I quote:

[...]the candidates are God awful.  Seriously, they stink.  Just to review our choices:  Democrat Martha Coakley has a prosecutor’s complex that would make Javert seeem like a bleeding-heart liberal.  She is a God-awful politician so out of touch with  reality that she accused Red Sox hero extraordinaire Curt Schilling of being a Yankee fan (Schilling’s blog response is here).  Based on the ads I’ve seen, her campaign has also been, by far, the nastier of the two.

This leaves Republican Scott Brown, who based on this vacuous Boston Globe op-ed, is an empty shirt with no actual policy content whatsoever.  He was in favor of health care reform before he was against it.  He can’t stand the run-up in government debt, and wants to cut taxes across the board to take care of the problem — cause that makes perfect economic sense.   The one thing he is unequivocally for is waterboarding suspected terrorists.

It would be true political irony if all Obama’s blood sweat and tears over health reform should go to waste because of a mess like this. But that’s politics for you. Part of the reason why it’s so interesting…

More than a socialist victory, this election is a hard blow to the centrist parties in Norwegian politics. Fighting between the two major blocks seems to have drawn voters especially from Venstre who defended their position in between the two blocks. Infighting and chaos among the right wing parties must probably also account for a major part of the loss.

On the socialist side of the centre, voters appear to be shifting from the more radical Socialist Left (SV) to the more moderate Labour. The centrist coalition partner Senterpartiet (the Centre Party) keeps their members of parliament. What this means for shuffling of cabinet seats remains to be seen.

Still, things are far from decided yet. This will be undecided for hours yet.

Their most interesting finds:

· In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.
· If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was primarily caused by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout would also show
the greatest ‘swing’ in support towards Ahmadinejad. This is not the case.
· In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former
reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.
· In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces flies in the face of these trends.

Even in an unstable “democracy” such as Iran, it seems highly unlikely that such results could appear by coincidence. Of course this wasn’t unexpected, but it has become very hard for the Guardian Council to deny that there were irregularities. As the sham of democracy in Iran falls, we might see the regime losing even more of their popular support, which might turn out to become a catalyst for change in the long run. At the moment, however, it seems to me that the regime has the upper hand with its brutal treatment of the protests.

Hat tip to Kai Arzheimer for posting on this report.

Fremskrittspartiet has always been a party critical to immigration and foreign cultural influence. It may not be quite fair to compare them with Jörg Haider in Austria or Gert Wilders in the Netherlands, but to a certain degree they play on some of the same fears.

In a project paper I previously posted on this blog, one of the few clearly significant correlations I could find in the occasionally rather contradictory voter mass of this party was between the propensity to vote for FrP and a scepticial attitude to foreign culture. In previous elections they have gained much whenever immigration and scepticism to foreign cultures has been allowed to become a dominant topic in the election campaigns

At the moment, foreign influence on Norwegian culture is one of the hot topics in Norwegian politics. But the election is still many months off, and it will take hard work, skill and some luck for Fremskrittspartiet to be able to keep this topic alive all the way until September, but if they manage it they might actually be able to make their ambitions for government power somewhat more credible than they are today.

And with so much to gain, I suspect that Fremskrittspartiet will give it a go. Besides the general comments about islamization, party leader Siv Jensen has also recently launched (verbal) attacks at a university college for allowing an imam that denies Holocaust to speak to students and the government for letting international agreements get in the way of expelling suspected Iraqi terrorist-supporter Mullah Krekar.

We may be looking at a season of political debate that might become very ugly indeed…

Further reading:

• This blog: “Who votes for Fremskrittspartiet?“
• Dagbladet.no [in Norwegian]: “- Kampen mot radikal islam er vår tids viktigste“
• NRK.no [in Norwegian]: “-Sivs beskrivelse er langt fra sann“
• Dabladet.no [in Norwegian]: “Siv Jensen advarer mot snikislamisering“
• Daniel Pipes blog: “How many islamists?“

I’m of course talking about the amendment to the Californian constitution to ban gay marriage, which was voted for together with the presidential election. For those who might not be familiar with the American political system, this is quite common – to include propositions to be voted on by the public together with any election. The infamous Proposition 8, named after its number on the ballot, got 52.1 percent of the vote, more than the necessary simple majority for a new state constitution amendment. It reads as follows:

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

As a strong supporter of gay rights, this has ruined some of my new found belief in America. But aside from my personal feelings, this is the kind of thing that would make influential political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville turn in his grave.

A French aristocrat and scholar, he travelled the young USA studying their democracy with great admiration. In 1835 he published his most famous book, Democracy in America where he analyzed the political culture of this nation that according to him was the greatest example in his time of what government should be in the future.

