Heartburn time

This election is giving me so much heartburn. For me every single candidate has at least one total knockout point attached to them.

I maintain that all other things being equal we should vote for a president/governor of the other party than the legislature. But it's also true that all things might not be equal.

It is true that any of the Republicans would veto any real universal healthcare plan--and the remarkably undemocratic structure of the Senate would probably let the mossbacks prevent overriding a presidential veto.

And all the Supreme Court's liberals--mainly moderate Republicans, but that's what "liberal" means on the Supreme Court today--are way old, and the conservative Republicans are relatively young and healthy. So this is another important consideration.

Romneywise, I have some insights into his philosophy, being married to a devout Mormon. But I learned more from reading about Eliza Dushku's mother. Eliza Dushku is an actress who played the renegade vampire slayer Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then later played Tru in Tru Calling and Kirtsten Dunst's sidekick in the movie Bring it On. Turns out her mom is a Mormon feminist (not an oxymoron!) and college professor whose bishop was Mitt Romney for several years. According to her, Romney isn't pandering to the religious far right--he always was like that. He's being honest about his beliefs. He was dishonest to the citizens of Massachusetts when he ran for Governor there, concealing his true beliefs, knowing he'd never get elected unless he seemed more liberal than he was and is.

There isn't a single liberal Republican in the GOP's candidate pool. And that term didn't used to be an oxymoron. There were lots of liberal Republicans. I was one of them as a voter, until the GOP was ethnically cleansed of everyone but radicals.

Of course, given the Winner Take All structure of our voting system, what I think doesn't matter even slightly here in California. All our state's electoral college votes will go to the Democratic candidate. Likewise what you think won't matter either unless you're in one of the relative handful of battleground states.

It would help our democracy enormously if the entire country went to proportional electoral college representation instead of winner take all. Then the candidates would have to listen to all Americans and not just the ones in those battleground states. The nation would still vote close to 50-50. I'm not saying this to give one party an advantage. I'm saying this because it would help all of us, regardless of party.