Formal Announcement - The List of non-Candidates Continues to Swell

In keeping with the times and the precendent set by various individuals around the country, I want to take this moment to make an official statement.

In recent weeks there has not been any speculation regarding my political intentions and having heard absolutely no rumors or receiving any inquiries; and having not consulted with family, friends and close advisors; and having not prayed about it; I will not be seeking the 2008 nomination of any party as a candidate for the office of President of the United States. Further, in keeping with the tradition of a Texan who came before me, I will not accept any party's nomination as a candidate for the office of President of the United States for the 2008 general election. Finally, I have no intention of running as a third-party or independent candidate and will not be forming or authorizing any exploratory committees at this time.

If you have any questions regarding this decision or announcement, please feel free to leave a comment below. If you are one of the millions that have refrained from participating in rumors or speculation, I want to say thank you.

Faith and Belief

A few days ago I made the following comment in Meanderings on Faith, Reason, and Loneliness, "And, I’m not so certain about this, but I’m not sure that faith and belief are really the same thing." I did think about this a little bit more and concluded that faith & belief really aren't the same thing. At least not for me.

For me, faith is belief in things unseen or unproven. There are many things that I can see and observe and recognize as reality. And I can believe in those things. I can believe in the building in which I am sitting and typing right now. And I can believe in the tree outside the window. (I'm sure there are those that may argue that in some philosophical sense none of this can be proven to be real, but for now, I'm going to assume that my senses - sight, touch, smell, hearing, etc. are giving me a true representation of reality.) So, I can believe in the building. It exists.

I can perhaps have faith that the building won't fall down any time soon, but that is based on the fact that the building has not fallen down and it still looks pretty strong. That is also based on observations and apparent facts. I would probably put this in the category of belief rather than faith.

However, the faith that I am considering is not based as strongly on observable reality. It is some mix of knowing and perhaps feeling and perhaps even an act of the will to choose to believe in something when the preponderance of observable facts don't necessarily support the belief. Also, I'm not thinking of a choice to believe the unbelievable either. If I see a building fall down, but choose to believe that it is still standing, then that may just be foolhardy wishful thinking. The faith of which I am thinking is stuff that falls in between strong proofs one way or another. There are many things that are not knowable with certainty. And a choice to believe in one of those "things" is what I am describing as faith.

So, given all those caveats, that is what I mean by faith and belief not being exactly the same thing.

Also, as long as I'm keeping score.... I did finish the Harris Book, Letter to a Christian Nation. I also managed to finish up The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Now I can give myself permission to start something else. It will probably be Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

Finished One

Okay, I finished the Miller book. Pretty interesting. I think his style is intriguing and he certainly brings a different viewpoint to Christian writing. While I find him to be interesting and think that he's something of an intellectual, there seems to be a lack of depth to the work. Miller says, "I think loving Jesus is something you feel."

In the same chapter he describes Jesus as someone that would interact with Miller around a campfire,

"He would ask me to sit down, and He would ask me my story. He would take the time to listen to my ramblings or my anger until I could calm down, and then He would look me in the eye, and He would speak to me; He would tell me the truth, and I would sense in His voice and the lines on His face that he liked me. He would rebuke me, too, and he would tell me that I have prejudices against very religious people and that I need to deal with that; He would tell me that there are poor people in the world and I need to feed them and that somehow this will make me more happy. I think He would tell me what my gifts are and why I have them, and He would give me ideas on how to use them. I think He would explain to me why my father left, and He would point out very clearly all the ways God has taken care of me through the years, all the stuff God protected me from."

When I read this passage I decided that Miller was creating a Jesus that he wanted to exist. I've ended up rather suspect of Mr. Miller. Just a few pages before, Miller admits that when he read through the 4 Gospels, Jesus left him confused.

"And I read through Matthew and Mark, then Luke and John. I read those books in a week or so, and Jesus was very confusing, and I didn't know if I liked Him very much, and I was certainly tired of Him by the second day."

