Scattered Thoughts on a Jumbled Narrative: Walking Dead Season 5 Midseason Finale Predictions

The Comic-Con Pre-season Trailer, discussed throughout this blog in Italics.

Last week's episode was pretty pedestrian.  The previous three episodes focused on just one subgroup of the Survivor's-Beth in the hospital, Glenn and Maggie with Abraham's trio, and then Darryl and Carol's big adventure in Atlanta.  Last week they gave significant screen time to those three sub-groups as well as a 4th story involving Father Gabriel at the church.  The result was a narrative felt that felt rushed and only one truly suspenseful sequence.

More problematic than the distribution of screen time was the rather large story plot that involved Sasha getting duped into doing something incredibly stupid.  I just didn't buy that she would be that gullible.  But this was the device they chose to set up some suspense for tonight's midseason finale. I have also re-watched the pre-season coming attractions for clips that we haven't seen yet.  Discussion of such clips are in italics below, with the time stamp of where the scene can be found.

It's hard to intelligently predict what will happen tonight because the episode ended in a bit of a jumbled mess.  The clips on AMCTV.com are also unhelpful for making predictions about the whole story because the lengthy clip focuses on Father Gabriel. The description that AMC posted for the episode is "Rules and Morals have been tossed aside by new enemies. Rick will try to find a  peaceful agreement, but they might prefer violence." That's about as opaque as you would expect but there's at least one hint in there that's worth speculating about.  (See Below.)

1.  Father Gabriel, man about town.

Last week we watched Father Gabriel leave the church without a weapon. He duly ran afoul of a walker, who he was able to neutralize without having to kill.  The preview shows him making his way back to the school where the Termites were camped out when they took Bob captive.  He discovers Bob's charred leg on their abandoned grill.  I would be very surprised if he died tonight, becau he's played by a fairly famous actor, by TWD standards, and the audience has no emotional investment in him yet.  That means they spent money to get him and they're not going to waste him after a handful of scenes.  So he'll probably make his way back to the church and slip back through the crawl space.  Most likely he'll have to kill a walker while he's out there though. That will be his big emotional moment.  And that's just not very interesting so I hope they don't waste a lot of time on that.

2. Abraham and Company, Where to?

The worst story line last week was the one focusing on Abraham's group.  The obvious thing for them to do would have been to head back to the church.  The bit about waiting for Eugene to wake up before moving seemed forced, especially in light of the fact that they were within nose range of a colossal Walker herd.  And the only thing we learned about this group is that Tara is still capable of  joy because she found a yo-yo.  That's a small point but given that I often wish they would let the survivors have a little more fun, I was happy to see it made.  I think Gleen, Tara and Rosita might just be the three mentally healthiest characters left so it was good to see them off on a harmless jaunt to the creek.

What happens next?  The logical thing would be for them to get back on the road and head back towards the church. But I don't think that's going to happen. The only clip in the coming attractions of this group shows Maggie and Glenn in the back seat of what appears to be the Fire Truck.  Glenn has his gun drawn and Maggie looks scared. That doesn't tell us much other than the group runs into some kind of trouble.  One online theory is that Eugene actually died last week and turned to a Walker. I don't buy it, although I do think the show runners left that possibility open on purpose when they had Eugene moan in that awkward way as he regained consciousness.

My hunch is that this group will not meet back up with the church folks or the team in Atlanta.  I think the separation will continue into the 2nd half of the next season, perhaps with Team Glenn heading north for some convoluted reason. Maybe they get caught and/or distracted by a new group of survivors.

A very brief shot at 1:14 of the previews appears to show Glenn and some other characters approaching the giant herd of walkers that their fire truck is now close to.  It's hard to say for sure but I think the figures in the back ground include Glenn, Tara, Eugene, Maggie and Rosita. Two figures are impossible to identify but they could be Abraham and Rosita. They are walking on foot and the fire truck can not be seen. The herd seems to be behind some kind of fence so this might not be the herd that they smelled two weeks ago.

3. Michonne, Carl and Judith: On the sidelines.
One of the strangest points about the story unfolding thithats way is that it will apparently leave Michonne far from the action in a cliff-hanger episode. Maybe she discovers that Gabriel left the church and goes out to find him.  One hellacious possibility is that Rick and Judith will then be caught unawares by walker and Judith will end up dead.  I really hope they don't go for that because I think Judith is the heaviest emotional card that the show has left to play.  It would be a wasted to do it this soon and way too depressing.

At 1:15 of the coming attractions, Michonne is stomping on a walker.  I don't think we have seen this yet and it looks like it might happen near the church, perhaps after she sets out to find Father Gabriel.

4. Team Rick: heading for a fight.
I just watched the previews scenes slowly and learned a few things.  When Rick is shown introducing himself to (presumably) Dawn, Darryl is shown up on the roof of a nearby parking garage. I thought last week that he was with Noah but the pause button makes clear (about 28 seconds in) that it is Sasha.  Another clip appears to show Rick asking Sgt. Bob "Do you want to live." It looks like this scene takes place in the same building where Sasha was left guarding the three police officers.

This would imply that Rick heads back to that building.  Maybe they heard the tumult of Sasha being knocked out. Or maybe the cops get out of that place and confront Rick before he makes it to the hospital and a fight ensues.  I'm starting to think that the "main" story line tonight might be even more convuluted than last week.  Some of the rumors I've read online imply that tonight ends with a cliff hanger, just like last season did.  We might get another spectacular start to a half-season in February. (AMC has probably figured out that big starts lead to big ratings for several weeks after.)
So I think tonight's episode will end with Rick and Dawn in a standoff.  The biggest question is, who might die in the interim.


5. Carol and Beth: Darryl's Not-girlfriends.
Probably the biggest source of speculation on tonight's episode has been Norman Reedus' declaration that he cried for a half hour before filming tonight's episode.  The simplest reading of that is that Norman knows one of Darryl's good friends will die tonight.  Of course Norman could have been crying because of the loss of an actor that he admires.  And he could be exaggerating and he could be trying to drum up interest in the episode.  But precedent suggests that someone important has to die tonight, and Beth and Carol both seem like prime contenders.

I don't think Beth will die.  Two entire episodes have been dedicated to her story and I think she's supposed to be reunited with Maggie at some point.  They also have potential for a nice story line of her and Noah becoming a couple.  There is one clip (2:46) of her looking down an hospital elevator shaft. Another flash in last week's sneak preview showed her in a similar position. I think she lives tonight and I still am going with my theory that Dawn is somehow redeemed.

Carol is a closer call.  The driving tension of tonight's episode is that Rick will negotiate for the safe return of Carol and Beth.  When last we saw Carol she was still unconscious and being kept alive by an IV drip administered by Beth.  Dawn could use this as an excuse to not turn Carol over. "Why should we give you her if only we can take care o her?"  One popular theory is that Beth will die doing something heroic to save Carol.  I think it's more likely Carol will have a miraculous recovery, only to die in a horribly Walking Dead fashion.  Thinks about the guilt consequence for Rick, Beth and Darryl.  That could really drive some emotional baggage for a season and a half to come.

6. Death Predictions.
There is no single logical candidate for death tonight. But I think the most likely sympathetic character death is Carol.  Beth and/or Noah seem like possible deaths also.  Tyrese would be a logical candidate but I don't think they have hinted at that enough. The bald asshole from last week are most likely to die. I think either Dawn or Sgt. Bob will die tonight, and my hunch is Sgt. Bob.

7. Wild Card: Is Sasha Pregnant?
Sonequa Martin was a guest on The Talking Dead last week and revealed that she was eight months pregnant.  I'm not exactly sure of the shooting schedule but it would seem likely that this will become visible by the end of the season.  A convenient way to avoid that is to kill Sasha off. But there are dangers there for at TV show.  Huntery Tylo successfully sued the producers of Merose Place for $5 million dollars when they made a similar decision.

