United Nations Turnover

The United Nations is such a strange organization. Created with the best of intentions, it has served most often as a platform for demagoguery and a means for corrupt individuals to make money (see the Oil-for-Food scandal). I'm not really sure how to feel about the UN; as a left-leaning moderate I guess I'm supposed to view it as the last, best hope for humankind. I just can't reconcile that vision with the reality of the organization, however. I don't know if there will ever be a sci-fi friendly "One-World Government," but I would place million-to-one odds on the possibility of any such organization growing out the United Nations.

Nevertheless, I'm curious to see how the race to replace Kofi Annan plays out. Annan's second term as UN Secretary-General (such an interesting title, that) ends on December 31, 2006. Sometime this fall, then, the UN will need to select a new leader, and not surprisingly for such a Byzantine organization, the process of selecting the Secretary-General is shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

Newsweek International just put out an article on some of the individuals, declared and undeclared, who are seeking the job. I've never heard of any of these people, but I suspect that I will be finding out more as the process goes on. With luck, whoever is chosen will be the kind of reformer that can facilitate a top-down change in how the UN runs. Unfortunately, I don't expect that to happen. Regardless, this should be a fascinating process.

Utah Primary Update

I just found out yesterday that this was a race that was being closely watched, because the challenger to Republican Congressman Chris Cannon (R), a man by the name of John Jacob (D), was running essentially a single-issue campaign on the immigration issue, arguing that Cannon was pro-amnesty. The Utah 3rd is a pretty conservative area, covering Provo. Nevertheless, anti-immigrant forces weren't able to get their way on this one. Cannon won the primary with nearly 56% of the vote; closer than most incumbents have to worry about, but not exactly a nail-biter.

I don't generally think you can take the results in one district and extrapolate them across the country. The one thing I would take from this is that, no matter how strong a primary challenger is, there just isn't much chance for ousting an incumbent. We'll see if that holds up in August with Joe Lieberman (D-CT). My suspicion is it will, and no matter how close it is now, Lieberman will win that primary. Maybe Ned Lamont will prove me wrong, but I don't think so.

Primary Update

The Utah returns are trickling in very slowly, but it doesn't look like anything definitive will be known in the Utah CD 3 primary until tomorrow. I did find out today that this race is more interesting than I thought, with the challenger, John Jacob (R) being a staunch anti-immigrant type. The primary is essentially a referendum on whether the Utah 3rd considers that to be the number one issue affecting the party right now. More on this tomorrow once a winner has been determined. The other three races I was following have been decided:

South Carolina CD 1
Randy Maatta (D), who I called an underdog because his opponent nearly won the contest outright in the regular primary. Maatta did something right in the intervening couple of weeks because he picked up 56% of the vote and won the runoff. He will face Congressman Henry Brown, Jr. (R) in November.

Mississippi Senate
The two Mississippi races behaved themselves, with the favorites coming out on top. In the Senate race, Erik Fleming (D) won 63% of the vote over Bill Bowling (D), and will face Trent Lott (R) in November.

Mississippi CD 1
Ken Hurt (D) picked up 68% of the vote in beating Bill Bambach (D), and will face Congressman Roger Wicker (R) in November.

Second-Hand Smoke

In a surprise to no one with the capacity to reason, the Surgeon General declared, amongst other things, that separate smoking sections don't protect people from the dangers of second-hand smoke.

What's interesting to me about this report, however, is that you have a Republican agency official talking about the dangers of second-hand smoke, when 15-20 years ago there was a huge amount of puffery (pun intended) from the far right about how second-hand smoke wasn't a danger to anyone. I can remember this controversy boiling up while I was in elementary school. Now, the fight is over; no longer does anyone seem to be suggesting that second-hand smoke isn't damaging (and such would be a fool's argument, with the amount of scientific data that has been collected on the subject). Instead, when people argue against things like public smoking bans, they rely on libertarian arguments that the state shouldn't be telling people what to do. That's usually the fallback position that is taken right before a wave of major change happens, since it appeals to far fewer people overall (my buddy Martin notwithstanding).

I want to close off this post with one other thought. It's interesting to me how so often, die-hard conservatives will fight and fight and fight to say that something isn't credible, or isn't happening, only to eventually have to cave to an avalanche of data. I'm thinking now about things like a hole in the ozone layer, the dangers of de-forestation (remember Reagan's Interior Secretary?), and the need for clean air and clean water standards. Now, we can add second-hand smoke to the list. What's interesting to me is that it seems the same thing is happening with global climate change; Republicans like El Presidente himself are making noises about how this is a serious issue that needs serious discussion. Just 15 years ago his father was mocking that kind of thinking.

I'm sure that this happens on the left as well (I can think of several areas where it probably has, such as welfare and education), but it sure seems that this level of myopia is particularly problematic on the Republican side.

Tomorrow's Primaries

It's been 2 weeks since there were any primaries, but tomorrow they're back. There's nothing too major happening tomorrow, but for your edification here are the races that will be set after tomorrow night.

Mississippi Senate
The Democratic side needed a runoff to decide who will be the sacrificial lamb to Trent Lott in November. Bill Bowlin (D) faces Erik Fleming (D) for that honor, with Fleming having come close to winning the race outright on June 6 when he received 44% of the vote. He should be viewed as the favorite to win this runoff.

Mississippi CD 1
Ken Hurt (D) will face Bill Bambach (D) in this runoff. Hurt received 39% of the vote on June 6 to Bambach's 24%, so is a favorite in this race. The winner will face Congressman Roger Wicker (R) in November.

South Carolina CD 1
In this runoff primary, Ben Frasier (D) will face Ray Maatta (D) to determine who will face Congressman Henry Brown, Jr. (R) in November. Frasier just missed winning this spot outright on June 13, having received 47% of the vote. Maatta received 32% of the vote in the primary.

Utah CD 3
In the only non-runoff primary of the night, Congressman Chris Cannon (R) faces challenger John Jacob (R), with the winner facing Christian Burridge (D) in November.

So there's the lineup. I'll have a report on results sometime late tomorrow night, or more likely midday Wednesday.