Category: Politics

After one of the strangest, shortest campaigns in presidential election memory, we are set again with a President-Elect that everyone wants but nobody can stand. In what you might think is an uncanny show of passivism, I am resigned to the facts that are are only now very clear to me as a result of this choice:

The GOP is completely dead and is not coming back.

The “Grand Old Party” of 20th century Republicanism is completely dead. The last vestiges of the old Chamber of Commerce, pro-business, hawkish on the military Republicans are now gone, punctuated by the exit of Mitt Romney who has remained as the sole, lonely voice of Republican critique of the former President and the only Republican of the 117th congress to have the huevos to vote to convict him on the articles of impeachment related to the January 6th insurrection.

The Republican party is now fully and durably remade in the image of MAGA, with a nationalist and populist message as its hallmark and banner cry. It’s a populism driven economically by a backlash of working-class voters to the age of tech and ideologically by the sensitivities of predominately-anglo, predominately-male, and predominately-aged voters who feel left behind by a world rapidly being reshaped by technology, automation, and now — artificial intelligence. It’s a world that is changing too quickly for the average working-class American who – 50 years ago – felt much more valued at the center of our post-war, industrial economy. The folks left behind by these violent shifts in our world are energized by this vapid mix of oligarchy and authoritarianism, believing it is the only stuff strong enough to ensure American is “strong” and “great”, whatever that ultimately means to them.

Indeed, if you believe America is strong or has never been greater by any definition of those words, this is not your movement and I predict you will be a foreigner within your party for the foreseeable future. If the last 12 years have proven anything, it’s the durability of the message that things will never get better until we go back to some undefined prior state of being – a perpetually animating message to those who feel left behind by society’s rapid advancement.

These ideas are not really mine, though. In all the post-election Monday morning quarterbacking, one key set of insights that resonated the most to me was from an interview on Freakanomics with Farid Zakaria.

(Apologies for the long insert here, but they just say it way better than I can.)

DUBNER: There’s a professor of communications and journalism at Stony Brook University named Musa al-Gharbi, who wrote, “The rise of populism, tensions over identity politics, and the crisis of expertise are all facets of a deeper struggle between knowledge-economy professionals and the growing number of Americans who feel alienated from the social order we” — those professionals — “preside over.” So that’s a bit of an indictment of you, me, a lot of people you and I both know. What’s your feeling about that? 

ZAKARIA: I think it’s broadly correct. Now, how you solve it is the bigger problem. The post-industrial nature of modern economies, the move from, first of all, a manufacturing sector to a service sector, which is happening in every advanced industrial country, and the further effect of the information revolution, has been to privilege knowledge workers, to privilege people whom Robert Reich once described as “symbolic analysts.” Meaning, if you manipulate symbols, code, images, language for a living — and then think of every profession we get — you know, lawyers, accountants, software programmers —

DUBNER: You’ve just described our entire audience, by the way.

ZAKARIA: Right. You’re going to be doing well in that economy, you’re going to be rewarded, and you have pricing power over your labor. If you manipulate physical things for a living, you do not have pricing power. And that reality has become more and more intense And it’s been an easy sort, basically people who are college-educated versus people who are non-college educated, people who live in urban city centers versus people who don’t. And so, these divides stack upon each other so you end up really with two countries. One, urban, educated, secular, multicultural, and the other one rural, less educated, more white, more religious. And that creates a much greater chasm than we have ever had. If you go back 50 years, what you notice is the steelworker made more than the accountant or even sometimes the junior lawyer. There were lots of blue collar professions and lots of blue collar towns which were thriving. Detroit was one of the richest cities in America. That world has gone away. That’s the fundamental structural push which is creating this alienation. I very much dispute the idea that the elites are looking down on this great unwashed. I think that’s a nice way to indict them.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

I believed Donald Trump was a political character, and MAGA was a kitschy slogan. I thought this would all be a flash in the pan or a temporary wave, much like the anti-Tax Tea Party movement of 2012 was, but I was wrong. I now fully embrace the idea Zakaria and Dubner so eloquently explored – that this goes beyond a movement and is a complete reshaping of the conservative wing of the country.