Now I have no reason to think that Sasha was going to be killed, but it would be reasonable for TWD to want to incorporate her pregnancy into the storyline.  Consider that Bob tried to kiss Sasha towards the end of Season Three and was rebuffed.  On that night episode of the Talking Dead, Ms. Green explained that Sasha appreciated the kiss as a gesture but made clear that she had no romantic interest in Bob.

Well something changed her mind.  Maybe the writers decided that it would be better to incorporate the pregnancy into the story line than to try to hide it for a half-season.  Babies certainly create tension and hope.  Tyrese's roll as Judith's primary caretaker takes on new significance if he's about to become an uncle to a child with a dead father.

Sasha being pregnant also repeats the story line of Lori Grimes getting pregnant in Season 2.  (Or One, if in fact Shane is Judith's real father.)  That story line put added incentive on finding a safe, stable place to live, the prison.  It is anticipated that the next major location for the show will be the Alexandria Safe Zone, a spot that has been one of the main locations of the comic book story line for the last several years.

So we may not learn this tonight, but my biggest prediction is that Sasha is pregnant, Bob is the father, and the two major groups will eventually meet up in Alexandria.  Rick and company after all have no idea that Eugene was full of shit. (They would probably pass the overturned church bus on their way north, but I think the producers are more than willing to overlook a detail like that.)

I will miss the show for the winter break.  It's a frustrating show but I've never enjoyed speculating about the plot of any show as much as I do this one.

8. Bonus Prediction: No Morgan Tonight.

Okay, the episode is about to start but I wanted to add a prediction that we will NOT see Morgan tonight but that he will be a major part of the second half of the season.  I'm still intrigued by the clip we saw of him after the credits of the season premiere.  He is in the area near Terminus and he notices an intricate carving in one of the trees.  I think that's a flash forward and we'll know before we see that scene pickup what the significance of the carving is.  The Hunters made a crude mark while tracking Rick's group but this is something much more involved. I suspect it's the sign of a group like Nagin's or some other new bunch of survivors. Okay. It's showtime!

.

Ferguson Expectations

Someone will agree with Grandpa Simpson.

Earlier today it was announced that the Gran Jury has reached a decision on whether or not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. I am writing this about 3 and a half hours before the decision will be made public.

I don't have a strong opinion on what their decision should be, because I haven't paid as close attention to the evidence as the grand jurors (presumably) have.  Whether or not a crime was committed comes down to whether the cop's judgment was merely poor with disastrous consequences or either reckless or negligent to a really high degree.

Because of this ambiguity, I will not have an emotional reaction to the decision itself.  I might develop one on further reflection and consideration of the evidence, but as of today, I don't have an opinion and I don't think there are many people outside of Ferguson, Missouri who have sufficient knowledge to support either opinion definitively.

The reason I'm writing this is because I get the feeling from my social media feeds that there is no shortage of opinions or certainty on this complex subject.  And I don't think most of them are based on the evidence.  This case has become a culture war and people are lining up with their team rather than relying on the evidence.

A Conflict of Interests

The worst aspect of this rush to judgment is what I suspect is going on at the board rooms of major media outlets right now.  Those rooms are (rightly) preparing for either outcome.  But the really cynical part of me thinks that on some level, they are rooting for an outcome. And that outcome does not necessarily align with what their viewers are rooting for.  I expect that the interests of the cable networks and their viewers are somewhat misaligned.

No matter what the grand jury decides, the focus of our media will immediately shift to covering the reaction to that decision.  The best result for a cable news network is a result that will please their viewers, immediately followed by some degree of chaos. MSNBC's dream night would be to have  wants an indictment, followed by rednecks saying it's the end of the country as we know it.  An impromptu Klan march or cross burning would be really great for them.  Fox News wants Officer Wilson to not be indicted but not so much because they care about the facts of that case or are worried about the truth of the matter. They want no indictment to come down because they think it will lead to civil unrest that will scare (and enthrall) their viewers.

One thing we won't get is a rational discussion of the evidence and what it means for the use of force by police in similar situations.  It will be sideshow, and the only thing we don't know for sure is which carnies will draw the bigger crowds.

The Walking Dead: 2 Episodes to Go

Season 5 of the Walking Dead has inverted the arc of all its previous seasons.  It started with a large scale battle which spilled over into the next two seasons.  And then the story meandered through three consecutive episodes that did not feature Rick Grimes at all. First we found out that Beth has been kept in a hospital since she was separated from Darryl. Then we followed Glenn and Maggie tagging along with Eugene's group on an aborted trip towards DC.  Last week found Darryl and Carol attempting to spring Beth from the hospital.  Now with two episodes left, it appears ready to revert to form with a two-part siege of the hospital.  But I think the show might surprise again by doing something slightly different.

We know from the preview clips that we will see all three group's for at least some time tonight.  One clip shows Rick plotting some kind of attack on the hospital with Darryl and a few others.  Another clip shows Michonne, Carl, Father Gabriel (and presumably Judith) sitting around the church. That would be a logical group for Rick to leave behind at the church.  He wouldn't want his kids to come and he doesn't yet trust Gabriel enough to leave him in charge of the kids.  Another clip shows Glenn looking out on the horizon as if trying to decide where to go.

What We Can Glean From All the Hints?

1. Tonight's episode is called "Crossed".  That could be a reference to the crosses on the cars used by the police who run the hospital or to the Church itself but it probably also stands for a story point involving two groups crossing one another.  Maybe Glenn's team makes their way back to the church and meet up with  A more intriguing possibility is Morgan crossing paths with Rick (and perhaps others) for the first time this season.  I do expect to see Morgan either tonight or next week but there's nothing firm to go on there.

2. Michonne is left behind at the church.  The most logical candidate to stay behind and keep an eye on the children would be Tyrese. He's a lousy shot and has a deep bond with Judith.  Rick also can trust him implicitly given how much he sacrificed to keep Judith alive. But Tyrese is probably worried about Sasha who is still grieving the loss of Bob.  I think we might see Tyrese insisting to go along on the raid.  Michonne then becomes the logical choice. She's responsible and tough and has bonded a lot with Rick.  I think another dynamic may be developing here.  I think that Rick and Michonne will eventually become a couple. I think it will be a great story line and it was set up in one beautifully flirtatious line from way back in the scene from the season three finale which is shown at the top of this page.

3. I Think Dawn Will Survive the Conflict.  It would have been pretty easy to make Dawn a purely evil character but the writers made an effort to show that her situation is a little more complicated. Noah specifically speaks up with  her (to a point) when speaking to Beth. One common online theory is that Rick and Dawn knew each other form law enforcement circles before the apocalypse. That strikes me as a little too much of a coincidence but I think that Rick may end up making peace with her.

4.  Next Week's Episode is Called "Coda". If you're about my age or older, you probably associate that word with Led Zeppelin's last album, which was released after John Bonham's death and included mostly out takes and garbabe.  Dictionary.com tells us that a coda is a "more or less independent passages, at the end of a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close." (Think: Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits!)

If the mid-season finale is truly a coda that would mean that most of the action is wrapped up tonight.  But the description for that episode is New enemies disregard rules and morals. "Although Rick wants to find a peaceful agreement, the enemy seems to prefer a more violent solution." That seems to describe a stand off where Rick is trying to negotiate for the release of Beth and Carol but the cops insist on a conflagration.

So here's my official prediction/hunch for the next 2 episodes.  Rick and company head to Atlanta tonight.  Tonight's episode ends with a cliff hanger. Then next week we have a confrontation between the groups in Atlanta.  Meanwhile Glenn/Abraham go back to the church and are told about what's going on.  But I think Episode 8 will not end with a huge fight.  I think it will end with a cliffhanger and/or an unexpected character death.  This is keeping with the reverse structure of this season, and would allow the 2nd half to kick off with a big bang.

