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Some comments on my thoughts on who will carry Florida this year, but first some minor philosophizing (or a lame attempt at such on my part...what can I say?)
"In the long run, we'll all be dead."
- John Keynes
I've just had a terrible bout of irritability and ill will in the last week - in fact, I am still not feeling pleasant or cheerful, probably won't for a while, and have been considering the factors behind this since 1) I am a habitually happy, upbeat person who is usually the solid pillar that others lean on during times of duress and 2) I am at heart an introvert who resolves problems by thinking about them, often in laborious detail. It is tempting to just blame it all on this damned weather, but I know that something more fundamental is at play. Part of that was reflected in my post yesterday regarding the varying gradients of "change", and how I have now come to the full realization that "embracing change" simply for the sake of change itself is a faulty philosophy.
And along the same lines, I have come to the realization that blindly embracing a "long-term philosophy" while ignoring short-term consequences is equally faulty - and for better and worse, an integral part of why I find myself in my current situation.
Let's move from the micro to the macro this time. I still remember the mental tug-of-war that I had the day that I decided to come to Carnegie Mellon, rejecting offers from three other schools that I considered "better fits" in terms of a wide variety of factors - culture, climate, student body composition, you name it. It was a beautiful March day in Florida, and I was spending part of my Spring Break at a friend's house in St. Petersburg and still coming to grips with the events of February. It was really a stimulating, fierce debate with myself for the better part of a few hours early that morning. You will be happier at a large, diverse state university. You will find yourself miserable for most of the time there due to the climate. You will not get the type of balance that you are looking for in terms of a wide variety of activities. You have just been through a seriously abrupt negative change, and you should not overload yourself with another major transition this year. Those were the most serious of the cons that I had regarding CMU, and you might notice that were all based on the short-tem view of what life would be like for the 3 semesters at CMU. But there were also other considerations. CMU has the best reputation and by far the highest program rank of the schools you were accepted to, and what will that mean for your career? This is the closest you will likely get to an Ivy League education, and think of the implications. Their generous scholarship offer means less debt, freeing you to save more early in your college and build long-term wealth. You will likely grow more intellectually by leaving the same institution and venturing into this new setting. All great pro's, and all also more long-term in nature. Long-term vs. short-term...hmmm!!!
If nothing else, I am remarkably good at predicting things; as best I can tell, every one of the above italicized thoughts is wholly true. I correctly identified all of the pros and cons of CMU versus the other schools, and importantly, I classified them as short-term versus long-term. The first set were short-term concerns; the second set, perceived long-term benefits.
And as has been the case in the vast majority of my decisions in life up to this point, the long-term mentality prevailed that day. I can't necessarily say that I simply ignored the short-term pain and negatives of the decision, but as is Adam-Harpool-typical of my decision making, I came to the conclusion that long-term benefits should take primacy over short-term pain. In many ways, this is a personal trait of which I am fiercely, incredibly proud. I am outraged when I see Wall Street CEOs who chose to embrace ultra-risky subprime debt for short-term gains while blatantly ignoring the obvious long-term implications of said debt. I am exasperated by seeing so many young (and often minority) men take the short-term path to money through peddling drugs instead of the long-term path of education and a career. My investment portfolio is remarkably conservative for a person of my age, focusing on long-term gains while eschewing short-term "get rich quick schemes." In high school, when other kids were out partying and "acting their age", I was in studying and focusing on how I would pay for college and ultimately secure my future.
Throughout my entire life, when short-term and long-term interests have collided, it is the long-term that has prevailed in virtually all of the cases.
Really, I can't complain. I've been more successful than most. But there have always been some lingering thoughts - what about the other way? What about the happinness of all of those "short-term" thinkers? Are they simply setting themselves up for a purposeless life, snatched from one random emotion to another, victims of a lack of an overarching philosophy?
As an overzealous 14 year old, I can envision myself now ferociously answering that question. "Of course they are!" I would have said. "How can you just live for the short-term", I would have insisted. With my typical youthful intransigence, I would have steadfastly belittled any suggestion at all that there really is some danger in living a life largely divorced from short-term realities, always focusing on the big long-term picture. (Actually, I'm not sure why I keep giving these flashbacks to a hypothetical 14 year old version of myself; I would have made the same arguments as recently as last year.)