What this means for Democrats

Strangely enough, this actually leaves the Democratic party in a much bigger shambles than previously anticipated. The coalition of voters that elected a much healthier Joe Biden in 2020 was built on his 50 year career of being relatable to the middle class, and there were just enough people left in the “blue wall” states who believed him enough to hand him a 2020 victory. Since Harris simply inherited his campaign staff, strategy, and playbook with only 107 days to campaign, it’s no wonder she fell so short of assembling the same coalition with a dramatically different (or just plain undefined) personality.

But my point here isn’t so much that Democrats lost the middle class vote in 2024, my point is that Democrats have lost the middle class movement altogether. While it’s odd to think that the Republicans will succeed long-term at being the champion of labor at the same time as they set out to dismantle the labor movement, this fundamental shift in party personality is going to necessarily force the Democratic Party – at least in the short term – to reshape its message and identity. The New Republican party has proven again its mind-bending power over the middle class, and Democrats now need to find new ways to articulate a winning message.

Enter the clown car of sycophants

Whether you like the result or not, the one thing everyone can agree on is that 2025 will be dramatically different than the slow-start of 2017 when Trump was navigating a party in transition. This will be an executive branch stacked with loyalists and sycophants — those who are fully bought in and singularly loyal to the authoritarian we’ve just elected.

But here is my ray of hope for myself and those who might be inclined to agree with me: November 2026 is right around the corner, which will be the year that every member of the House will be up for reelection in a referendum on whatever the administration tries in 2025. It will also be the time where almost every influential member of Trump’s administration will quit their post to start their presidential campaign for 2028. There is no universe where JD Vance emerges as an annointed successor to Trump, and I just can’t imagine a universe where we don’t see a bruising primary between Rubio, Gaetz, Ramaswamy, and Vance – at a minimum – to fight to inherit the party of Trump.

Knowing this is an inevitable reality, we really just have 2025 and early 2026 to get through — but knowing this is the only window these characters have of getting any win on the books to run on in 2026 and 2028, you can expect a full court press on every front of the chilling campaign promises of 2024.

The irony of it all

The irony of all of this is that, in all of these rapid technological and secular shifts in society, we are entering an era which might be the pinnacle of technological disruption: the era of artificial intelligence — an era that I predict will greatly threaten the fear-induced identity of the New Republican party.

What seems likely (but not inevitable yet) is that AI will create a massive slow down of the labor needs in the tech economy. The educated, laptop-carrying class of today and the coming 5-10 years, loaded with student debt, will be vying for an ever depleting pool of tech jobs at fewer and fewer massive tech conglomerates. Today’s coastal elites will feel the same economic pressure and despair over the next 20-50 years that the current working class – the one that created MAGA – feels now as their labor is devalued and commoditized by AI.

This has the possibility of fomenting an equally enraged and fearful base of voters with the potential to overthrow the governing party who failed to regulate the application of AI or at least effectively manage its disruption to the labor market.

Thus, the kings and queens in this future world could very well pivot back to those who can make real things happen in the real word, rather than those who are “symbolic analysts.” Undoubtedly the greatest challenge this new reality will face will be to deliver enough very-real-world energy to power AI. Thus those who can build things, repair things, and extract and refine raw materials are set to be even more valued in this future than they are now.

A final note

I’ve been kind of dying to write long form content again. This post is a bit of a test balloon to see if a) anyone is still out there or b) anyone still cares to read anything this long. It took me 2.5 hours to write it, and I’m clearly out of practice. I used to do this in 30-45 mins, tops.

WordPress has, to my chagrin, introduced a disturbing side bar that tells me this content has 7 hallmarks of poor readability because:

• It lacks photos and videos (fixed that one thanks to GenAI)
• It has a few longer paragraphs which are going to take longer to read and might frustrate some readers,
• Its “Flesch reading ease” score is 43/100 which is considered “difficult to read” and recommends that I use shorter sentences with less difficult words.

So at my own peril, I post this objectively awful post to see if anyone is still out there. I am eager to hear your long form responses on my long form thoughts. I am also here to see if this new post will eclipse my trending most-read posts since 2020: 1) From a Wigwam and 2) Why I’m 420 Unfriendly

OK. I’m ready to talk about the guns thing now.

First of all, thank you to everyone for laying off for a few days. I know it’s old-school, but we really all should take a breath and mourn the tragic loss of these young lives before we delve into too deeply into this political minefield that is loaded (pun intended) with emotion.