But for once I don't feel like the show is leading to a blindingly obvious course.  And that's a really good sign for the show's future.

One Last Point on Chronology.

The time lines of the three groups seem to be synching up.  This is my best estimation of how time has passed the last few weeks. If my timeline is correct, this whole half of a season covers about a week of time.

Day one: Darryl and Carol take off after the car; Bob is taken prisoner.
Day two: The Hunters try to take the church, Rick et al kill them; Darryl and Carol run afoul of Noah in Atlanta.
Day three: Abraham leads Team B north to DC; Darryl returns to the church with Noah.
Day four: Abraham finds out that Eugene is lying; Rick, Darryl, Noah, Sasha and Tyrese leave for Atlanta.
Day five: Maggie/Glenn/Abraham, etc. return to the church, then head to Atlanta.
Day six: confrontation at the hospital.

The 2014 Midterms: Endorsements and Predictions

I haven't really written anything on this blog about any midterm elections.  They haven't proven very exciting, which means it will be a low turnout election, which always favors the Republicans. People with something to lose are more likely to vote in off-years, and Republicans skew towards the demographics that have something to lose, if say congress raised the income taxes on the top brackets.

I. ENDORSEMENTS:

But here are a handful of the races that I feel most strongly about.

1. Paul Davis for Governor of Kansas. "What's the Matter With Kansas" has been a recurring question in American politics ever since Thomas Frank wrote a book with that title to make the point that lots of people vote Republican even when it is against their own self-interest.  The current governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback epitomizes this dynamic.  He is a zealot for Catholicism and supply-side economics.  The first is largely his business but the latter has resulted in policies so Fubar that hundreds of Republican office holders have endorsed his democratic rival.

Tomorrow night is likely to be a good night for the GOP but a win here will at least expose the great Republican lie that cutting taxes is always popular and always successful. That's why I list this race first. Nate Silver gives Davis an 82% chance of winning.

2. Pat Quinn for Governor of Illinois.  All politics is local and so this race means a lot to me. Bruce Rauner has a reasonable chance (34% per Nate Silver) of winning this race. I'm putting his opponent Bruce Rauner has a reasonable chance (34% per Nate Silver) of winning this race. Pat Quinn this high on my list for two reasons-he's a good man, and I know that a win by his opponent will lead to huge tax cuts that are not matched by comparable spending cuts.  Quinn passed substantial tax hikes and spending cuts a few years ago and he will likely leave them in place.  Rauner's campaign is predicated on repealing that increase and cutting spending.  But here's the catch: there's no way he could get the votes for the spending cuts from a legislature that will still have large democratic majority.  But he will find enough Democrats who will go along with the tax cuts, because they will think its smart politics. The result will be a fiscal avalanche of debt.  We can't afford that, so I'm going to vote for Quinn.

3.  No to Mandatory GMO Labels in Oregon and Colorado.  This may seem like a niche issue but it's not.  Vermont recently became the first state to require food companies to label foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically engineered. in a laboratory rather than through selective breeding. There is simply no scientific evidence that these foods are any more dangerous than "conventional" foods.  Requiring labels will create a false impression that there is something dangerous about those products. It will also increase the cost of food by making food manufacturers segregated their source ingredients for reasons that have nothing to do with food safety.

But the reason I put this food so high on the list is that it has an enormous impact on world health. Genetic modification of food sources holds great promise for feeding the world even as climate change wreaks its havoc on the world in the coming decades.  Research into creating "Golden Rice", the name used to describe rice enhanced with Vitamin A could improve the health of the hundreds of millions of children in Asia whose diets are dominated by rice.  Making the products more expensive (and therefore less profitable) will lead to fewer dollars being spent on the research that could lead to these advancements.

4.  Bruce Braley for United States Senator in Iowa.  I highlight this race because it will be very difficult for the Democrats to retain the Senate if they don't win this race.  Until this morning I haven't paid a lot of attention to this election and just assumed that the Republican nominee, Joni Ernst, was just a run of the mill hack.  But this morning I began my day by reading this interaction between her and a reporter:

ERNST: [Obama] is just standing back and letting things happen, he is reactive rather than proactive. With Ebola, he's been very hands off."

REPORTER:  What should he have done about Ebola? One person in America has Ebola."

ERNST: OK, you're the press, you're giving me your opinion.

REPORTER: It's not an opinion. Only one person in America has it."

Oi vey.

5.  Yes to Minimum Wage Increases in Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas:  All will pass.  I just hope the margins are huge so that Democrats will learn the obvious lesson: liberal economic policies are popular even in deep red states.

II. PREDICTIONS:

If you've ever had the misfortune of being stuck in a political conversation with me you know that one of my biggest pet peeves is that there are virtually no consequences for political pundits that make terrible predictions.  A personal favorite of this phenomenon is that in December 2006 William Kristol predicted, "Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I'll predict that right now." He still appears regularly on Fox News and the Sunday morning network shows.  And people take him seriously, no matter how often he is wrong.

But you can't through mud at the Dick Morris Class if you don't make some predictions of your own.  So here goes mine:

A.  The House of Representatives.

Did you know that there are 435 House Seats up for election tomorrow?  The most depressing fact in politics is that none of these 435 races have received more than a whisper of national media attention.In 2012 the Democrats "won" the national pop vote by a little over one point, but only won 201 races, while Republicans won 234.  This is the shameful result of the gerrymandering done by Republicans after they got to redraw the state maps because they won the last midterm election in a wave.  The polling average this time has the Republicans up by 2.2%.  I think that will be enough for the GOP to net 10 seats, more than wiping out the 8 that they lost during the 2012 election.

B.  The Senate.

The Democrats start the night with 55 seats, when you include the two independents who caucus with them.  But the Democrats are defending 21 seats and the Republicans are only defending 15. Moreover twelve of those Republican seats, but just nine of the Democratic seats are completely safe for the incumbent party.  That leaves the Democrats protecting 12 seats and the Republicans only have to worry about three.

Vulnerable Republican Seats (All three of them):

i. The Republican will in Kentucky, big.  

ii. The Independent will win in Kansas by 3 points.  

iii. Georgia will go to a run-off, with the Republican getting 48%, the Democrat getting 45% and the Libertarian will get 7%.    

Vulnerable Democratic Seats:

The Republicans can bank on winning in Montana, Vest Virginia and South Dakota, very red states where Democratic incumbents are not running for re-election.  Only Minnesota looks safe for the incumbent, Al Franken.  I also believe the Republicans will win in Arkansas and Colorado. That means they have to win just one of the six truly close Democratic seats to win a majority.  Here are my predictions on those:

i. Louisiana will go to a run off.

ii. The Democrat will win in NH, NC and Alaska.

iii. The Republican will win in Iowa and Colorado.

That leaves the Republicans with 52 seats and good prospects in 2 more Southern Red States. But the night is not without hope for the Democrats.  Which leads me to....

C. Governors.

I think the Democrats have fielded a strong slate here and they will net three governor's mansions tomorrow.  Here are my predictions for the close races with party switches in bold.

i. The Democrats win in: 

Connecticut:by 1.

Maine by 2.

Colorado by 1

Florida by 3.

Illinois by 4

Rhode Island by 5

Kansas by 3

Pennsylvania by 12

ii. The Republican will win in:

Michigan by 1

Wisconsin by 2

Massachussetts by 3

Georgia by 4.

Arizona by 6

And in the closest race of the night, Alaska will elect independent Bill Walker by 2.029 votes.  (The less I know about a race, the more specific I like to be in my predictions.)

The Donkeys Have an Elephant in the Room and the Elephants Have a Bunch of Jackasses Out in the Barn.

                                  Even Gene Shalit might not recognize our next president yet.

