"Fiorina, 65, is a sturdily built man, with graying hair combed back on a block-like head and a somewhat taciturn manner."

How to talk about the political spouse who's a man.

As the husband of Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive now running for president, Fiorina plays an important role for the campaign. Political spouses typically find themselves referred to as a candidate�s �secret weapon,� trusted with �humanizing� their otherwise remote/robotic/pompous partners. Is it sexist to reduce women to little more than props for their politically ambitious husbands? Is it silly to call someone who has a public role on a campaign a �secret�? Can the new crop of political husbands escape the burdens of playing campaign humanizer? Yes, yes and no.

"Nate Silver fared terribly in Thursday's UK election... The fault, Silver claimed, was with the polling."

Don't blame Silver, says Silver. He only processes the data he gets from polls done by other people.

"The World May Have A Polling Problem," Silver asserted. "In fact, it�s become harder to find an election in which the polls did all that well."... "[T]here are lots of reasons to worry about the state of the polling industry," Silver concluded, citing a range of factors. "There may be more difficult times ahead for the polling industry."

Well, that's awfully bland... from Dylan Byers at Politico, who was only processing the raw material Silver gave him. Can I blame Silver? For anything, ever? He cited "a range of factors." Were they too dull and meaningless to be worth more than the repetition of the conclusion that polls just aren't that good?

ADDED: The NYT surveys some analysis of what went wrong with the polls:

�It could be simply that people lied to the pollsters, that they were shy or that they genuinely had a change of heart on polling day,� [said Alberto Nardelli, writing in The Guardian], �Or there could be more complicated underlying challenges within the polling industry, due, for example, to the fact that a diminishing number of people use landlines or that Internet polls are ultimately based on a self-selected sample.�...

�What seems to have gone wrong is that people have said one thing and they did something else in the ballot box,� [said Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov, a leading survey firm]. �We are not as far out as we were in 1992, not that that is a great commendation.�...

Rem Korteweg, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform in London, said... �People say who they are voting for with their heart and then vote with their wallets,�...

To tweak Korteweg's point: People say what they think will make other people like them, but they do what they think is in their interest. Re-tweak: People do what is in their interest, which is to say what they believe is socially desirable, and that won't square up with what they do when no one's looking. If this is the problem, it's a problem that will get worse as it becomes more widely believed that liberalism makes you look good. Korteweg is contributing to the contagion of this belief by saying that in their hearts people are liberal, nudging us all to say I'm a liberal, so I'll seem to be a person with a heart.



(Detail about that video here.)

Is everything exploding at Salon?

I happened to stop by Salon yesterday because someone at Facebook had pointed me to "Jonathan Franzen is guilty of 'extreme intellectual dishonesty,' according to the Audubon Society/Franzen hit first, but the National Audubon Society hit harder." Notice all that hitting and the ugly words "extreme" and "guilty." Something terrible must be happening, right? No, Jonathan Franzen just had an article in The New Yorker saying that the Audubon Society is letting the big issue of climate change divert its attention from practical things that can be done now to conserve birds. I ended up blogging the New Yorker article, but I'd left open the tab to Salon "extreme intellectual dishonesty" article. Looking at that page this morning, I'm noticing the sidebar of "most read" articles, and I'm seeing way more emotion than makes any sense. I'll add boldface to make my point:

I called him pathetic, he accused me of ruining his life: What children did to our marriage...

Boomer parents destroyed us: I needed rules and boundaries, not parents who want to be friends...

These seem to be routine articles about the challenges of living in families, but somehow it's all ruination and destruction. Absurd!

The right's made-up God: How bigots invented a white supremacist Jesus

Republicans' "Hitler" idiocy: Why their hysterical Iran pushback exposes a secret

Why I left the GOP

That last one is calm. I'll just assume "I" left the GOP because the GOP is a bunch of hysterical, bigoted, delusional, pushy, racist idiots.

Yelp users hilariously revolt against Indiana pizza shop that refuses to cater same-sex weddings

Funny or Die skewers homophobic businesses in pitch-perfect Indiana spoof

Here, the metaphorical acts of violence � revolting and skewering � are presented as wonderful comedy because they punish citizens who deserve it for not achieving the right level of acceptance of gay people.

America's angriest white men: Up close with racism, rage and Southern supremacy...

"They're human beings!": David Letterman blasts Indiana over anti-gay law...

Ted Cruz goes ballistic over "radical" idea that gay people should enjoy equality

Michelle Obama absolutely kills it in the "Evolution of Mom Dancing Part 2"

Apparently, everything is exploding. I guess Salon has its internal research showing this is what people click on. To me, it looks inane. I wish readers would develop resistance to this kind of manipulation. We should laugh at this desperation. Or � I don't know � look at Salon's evident belief that we slaver over violence and have a nuclear meltdown of outrage.

"But looking back at Schock�s history, his preternatural drive is unsettling, even for a politician."

"Schock didn�t want two phone lines. He wanted six. He didn�t want one credit card in middle school. He wanted 13. He wasn�t satisfied graduating high school in four years. He didn�t want to just sit on the school board � he wanted to be its president. He wanted to be the youngest everything. Health wasn�t enough. He needed a six-pack. He didn�t want his office to be beige. He wanted it red."

From "The self-destructive mania of Rep. Aaron Schock," by Terrence McCoy.

ADDED: Aaron Schock's father said: "Aaron is a little different... He wears stylish clothing and yet he�s not gay�and he�s not married and he�s not running around with women, so everybody is throwing up their arms. They can�t figure out Aaron, so he must be crooked. So attack him, bring him down, because he doesn�t fit into our picture."

When have you ever taken a political position that was hard for you to take?

It's my hypothesis that people take the positions that are comfortable to them. Living in Madison, Wisconsin, I often wonder about the depth of the political opinions that seem to be everywhere. To express an opposing view would take some effort and maybe even injure your personal life, so it's easiest to go along and get along, even to adopt the views of the people around you and to avoid exploring the possibility of thinking something else.

These beliefs, then, which seem so entrenched, are actually  shallow beliefs. The behavior patterns and commitment to getting along may be deeply rooted, but the ideas themselves are fairly insubstantial. The engagement with politics itself is insubstantial. Why pay so much attention to politics when deviating from your comfortable point of view would only expose you to pain?

Have you ever taken a political position that was hard for you to take, that exposed you to consequences? Or has all your political posturing displayed you in a position that your friends and neighbors find appealing?

You know what got me thinking about this topic? Basketball! Over there in the basketball thread this morning, garage mahal � a Madison person � said: "The time of year when Republicans don their Badger wear proudly.....of the university and city they would like to see destroyed. On Wisconsin!" And I took a shot at that: "Oh, you know damned well the lefties would abolish college sports if they could."

That is, I tried to turn it into a political debate. I'm a little weird in that I enjoy being a spectator to political competition and making a lot of random observations. But I think most people don't enjoy fighting about politics. Sports is a refuge from that. It's perfectly easy to be on the same side as everyone in your vicinity. And the competition is fun and real � out there to be seen, not brewing and festering in other people's head � you can watch it and gab about it and feel cozily comfortable without any nagging sense that you should be thinking more deeply or showing some courage and individuality.