Word: voting
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...health-care reform. Kerry has been watching the coverage following Kennedy's death, and he worries about progressives using Kennedy's passing as an excuse to dig in their heels on the inclusion of a public option, a key point of contention. Senate Republicans have said they will not vote for a bill with one in it, arguing that the creation of a public plan to compete with private insurers is the first step to socialized medicine; House progressives have said they will not vote for legislation without such an option to ensure affordability...
...Teddy was in favor of a public plan, and Teddy would've fought for a public plan on the floor of the Senate," Kerry bristles. "Teddy would've probably found a way to have a vote, and if he'd lost the vote, he'd have moved on. That's how you legislate. You don't block. You don't stop anybody from expressing their point of view. You've got to move on, and then you live with the vote - I mean, that's what Teddy would do. And if there were absolutely no way of getting it done...
...shrewd and effective a pol as he was, Kennedy would probably have been the first to tell you not to count on it. When lawmakers cut their deals and cast their votes, it is rarely with another politician's legacy in mind. If anything, Kennedy's death has made the prospects for the bill dicier, because it has deprived Senate Democrats of the 60th vote they would need to block a filibuster (assuming everyone else in the Democratic caucus voted as a bloc, which is far from certain). (See pictures of the lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy...
...people, particularly those living in rural areas. The electorate system, which changed in 1994 to include single-member districts, also chipped away at what helped insulate the LDP from political competition. Before the switch from multi-member to single-member districts, voters who disapproved of the incumbent could vote for another LDP member if they wanted a change. With one seat to a district, however, a vote for "the other" becomes a vote for another party. That other party has become...
...early returns from Afghanistan's presidential election had the smell of a decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister, were tied, with about 40% each. But few of those votes came from Karzai's Pashtun strongholds in the south, where turnout was light - owing to Taliban threats - but heavily managed. "It's not exactly one man, one vote out in the rural areas," a Western diplomat told me. "The tribal leader gathers everyone together and says, 'We're voting for Candidate X.'" In some cases...