Why Political Conventions?

(Second in a series from OpenSourceDem.)

Political conventions give citizens vote and voice. They double the initial power of a non-secret ballot that may not be counted anyway and that, if counted, is usually canceled out by another vote.

It is all very well to take election integrity seriously. But that is by no means the only or even the main source of rot at the very root of our republican democracy.

Even if not tampered with and then tallied correctly, all votes are not equal. For example:

-- A straight-ticket vote is always more powerful than picking through down-ballot and even some up-ballot races on the ballot.

-- Some votes are protected by gerrymandering of election districts.

-- And other votes, arbitrarily attributed to “likely” or “swing” voters, are effectively privileged after the fact by pollsters over those of less likely and more loyal voters.

So, voting is not and never has been the be-all and end-all of republican democracy, necessary to be sure, but not sufficient.

Moreover, your individual voice can be leveraged in convention by participation in like-minded caucuses and amplified from your precinct all the way to the national convention by a thousandfold.

Finally, conventions do more than nominate candidates who if elected may go on to represent those that elected them, but today are more likely to go panhandling to whomever financed their opponent.

Note that two marginal Democrats newly elected from Texas went on to deliver votes for President BUSH and Alberto GONZALES as the state party apparatus channeled the Blue Wave elsewhere. This was probably not what Democratic voters had in mind, but it fills the pockets of candidates’ pimp-consultants and delights the state party establishment.

Conventions, however, are the highest authority in any political party and an opportunity to change that party establishment.

A convention:

-- credentials delegates from previous conventions and selects them for the next one;

-- memorably adds value and meaning to political participation and identity for every participant;

-- writes permanent rules and a campaign platform; and

-- elects party executives and conducts any other lawful business of the party.

Those elected to public office have complex responsibilities, not always or even mostly to the fragile electoral majorities that put them in office. Elected officials can listen to voters but they will hear nothing directly and white noise indirectly from pollsters. Actually most of those pollsters work for pimp-consultants or lobbyists.

So without putting a strong party and practical platform forged in convention behind them, electing Democrats is more than just disappointing and frustrating, it is very nearly futile.

By contrast, the GOP has demonstrated that vigorous conventions make for a disciplined and effective party generally. You can disagree with the extremist GOP platform, and our state party apparatus likes to mock it. But GOP officials take that platform and their conventions very seriously indeed. Their officials are not better than ours. But their convention, and to that extent their party, is more effective than ours. It is a source of political energy for them which they turn into both funds and votes.

Third parties have only conventions, no primary elections. They have very poor prospects in even-year, statewide general elections. But they can dominate elections in well-governed small municipalities, conceivably even large cities.

Texas statutes now prohibit “fusion” ballots and merged conventions in even years. But a strong Democratic Party with durable credentials almost certainly should participate in joint, odd-year conventions, especially with the Green and Libertarian parties, which have some elements of a practical agenda.

For Democrats, the main obstacle to practical conventions are (a) the party establishment’s preference for beauty pageants in which all serious business is methodically suppressed by systematic time-wasting, (b) delegates’ acceptance of unwritten rules and dubious guidelines that perpetuate a professional and racial patronage chain, as well as (c) sheer inexperience with parliamentary procedure and form.

The good news here is that (a) through (c) are easy to fix starting, uh, backwards with (c).

Sunday Funnies (late edition)

Diabetes is just a pain in the ass.

This pretty much describes me:

For some people with diabetes, the burden of adhering to their daily care regimen nearly equals that of their diabetes-related health complications, a U.S. study finds.

University of Chicago researchers conducted interviews with more than 700 adults with type 2 diabetes.

As reported in the October issue of Diabetes Care, some patients said the inconvenience and discomfort of having to take numerous medications each day, carefully monitoring their diet, and getting the required amounts of exercise had a major impact on their quality of life.

I have written about my illness previously, and this is a typical day:

Each day, a typical diabetes patient takes many medications, including two or three different pills to control blood sugar levels, one or two pills to lower cholesterol, two or more pills to reduce blood pressure, and an aspirin to prevent blood clots. As the disease progresses, the number of drugs increases and often includes insulin shots, according to background information in the study.

From 12 percent to 50 percent of patients interviewed said they were willing to give up 8 of 10 years of life in perfect health to avoid a life with diabetes complications, but between 10 percent and 18 percent of patients said they were willing to give up 8 of 10 years of healthy life to avoid life with treatments.

I emphasized that last part because that's precisely how I feel.

The only thing I can eat without remorse or reservation is vegetables. Not fruit -- even watermelon spikes my blood sugar. Forget pineapple or strawberries. Red meat slams my cholesterol, and alcohol sends my trigylcerides into the ozone.

So how would YOU like a nice salad for breakfast this morning?

The decisions you make three to five times a day about what to put in your mouth have, for me, those afore-mentioned "long-term implications" under consideration: shall I have the salmon or the filet? The sandwich or the salad? The mocha Frapp or the tea?

No pasta. No bagels. No soup (too much sodium). Nothing fried. One glass of wine or one beer, period. Walk for twenty minutes, minimum, after dinner every single evening. Don't forget to pack both meds and healthy snacks every time you leave the house, lest you go hypoglycemic. Despite tight control of my blood glucose for the past few years, I still experience one of these episodes about once or twice a month.

Forget about Italian food. Pass on the Chinese takeout. La comida Mexicana is off the menu as well. Can have some sushi (sashimi obviously being the wiser choice). Mashed potatoes? Very funny. Rice? Ha ha. Corn? I don't think so. Whole grains -- complex carbs also including beans, for example -- are better than the bleached, refined ones, but not by much. Bread, chips, crackers, pastry, cake, cookies, ice cream? Pizza? A cheeseburger and fries? Are you nuts?

I didn't have bad eating habits before my diagnosis; I ate only a little red meat even when I was 20-something. I always liked all kinds of fish. I stopped drinking cow's milk (me soy guy) decades ago. As in two decades ago. No sodas for at least as long a period of time. I was also moderately active or more all of my life, playing sports as a kid, climbing and hiking with the Scouts as an adolescent, intramural basketball and softball in college, and so on. Throughout my thirties I took vitamins and supplements and was in the gym four days a week for an hour lifting, followed by another half-hour of aerobic activity. Now, once I tapered off and then stopped altogether about five years ago, I quickly gained 25 pounds. And became diabetic.

There was no history of the disease on either side of my family, and no incidence of heart disease either (sometimes diabetes goes undetected in individuals for years until they experience a cardiac event -- or a stroke, for example). Can't blame it on the genes. Can't find much of anything to blame it on, really; I just got lucky, I guess.

So anyway, it's just a drag when you're out with friends and everybody else is having the fajitas or the fettucine alfredo or the Philly cheese steak and you're having the grilled chicken salad (not the Caesar and no ranch dressing) for the tenth time that week.

Is an occasional guilty pleasure worth the risk of onset of failing kidneys -- or reduced vision or an amputated foot -- a few years earlier than perhaps it would have occurred?

Sometimes it is, yes.

How much of life is really worth living if you have to deny yourself virtually everything that makes it worth living in the first place?

So once in a while -- not very often, and certainly not as often as I would like -- I have the nachos or the pasta or the fried rice, and take extra medicine, and don't fucking worry about it.

Sunday Funnies (early edition)