As I frequently do, I feel a little like I’m straddling a chasm here.  I grew up in rural America.  My family is a gun-owning family, and we target shoot for fun during our family activities.  I was brought up to both use and respect firearms from a young age.  I distinctly remember as a child being taught to shoot a .22 rifle by my Dad.  I remember being so frustrated because I couldn’t see down the scope because I didn’t know how to place my eye in relationship to the scope.  I have also lived in the 2nd largest city in the world, and was held up at gunpoint in that city by drugged out idiots who were just looking for money.  I currently live in DFW – one of the most crime-filled cities per capita in the nation.  And despite the healthy appetite for guns here, it hasn’t stopped crime or given anyone more of a feeling of societal security.

With that as a backdrop, I think the gun-owning public needs to just calm down a bit. No one is sending federal agents to go collect all your firearms. Rest easy knowing that the 2nd amendment has been very recently interpreted by SCOTUS to be a protect of the individual’s right to own weapons.

This does not mean we shouldn’t more closely regulate the gun trade. There are many practical things we can do to make getting weapons, ammunition, and associated paraphernalia harder. The automobile analogy floating around Facebook is quite good: we go to great lengths as a society to identify, regulate, tax, license, and track auto sales in this country, it is silly to think that we could not do so with weapons, especially the most dangerous kind that are uniquely designed for killing people.  I applaud KSL.com’s taking down of their Guns section of their popular classified ads.  I support closing the gun show loophole.  I even support laws, similar to what California has, requiring all private party gun transactions to be run through a registered gun dealer.  I suspect I support going deeper and tighter with these regulations than most of my conservative friends would agree with.  So be it.  I know we’ll never stop guns from getting into the wrong hands (save your breath and keystrokes), but we can put up enough checks, rechecks, roadblocks and barriers that it becomes a burden to anyone who doesn’t have a clean record, a good deal of patience, and money – just as it is to get a car.

But the mere existence of guns isn’t the issue.  What can we do about the obsession and adoration of violence in this country? I believe that no one is born a psychopathic killer, and at some point in their lives, the idea of senseless, wonton violence had to be implanted into their minds. For me, this extends to the obsession some have with collecting weapons. I say obsession, because for a small, vocal minority it is more than a hobby, more than an interest, more than a right to self-defense; it is a weird obsession with having the most dangerous, outlandish, diverse collection of armaments known to man. I’m not talking about having somewhat of a museum, I’m talking about having somewhat of an arsenal. We don’t need that. It doesn’t help anything.  And the fact that talk of their arsenal monopolizes conversation with pretty much everyone they meet in whatever context (work, church, little league, etc), leads me to wonder about their mental health…

… and speaking of mental health…

We can all be more cognizant of those who are among our families and friends who suffer from mental illness. Several heartbreaking articles have been written in the past few days of parents who fear this is the future for their mentally ill child, and who have no recourse other than to wait for the child to commit such an heinous act. This world has a terrible history of treating the mentally ill, with unthinkable “treatments” being practiced well into the 20th century. I pray that in the 21st century can lead to as many breakthroughs in mental health as the 20th century had in physical health.

One specific thing I have to mention is regarding the sentiment that the solution to the insecurity of our schools is to arm every teacher and principal and janitor in the school.  Really?  I don’t think this is an effective use of our teacher’s capacity.  Many will not be comfortable with it, many are not capable, and I simply dont’ think it’s a good idea for your teacher to be wearing a holster.  Our teachers are in the schools to educate, engage, and enlighten young minds.  This is not prison and they are not the prison guards (as much as some schools resemble that nowadays). They are not there to babysit and are not there to bodyguard.  If more protection of our schools through the presence of firearms is what we really think is necessary to protect our kids, we need trained policemen/security in the buildings – not a ragtag, adhoc training of some kindergarten teachers to be prepared at any time to switch from reading Goodnight Moon to her class to capping a stranger who walks through her door in a long trenchcoat.

That about sums it up. I’m sure all of you found something to hate in there, and you probably won’t hesitate to tell me about it. 🙂 Whether you agree or disagree, can we at least agree that now is not the time to do nothing? Can we agree that the status quo – of having so many of these tragic mass shooting among our most vulnerable citizens – is untenable and must change? Let’s agree to agree on that, and move on from there.