2016 is a long way away, but speculating is a lot of fun.  I chose the above clip to give you some idea of how far we are from the 2016 presidential election. It's not quite from the same point in the election cycle, but it is revealing.  In December of 1973, Jimmy Carter was able to appear on a national game show without being recognized by anyone on the panel. At the end of the video they make reference to his role in preparing the Democratic party for the 1974 midterm elections.  Less than 3 years later, he was elected 39th President of the United States.

A. The Donkeys have an Elephant, and the Elephants have a Bunch of Asses.

When David Duchovny left The X-Files, the writers were faced with a big story dilemma. The show was driven by the conflict between a skeptic and a believer in all sorts of nut ball ideas.  To write Duchovny's character, Fox Mulder out of the show, but leave a possibility of returning, should the actor come to his senses, they needed his disappearance to be cooky and unexplained.  This forced his partner, Scully, to disavow her skepticism and become a believer.  After the first episode a review summed up the dynamic between the new leads.  "Scully is now Mulder."

Well the race for the 2016 nominations are also a case of role reversal. Every Republican nomination since Watergate has been a case of orderly succession. The only exception was in the year 2000. The 1996 runner-up had been Steve Forbes.  Forbes did not run in 2000. That nomination went to the son of a recent nominee, George W. Bush. It is because of this history that I give Rick Santorum more of a chance than most observers do. But he can not be called the clear favorite by any stretch of the imagination. He might not even belong on the top tier of candidates.

Will Rogers famously quipped, "I don't belong to any organized political party; I'm a Democrat." And most years the Democratic primaries live up to that aphorism.  The typical Democratic primary process begins with a half-dozen of likely candidates battling for specific racial and economic demographics, with some regional factions complicating things. In 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2004, a nominee emerged from a field of around five serious contenders. Only twice since then the Democrats began with a heavy betting favorite.  In 2000 Al Gore was the virtual certain nominee from the beginning and he only attracted one competitor, former Senator Bill Bradley.  Bradley put up a decent fight but Gore won comfortably in Iowa and by four points in New Hampshire.  The race was all but over and Bradley never won a single primary. In 2008 Hillary Clinton was also the presumptive nominee by most accounts.  She faced a half-dozen challengers but non were taken too seriously. But unbeknownst to the chatter class of D.C., Barack Obama was building a brilliant strategy: win in Iowa, survive Super Tuesday. and squeeze as many delegates as possible out of the states where he couldn't win.  By the summer, Barack Obama was the nominee.

The 2016 nomination race will probably end up looking like a combination of 2000 and 2008.  The favorite is the same as in 2008, but the result is more likely to be like 2000.  She will face credible challengers, and one or more of them will make Iowa and/or New Hampshire competitive.  If any of them win one of those states, then we will have a race on our hands.  If Hillary wins both, she will probably cruise to the nomination, and might just run the table the way Al Gore did.

My thesis at this point is that Democrats will nominate their previous runner-up and that the Republicans will have a battle among five to seven people with credible resumes and varying regional appeals.  I think that Jeb Bush is their strongest general election candidate. His appeal is broad within the Republican factions but also very thin.  Chris Christie, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz will probably elicit more passionate support but might have problems finding support outside their regional bases.  Huckabee and Santorum probably need to win Iowa to survive.  Luckily for them, the each have accomplished that very thing in the recent past, Huckabee in 2008 and Sanorum in 2012.

B: Another Peak at the Fields.
Some months ago I wrote posts on the likely contenders for each party's nomination.  My intention was to go on the record with my first impressions of the candidates.  The campaign will begin, for real, in the next month or two, and I'm sure I will update these lists more often next year.  But I wanted to do one update before we know the results of the midterms, because next week's elections will probably shape the narrative of the election as it gets underway.

I. The Democrats: One Favorite, 2 Alternatives and a Sitting Vice-President.

Hillary Clinton is the heavy betting favorite to be the Democratic nominee.  So far she has avoided any screw ups and there are some indications that she will learn from her 2008 mistakes and hire the very people who beat her the first time she was the heavy betting favorite for the nomination.  I have not changed either of her numbers: she's almost certain to run, and has about a 70% chance of being the nominee. But one thing has changed in the last few months.  I can now identify 2 plausible, serious alternatives.  And then there's the vice-president.

I still do not think that Elizabeth Warren will run, but she is the clear alternative and the base loves her.  I'm sure she has had many very serious (read: rich) people whispering in her ear that if she runs, they will open their checkbooks for her.  Recently, for the very first time she indicated some hint of wanting to run.  I think she might view a run as a way to put her ideas forward. She definitely thinks that the threat of her candidacy can nudge the party in the right (read: left) direction.

The biggest mover since my last posting is the emergence of Jim Webb as a possible candidate.  I really hope that he runs because I think he would expand the intellectual breadth of the field by talking about issues that are not talked about enough, like prison reform.  He's also the perfect candidate for pointing out that Hillary's foreign policy views are very far to the right of the Democratic party's base.  It's a long trip from being Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy to being the darling of the Democratic base, but this Marine just might be the guy to do it.

And dear old Joe Biden is extremely likely to run. And you can never count out the sitting Vice-President if for no reason other than the uncomfortable fact that he is one heart beat away from running as an incumbent.

Soon after the midterms we'll probably hear more from the less likely candidates.  So far no one has stood out as especially credible or promising.  The two New Yorkers that I listed last time both took steps backward.  Senator Gillibrand was listed mostly because she's an obvious alternative to Hillary Clinton if she didn't run.  But as ever, there seems to be no let up in the Clinton machine. So Hillary will run and that will probably preclude a Gillibrand candidacy.  Governor Andrew Cuomo meanwhile has proven to be a borderline boob who was lucky to be renominated for Governor.  He can not win the nomination.

II. The Republicans: Lots of Options, None of them Particularly Good.

The Republican field, lacking a heavy favorite, is much harder to predict at this point.  The biggest wild card as of now is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.   I leave him as a pretender for now because he might lose his re-election bid on Tuesday. Nate Silver says he has a 76% chance of being re-elected on Tuesday.  If he is re-elected, even by a very narrow margin, he immediately becomes a serious contender for the nomination. He has been a semi-hero of the base for a few years and his proximity to Iowa could be a big asset But if he loses, he is toast.

The rest of the field has been very static.  Jeb Bush does seem more and more likely to run, and I think he would be the party's strongest nominee.  It's at least possible that the GOP will be so thirsty for a win by next year that they will overlook his heresies on education and immigration but the pitch forks will come out for him on a lot of fronts.

I've also added Mike Huckabee to the list of possible candidates because I think he has under appreciated appeal. He ran a solid third place in 2008 (second if you go by delegates pledged, rather than votes received)  and probably could have been the nominee in 2012 if he wasn't busy paying of his mortgage by hosting a show on Fox News.  When I see him lately he strikes me as a lot cockier than he was when he first became a national political figure.  The confidence might push him towards running but it also might work against him with voters once he is actually running for the Presidency rather than just leading jeers against the current president.

Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and Ted Cruz are all going to run.  And they will all have sizable support in different corners throughout 2015.  Any of them could be the nominee but any of them could also go up in flames early. Paul will have his father's donor base behind him, and that makes him a threat to gobble up delegates all along the way.  If the field stays splintered, he could sneak in.  But he's going to get a lot of heat about some of his less than orthodox views on war and crime.  He'll also say lots of stupid things along the way.

But he's not really any worse of a candidate than the others.  I do think he would be the worst president we have ever had, but that's not a disqualifier in this race. The nominee of this party is likely to be the person who can most convince the GOP primary voters that they hate Obama as much as they do.  But then they will have to run in the general election with some kind of health care plan that doesn't take away the benefits from the millions of Americans that received coverage under Obamacare.  I don't think any of these candidates can thread that needle.  But most of them are going to try and it will be nearly as amusing as watching a monkey try to fuck a football.

