Polygon, the Dancing Bear

Occasional notes on politics, history, technology, architecture,
and the life of a county clerk

2002:
May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2003:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2004:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2005:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2006:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2007:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2008:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July

Current entries

Sunday, February 22, 2004, 11:48 am

George Steinbrenner and Howard Dean. Rick Heller of Centerfield, no fan of Howard Dean, has been reading the campaign finance disclosures, and discovered that the chief funder of notorious anti-Dean attack ads was none other than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Comments

Thursday, February 12, 2004, 12:13 pm

Internet voting did NOT go well. The Michigan Democratic caucus offered online absentee voting. I didn't try it myself, but I certainly heard from/about a lot of folks who tried and failed. I also heard about many problems with the online interface — that it was full of Javascript errors, didn't work with Netscape browsers, etc.

Indeed, trying to validate voters based on free-format (but case sensitive) place of birth seems very chancy to me. How many ways can YOU spell and punctuate, say, "Mount Clemens, Michigan"?

Mount Clemens, Michigan
Mt. Clemens, Mich.
Mount Clemens, MI
MT CLEMENS MI
and so on, and on...

Now I receve the following from Mark Grebner of Practical Political Consulting:

Subject: preliminary result from Caucus survey

Based on just 20 calls, one really obvious conclusion is the people who failed to vote all wanted to, but were thwarted by various failures -didn't receive a ballot, the internet site didn't work or rejected their login, etc. Not one so far has said they decided not to vote, and everyone named a plausible barrier. This puts a whole new spin on the fact less than 50,000 votes were received from the 126,000 applications - it wasn't lack of interest.

We'll probably do 50-100 calls over the next week, and I'll write a semi-formal summary.

Wow — it sounds like 76,000 people tried and failed to vote online. More about this as it develops.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Comments

Monday, February 9, 2004, 12:07 am

Ahead of the Curve. History may not repeat itself but, as Mark Twain is supposed to have put it, sometimes it rhymes.

Right now, as John Kerry gains momentum toward the Democratic nomination for president, and as the value of that nomination is on the upswing, I imagine that somewhere deep in the political apparatus of the Right, someone is now laying plans for activities during 2005.

It must be very secret, because this Google search still gets zero results today.

I'm a Democrat and I expect to vote for and support the guy. But I know that regardless of how well or how poorly his presidency goes, or what the issues of the day happen to be, next year's right-wing battle cry of "IMPEACH KERRY!" is eminently predictable.

Update, April 27. (from comments) "As of today, your google search returns 41 hits. You may have given them some ideas..."

Update, October 8. More than three months remain until Kerry's inauguration, but the Google count for "impeach kerry" (see link above) is already up to 185.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Comments

Sunday, February 8, 2004, 10:22 pm

Great day for campaigning. The Michigan Democratic presidential caucus was held yesterday. My volunteers and I distributed thousands of my campaign flyers to voters at caucus sites in Washtenaw County. The response from voters and politicos was very positive.

Big thanks to Eric, Brian, Aaron, Lynne, Katherine, and many other volunteers!

Next steps: fundraising, and a campaign web site.

Update. The caucus results were no surprise: John Kerry won by a wide margin. At my own caucus site, after long indecision, I cast my vote for John Edwards. But Edwards got only 14% in this congressional district, failing to reach the 15% viability level, and hence got no delegates here.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Comments:

Leighton, 2/10/2004: Picked up your flier at the Ypsi Township caucus.
Eric, 2/10/2004: Cool, that means I gave Leighton their flyer!

Eric
http://astrogibs.com/eric/

Comments

Thursday, February 5, 2004, 12:45 am

Seeking campaign volunteers. The Democratic presidential caucus (actually, a party-run primary) will be held this Saturday, from 10 am to 4 pm. I'm still seeking a few more volunteers to hand out my campaign flyers at caucus sites.

As previously announced, I will be a candidate for Washtenaw County Clerk/Register of Deeds, in the Democratic primary on August 3rd, and the general election November 2nd.

This Saturday, each site wll be open for six hours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will be an exciting and very political day, and by volunteering, you'll be in the thick of it. If you're in or near Washtenaw Couty, and can help, let me know via email (see my address at upper right).

Many thanks!

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Comments:

Anna, 2/5/2004: I can't help, for obvious reasons, but best of luck.
Neal Traven, 2/5/2004: Hey, best of luck, Larry! Obviously, I can't help you in Washtenaw County on Saturday, any more than you can help me pull Dean supporters into my precinct caucus here in Seattle. I've been doing some work with Andy Stephenson (http://www.andystephenson.com), Dem candidate for WA Secy of State, whose campaign is based largely on clean election/balloting procedures with paper trails.

2002:
May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2003:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December