Tonie Nathan

This morning, I learnt that on March 20th, 2014, Tonie Nathan died. Nathan was the first woman and first Jewish person to win an electoral vote in a presidential election in the United States.

In the 1972 election, Nathan was the vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, which was a new party at the time, serving as the running mate to John Hospers. The party was only on the ballot in two states, Colorado and Washington, but a Republican elector in Virginia chose to vote for Hospers and Nathan instead of Richard Nixon, thus making Nathan the first woman to win an electoral vote; Nathan's being of Jewish faith also made her the first Jew to win an electoral vote (in 1964, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was of Jewish origin and he won electoral votes, but he was an Episcopalian).

The result of the election was not affected by the faithless elector; while Richard Nixon lost an electoral vote in Virginia, he still won the rest of that state's votes (11 out of 12) and secured 49 of the 50 states overall, giving him a landslide victory. It should also be noted that the 1972 election is, to date, the late time a person who wasn't a Democrat or a Republican won an electoral vote, although there have been faithless electors since then.

Nathan's achievement came more than ten years before Geraldine Ferraro won electoral votes as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. While it will most definitely be a day to celebrate how far women have come when the United States does elect a woman president, Nathan will be almost completely forgotten to anyone who isn't familiar with US presidential elections and the non-major party candidates. She's already a footnote, given that most people haven't heard of her; as I wrote earlier, I only learnt about her today.

With Nathan's death, all six people who received electoral votes in the 1972 election - plus Roger MacBride, the faithless elector - are now deceased.

On the results of the United States presidential election, 2012

At long last, the United States presidential election of 2012 is over. I stayed up all night to watch the results come in, and although it was quite a nail-biter at first, President Barack Obama pulled ahead in the electoral vote when the Pacific states, Iowa and Ohio were all called for him. As I have been strongly in favor of his re-election since before his 2008 win, I am delighted at his victory.

Mr. Obama won all of his 2008 states with the exceptions of Indiana and North Carolina - the latter which he lost narrowly - and as of this writing Florida, which hasn't been called yet but he is leading there. Nate Silver, the statistician who correctly predicted the outcome of 49 of 50 states in 2008 will have a 100% success rate on the presidential level this year if Florida ends the vote counting with a win for Mr. Obama.

I watched Mitt Romney's concession. I am far from a fan of his but I give credit where it is due: I thought that the speech Mr. Romney gave was decent, polite, and gave a call for national unity and support for the president. He sounded fairly cheerful and even looked as though he wanted to be there. I can only commend him for his graciousness.

Beyond the presidential election, the Democrats have both maintained and increased their majority in the Senate, while the Republicans have kept their majority in the House with minor losses; I had hoped that the Democrats would regain the House, but that was definitely a long shot in this election. Maine, Maryland and Washington have all approved gay marriage in referendums held in those states, and Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality there. Colorado and Washington have both voted to allow the use of medical marijuana.

The other interesting referendums of the night were the two held in Puerto Rico. One referendum asked voters in they wanted to change its territorial status or maintain the status quo, and the other one asked if they wanted statehood, free association or independence. Puerto Ricans appear to have voted for change in the former and statehood in the latter. Should Puerto Rico's request be approved by Congress and signed by Mr. Obama, it will become the first new state since Hawaii was admitted to the Union in 1959.

A ridiculous amount of money was spent on this campaign: over two billion dollars was spent on the presidential race alone. Hundreds of millions more was spent on Congressional races, with some Super-PACs having spent tens of millions of dollars just to defeat one person - Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) were swamped with massive amounts of money against them but they held onto their seats. I would like to see the end of the Super-PACs and other excessive wasting of money before the next elections; too much was being spent on elections before Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was ruled upon, and now political spending is out of control.

I am mostly satisfied with the results of the election. I'm also glad that the whole campaign is finally over, and hopefully people will make the attempt to mend any fences broken by extreme partisanship. Sour moods, grudges and a refusal to work together will achieve nothing but more bitterness and political fighting.

Now that the election is finished and I've said my piece, I'm looking forward to writing some more posts about my recent visit to Suffolk and showing some of the pictures I took while there...something that we can all enjoy regardless of our political persuasions!

Where is Oregon?

It shouldn't surprise me that people here in the United Kingdom don't know a great deal about geographical locations in the United States. After all, the reverse is true: in my case, had we not made the decision to move back to the UK I would not know the geography of the country.