The Walking Dead: Choosing up Sides, Again.

 (Spoilers abound, if you have not seen Season 5, Episode 3: Four Walls and a Roof.)

Here's a first for this blog: a bible passage!  As Gareth and the termites were looking for the survivors in the church, the readings for the next week were plainly visible.  One of them was Luke 24:5.  The text of that passage is: "And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?". 

So that was no accident.  And it's a sign that the writers are paying attention to the details of story telling rather than just relying on the zombie action to move the narrative forward.

Tonight's episode of the Walking Dead was especially strong. For once, they let our people be genuinely smart and they paid off on Rick's "promise" to Gareth from the season premiere.  It also ended on an appropriate mysterious note.  I also officially admire the show runners for making the season 5 premiere so deceptive. (Watch the above video from about :48 to 1:04 to see what I mean.) This gambit created genuine suspense in tonight's episode.  Well done.

The writers did cheat once in this episode.  I'm not sure it was really realistic for Abraham to split from Rick's group as quickly as they did, but splitting the group in two does make it easier to write complex and overlapping episodes going forward.  It's safe to say that the groups will meet up again, but it's almost certain that we'll lose at least one character from each side before that happens.

Here are the two rosters. The numbers match their ranking in my previous post, which was based on how much I would miss these characters if they died.

A-Team: The Ricktatorship                         B-Team:  The Small Bus to D.C.
1. Rick                                                            6.  Maggie
2. Darryl                                                         7.  Glenn
3. Judith                                                        11. Rosita
4. Carl                                                           17. Abraham
5. Michonne                                                  18. Tara
8. Tyrese (40%).                                           19. Eugene
13. Sasha
15. Father Gabriel

Well, the A Team is the A Team for a reason. They have the best leadership.  I would want Darryl, Rick and Michonne on my team before anyone from B-Team and Tyres and Sasha are also great survivors.  Even Carl is pretty useful, and getting smarter all the time.  Father Gabriel and Judith don't bring much to the fight, but neither does Eugene.

I assume that Abraham will act like the B-Team captain.  But we all know Maggie and Glenn are infinitely smarter than him and every bit as brave.  Abraham is a great NCO, but I suspect he's not cut out for major command. If this was my unit, I would hang Captain's bars on Maggie and let the rest of the team do their part to not screw things up.

There are some pieces missing from this chess board. Four, by my count:

C Team: The Wild Cards.
10. Morgan
14. Beth
16. Carol
20. Morales

Tonight's curtain line was Darryl saying "Come on out" to someone that we could not see.  Forty eight hours have passed since he and Carol got in that car to chase after the car that Darryl recognized as the one driven by Beth's abductors.  We know from the coming previews that next week's episode will show us that Beth is in some kind of hospital in downtown Atlanta.  I suspect that a lot of the clips we see will be from the weeks or months between Beth's kidnapping and the events at the church.  But I don't think the entire episode will be in that hospital. (Maybe I'm giving the writers too much credit here, but I hope they learned from the fan response to last year's Governor only episodes and the episode about how Darryl doesn't kiss Beth.)

I don't think Darryl is with Carol because his voice is very curt towards whoever it is that's behind him in the woods.  I don't think we will see Morgan just yet, as we know he comes to the vicinity of Terminus by himself.  So Darryl is probably with someone new.  There have been rumors that Morales might return to the show this year.  The actor who plays Morales stoked these rumors by posting some photos on social media that seemed to imply he was back on set.  Maybe he headed towards Atlanta after things went bad for him in Birmingham.  Darryl would have remembered him, so maybe that will be him stepping out to join.

Which still Begs the question: what happened to Carol. Obviously that story closely relates to Beth's whereabouts since she was last seen pursing her kidnappers. Darryl's company, whether it's Morales or someone else will probably know where Beth is. Those stories could connect in a big way and we probably will have  a feel for what the rest of this half of the season will be like after next week.  But here's my stab at what Primary and Secondary stories of the next 5 episodes will be.


The Coming Episodes, Predictions.

Episode 4 ("Slabtown") :   I want this episode to be equal parts Beth in the hospital and What Happened to Carol and Darryl.  But the title seems to refer to the hospital where Beth has been taken. My hunch is that 90% of the episode will be about Beth but I hope we at least get a few minutes at the end to show us who is with Darryl.  Maybe just a quick scene to establish that they have to go to Atlanta to find her.

Episode 5 ("The Choice"):   Rick and the A-Team set out to find and/or free Beth.  Maggie and the B-Team meander Northward, get hit by walkers and someone dies. I suspect "the choice" refers to either the A-team deciding whether to go after Beth or Team B having to choose whether to press on to DC or accept some sort of diversion, like helping a newly discovered group of suvivors.

Episode 6 ("Heart Drift"):   Resolution, one way or the other, of Beth's story and more complications for Team B on the Road to DC.  Whose heart could be drifting?  I really hope this isn't about Darryl being torn between Beth and Carol but no other options come to mind.

Episode 7 ("Crossed")  Well the title opens a few possibilities.  The Cross could refer to the cross on the back of the car that Darry and Carol chased after, but I think it more likely refers to the A and B teams crossing paths. (A phrase that was used by Gareth tonight.)  So I assume the teams will meet up, mourn their respective losses and then head north.

Episode 8: As Yet Untitled:  Arrival at the Alexandria Free Zone.  The Alexandria Free Zone is a major part of the story in the comics.  It is essentially several blocks of Alexandria, Virginia that have been made safe by a group of about 30 survivors.  That sounds pretty similar to Woodbury in the comic book, so they might want to mix things up somehow.  (In the comics Woodbury was never idyllic and the Governor was known to be a bad guy from the beginning.)

I suspect this half-season might just end on a relatively peaceful note.  It could end up looking like a mirror image of the first half of season 4, beginning with action and ending with Rick's people in a seemingly stable environment.  Of course, I think they will at least hint at the next big villain or challenge.  My other hunch is that this will be the episode where we learn that Eugene and his "cure" are a crock.

Uber-nerd alert: An almost frame-by-frame look back at the season 5 preview.
I just re-watched the Season 5 Preview, with frequent use of the pause button.  The only things that we haven't seen yet, with time mark are:

A-Team:
a. Carol and Darryl standing in the woods, weapons at the ready. (2:04)  Probably from the episode where we learn what happened to them after they took off in that car.
b. Rick, Michonne, and Sasha enter some kind of store or wardrobe room. (2:20)

B-Team:
a. Glenn kills a walker by the side of the road (1:49)
b. Abraham decapitates a walker with a baseball bat in front of a fire house (1:55);
c. Abraham crying in anguish at a roadside (2:03).  So someone from B-team catches one.
d. Abraham, Rosita and Glenn stand by the cab of a truck as the walkers exit that fire house (2:10)
e.  5. The church bus goes airborne over what appears to be a parked car.  (2:14).  This one has the look of Eugene screwed up again.

C-Team:
The last 30 seconds show Beth in the hospital, some of which we saw in the previews of next week's episode.   At 2:45 we see her apparently looking for an escape route. We then see either a walker or a female inmate/patient biting a guard.  Then we see Beth shoot a walker in the face with a hand gun.  At 2:50 she is shown running away from the building in her hosptial gown.  A male inmate/patient is standing behind her but doesn't look to be running.

Indeterminate:
i. Carl and Roista pointing guns at someone in an office.  (2:14)  This could be an outtake from tonight's episode.  The office looks similar to Gabriel's.  Or maybe they wind up in another office after the teams cross paths again.
ii.  A bus (but I don't think it's the church short bus) goes off of a bridge in downtown Atlanta. (2:23) This is probably from when they spring Beth out of the hospital.

