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Primaries and disenfranchisement, Democrat and Republican — 50 Comments

1. I’ve also got not much of a problem with smoke filled rooms.

   In election scenarios, I favor the Electoral College approach.

   If our nation moves to a pure popular vote scenario, it unknits our fabric. We become an alliance of almost nation-like metro areas:

   The nation of NYC
   The nation of Chicago
   The nation of Los Angeles
   The nation of Dallas-Ft. Worth
   The nation of Atlanta
   The nation of Houston
   The nation of Charlotte.

   The inhabitants of these nation-like metro areas will know and care even less than before about the problems of the inhabitants of Idaho and Mississippi.

   The Electoral College system helps knit our states, and our nation, together as one entity. It helps knit the problems of farmers and ranchers together with the problems of consumers in Boston who need groceries. It keeps our national psyche more knitted together as one.

2. The yearning for “Direct Democracy” has lately been powered by the Net and the belief that “pure” democracy is best served when everyone can vote on everything by just clicking on a field or pushing a button on the remote.

   Our founders knew better when they designed a republic to constrain faction.

   It would seem that the simple minds at TNR are pushing for a KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID approach.

   The problem is that this approach unleashes STUPID the more simple it gets.

3. I’ve been trying to find out what TNR had to say when NJ Dems replaced Bob Torricelli with Frank Lautenberg when it looked like Torricelli was losing the senatorial race in 2002. But Larry Eichel of the Phila. Inquirer said this: “Permitting a party to switch candidates so late in the game for narrowly partisan reasons sets a terrible precedent, one likely to feed public cynicism and eat away at the legitimacy of the process.” I would take Democrats’ “respect” for the direct primary process with a grain of salt.

4. “As far as I know, those “Republican efforts to constrict democracy” refer to such nasty and curmudgeonly acts as attempting to require that voters be citizens, or to actually be the people they purport to be. Little details like that. If those are constrictions on democracy, I’m all for them.”

   Not in the slightest – it generally refers to made up problems.

   For instance, even though they are generally staffed by democrats, the Republicans routinely cause the line in minority communities to be extra long due to no one knowing how to properly run the equipment. It happens every election cycle and is almost always featured on CNN.

   Another one that commonly happens is that republicans cause the minorities cars to be not working before an election (due to not giving them enough money to fix it) and having the buses be full. I’m never really clear how this one works (the buses run on their normal schedule and the photos I see of them always have empty seats), but it happens every single election cycle in the city I live in. I’m betting ours isn’t the only one to experience this travesty of democracy.

   Add in that we own all the electronic election machines and have rigged the last few elections and you have the republican juggernaut against a democracy, or even a republic!

5. Yes. I’m in charge of the minority-cars-not-working department. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it!

6. As a lifelong independent with no great love or attachment to either of the major parties, I favor a shift to “automatic runoff” balloting. I want to be able to list candidates in order of preference and thus be able to vote for a Nader or Perot without “wasting” my ballot or having the practical effect of helping the candidate I like least.

   I’d like to see the Electoral College reformed so that every state would need to follow the District Method used by Maine and Nebraska that better approximates the popular vote, in other words have the results be a proportional division of a state’s EC votes rather than winner take all. Also changed as needed to more easily accommodate independent and alternative party candidates.

7. neo neo:
   “As far as I know, those “Republican efforts to constrict democracy” refer to such nasty and curmudgeonly acts as attempting to require that voters be citizens, or to actually be the people they purport to be. Little details like that.”

   Make that the extremist principled wing of the Republican party. You know, the guys the McCain backers on this forum had been belittling only a scant few threads prior.

8. What kills me about the one-person-one-vote idea is the obvious: If you belong to a minority, your vote will count for less. Unless you join with like-minded ideological groups – say, a bloc of Pro-Life voters.

9. I have yet to meet someone who truly understands the Electoral College and is still against it.

10. The democrats only want a system that allows them to win. If that system fails they want another system. Power is all the care about even if it brings about the death of the nation.

11. The great value of the winner-take-all voting in the states is that it pushes close races to decision much more easily, and it limits the scope of recounts to a few districts or at most a state or two. Once a state is decided, no other state’s outcome can bear on it. Imagine if we had a single plebescite that was split 50.01 to 49.89. We’d never get through the recounts. Going district by district would mean we could get through the recounts in six months or so.