I think I can speak with the majority in saying that we will all be glad when this is over and we can all go back to being friends again, and that’s probably the last thing I’ll say in this blog that the “majority” of you will agree with.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that a different 47% of you will agree with every other sentence of this blog, depending on who your guy is.  It’s strange to see how divisive politics has become, and how absolutist both sides are in their dread/elation for their candidate losing/winning.  Fear is a powerful tool in political campaigns, and it’s been dispatched in massive quantities in this election on both sides.

Tomorrow will come, however, and barring some silly reenactment of 2000, we will have a new President-Elect by tomorrow night (or early Wednesday morning).  We’ll all wake up, put our pants on one leg at a time, and go to work/school/playgroup/group-therapy (or whatever your schedule happens to feature on Wednesday).  No matter who wins, I’m going to safely predict that the world will not stop turning on its axis, and the United States will not fall into the ocean.  Sure, social media will be awash in both the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory, but shortly after that will come a moment when everyone will forget that, for the last 6 weeks to 6 months, we’ve been watching the strangest political contest ever.

The madness started with the Republican primary in which 8-10 people pandered mercilessly to an ultra-conservative, ideologically-driven party base.  I thought this clown-of-the-week contest hit a new low when Michelle Bachmann said, with a straight face, that TWO parallel fences between here and Mexico would be good immigration policy.  Surely, if one fence is good, two fences would be better.  Do I hear three?  Four?  Five?  Each candidate, not willing to be out-flanked by the other swung righter and righter until there was no more right to be had.

Then, when everyone else ran out of money, Mitt Romney was finally declared victor.

Then, the real race began.  And the real money started pouring in.  Before this is said and done, $1,000,000,000 will have been spent on this presidential campaign.  That’s 1 billion dollars that people and corporations pulled out from their own money, trying to buy power and influence in Washington.  (Citizens United was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to campaign finance, and I can’t believe we sit by so passively and let it stand.)  We should be absolutely disgusted by this.  This is money that could pay for things people really need.  This is money that could go to really good use.  Instead it is spent on the world’s weirdest beauty pageant.

After Mitt becomes the presumptive nominee, all the etch-a-sketch talk began.  When would Mitt reintroduce himself to the public?  (As if the “public” wasn’t watching the whole time during the ugly primary) And could he actually shake the etch-a-sketch hard enough to erase hours of debate footage of him signing up to a Tea-Party tailored platform?  Well, it happened in the debates, where Mitt suddenly went from being a “severe conservative” to every undecided’s favorite moderate.  Suddenly there was a new injection of nuance into the picture that had been missing for the last year or more.

This is to say nothing about President Obama, who has marauded around the country for the last year offering no real agenda for a next term, and campaigning on a “the devil you know beats the devil you don’t” platform.  I partly understand that this may be – because he has no legislature to work with.  Clearly the current debt crisis we are in was pushed until after the election in order to “read” the people and hope that someone (Republican or Democrat) got a clear mandate from the voter box on what the public wanted.

Which leads me to wonder: is our government becoming too democratic?  Is the power too close to the people?  Part of the genius of the American system was that a representative democracy (or republic, if you prefer) would transfer the burden of government and leadership into a specialist occupation for statesmen to represent the best interests of their constituents – as opposed to a pure democracy in which majority rules on every issue.

Perhaps the information age has minted leaders who are too tuned in to their constituents, too cognizant of the micro-politics of their decisions, and too wrapped up in the day-to-day workings of the government.  There was a great piece earlier this year (sorry, I can’t find the reference right now) on the affect that CSPAN has had on the Congress since it’s introduction.  The number of floor speeches to an empty chamber has skyrocketed since it’s introduction.  Congressmen appear more often for the camera than they do to actually vote.

Is this wise, though?  President Obama brought a new commitment to transparency to government, pledging to create website after website that would make data easily accessible, including expenditures from the Stimulus package (recovery.gov).  But has it been effective?  The net effect has been more data to spin, more opinions to be had, and less clarity on what is actually going on.

Congress is now worried about winning news cycles and driving fundraising and winning more elections.  There simply are not enough hours in the day to spend time governing after you’ve spent most of it fundraising and appearing for cameras.