Walking Dead Season 5 Preview (one episode late)

Last week's season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead was definitely the most action-packed premier in the history of the show.  I was very satisfied with the action and with the character development.  One thing that stuck out to me is how little dialogue our main characters had in the episode.

The most obvious difference between this and the previous seasons is that it (apparently) won't be be focused on a single location.  Season one took place primarily in the Quarry, two on the farm, three in the jail.  Season four was split between the first half in the prison and the 2nd half on the road to Terminus. Season five will apparently also be spent primarily on the road but it's not clear where they will head.  (Presumably they will eventually try to make it to D.C. in pursuit of Eugene's cure.)

The trap that the show has painted itself into is that the survivors seem destined to bounce from one horrible place to the next for as long as this show lasts.  (Which is going to be quite awhile, given it enormous ratings success.)  The only things I can say for sure is that they will encounter some new survivors (including Detective Carver from the Wire) and that they will again cross paths with Gareth again.  I think Gareth has great potential as a character.  It will be fun to see how he interacts with the survivors when they meet up again.  Most importantly, we know that we'll find out what's going on with Beth and with Morgan!  Lots to look forward to.

I like I that the story is unpredictable, at least for now. So rather than make a long list of predictions for the season, I'll focus on the perennial topic of the show: who is going to die and who is going to live.  I have ranked the significant characters below by how much I want them to survive. The number in parenthesis is my estimate of how likely they are to die this season.

1. Rick (0%)  To me, the show is still about him.  I know he's not always the most compelling character and there are some better actors in the ensemble, but I think the show is still centered on his journey through this apocalypse.  I want him to survive to a cure more than anyone else.

2. Darryl (0%). The best actor in the cast and the baddest character among the survivors.  Norman Reedus actually makes more money per episode than Andrew Lincoln, and for good reason.  Fans really would riot if he left the show.  The only way that happens is if gets sick of doing the show.

3. Judith (25%).  Obviously I have no investment in her as an individual but her birth and recent rescue by Tyrese are the only good thing to happen to this group in 4 seasons.

4. Carl (50%).  Similar to the above characters. He represents some semblance of hope for the future and has become a better actor as the seasons go by.  His age limits the story telling in some ways, because it's getting awkward that Carl has gone from 10 to 15 in the roughly 2 years since the apocalypse happened.  (Consider that Laurie must have gotten pregnant at about the same time as the apocalypse and Judith is only right about one year old.) So there must be some temptation to kill him off. But I don't want to see that happen.

5. Michonne (0%).  I still want to know how this woman got to be an expert at wielding a kitana, but I do see infinite possibilities for her in the future.  And she's way too popular to kill off.

6. Maggie (20%).  She's a good actor and very, very, very easy on the eyes.  Now that Hershel is gone, either she or Tyrese will emerge as the conscience of the group.

7. Glenn (70%).  Well, someone important has to die this season and Glenn seems most likely.  His death will be a lost to the cast, but I think he's well positioned to do other things in Hollywood.  And his passing could set up a deep story line for Maggie.

8. Tyrese (40%).  I still think of him as Cutty and I loved the scene last week when he beat that douchebag to death.  But they have clearly established that he is willing to take risks to do the right thing and that's not a recipe for long term survival.

9. Gareth (60%).  I found the Governor's story line deeply disappointing because I don't think the character was well written.  I think that Gareth has potential to be much better and I think the actor has the chops to elevate the story.

10. Morgan (20%).  He's such an integral part of the show, despite only being on 3 episodes.  I think that he's in for the long haul, but it's hard to say for sure.

11. Rosita. (25%) Any woman who makes the effort to keep shaving her legs in the zombie apocolypse deserves to live.

12. Bob (49%)  Ranked ahead of Sash solely because of the Wire.

13. Sasha (51%) Bob ans Sasha are now a couple, which makes me think one of them is doomed. I think Sasha is more likely to die, but I will switch that if Tyrese dies.  The show likes to have people around to mourn the dead.

14. Beth (10%) I think they are trying to open some new doors through her story, which probably means it will carry on for awhile.

15. Father Gabriel I haven't even seen him yet, but he's a Wire alumni so he can't be at the very bottom.

16. Carol (55%).  She's a good actress and her character has become a big part of the group but I just don't see a great arc for her. And if she does hook up with Darryl, she's doomed.  A season of brooding Darryl will be very good for the ratings.

17. Abraham (10%) He has potential in the story but I think that Darryl (who does not exist in the comic book) fills a lot of the space that this guy filled in the comic book.  But Michael Cudlitz is a good actor and I like the fact that he has a clear motivation.

18. Tara. (60%)  Not exactly sure why she's still alive.  I don't have anything against the character but I'm not really sure what she adds to the group, other than being the only gay character still alive.

19. Eugene.  (50%)  I've been waiting for an intellectual to join the group since season one.  And this is the doofus we get?  Oi vey.

20. Morales. (?) Remember him?  Season one. Left with his family for Birmingham.  As far as we know, he's still alive.  I doubt we'll see him again but 20 is a nice round number.

By the Time We Got to Arizona

Who knew?

Full moon is rising
The Sky is black
I need your call, I'm coming back
The road is straight cast
Wind's in my eyes.
The engine roars between my thighs

From desert plains I bring you love
From desert plains I bring you love

Desert Plains, written by Glen Tipton, K.K. Downing and Rob Halford, 1981

Judas Priest was my favorite band in Junior High.  Rob Halford was technically in the closet at the time, and being a typical 12 year old straight boy, I wanted him to not be gay.  But the one song that just gave it away for me was Desert Plains. It was pretty clear to me, even at that age, that he was singing about a man.  There is no pronoun that gives this away; it just feels gay.  And not in a campy or flamboyant way.  It's just a love song and it's not about a woman.

Halford lived in Arizona at the time.  Yesterday, Arizona became a marriage equality state pursuant to a ruling by federal district judge John Sedgwick.  This happened just one year after the Arizona legislature passed a law that would have allowed businesses to refuse service to homosexual people on religious grounds.  The governor vetoed that law but she wanted the attorney general to appeal this ruling.  He declined.

So choosing a song to celebrate this one was easy.  The other option, after all, was an Eagles song.

The High Water Mark

"No matther whether th’ constitution follows h’ flag or not, th’ Supreme Coort follows th’ election returns” Humorist Finley Peter Dunne, writing as his alter ego, Mr. Dooley, in 1901.

This post was supposed to go up yesterday.  But a clerical error at the Supreme Court threw things into chaos for about 24 hours.  But by the close of business today we had two big developments; marriage equality in Nevada and in West Virginia.

Meanwhile, the of Idaho charged forward with an almost certain to fail appeal of the recent decsioin by the ninth circuit.  The actions of the Governors of Idaho and Nevada are completely consistent with my basic premise: the march of marriage equality tracks with the will of the voters. West Virginia is a slightly more complex example. Although the President only got 36 percent of the vote in 2012, its governor is a Democrat and I think it's safe to say that opposition to gay marriage is now untenable in national Democratic party politics.

As of this writing, 27 states (and DC) with marriage equality and 24 states without.  All but three states that voted for Obama have marriage equality.  Michigan is the only state where the President got more than 51% of the vote that does not have marriage equality. Only four Romney states have marriage equality and one of them, Indiana, was carried by Barack Obama in 2008.

Today, I re-crunched the numbers I had prepared for this blog yesterday.  It would have been inaccurate and wrong to not give West Virginia it's due place in history.  Thankfully, West Virginia is a small state so it didn't move the numbers much.  So I crunched the numbers.  In the 27 jurisdictions with marriage equality, President Obama got 55.8% of the vote and Governor Romney got 42.3%. That's a 14 point blowout, with a margin of nearly 10 million votes. In the 23 states without marriage equality, the President got only 45.1% and Romney netted 53.4%.  That's an eight and a half nine point deficit for the President totaling over 5 million votes.