The problem with the long-term emphasis, of course, is that the long-term is always a set of hypothetical possibilities. We are never at the long-term; it is always a distant tableau upon which we can but imprint our visions. Life is lived in the present and short-term, and tomorrow is never guaranteed. Yes, that last phrase is excessively cliched, but I have lived it; though I was clearly never the typical hedonistic teen, I did in many ways live in a mindset of semi-invincibility. Not any more. I said "Goodnight, love you" to my mother at 11 PM on February 21, and she was gone by 10 AM on the morning of February 22. When older and wiser people now say to me "Life life to the fullest, tomorrow is not guaranteed", I know damn well what they're talking about. Never in my life has short-term pleasure and happiness played such a major role. In fact, looking at changes in my life over the last 6 months, the 14 year old version of myself might be "disappointed." But that is precisely why it's the 14 year old version of a much wiser 21 year old.
Of course, having seen the results of an excessively short-term oriented perspective, I am hardly willing to adopt that lifestyle. The people who live a whole life without purpose; the people who party hard and die far too young; the people who come to eventually realize that long-term hedonism is not sustainable and ultimately leads to the suffering that such hedonism is supposed to prevent. Non merci; I'm still well aware of the type of damage brought on by the excesses of a short-term framework. I've seen other people suffer through those, and I'm not interested. But in the future, I will spend much more time thinking about the short-term implications of major decisions that I make. And never again - never - will I discount the importance of short-term factors in the way that I did when making the CMU decision.; and if this means occasionally sacrificing something potential in the long-term for something immediately real in the short-term, so be it. Simply count it as another one of many, many ways in which my thinking and viewpoints have moderated over the course of this year.
____________________________________________________________________
"In the long run, we'll all be dead."
- John Keynes
I've just had a terrible bout of irritability and ill will in the last week - in fact, I am still not feeling pleasant or cheerful, probably won't for a while, and have been considering the factors behind this since 1) I am a habitually happy, upbeat person who is usually the solid pillar that others lean on during times of duress and 2) I am at heart an introvert who resolves problems by thinking about them, often in laborious detail. It is tempting to just blame it all on this damned weather, but I know that something more fundamental is at play. Part of that was reflected in my post yesterday regarding the varying gradients of "change", and how I have now come to the full realization that "embracing change" simply for the sake of change itself is a faulty philosophy.
And along the same lines, I have come to the realization that blindly embracing a "long-term philosophy" while ignoring short-term consequences is equally faulty - and for better and worse, an integral part of why I find myself in my current situation.
Let's move from the micro to the macro this time. I still remember the mental tug-of-war that I had the day that I decided to come to Carnegie Mellon, rejecting offers from three other schools that I considered "better fits" in terms of a wide variety of factors - culture, climate, student body composition, you name it. It was a beautiful March day in Florida, and I was spending part of my Spring Break at a friend's house in St. Petersburg and still coming to grips with the events of February. It was really a stimulating, fierce debate with myself for the better part of a few hours early that morning. You will be happier at a large, diverse state university. You will find yourself miserable for most of the time there due to the climate. You will not get the type of balance that you are looking for in terms of a wide variety of activities. You have just been through a seriously abrupt negative change, and you should not overload yourself with another major transition this year. Those were the most serious of the cons that I had regarding CMU, and you might notice that were all based on the short-tem view of what life would be like for the 3 semesters at CMU. But there were also other considerations. CMU has the best reputation and by far the highest program rank of the schools you were accepted to, and what will that mean for your career? This is the closest you will likely get to an Ivy League education, and think of the implications. Their generous scholarship offer means less debt, freeing you to save more early in your college and build long-term wealth. You will likely grow more intellectually by leaving the same institution and venturing into this new setting. All great pro's, and all also more long-term in nature. Long-term vs. short-term...hmmm!!!
If nothing else, I am remarkably good at predicting things; as best I can tell, every one of the above italicized thoughts is wholly true. I correctly identified all of the pros and cons of CMU versus the other schools, and importantly, I classified them as short-term versus long-term. The first set were short-term concerns; the second set, perceived long-term benefits.
