"Horses and Bayonets."

USS Lamson, a US Navy ship of the era to which Romney referred. (1916)

As we all should know, national popular vote polls are legally meaningless since the US constitution dictates that elections for president and vice-president are in the electoral college by electors chosen by the states however they choose to do so.  This is system will not change.  A change would require a constitutional amendment ratified by 2/3 of the states.

The states are more or less free to decide the manner of their choice of electors.  Currently only Maine and Nebraska use something other than a "winner take all" method in the popular election in the state concerned.  The two exceptions choose electors on the basis of the popular vote in each US House of Representatives congressional district.  How they apportion the two electoral positions derived from the the state's US senators is not clear to me.  Close popular elections in several states can easily result in the election of someone other than the candidate who, across the country, had the most citizen votes.  This has happened several times and may again this time.

The purpose of this indirect system of election was and is to emphasize the continuing federal nature of the United States.

Who won the debate on foreign policy?  I think that the president easily mastered his opponent in this contest.   Aside from the "horses and bayonets" moment, the most interesting thing said was Romney's insistence that a psyops effort should be mounted to change the mind of the Muslims about Islam.  I wonder if he actually understood what he had been briefed to say.  pl 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSBRE89K0A920121023

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_electoral_college

 

Comments

[Old Gun Pilot]

Perhaps Romney should go back to his high school geography. "Syria is Iran's route to the sea". Really?

[mbrenner]

Colonel

I wonder if he actually understood what he had been briefed to say. pl

Clearly no. Romney is the quintessence of insular American
parochialism that cares little about the rest of the world and sees little reason to strain at trying to understand it. I see this as only one form of the recrudescent "know-nothingism" that permeates public and private life alike. Ignorance is worn as a badge of honor andcuktivated as the ultimate freedom. Implicit is the simple-minded faith that no serious harm will come to me (us) as a consequence. After all, isn't "America back" - as someone recently said.

[Al Spafford]

Maybe Mitt can ride one of his wife's "horses" back to school to learn a bit of geography, while waiving a "bayonet" at his #1 enemy "Russia"-- or is it "Iran" now, stay tuned! Psst...hey Mitt see the "Persian Gulf" there? "Persia" = Iran, get it?
What a pathetic understanding of the world Mitt offered us last night! He would be soft clay in the Neocons' hands as Prez.

[The beaver]

Colonel

Please help a Canadian girl here:
What if both are tied at 269/269 EV, then the House decides or can a faithless Elector change his/her vote before it goes to the House?

Thank you.

[Jackie]

I guess he didn't know about the Persian Gulf, etc.

[steve]

A move is afoot by various states to legislate that their electoral votes be given to the national popular vote winner, legislation known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

The compact would be effective when the states that have entered the compact comprise a majority of the electoral votes. Presently, there are 8 states plus D.C. in the compact with a total of 132 electoral votes.

Constitutional authority for the compact is claimed under Art. II, Sec. 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

[Augustin L]

Col Lang, Bishop Romney is a man of peace, peace, peace, with secretary John Bolton a man of peace, we will not have to kill our way out of "this". For the Jarheads on this blog worried about the possible fallout from the elections, a couple of quants have come up with a very thorough statistical analysis of what should be the elections results: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-presidential-elections-forecasting-the-vote-simulating-the-fraud-factor/5309076

Stalin was right it's about who counts the votes and who's allowed to vote. With the proliferation of privately owned electronic voting machines, any nefarious faction with the intent and adequately trained programmers with or without the source code can easily change the results of the elections. What was wrong with the ritual of hand vote counting! At this point, even Venezuela has a more transparent electoral process. So says Jimmy Carter.

[Lars]

It appeared that Mr. Romney was regurgitating talking points given to him and he was not all that comfortable with it. Regarding what he understands is largely unknown and thus I do not think he is the right man for the top job. There is plenty to argue about when it comes to foreign policy but that did not come from Mr. Romney. To use a pugilistic term, he went for a clinch and never let go.

It seems to me that he has surrounded himself with a rather weak policy team, both domestically and in foreign policy. His frequent reinventing of himself at least to me is a problematic character issue.

[elkern]

In 1932, we had a dozen (more?) Dirigibles. Now we're playing catch-up to the Goodyear Corporation! We've got to close the Blimp Gap!!!!!

I lived in Philly for a while. The Olympia - flagship of TR's White fleet, bane of the Spanish Navy - is berthed there. Nowadays it looks positively cute...

[Medicine Man]

A psyops effort to change the minds of Muslims about Islam?

That's pretty rich. Remarkably lacking in self-reflection too. The base of his own (alleged) party is full of people who take a very dim view of "psyops" campaigns challenging their beliefs. Sure, we call this phenomenon different things domestically - culture war - but can Romney and his minders really not make the connection and extrapolate to get a sense of how dismally their efforts would be received by foreign audiences.

