That was the figure in the 2000 jail bond vote. In higher-turnout 2008, 12.5% of county voters left the last item, the conservation bond, blank.

But almost no one ignored the bar issue. Taking out the two statistically confusing precincts, the undervote was a mere 2.8%. When it averages that low, there's little room for variation; it was down around 1 percent in the core student precincts.

To compare, the under vote for president or, in a normal off-year, governor, is usually about a half a percent. That jumped to 6.5% skipping the governor's race this year. It was down in the normal 1% ballpark on the high turnout east side, but in the student precincts it peaked at nearly 30% in precinct 5, whic is almost entirely dorms and Greek houses (the UI president's house is the most notable exception).

In general, the townie precincts had a handful more votes for governor than for the bar issue, while the student precincts had significantly more votes on the bar issue. In the core student precincts, about 1300 more votes were cast on the bars; in the rest of town about 300 more ballots were marked for governor.

With the Supreme Court fight, judicial voting was up across the state. looking at typical numbers for Johnson County, we saw a 43% undervote (county-wide) for the top Supreme Court justice in the 2008 presidential. No justices were on the 2006 ballot but, the top Appeals Court judge saw a similar 45% undervote.

This cycle, the Supreme Court undervote dropped to just under 24 percent, barely half of the usual level. Students actually behaved more typically than townies, though probably not in normal patterns; increased general interest was offset by some number of bar-only votes. It's also worth noting that the biggest campus early voting sites were very early, the last week of September, long before the anti-judge campaign got any traction. (That campaign was also near-invisible in the People's Republic; as I said yesterday the first time I saw the NO ACTIVIST JUDGES signs was in the photo of the Vander Plaats victory party.) The townie undervote, meanwhile, dropped to the 13 percent range.

Note that a straight ticket ballot would have skipped both the judges and the bar issue, unless the voter then proceeded to finish the back half contest by contest.

In any case, there weren't enough skipped votes to affect the statewide outcome, and even if there had been it would have been about a wash. Student votes were a bit less Democratic than the county as a whole. I don't attribute this to a new generation of conservative students. Instead, I think the bar vote pulled in people who weren't motivated by party politics, and to the extent that they did vote, followed the parental lead (parental party preference is still a very strong indicator of which way young voters will lean). Geographically, we're talking conservative leaning Chicago suburbs.

Number Crunching Part 1: Gaps

Number Crunching Part 1: Some Gaps for Dems

The Election Day dust is about settled here in Johnson County, where we were lucky enough to have no close contests (as I write, the Krieman vs. Chickenman state senate race down by Ottumwa is still up in the air). So it's time to dig deeper into the numbers.

Close to half the Johnson County vote - 48% - was cast before Election Day. That's down a touch from the 55% early in the presidential, but up more than 10% from the last midterm. No, not all of that was driven by the 19 bar campaign. The Democrats stepped up their vote by mail program and the Republicans, for the first time in about a decade, actually had a serious absentee effort.

There's a self-selected gap between those absentee and election day votes, as Republicans, after a decade of being taught that early voting is "fraud," are still more likely to wait.

But there are some remarkable parallels between two splits in Johnson County: the Iowa City vs. rest of county split and the absentee vs. Election Day split.

Here's the Democratic top of ticket percentages for early voting vs. Election Day. (Also included is soon to be former Supreme Court Justice David Baker's race, which was listed first among the justices on the ballot and had slightly higher participation than the other two.)

	Absentee	Polls	Total	Abs minus Polls
Conlin	58%	44%	50%	14%
Loebsack	67%	57%	62%	10%
Culver	67%	57%	62%	10%
Mauro	68%	57%	62%	11%
Murphy	68%	56%	62%	12%
Fitzgerald	71%	62%	66%	9%
Thicke	65%	51%	58%	14%
Miller	73%	65%	69%	8%
Baker	76%	63%	69%	13%

Now consider Iowa City vs. the rest of the county:

	Iowa City	Not IC	Total	Iowa City minus non IC
Conlin	57%	43%	50%	14%
Loebsack	67%	56%	62%	11%
Culver	66%	56%	62%	10%
Mauro	67%	56%	62%	11%
Murphy	67%	55%	62%	12%
Fitzgerald	71%	61%	66%	10%
Thicke	65%	50%	58%	15%
Miller	73%	64%	69%	9%
Baker	77%	60%	69%	17%

Note the near-identical numbers that we saw in the absentee vs. polls results: the bulk of the Democratic ticket running 10 or 11 points better in town, and the absentee and Iowa City percentages within a point of each other.

The other thing to note is that the bulk of the Democratic ticket clustered right at 62% countywide. That's down a bit from the 68% Culver and Mauro pulled in 2006; Loebsack was only at 60 that year but of course that was as a "no-chance" challenger to Jim Leach.

My gut check is that the lower percentage is less from people moving away from Democrats and more from higher GOP turnout, especially in early voting.

The big surprise for me here is that late-starting newcomer Jon Murphy ran dead even with Culver and Loebsack. My guess is that's straight ticket or de facto straight ticket voting rather than any intrinsic strength of Murphy or weakness of David Vaudt.

Tom Miller and Mike Fitzgerald ran a bit ahead of the Democratic ticket, likely due to high name ID from their looooong term incumbency. (Mike Mauro, with only one term under his belt, was less fortunate. Maybe people think state auditors, like county auditors, are in charge of elections.)

But Francis Thicke trailed the bulk of the ticket, and Roxanne Conlin performed lower yet, losing the election day vote while winning the county overall. This tells me that folks who were voting a basically straight ticket (as evidenced by the Murphy result) were crossing over in these two races.

Why, I don't get; I was a Conlin true believer from the get-go. I felt some air go out of the tires midsummer, with the 8 point poll getting discredited and with the Gazette's article praising Grassley's seniority. I argued at the time that "senority" hadly matters if Grassley is doing the opposite of what you want, but maybe folks hedged their bets.

Still, it should be noted, Conlin is the first Grassley opponent to win ANY county since John Culver. Hometown candidates Art Small and Jean Lloyd-Jones lost Johnson County, as did David Osterberg who was from just over the Linn line in Mt. Vernon.

It's hard to imagine a sharper contrast than agri-biz Bill Northey and Fairfield organic farmer Thicke. (Does Fairfield have a Iowa City-like stigma?) But of course, I'm living in isolation here in the People's Republic: the only county Conlin won, top Culver county by ten points, and 25 points better than the state on the Supreme Court. I never saw a NO judges sign until the Register story on the victory party.

Which brings me to the judges: in a race that was de facto partisan, they performed like the Democrats, better in town and early. What's interesting to me is that the under-vote (people who skipped the contest) was twice as high early (25%) than on Election day (12.5).

More on under-voting tomorrow.