And as has been the case in the vast majority of my decisions in life up to this point, the long-term mentality prevailed that day. I can't necessarily say that I simply ignored the short-term pain and negatives of the decision, but as is Adam-Harpool-typical of my decision making, I came to the conclusion that long-term benefits should take primacy over short-term pain. In many ways, this is a personal trait of which I am fiercely, incredibly proud. I am outraged when I see Wall Street CEOs who chose to embrace ultra-risky subprime debt for short-term gains while blatantly ignoring the obvious long-term implications of said debt. I am exasperated by seeing so many young (and often minority) men take the short-term path to money through peddling drugs instead of the long-term path of education and a career. My investment portfolio is remarkably conservative for a person of my age, focusing on long-term gains while eschewing short-term "get rich quick schemes." In high school, when other kids were out partying and "acting their age", I was in studying and focusing on how I would pay for college and ultimately secure my future.
Throughout my entire life, when short-term and long-term interests have collided, it is the long-term that has prevailed in virtually all of the cases.
Really, I can't complain. I've been more successful than most. But there have always been some lingering thoughts - what about the other way? What about the happinness of all of those "short-term" thinkers? Are they simply setting themselves up for a purposeless life, snatched from one random emotion to another, victims of a lack of an overarching philosophy?
As an overzealous 14 year old, I can envision myself now ferociously answering that question. "Of course they are!" I would have said. "How can you just live for the short-term", I would have insisted. With my typical youthful intransigence, I would have steadfastly belittled any suggestion at all that there really is some danger in living a life largely divorced from short-term realities, always focusing on the big long-term picture. (Actually, I'm not sure why I keep giving these flashbacks to a hypothetical 14 year old version of myself; I would have made the same arguments as recently as last year.)
The problem with the long-term emphasis, of course, is that the long-term is always a set of hypothetical possibilities. We are never at the long-term; it is always a distant tableau upon which we can but imprint our visions. Life is lived in the present and short-term, and tomorrow is never guaranteed. Yes, that last phrase is excessively cliched, but I have lived it; though I was clearly never the typical hedonistic teen, I did in many ways live in a mindset of semi-invincibility. Not any more. I said "Goodnight, love you" to my mother at 11 PM on February 21, and she was gone by 10 AM on the morning of February 22. When older and wiser people now say to me "Life life to the fullest, tomorrow is not guaranteed", I know damn well what they're talking about. Never in my life has short-term pleasure and happiness played such a major role. In fact, looking at changes in my life over the last 6 months, the 14 year old version of myself might be "disappointed." But that is precisely why it's the 14 year old version of a much wiser 21 year old.
Of course, having seen the results of an excessively short-term oriented perspective, I am hardly willing to adopt that lifestyle. The people who live a whole life without purpose; the people who party hard and die far too young; the people who come to eventually realize that long-term hedonism is not sustainable and ultimately leads to the suffering that such hedonism is supposed to prevent. Non merci; I'm still well aware of the type of damage brought on by the excesses of a short-term framework. I've seen other people suffer through those, and I'm not interested. But in the future, I will spend much more time thinking about the short-term implications of major decisions that I make. And never again - never - will I discount the importance of short-term factors in the way that I did when making the CMU decision.; and if this means occasionally sacrificing something potential in the long-term for something immediately real in the short-term, so be it. Simply count it as another one of many, many ways in which my thinking and viewpoints have moderated over the course of this year.
____________________________________________________________________
Focus on Florida
Enough with the quarter-life crisis chronicles. So last week I provided my (Floridian) view as to what areas Obama needs to maintain and flip in order to win the state. There are certainly other possibilities (some polls have even shown him ahead in Republican-heavy Southwest Florida), but I find those possibilities that I presented last week to be the most feasible; dominate the liberal South, use those margins to offset the conservative North, and improve (greatly!) on Kerry's horrific performance in our "moderate middle." Whatever he's doing, it seems to working. As of now according to RCP, Obama is up by just under 3 points in Florida.
What do I think? I anticipate waking up on November 5 to President-elect Obama. I do not, however, anticipate that Florida will be among the states that he carries.
Notice, however, the purposefully vague word "anticipate." I anticipate that it will snow sometime in the next 12 hours, but what the hell do I know about winter weather? It is snowing right now in Canton, Ohio and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, it is 39 degrees here, high humidity and a dew point near freezing, and raining lightly with the temperature expected to fall several more degrees, so I rationally assume - and meteorologists corroborate - that it will snow here by the morning. But it's simply an anticipation based on a rational analysis of facts, nothing else.