He does go on to say that he ends up loving Jesus in the process, but I still suspect that Mr. Miller may be inventing a Jesus that he can understand and to whom he can relate. I even started to suspect that Mr. Miller was actually trying to manipulate me in some fashion. However, I'm not certain he's so much trying to manipulate me as he is working out his own faith through his writing. In the end, it is intriguing watching him work it out, but it isn't necessarily much of a guide for others. I do find some of his thoughts on the human condition to be very interesting and enlightening, but his understanding of Jesus seems to be wishful thinking. I'm not sure I could offer a better description of an evening with Jesus, but then again, I'm not certain that I would want to do so.

Meanderings on Faith, Reason, and Loneliness

I’m still working on a couple of the books from my previous list, but I started on a couple of others as well.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a letter from an atheist to all Christians (especially conservative or fundamentalist Christians). The book begins, “Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.” Personally, I think Christians everywhere ought to read this work. It points out many weaknesses of Christianity as it is practiced and lived today.

I stopped halfway through that little book to start Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller. It is a collection of essays by a Christian author, but he is not your standard late 20th early 21st century Christian writer.

The two books being read together create an interesting mix and confluence of thoughts. I’m not very certain that I have fully processed even the parts of the books that I’ve finished so far. However, there are a couple of things that seem to recur.

First, I have struggled with a sense of borderline depression for a number of years. I think that at least a part of that is loneliness. “Tony the Beat Poet says the words alone, lonely, and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language. I agree with Tony. These words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.” Miller’s words seem true to me.

Second, we have words and very large concepts built around the terms God, Man, reason, science, faith, religion, and belief. It seems to me that we have equated science and reason. And we have equated God and religion. And we have equated faith and belief. And it seems to me that we have decided that Man is trying to come to terms with God/religion vs. science/reason vs. faith/belief. It seems to me that some want to present us with choices – choose one as true and the others as false – or choose one as preeminent and the others as lesser.

Well it seems to me that God & religion aren’t necessarily the same thing at all. And it seems to me that science and reason are not the same things either. And, I’m not so certain about this, but I’m not sure that faith and belief are really the same thing. God is, in my opinion, beyond understanding. Religion is one way that some people try to go about understanding God. And it turns out that Religion at times also tries to be a lot of other things. Religion is bound up in man. It is full of culture, man’s culture. And, it seems to me, that because religion is oriented at helping to understand something as unknowable as God, it is also used to explain all kinds of things that are currently unknown. I suspect that this is where the religion vs. science problem starts. Once science helps us understand a previously unknown aspect of the universe it may run afoul of religion’s previously incomplete or inaccurate description.

And just because science relies upon reason to arrive at hypotheses and conclusions, doesn’t really mean that there is not reason outside of science. Science didn’t invent reason and doesn’t own the monopoly today. It seems that a lot of folks want me to choose between religion and science. The religion argument tends to be trust God and your faith and trust what the religious traditions have taught you. And the science argument tends to be trust reason. And my answer to both is, okay. I agree. But I don’t really see or sense the need to choose definitively and for all times. Sorry folks, I’m going to choose issue by issue, and item by item. I’m going to flip-flop.

• Is the universe infinite? I don’t really know, but science is probably better equipped to answer/describe this.
• Is there a God? Yes. And I also think that science helps us learn more about the universe around us which provides us with some clues about God, but that isn’t the same as proving one way or another that God exists.
• Can I prove that God exists? Nope. I’ve got some evidence that is pretty convincing to me, but I doubt that it would convince many skeptics.
• Is Christ the only way to God? I don't know for certain.
• Have a lot of bad things been done in the name of religion? yes
• Does that mean religion is a great evil? Bad things have been done in the name of science. Bad things have been done in the name of religion. Men have done bad things. I don't think getting rid of any of those is the right approach.
• Can we discover a great deal about our universe by assuming that everything is rationale and explainable through science? Yes.
• Is there such a thing as evolution? Yes.
• Is it possible that God guided, programmed or otherwise devised humans through the process of evolution? Sure. Who am I to say what God can or cannot do?
• Is there something wrong with abortion? Probably.
• Can we firmly establish when life begins? Not in my opinion.
• Should we outlaw abortions? Probably not.