Perhaps we are migrating too far away from the representative democracy, or republic, that our founders intended – where Americans could blissfully go about their lives, and check in at the polls periodically – every few years – to provide course corrections as to who should represent them in that democracy.  The statesmen elected would go about doing what was right for the country and in our best interest, with the checks and balances on power from the other branches of government, and the ultimate check of the ballot box.

I think we’ve become too smart for our own good, and the information age is ruining the effectiveness of government.  We see this most evident in Congress, with its historically low approval ratings and a sensitivity to the proclivities of their constituencies that seems unprecedented.

Just a thought there.  Lots more to think about in that vein, but running out of juices here and want to get to the good stuff…

So where do I stand on this year’s election?  (If you’ve made it this far, you probably deserve to know)

I don’t think President Obama is the devil incarnate, and I think he’s been a decent President.  Not the best, but – by far – not the worst.  I think, in the longrun, he will be viewed as a less-controversial President (in terms of policy) than even George W Bush.  I don’t think his Presidency has been a complete disaster.  Sure, he made some mistakes, the foremost of which was to pick healthcare, a “legacy” issue (an issue so politically divisive that it could potentially sink his reelection), as the focus of his first term, but there have been some good things, too.

On foreign policy, I think the President has doen a decent job at the 40,000 ft view (and so does Mitt, since in the debate he seemed to agree in substance with about 90% of what the President said).  Sure, there are going to be disagreements at the 10,000 and 500 foot level – and it’s a little comical to watch the debate at that level in terms of who loves Israel the most (gag me with a steam shovel) – but all-in-all I can’t say that there isn’t much daylight between the candidates on foreign policy, which the 3rd debate made painfully obvious.  Obama ended a costly and protracted war in Iraq and is winding down a second in Afghanistan, all while doubling down on disrupting terror networks and terror cells, increasing the controversial drone attacks, and – of course – he got Bin Laden.

On the economy, I don’t think President Obama has done a great job.  He’s done a passable job.  What I want to believe is that our economy is rebuilding slower and more carefully because that will lead to a healthier economy.  We do not want to replace a housing bubble with another bubble!  We need an economy based on sound business: production of goods, protection of intellectual property, and an ethical and transparent financial sector.  I think we are working on getting all the bad guys out of each one of those – especially #3 – but the recovery has not been fast enough for the political timeline, and Obama has not done enough to respond to business’ concerns about the regulation and taxes – leading to this “regulatory uncertainty” that may be artificially slowing growth.

I also don’t think Mitt is a robot from the planet of Corporate Automatons   I think he’s a pragmatist running in an ideological party, which is the root of why he’s looked like a fish out of water for the last 5 years of his campaign.  He wants to look like he cares deeply about things like contraception, but I don’t think he really does and I don’t think they will be centerpieces of a Romney presidency.  I think he would be a decent, problem-solving President.

A new guy in the White House could have some advantages, though.  I believe that a Romney presidency could reset relations between the Executive Branch and Congress, and that the legislative skids could possibly get enough grease for compromise to reign in the Senate once more, if Romney can strongly keep the Tea Partisans onboard and convince them that “compromise” is really not a dirty word.  (It’s what the Senate should be all about!)  I think the “regulatory uncertainty” that has been hovering over the market will ease a bit, and we may see more injection of capital into the market with a Romney presidency.

However, I’m not comfortable with the tax policies of the Republicans and a potential President Romney, and really, really, really oppose a continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  We couldn’t afford them in the first place, and now they hang like a weight around our deficit.  Even though we all seem to agree the tax code is broken, somehow I really don’t trust the Republicans to rewrite it in a way that is better or more fair than it is today.  I also don’t trust the Republicans to do the right thing for our social safety net and education.  (Privatization of everything is not the answer, people, and has a dizzying array of unintended consequences for the most vulnerable of our citizens!)  So I approach a Republican presidency with some trepidation, here.

Unfortunately, what will probably push me over the edge for one of the candidates this year is the same thing that pushed many African-Americans toward Obama: emotion.  We all vote from our gut anyway, and having a Mormon – one of my own faith – running for the highest office in the country, is an honor and source of pride for me.  If he, by some miracle, beats the odds and wins tomorrow – I will have something of my own “Oprah” moment where I will feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of my immigrant ancestors who came to this country to pursue a belief system they embraced with their whole hearts, only to be  expulsed and legally exterminated for believing something a little different – a little more nuanced and a lot more specific – than what others were used to.