I'm not sure how the comparison to Great War navies became a talking point for that debate; cynical people making calculations about what would play well with the public maybe?

[Bobo]

President Obama controlled this debate fully while Mittens smiled in agreement while interjecting that he would do it better. Looked like he felt he had it in the bag and did not want to screw it up. Obama was a little of the schoolmarm taking Mittens to school on the size of our Navy. Of course some of the debate looked like a school committee meeting but then that is our long term problem.

This is a horse race coming down to a photo finish and the lawyers will be fighting over chads or whatever else arises. Here in Florida in addition to the individuals we will vote for there are eleven constitutional (state) amendments we will need to wade through to complete our ballots. Thus it will take a little longer to vote this year and lines out door at closing time will be the norm.

If there are any SCOTUS members reading this esteemed blog stay out of this election and let the voters decide.

[Al Spafford]

As I understand, perhaps wrong, that the Vice President breaks the tie in his tie breaking role in the US Senate.

[The Beaver]

Mr Brenner

He has been saying this since last February - when the primary was on.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/320159

[Fred]

Well in Romney's defense we do have a sail powered frigate in Boston. Maybe Romney can visit the place, then take a little walk down history lane. I wonder if anyone would remind him that it was a future president who defended the British soldiers accused of murder at the Boston Massacre -or that an American jury acquitted those men based on evidence presented in a fair trial. So unlike Gitmo. Of course we weren't "leader of the free world" then and politicians - and citizens - actually gave a damn about fair trials.

(Yes, I know he was once governor of Massachusetts.)

[Townie76]

And is sinking as the Commonwealth or the City or whomever can no longer maintain it. Unfortunate for all iron and steel rust when immersed in salt water; unless of course they are regularly maintained.

I have toured the Olympia. . .it is a wonderful ship, a great part of our naval history and our American history.

But like the more modern battleships it is an anachronism. The carrier may too be in that category.

Hank

[Anonymous]

I spent almost the whole israeli presidential debate in an hypnotic state, conjuring visions inspired by SST readings, of this encounter between a majestic tiger fur wearing mr. Putin and the always intrepid Ace Ventura, pet detective, who has a history of forcefully inviting monopoly guys involved in fur acquisition and ostentation to certain forms of dancing that have something in common with men's synchonized swimming.

http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs2/1305683_o.gif

So it is. While the true artist brings about suffering and disgrace in the game of nations by cleverly instigating the Great into fashion world jeopardy, the debating bureaucracy shamelessly wears their well earned kippas in the fig leaf place, though we don't see it because they only talk when in all fours.

[mbrenner]

Perhaps the answer to the mystery of "landlocked" Iran is that in the circles where Romney grew up "Persian Gulf" was a phrase that referred to the now defunct Gulf Corporation's Middle East operations.

For anyone who may be interested, here are some reactions to last night's "debate."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-foreign-policy-debate_b_2003989.html

[Babak Makkinejad]

He probably had meant the Mediterranean Sea - if so, he was correct.

[confusedponderer]

The US do have frigates. They call them 'littoral combat ship', which is in itself a joke for vessel that are 115 metres and 127,4 metres in length respectively.

That's frigate size all right, for every other navy that has frigates that is, and that was frigate size for the US Navy also, when they decommissioned the Perry class.

[Mj]

I had the pleasure of serving in the "Bayonet Division" in Korea 67-68!

[confusedponderer]

MM,
"Sure, we call this phenomenon different things domestically - culture war"

To add to the irony, American conservatives tent to at home reject something like that as social engineering. Abroad - well, different matter.

These medieval desert savages will see the light eventually, even if the US have to drag them there kicking and screaming, by means of 'transforming' their societies!

Such sentiments were uttered a lot after 9/11. The nutters in Romney's team have always kept on uttering them.

[linda]

remember ohio in 2004. minority communities shortchanged on voting machines; names purged from voting lists; 'terrorist threats' that prevented the media from monitoring the official vote count..

and, more curious ... check out michael connell:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connell

[The Moar You Know]

Incorrect.

The House decides in such a scenario, as they should have been forced to do in 2000.

"The Beaver": If the electoral college is tied, this would mean that "faithless electors" have already done what they would - the electors can't change their votes once cast.

[Fred]

I was refering to USS Constitution, but yes, 'littoral combat ship'. Another dog to keep some work in shipyards. Rather scathing write up in Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship

[Charles]

Col Lang,
The man is mad as a hatter. If elected he will turn over foreign policy to bibi and boltan. He is not worried about starting a conflagration in the ME as he knows that Jesus is returning to the Missouri not Jerusalem.
Cheers,