The problem with Florida, to paraphrase one of my favorite editorialists (Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald), is that it is a rather interesting place where none of the laws of reality seem to firmly apply. And least especially the laws of politics.
In fact, I'll seemingly contradict myself right now: I would not be in the least bit surprised to see Obama carry Florida. Not at all. And I posit that any political analyst who tries to predict Florida with more certainty than that is more full of shit than Rush Limbaugh a few hours after visiting an all-you-can eat buffet. The best you can do with our glorious state is a probability around a median. Right now, I'm slightly confident that McCain will win Florida because:
What do I think? I anticipate waking up on November 5 to President-elect Obama. I do not, however, anticipate that Florida will be among the states that he carries.
Notice, however, the purposefully vague word "anticipate." I anticipate that it will snow sometime in the next 12 hours, but what the hell do I know about winter weather? It is snowing right now in Canton, Ohio and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, it is 39 degrees here, high humidity and a dew point near freezing, and raining lightly with the temperature expected to fall several more degrees, so I rationally assume - and meteorologists corroborate - that it will snow here by the morning. But it's simply an anticipation based on a rational analysis of facts, nothing else.
The problem with Florida, to paraphrase one of my favorite editorialists (Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald), is that it is a rather interesting place where none of the laws of reality seem to firmly apply. And least especially the laws of politics.
In fact, I'll seemingly contradict myself right now: I would not be in the least bit surprised to see Obama carry Florida. Not at all. And I posit that any political analyst who tries to predict Florida with more certainty than that is more full of shit than Rush Limbaugh a few hours after visiting an all-you-can eat buffet. The best you can do with our glorious state is a probability around a median. Right now, I'm slightly confident that McCain will win Florida because:
- The Democrats just really botched it with the primary debacle. No, I don't buy the bullshit about Florida Democrats still feeling miffed about being "disenfranchised." Rather, while Howard Dean was making a point, John McCain and other Republicans were crisscrossing the state and aggressively campaigning. In a state that is already marginally Republican (remember what I said last week? "moderate politics with occassional excesses of right-wing Reublicanism" = Florida), contact with voters matters...in a big way.
- Floridians have the most warped, idiotic, asinine perception of taxation of any group of people I've ever met. It can quickly be factually established that Florida is among the bottom 4 or 5 states when it comes to state and local tax burdens. And on top of that, our regressive system of taxation (sales tax is king) is great news for the rich. And yet, you cannot convince Floridians that they pay anything less than 10 times the tax burden of the average Connecticut resident. I've had hysterical arguments with the flaming morons before; nothing - not failing schools and falling apart hospitals - can convince them that we might need to rethink (= increase?) our tax revenue. I can't stress this enough. Trying to convince a typical Floridian that his/her taxes are low is like trying to convince a serial killer not to murder you; all of the logic and good reasoning in the world, backed up with actual state-by-state comparisons, don't do a damn bit of good. So even though virtually all Floridians will be untouched by Obama's higher tax rates on the rich (low-wage state), the mere mention of "higher taxes" will cost him many votes here.
- Southern racists in areas of the state north of Gainesville. No need to explain that. Parts of critically important Central Florida are also at least somewhat influenced by Southern culture (Lake County might be a suburb of decidedly non-Southern Orlando, but it's hardly Broward or Palm Beach County culturally.)
- Lots of old people, one of his most consistently difficult demographics. We're not as old as portrayed in typical stereotypes, but we still do have one of the largest concentrations of senior citizens just about anywhere.
- Trends are hard to break. As I indicated last week, Florida has never voted for a liberal Democrat (sorry, but I consider Bill Clinton a moderate), and Florida has also never elected an African American to a major office. Obama would have to buck both of those long-established trends.
Really, the only thing that I see working for Obama in Florida is the fact that we have been hit extremely hard by the real estate bust. If he carries the Sunshine State, there is your principal reason.
I do hope I'm wrong on this, but the good thing is that Obama has opened up so many potential paths to victory that Florida is no longer key, (I love David Plouffe!!) as it was in 2000 and 2004. And for Democrats, that is sign of a promising future, indeed.
I do hope I'm wrong on this, but the good thing is that Obama has opened up so many potential paths to victory that Florida is no longer key, (I love David Plouffe!!) as it was in 2000 and 2004. And for Democrats, that is sign of a promising future, indeed.
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