voting fairly

It's true, I would like my candidate of choice to become next president. Even if he doesn't become the next president, I'd be at peace as long as the "winner" won honestly. There have been allegations of fraud in many of the caucuses and primaries. Behind-the-scenes deals, dead voters, and miscounts have plagued the Republican party this go around. 

So what do we do? Vote in your precinct for honest, good, and wise people. After a time, the leadership will be slowly replaced by honest people. At that point, I can see the vote being more honest.

And I didn't even mention problems with voter machines. My brother and I were considering doing online voting for an international academic organization for which we worked. My brother joked that if the US can't get their voting right (e.g. fraudless/hackerless), then how can we expect to get it right either.

Here's a serious film about voter fraud:

"Hacking Democracy" (it's a documentary about 1 hour 20 minutes)

Obsessed

I've been thinking about something for a long time. I don't care what party or faction they belong to, many people are obsessed, that's right, obsessed about being seen by the rest of the world as legitimate. Some democrats work their hardest to make sure members of their own party get in positions of power (whether presidency, congress or bureaucracy). This obsession goes beyond whether the person will honestly keep their oath of office or will do what is right according to the Constitution or other law. For example, some Arizonans probably got really excited for John McCain when he got the Republican nomination in 2008. Or many Utahns get excited that Mitt Romney might get the current nomination. Or some Alaskans would love if Sarah Palin became a running-mate of one of the nominees. The obsession does not reflect necessarily that the ideas of the candidate are seen as good by the obsessed people, but that the obsessed are legitimized and bask in some shared glory.

Perhaps the people should care more about ideas, stateswomen and statesmen, and goodness than about winning or being validated or legitimized.