I’m still in the Midwest and working out of coffee shops, so the Sift may come out a little slowly this week.
I’m following up last week’s Obama’s Positive Case with Sorry Jill, I’m Not Voting Green. When I do the “I Side With” quiz, it matches me with Green candidate Jill Stein. But as much as I appreciate the positions Stein takes on the issues — single-payer health care, no drone strikes unless we’re at war — I still tremble at the spectre of Bush vs. Gore.
That’s the article that’s closest to finished right now, so it should go up first.
The other article this week will be The Romney Pre-mortems. I have to laugh at the general impatience of our age; we can’t even wait for a guy to lose before we start analyzing why he lost. But once that game gets started, it is strangely irresistible, and I end up playing it too.
I haven’t figured out whether it needs its own article or will fit in the weekly summary, but there are a bunch of fairly simple why-questions about the campaign that aren’t getting the simple answers they deserve: Why (other than the fact that Romney’s losing) do Republicans say the polls are skewed? Why does Obama say Romney will raise middle-class taxes and Romney deny it? And so on.
This week’s quote, about the shrinking efficacy of American politics, is from Rachel Maddow, who has been on a tear lately about all the issues that aren’t getting debated in the campaign.
The Weekly Sift 