And on and on and on…….

And a third thought that is swimming around in my head after reading all of this…. Is happiness really the objective? It seems to me that Harris, the secularist, ultimately judges the effectiveness of religion by claiming that lots of unhappiness stems from it. Yes, Harris does speak of moral or ethical truths and rights and wrongs that can be perceived without religious instruction. However, it seems to me that his moral compass is largely guided by what produces happiness and unhappiness. And it seems to me that many Christian writers discuss feelings to such an extent that it scares me. Feelings? What are they and do we even mean the same thing when we describe feelings of love or happiness or whatever? Is happiness really what it is all about? I’m not opposed to happiness, but I’m not convinced that it is the ultimate guide. There are other choices – species survival for example.

A final thought - I've got to finish some of these books. Next time I post, I'll have finished at least one of them and hopefully two.

Recapping the Pre-election Day Polls

A couple of things today, but I only have time to get to one issue. More later, when I have a minute.

I kept on working with my two models for predicting the results in the House of Representatives. They looked like this on the days leading up to the election.

Election Day
Model #1
Democrats - 224
Republicans - 205
Tossups - 6

Model #2
Democrats - 238
Republicans - 194
Tossups - 3

Day Before Election Day
Model # 1
Democrats - 220
Republicans - 208
Tossups - 7

Model #2
Democrats - 230
Republicans 191
Tossups - 14

For the 3 days prior to this, see my previous post - The Election is Upon Us

So, by the time we got to election day, my models showed Democrats ending up between 224 and 238. If we assume that these are a perfect bracket, then I would have projected 231 Democrats, 200 Republicans, and 4 too close to call.

And as of today, it looks to me like the House is going to end up 232 Democrats and 203 Republicans. So, the basic message is, that the polls leading up to the election were, on whole, a pretty good predictor of the overall results. It's easy to pick apart an individual poll, but in total they were pretty good.

The Election is Upon Us

I've found myself more interested in this campaign season than any in a long time. I find the avalanche of public opinion polls and TV talk shows and gasping-breath news reports and cynical pseudo-news and unbelievable television ads to be overwhelming and massively entertaining.

I was just looking at the latest news articles about late movement in public opinion polls.
Bloomberg
ABC News
Washington Post – ABC News Poll

Some of the questions that are included in the polling are pretty interesting and they got me to thinking.

I went in and voted early this past week. When I went in to vote, I intended to cast votes in only a couple of races - governor, US representative, a local bond referendum, and a few others. Those are the only ones where I really know the candidates and issues and have a strong opinion.

A funny thing happened to me in the voting booth and that relates to my interest in the poll results. If you had asked me several of those poll questions before I stepped foot in the voting booth and then asked me after I stepped out, I would have given different answers.

When I first stepped in that booth I scrolled to the contests in which I planned to vote and skipped the others. Then I scrolled through again, just to make sure I didn't miss anything and didn't make any inadvertent mistakes. As I was scrolling along it really struck me that I had an opportunity and in fact a responsibility to make a choice and send a message. And that is what I decided to do. I wonder how many others will find that they feel stronger about issues when confronted with the reality of a ballot in front of them?