Even as a liberal in 1835, I doubt Tocqueville was in favour of gay marriage. Why do I then claim that he would turn in his grave now? Because his greatest warning about democracy was what he called “the tyranny of the majority”, or the possibility of any small majority trampling the rights of a minority. For example a predominantly heterosexual majority of only 52.1 percent of voters removing a fundamental right for a homosexual minority. Not only refusing to allow new gay marriages, but even removing recognition of previously approved ones.

How could this happen? First of all, the American political systems allows new laws to be passed by plebiscite without approval of representative bodies. This is in itself rather uncommon in modern democracies. Secondly, the Californian constitution allows amendment by simple majority rather than the rather common 2/3 supermajority. Any faction of voters totalling more than 50% can decide almost anything they want.

An interesting fact is that Obama’s great success seems to have affected the result in favour of the proposition. As reported by LA Times, there was great support for it in the black population, and Obama’s campaign made black people vote like never before.

Before I get side tracked too far, I’ll rein myself back in by concluding that although Tocqueville might not be too much in favour of gay rights, I’m sure he would – like me – be greatly concerned about this blatant display of tyranny by a pretty slim majority.

UPDATE: Some more posts on the topic of California’s Proposition 8

• The beat in my head: “My thoughts on Prop 8” – some interesting thoughts on whether gay marriage really creates any victims, and a scary piece of propaganda
• Trust, but verify: “Will California uphold the will of the people” – about the legal struggle for overturning the decision in court
• The reformed pastor: “Californinans to vote on Gay Marriage” – a word from the other side, considering the measures to prevent the voting on Proposition 8 “antidemocratic”
• Good as you: “FRC: Why aren’t you being antidemocratic, court basher Arnold?” – a word from the proposition 8 supporters and a counterargument.
• The kitchen table: “Black folks and the passage of prop 8” – a comment by Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University.

Yes, say Norwegian newspapers. The reason they all agree is of course because they all quote their favourite expert, professor Ole O. Moen from the University of Oslo. To Dagsavisen, for example, he says he thinks it will now take a real or imagined terror threat for Obama to lose. He doesn’t think Obama is going to make any big enough mistakes.  But with a single expert being quoted across the board I thought I’d look around a bit.

I assumed I could rely on Fox News to bring me predictions that didn’t favour that black yuppie, but their website did little more than confuse me. They were more interested in telling me that the great-great-great-granddaughter of a slave on McCain’s ancestor’s farm is now a psychology professor.

The Washington Post seems to think Obama will win. Among other things, they can tell us how McCain’s got trouble with media as Obama gets all the endorsements and the great maverick himself is starting a fight with the NYT. Just in case the unthinkable should happen and McCain wins, the Post has posted (ha-ha) some emergency help to journalists to help explain it. At least they list possible reasons why things might take an unexpected turn.

Time Magazine highlights an alternative strategy that might help McCain: redefining the states. If you exclude the parts of a state that doesn’t like you, then you’re actually winning. Unfortunately it’s tougher than you’d think to take away the voting rights of half a state (unless they’re Florida of course). Time’s Karen Tumulty takes a look at what McCain’s followers are doing, which seems to be mostly trying to discredit people that don’t agree with them. A sign that they think they’re losing she claims. This still doesn’t seem to get very exciting.

CNN highlights “the Bradley effect” aka. “the Wilder effect” that’s been discussed a lot. They think we might have to take about 6 points off Obama’s total because of the color of his skin. That’ll surely make the race closer. Independent expert Michelle Obama did however tell Larry King that she thinks things have changed since Bradley lost his election.

What about the professor bloggers out there? Larry M. Bartels shows us that we have to account for some fairly large errors in the poll predictions. Perhaps things might get exciting still? But alas, it seems that most of these effects seem to point to the fact that Obama has actually got a bigger lead than it seems…

Another political scientist looking to history for help is John Cohen. Reagan was hopelessly behind Carter on the polls in late October when he became president, but he won by 10 points. Might McCain be a new Reagan..? Well, Reagan won by crushing Carter in a presidential debate. With the last debate over I think we can safely say that McCain did no such thing…

Tom Holbrook doesn’t promise much excitement either. His predictions for the electoral college is currently at 354-184 in Obama’s favor.

Some times the simplest argument is the best. Didobamawin.com offers compelling simplicity. That nagging feeling at the back of my head seems to agree with their “not yet” in huge letters… I’ll still be paying attention.

And in case you need divine advice, here’s some: www.godhatesobama.com – not your usual zealot hate-campaign.

(Special thanks to The Monkey Cage for some good sources for this post.)