And what’s more American than that?

So, with my only 45 minutes of free time today, I watched Meet the Press and was left speechless after the Rick Santorum interview. I really can’t believe that the GOP seems to be turning to that clown.  I don’t know what made me feel that way today more than before.  The talking points were largely the same, but he sounded more confident and determined than ever.

Maybe it’s this string of southern primaries and caucuses? Or maybe it’s the fact that one only has to drive through the state of Kansas, observing the hyper religious pro-life signs all over the sides of the roads, to realize that, yes, there is a religious-right in the Republican party who really thinks Mitt’s religion is so untenable they’d vote for a washed up Senator who couldn’t post a win in his own district or a deluded old Speaker who seems to be marauding the countryside looking for a second shot in the post-neocon era, despite what any numbers seem to say.

And that same religious right would go so far as to make this election about social issues – when the winning strategy was clearly to make this about economics.

Look, I think Mitt is a clown in his own way as well, but much less of a clown than those two. I even consider Ron Paul less of a clown than Santorum and Gingrich.

But here’s my real question when it comes to this whole process: When is the Republican party going to stop shooting itself in the foot and start making President Obama run for reelection?  The longer this draws out, the more rope the challengers are giving the President to hang them with, and the more President Obama goes laughing to the bank.

It’s a well-known fact that independents and moderates in a few critical states (which BTW, Santorum is terribly weak in) are the only way to win in the fall.  The GOP needs to realize that they aren’t getting that vote with Santorum; the guy who has completely alienated that demographic AND the women voters as well.

Right now, I see very little chance for a GOP win in the fall.  People are talking about how the GOP convention will be a “reset” for the nominee, but I don’t think so.  I think in Romney you have a base that will be less motivated to turn out, and in Santorum or Gingrich you will have a critical group of voters completely turned off from them as a Presidential candidate.

…Just my humble opinion…

With Romney’s win in New Hampshire, the pressure is on in South Carolina.  It is definitely the last hope for any challenger candidate.  As such, the campaigns are now doing their worst.  SuperPACs (not affiliated with the campaigns and certainly not in coordination with the campaigns) are funneling money like crazy in negative ads, and everyone is hoping for a Romney gaffe so that this thing can drag on into the spring.

Professional opposition researchers and national news media have now had over 6 years to do serious opposition research and skeleton digging with Romney, but they have met their match.  Recent smear attempts show that the worse they could do was:

#1. Romney, as a volunteer ecclesiastical leader, once counseled a single-parent to give her child up for adoption.  The woman alleges that Mitt threatened her with Church disciplinary action, but Mitt has denied that allegation.  Keeping a child conceived out of wedlock is not grounds for church discipline in the LDS Church anyways, so clearly there is a disconnect in the story.  It’s possible that Mitt informed her that continued sexual promiscuity on her part would lead to church discipline, as adultery and fornication are not especially encouraged (but are grounds for a church disciplinary council).

At any rate, take a step back – he is being attacked for — wait for it — encouraging an adoption.  Whoa.  The horror!  Imagine that, an ecclesiastical leader trying to encourage people to raise their kids in homes with both mothers and fathers.

If you think about it, this isn’t even a smart attack for the left.  President Obama himself has campaigned on and been outspoken about the need for both mothers and fathers in the home, and the importance of having both parents engaged.  He himself is a model of this, insisting to his scheduling staff that he be with his young family for dinner every night possible, only allowing missing up to two dinners a week.

#2. Romney, as leader of Bain Capital, laid people off.  Now Romney says over and over that he actually hired more people and saved more jobs than he laid off, but what baffles me is that his fellow republicans – the type of folks known for doing practically anything to make a buck (inside and outside the law, regardless of ethics or morality) – would be pounding him on that.  I doubt that many republican business owners struggled to lay a few people off in the name of saving their own business or increasing their profitability.  You can’t be the part that touts free-enterprise and unregulated economies on one hand and then punish your own for adhering to those principles.

So… that’s it.  That’s all they could find.  No mistresses.  No love children.  Just those two things and an odd religion.

Compare that to the recent competition between Herman Cain and Dr. Ron Paul (the obstetrician) to see who had more exposure in their lifetime to female genitalia…  If your decision for a presidential candidate is based largely on character or morals — not only spoken of but also lived by — I think you might have your man.