Still, it does bother me somewhat when people have no idea where Oregon is, or worse, have never even heard of the state. Fortunately, everyone has heard of California and knows where it is located, making it easy to tell people where Oregon is, but Oregon is a state with a significant history - vital to the United States' expansion west to the Pacific Ocean - and it shouldn't have to be cheapened by merely being "the state north of California". It shares a common ancestry with California and Washington, and the three states often work together, but Oregon is still its own state.

Oregon isn't really in the news much either, and when it does I despair that it's often an article about some bizarre behavior from someone, or a tragic event of sorts. Occasionally there is a piece of good news, such as a local hero, but reporting on the positives isn't commonplace.

Which is why I speak highly of the state when explaining it to people! I begin with how magnificent the landscape is, how friendly the people are, and how wonderful the wildlife is. I talk about the little things like the hummingbirds and the obsidian to the mountains and the coastlines. I tell people a little about Oregon's culture, and if they're interested in its history and/or its politics I'm happy to discuss them, too. Last but not least, I recommend it to people who express an interest in visiting the United States.

So, in a nutshell, where and what is Oregon? It's located on the west coast of the United States, just to the north of California; it's full of impressive terrain and great people, with a rich history and various cultures. It's somehow not as well known as its southern and northern neighbors yet it holds just as much significance as them. I haven't lived there for over two years, but it was my home for close to ten years and I love it as much now as I did when I left!

Gray wolves in Wyoming

I'm disappointed that gray wolves have lost their protected status in Wyoming. Granted, there are 109 breeding pairs in the Northern Rockies (27 in Wyoming), and Wyoming is required to ensure that it maintains at least 150 gray wolves and fifteen breeding pairs, but I think the current numbers are still too low to justify taking them off the endangered species list. I share the concern that this move will lead to wolves being killed, and in a few years they will have to be put on the list again.

I've never really understood the fear of wolves. Harassing livestock is the most cited reason for killing them, but I don't see how wolves are any more threatening to livestock than coyotes or mountain lions: in Southern Oregon ranchers always took steps to ensure that cougars and coyotes could not harm their animals, but these "steps" normally involved a decent fence around their properties or keeping llamas, not a culling of anything that could potentially kill the livestock.

There are 1,100 other gray wolves in Montana and Idaho, and Oregon and Washington are also home to them, but other states shouldn't have to pick up the slack for one. I hope these four states don't do anything that could harm their wolf populations, as that would further hurt the conservation work.

Wolves are wonderful animals; it is a shame there are many misconceptions about them. It's been awhile since I last read it, but I recommend Wolves at Our Door : The Extraordinary Story of the Couple Who Lived with Wolves; based on the recent decision in Wyoming, it's something I need to read again.

Dennis Kucinich

Another politician I have respect for in the United States, Dennis Kucinich (Rep. D-OH), is now certain to leave the government when the 112th Congress expires: he announced yesterday that he will not be contesting an open House seat in Washington. In March, he competed with Marcy Kaptur for the Democratic nomination in Ohio's 9th congressional district, but he was unsuccessful.

I agree with him not seeking a seat in Washington, but I do have mixed emotions about his decision. On one hand, I was highly disappointed to see that his district was affected when Ohio lost two of its House seats and electoral votes as a result of the 2010 census. I have long admired Kucinich's strong anti-war views, his support for healthcare for every American, and his willingness to criticize people from both major parties: I think he is needed in Congress and that those aforementioned qualities need to be emphasized more.

At the same time, Washington is far away from Ohio, and Kucinich does not have any ties to the state; here in the United Kingdom, I do not support the practice of "parachuting" somebody into a seat far away from their residence, and so I would be a hypocrite to endorse it elsewhere. In addition, there was no guarantee that Kucinich would have won the primary anyway, and it would have been awful if his career in Congress had ended on him losing two primaries in two different states within the same year. Finally, if he had gone to Washington, he would likely have had an aura of "abandoning Ohio" surrounding him.

I loathe to lose a strong anti-war voice in the House, but again, I do believe that Kucinich made the correct decision by not attempting to run for a House seat in Washington. Over the past forty years, he has been involved in Ohio politics in some form or another: it is the state he comes from, and I am sure there is still more he can do for it.