So, if I were going to answer some of these interesting poll questions:

1) What is the most important issue facing the country today? Iraq
2) Is your vote in the current elections influenced by your opinion of George W. Bush? Yes
3) Is this election a referendum on George W. Bush? Yes
4) Is the country headed in the right direction? No

All of those answers are the same today as they were a week or more ago with the exception of question 3. If you had asked me a week ago if I thought that on a national scale, this was a referendum on George W. Bush, I would have said yes. However, if you had asked me if I would cast my votes specifically to send a message about the leadership of George W. Bush, I would have said no. Before I stepped out of that booth last week, I changed my mind and cast every vote as a reflection of my opinion on the Bush presidency. I thought through those four questions above and made my decision and cast my votes. Is that an intelligent way to vote? I don’t know. You can criticize me all you want, but that is what I did.

It is intriguing for me to see those same four questions in one form or another listed in a number of the polls that came out today.

It will be interesting to see if the national opinion machine is really detecting an anti-Bush tsunami or just another weak Democratic Party attempt to take on a superior political machine. We'll start to know Tuesday night.

Because I have been so interested in all of this polling information, I started following the House of Representative projection polls. http://www.electoral-vote.com/ publishes a web site that uses all of the available public polls to project what will happen in the Senate and House races. Because new polls are released daily, the overall projections on that site also change daily. It seems to me that the Senate is pretty close to a tossup. It could end up anywhere from a Republican to Democratic majority with no more than a majority of 4 (meaning 52 to 48 for one side). The House of Representatives on the other hand looks much more predictable. The site mentioned above lets you download a spreadsheet with all of the poll results for each of the house and senate races where there are available public polls.

So, being a nerd, I decided to do my own analysis/projections based on the available polls. So, for each of the last three days, I have taken all of the house poll data from that site and plugged it into a couple of projection models. For each day, I assume that the closer we get to election-day, the lower the chance of movement in the polls (I assume greater accuracy). Further, I have one model that more heavily favors incumbents - it gives them the benefit of the doubt in many close races unless there is a lot of recent data to override that default assumption. The other model just takes the most recent poll and assumes that it is the best predictor. Well, whatever, I've been plugging in my numbers for the past three days and came up with these results.

TODAY - model that favors incumbents
Democrats - 219
Republicans - 206
Tossups - 10

TODAY - model that does not assume an advantage for incumbents
Democrats - 223
Republicans - 188
Tossups - 24

YESTERDAY - incumbent advantage model
Democrats - 217
Republicans - 206
Tossups - 12

YESTERDAY - no incumbent advantage
Democrats - 221
Republicans - 185
Tossups - 29

FRIDAY - incumbent advantage model
Democrats - 217
Republicans - 208
Tossups - 10

FRIDAY - no incumbent advantage
Democrats - 217
Republicans - 179
Tossups - 39


So, based on this, I'm willing to make a few generalizations.

1) It looks to me like the Democrats will take control of the House. That control could be as low as a razor thin 2 or 3. Or that control might be a pretty commanding 40+. Of course that assumes that these polls are an accurate reflection of what will happen on Tuesday. There are lots of flaws in polls and there are even more flaws in my predictor modeling (I put no weight on projected voter polls versus other general polls and I assume in some models that the most recent poll is the most accurate without examining the actual polling methods. In another of the models, I assume that a poll from 3 moths ago has as much value as a poll from last week. I don't claim that I have a good model at this point. I'm just trying to do some quick analysis.)
2) If it is possible to spot a trend in these few samples, it seems to me that the Republicans have been closing the gap in the past few days, but probably not fast enough.
3) In each of the models the Democrats seem to have a very solid number of seats around 217 to 223. It is Republican seats that seem to vary between being a tossup or a Republican projection. If those tossups split evenly between the parties, then the Democrats will have a majority around 30.
4) It looks to me like it would take a miracle for the Republicans to end up with control and it would be a worthy accomplishment for the Republicans to keep it really close. The most likely outcome is a strong Democratic majority in the House.

It is the question of what way these tossups will go that makes my experience in the voting booth from last week relevant. I think it is going to come down to the prevailing mood in the country and just how angry people are over Iraq and George Bush. I believe this vote is a referendum on George W. Bush and our policies in Iraq.