So the equality states are solidly Democratic and the other states are solidly Republican. This disparity will level off in the coming weeks.  Idaho's stay of the 9th Circuit's ruling could be lifted as soon as tomorrow.  Officials in Kansas and North Carolina have hinted that they might not pursue their appeal further.  In a matter of weeks, if not days, we'll have another handful of states with marriage equality.  I'll probably update the numbers once again when those results are in.  But my point has been made.  This movement has been driven by the people and their representatives and even the judges appointed to serve them are not immune to popular sentiment.  In this instance, that happens to be a mitzvah.

The Death Throes of Civil Unions

The states in the left column were carried by Barack Obama. The states in the right column were carried by Mitt Romney. Dark Blue indicates marriage equality. Nevada is green because as of this moment, it only has civil unions.  The light blue and red states have no legal recognition of gay relationships.

Another exciting day for marriage equality, with two major developments.  To keep up with these changes I have added a new wrinkle to the above table.  The states with yellow font are states where gay marriage is still not permitted but that are in circuits which have ruled to strike down state bans on gay marriage.  (Colorado became the first to do so earlier today.) Most likely these states will begin to flip in the coming days and two weeks from now, the chart will be mostly blue.

The most western states might take a little longer.  Today that the Ninth Circuit upheld two trial court rulings against state bans of gay marriage.  But that means these rulings are not directly affected by the Supreme Court's surprising decision to  not hear appeals from other circuits.  Alaska, Montana and Arizona can probably hold off the inevitable for a little while, although I'm sure there will be an expedited movement to change that fact in all of those states.

Idaho and Nevada also had an option to delay the inevitable.  Today's ruling came from a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit.  Those states could have requested a hearing in front of the entire Ninth Circuit but it is a virtual certainty that the result would be the same.  The early indications are that they will not waste their taxpayers money on that. So as soon as tomorrow, I hope to update my chart again.

But today is truly historic.  We now have 25 states with marriage equality and 25 without.  Throw in DC and we can say that a majority of jurisdictions in this country have full marriage equality, barely ten years after Massachusetts became the first.


Another point of history is that today might be the very last day that this country has "civil unions" as the closest facsimile of marriage available to gay people.  Colorado went past that point today and Nevada is expect to do the same tomorrow.  Soon, my map will be just blue or red.  And it's trending blue, in a hurry.

UPDATE (and it's awesome):  The Opinion from the Ninth circuit in the Idaho case includes the following sentence, which ends with a footnote:

Same-sex marriage, Governor Otter asserts, is part of a shift towards a consent-based, personal relationship model of marriage, which is more adult-centric and less child-centric.(12)

Footnote (#12) Reads:

He also states, in conclusory fashion, that allowing same-sex marriage will lead opposite-sex couples to abuse alcohol and drugs, engage in extramarital affairs, take on demanding work schedules, and participate in time-consuming hobbies. We seriously doubt that allowing committed same-sex couples to settle down in legally recognized marriages will drive opposite-sex couples to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

Latta v. Otter D.C. No 1:13-cv-00482-CWD

History When You Least Expect It.

Blue for Equality, Green for Civil Unions, Red for Neither

This morning the Supreme Court declined to hear seven pending appeals related to gay marriage bans. The immediate consequence is that gay marriages are legal in Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Utah and Oklahoma.  Within weeks, it will also be legal in West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. That latter group of states is not reflected in the above chart because I've been trying to track the gradual progress of this issue in order to show that the law is following the will of the people.  More about that later.

The news caught me by surprise.  It only takes four of nine justices to hear a case and my assumption was that the four conservative justices, who voted against Windsor, would vote to hear it.  But at least one of them chose not to hear all of these cases.  We may never know how the vote went, but there are three plausible scenarios:

1. Chief Justice Roberts didn't want to deal with this case just yet. He might not want the headache and publicity of a high-profile gay marriage case.  I'm pretty sure that deep down, he does not give a shit about this issue, and would much prefer to go back to handing out privileges to corporations and chipping away at the rights of criminal defendants. 

2. The Justices are waiting for a circuit split.  Perhaps he would rather wait until next year or until a circuit split arises.The Sixth Circuit, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, might soon rule in favor of the right of states to ban gay marriages. If that happens, then the issue will be more pertinent a year from now and even some of the liberal judges might vote to hear that case.

3.  Antonin Scalia had a moment of integrity. Well, stranger things have happened.  In his Windsor dissent, Justice Scalia predicted that the Court's opinion would inevitably lead to a ruling that states did not have the power to ban gay marriages.  After all, the Windsor majority held that the federal government could not deny the due process rights of American citizens.  It's not much a of a leap to infer that state governments also could not do so.  By that logic, the principled thing to do would be to let the lower court opinions stand.  Tony, if that's what you did....I salute you.  But let's just say I have my doubts.

Where we Stand and Where We Go Next.

Whatever the reason, the headline is that more than 50 million people will live with marriage equality.  For the first time, some permanent damage has been done to my underlying theory about the spread of this freedom tracking with democratic trends.  It's obvious at a glance that blue states are nearly unanimous in allowing gay marriage.  But now a small number of red states have marriage equality too.  Included among them is Utah, the state where the lowest percentage of voters chose the President last time out.  Wyoming, the President's 2nd worst state in 2012, will soon join Team Equality too.

The next big decisions will come from the sixth and ninth circuits.  If Marriage Equality prevails in both, only Deep South and a swath of the Great Plains will not have full marriage equality.  If there is a split, then the state by state fight will resume for another year.  And this time next year, I'll probably be blogging about how the Supremes are going to take a case and give us a final answer. And that opinion will come out at the start of the next next general presidential election.

Good times.

Masochists Ought Not Live by the Golden Rule

                                             
                                          Things were better once, (yes, really.)

Whenever violence flares in Israel, each side has a plausible claim that the other "started it".  But "it" is here a relative term in this conflict, which which can only be understood from multiple scales of time, distance and culture.  I've organized this post chronologically, since it's the easiest way to try to understand what's going on there, at least for a history major like me.

1.  The Origin Story.

The most depressing view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the one rooted in theology.  Jerusalem is a sacred site in both the Old Testament and the Koran.  Jews believe that the Temple Mount is where "the divine presence" resides.  Sunni Muslims believe that this very same spot is where Mohammed ascended to heaven. Fundamentalist Christians agree with the Jews on the significance of this spot, with some believing that the site must be a Jewish temple in order for the second coming of Christ to happen.

Being a lapsed Catholic Atheist, none of these views have ever been persuasive to me.  And I think the religious dimension of the conflict is over stated.  (Yes, really.)  Of course people pay lip service to the theological importance of this site.  And some small percentage of people are willing to die for that idea. But most of the religious fervor is really the outgrowth of cynical political manipulation.  There is a lot of political grief to be avoided by pretending this fight is about God Almighty.  But really it's about real estate.

I'm old enough to remember when the Troubles in Northern Ireland were thought to be intractable because of the religious differences between Protestants and Catholics there.  But people got over it. I don't expect the Middle East to become as secular as a prosperous Ireland became in the 1990s, but I do take the point that these differences can be overcome, and it doesn't take a miracle to make it so.

2.  The Middle Part of the 20th Century.

Modern day Israel was created by the Western Powers in the aftermath of the near extermination of European Jewry during World War 2.  One popular view is that the allies felt guilty about not doing more to prevent or mitigate the Holocaust.  There is some truth in that.  Britain was certainly anxious to get out of the empire business and Israel seemed like a feel-good story in the immediate post-war years.  Eventually the Brits and the Americans, as is their wont, drew some lines on a map of what had been called Mandatory Palestine (yes, really) and carved the area into an Arab state and a Jewish state.

The Arab world never embraced this plan and soon enough, a war broke out. Israel eventually won that war.  The rest of the Arab world eventually gave up the fight, but refused to recognize Israel as a legitimate state.  Over the next few decades, the cause of the Palestinian people became a popular one in the Arab world.  By 1967, the Arab powers were planning an invasion of Israel.  Israel preemptively attacked those military forces in what became known as the Six Day War for the swiftness with which Israel destroyed the military forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.  Israel occupied a large swath of land outside its original borders in order to prevent any future invasion attempts.

So, depending on your point of view, this conflict is the fault of:

a. The Brits in 1948 for cavalierly abandoning a region that it had been responsible for without much concern for what came in its wake.
b. The Arab powers for planning an invasion of Egypt.
c. The Israelis for preemptively starting that war and/or occupying more land in its aftermath.

There is some truth in all of these theories.  Together they add up to the truth.  But most folks only focus one one of them.  Which one they prefer to believe correlates very strongly with their ethnic and religious affiliations. Knowing this little bit of history will do little to resolve the current crisis.

3.  The Recent Past.

In 1979 Egypt became the first Arab power to formally recognize the right of Israel to exist.  In exchange for this, they got back the land  they had lost as a consequence of the Six Day War.  This did not exactly open the flood gates of Arab countries rushing to recognize Israel.  But by the 1990s the international community began to get both sides to talk to one another and Israel eventually agreed to grant autonomy to the portions of their country with majority Arab Muslim populations.  The goal was to eventually create a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians walked away from a deal negotiated with a left-wing Israeli government, and facilitated by the Clinton administration that would have given them almost all of the land they wanted.  The Palestinian Authority was afraid that if it made the concessions required by the deal, more radical elements, such as Hamas, would supplant their standing, and assume political power.  (Spoiler alert: this happened anyway, at least in Gaza, even though Arafat walked away from a very fair offer of a Palestinian state.)

In recent years, Israel has been governed by right-wing coalitions led by the Likud Party. Gaza has been governed by Hamas since 2006.  Hamas and Likud both owe their political status to appearing tough on the other side.  Likud has been very aggressive about building settlements on land that belonged to Palestinians before 1967 and has imposed harsh  restrictions on the people of Gaza.   Hamas refuses to recognize the right of Israel to exist and their political appeal is rooted in posturing as the real champions of Palestine, committed to the destruction of Israel.

4. The Current War.

So now we have two peoples governed by parties who owe their political viability to demonizing the other side.  Israel has accomplished great things.  Among these great things is its survival as a pluralistic democracy surrounded by a host of hostile, undemocratic countries.  But its survival has come at a price, not just in blood but to compromises with its own principals.  Israel agreed to let the Palestinian people have a kind of pseudo-sovereignty but has retained de facto military control over its territory and economy.  Worse still, it has continued to build illegal settlements on land acquired after the 1967 war.  Even before this war, the conditions in Gaza were dire and analogies to apartheid South Africa were not without merit.

The Palestinian people in Gaza have reacted to these deprivations by electing governments run by Hamas.  Hamas was born in the 1980s as a reaction to the decision by the PLO to seek a negotiated two-state solution with Israel.  Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment in its place of an Islamic state.  It also dabbles in Holocaust denial and all sorts of unsavory behavior that you would expect from a bunch of religious fanatics raised to believe they are at war with Satan.

During the course of the first half of 2014, Hamas fired about 150 rockets into Israel.  Most of these rockets missed their targets or were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome defense system. Hamas even erected a statue of one such rocket to celebrate this futile campaign.  On June 12th, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped. Three days later, the Israeli government accused Hamas of committing the crime.  They denied it, but in a typical bit of insane political theater, the head of Hamas "blessed the hands that captured" the teenagers, explaining that such actions were a duty of Palestinian people.

So a few weeks later, Israel began to bomb Gaza.  A couple hundred Palestinians were killed.  Hamas increased its own bombing campaign, but to little effect.  Only one Israeli citizen was killed during the opening phase of the current war.  Early on in the conflict, Egypt offered to broker a ceasefire between the two sides.  Israel agreed and held its fire for six hours.  Hamas did not, and continued launching its futile, wasteful, ineffective weapons, which were either shot down by the Iron Dome or landed some place where little damage could be done.  Eventually Israel resumed its rocket campaign, and the body count in Gaza continued to grow, while no additional Israelis died.

Eventually Israel launched a ground offensive.  This of course has caused hundreds of more Palestinian deaths, and resulted in the death of a few Israeli soldiers. The latest estimates are that about 600 Palestinians have died and that 25 Israelis have died.  A majority of the dead Palestinians were civilians.  All but one of the dead Israelis was a soldier. (The three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were also killed, in the run up to the war, as well as one Palestinian teenager who was apparently kidnapped by Israelis to avenge their deaths.)

5.  What's Next: More of the Same.

The war will stretch on for another week or two, perhaps a bit longer.  Eventually Hamas will run out of rockets to fire.  Once the Netanyahu government is convinced that Hamas has been temporarily deprived of its ability to launch significant numbers of rockets into Israel, it will stop shooting.  Then, both sides will declare victory.  And both sides will be right.  Hamas will look "tough" for having refused the ceasefire and for having waged its foolish "resistance" against a far superior military power. Likud will look "tough" for having inflicted a lot of casualties and for temporarily removing an immediate security threat by destroying Hamas' tunnels and depleting its armory.

For awhile, both sides will go back to "normal".  Israel will keep building illegal settlements. Hamas will continue to posture as the one true force of opposition to Zionism.  And in six months, or a year, some other crime or atrocity or diplomatic slight will give one side an excuse to rsume trying to kill the other.

6.  What is to be done?

Israel is not a project of lines hastily drawn by a dying empire on its way out the door.  It is a country.  A rich and powerful one, whose citizens lead a very comfortable lifestyle and whose artists and musicians and scientists are the envy of the world.  It is here to stay.  Eventually I hope it elects a government that realizes that the policies of settlement construction and oppressive occupation are not helpful to its long term interests.

Palestine is still a wish.  It has many friends and world opinion is increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people.  Perhaps this fight will eventually be remembered as the time that Israel went too far and changed the diplomatic sympathies of its fellow wealthy democracies.  But an even better outcome would be if it became the fight that finally made the people of Gaza realize that Hamas does not have their best interest at heart.  Hamas can not win a military campaign against Israel.  And the Palestinian people can't expect the world's sympathy for very long if they continue to elect leaders that would rather bite the ankles of the enemy than build something positive for its people.

There is no reason that the land of Israel can't be divided into two sovereign nations.  But the current conflict benefits those who are in power there.  It makes it easy for them to stay in power. They don't have to solve the problem for as long as the enemy behaves so inhumanely.


I am not optimistic about this situation being resolved.  Such a resolution will require a degree of foresight and political patience that is not commonly found and is unlikely to be bred by the current cycle of violence.  Eventually someone will have to be the good guy and walk away from a useless, never ending fight in favor of an uncertain future. For Israel this would mean electing a government that recognizes that the construction of settlements on Arab land is counterproductive to long term security and that renounces the harsh restrictions it imposes on the economy and movement of Palestinian people.  For Gaza it would mean electing a government that accepts the permanent existence of Israel and the futility of the military resistance that now serves as a poor, unsatisfying substitute for a realistic vision of its future. In the mean time, Israel will continue to compromise its democratic principles for a false sense of security.  And the people of Hamas will accept a persistent, futile struggle rather than accept the reality of their situation.

The leftist tendency to root for the under dog and to empathize with the oppressed may make Hamas' "resistance" to Israel seem noble. I'll admit that it's hard to accept defeat, particularly when you are so certain that justice is on your side.  The price of this stubborn resistance to reality is being paid by hundreds of unarmed civilians.  They deserve better than that.  They deserve a nation of their own. Spitting into the wind will not get them there.