    It would be far better in the primaries for the smaller states to go first with the mid-sized states in groups and the big states last, probably on the same day. If the outcome is decided before the big states get to vote, it would have been close to a landslide anyway. And this gives the largest number of voters the longest time to consider the candidates.

12. Well put neo-neocon. But you didn’t mention your thoughts on how the Republican primary system is greatly flawed. First, the country would be better served if we all voted on the same day, just like the general election. It doesn’t seem fair that right now there are still states that didn’t vote yet but they have less, if any, choices than the earlier states for their party’s nominee. Also, the open primaries are ridiculous. What good is letting leftists and semi-leftists vote for the representative of the Republican party?

13. Chris: I’d like to see the Electoral College reformed so that every state would need to follow the District Method used by Maine and Nebraska that better approximates the popular vote, in other words have the results be a proportional division of a state’s EC votes rather than winner take all.

    So you want to live in a doofy European parlimentary system with dozens of parties and a new goavernment every 6 months?

    Move to Italy.

    This is a Republic of representational government, not a direct democracy. It is a nation of United States where the states apportion their votes for president in a manner of their choosing, voted on by all of the people of the state, not the country.

    I like the diversity of state’s election of electors. Don’t you like diversity?

    Do you really want to live in The Peoples Democracy of America?

14. I would like to recommend to everybody a seminal work of a Russian political scientist from Moscow Carnegie Center, professor Alexander Auzan “National Values and Constitutional System”, on Republican tradition in understanding
    liberty as opposed to liberal and libertarian tradition:
    en.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/04/08.html
    en.novayagazeta.ru/data/?auth=523&sb_a=1

15. “As far as I know, those “Republican efforts to constrict democracy” refer to such nasty and curmudgeonly acts as attempting to require that voters be citizens, or to actually be the people they purport to be.”

    They include such things as setting up insufficient booths in minority-inhabited areas, so that long lines discourage voters; making misleading telephone calls to minority-inhabited neighborhoods saying that two pieces of ID must be brought to the polling station; etc. The usual bag of republican dirty tricks.

16. The truth is that in spite of the fact that I am {as harry notes an unprincipled McCain supporter blah blah yadayada} the truth is I think voters should be citizens. I just love it when sore losers mischaracterize the positions of their opponents.

    But the larger issue is that the United States is a Republic, not a democracy. People seem to think this is a fine distinction. It is not, it goes to the heart of our we are governed.

    In the early days of the Republic the President was picked by the electoral college {representatives} not popular vote at all, the VP was the guy who got the second most votes. The US Senate was selected by the states as well.

    So people were encouraged to spend more time thinking about who ran their states than they were national popularity contests.

17. The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed.. stat.

18. I understand that the theme here is to [1] identify those who comment as being one of US or THEM and then [2] slam anyone identified as THEM with as much cr*p as possible until they slink away … however, the lack of logic and nonsense employed by some in this effort can get mighty boring.

    Gray claims I want ” … to live in a doofy European parlimentary system with dozens of parties and a new government every 6 months?”

    Well, no, not at all. But I also do not think that the current two party system is anywhere enshrined as the only way to make a Republic function. And yes, the states can decide how to apportion their electoral votes, but I still favor District apportionment rather than the winner-take-all system most states currently use. I’d like to see a campaign to make the Electoral College system better understood and thus more likely (on a state by state basis) to be reformed. I don’t see the pluses outweighing the minuses when 51% majorities in key states result in “landslide” electoral victories.

    Nor do I see the pluses outweighing the minuses when alternative to the two major parties have the deck stacked against them so completely. That’s why I would like to see “automatic runoff” balloting become the norm.

    As for party primaries and or caucuses, I favor the idea that primary votes or caucuses should take place in 5 ‘heats”. The first heat would be held in the smallest states whose total EC votes equal roughly 20% of the total. The next heat would follow a month or so later and move on to the next 20% culminating in the largest states whose combined total is that rough 20%. This should allow for the early “retail” grassroots politicking so admired and sought after in NH and Ohio and, as the winnowing occurs, build to the grand finale, with the big media campaign blitzes so beloved by both parties, in states like NY and CA.

    Whether the parties use primaries or caucuses to determine their candidates and whether these are open to unaffiliated voters or not should be up to the individual state parties. See, I like diversity.

19. Gray claims I want ” … to live in a doofy European parlimentary system with dozens of parties and a new government every 6 months?”

    The fact that you even included Gray’s question mark after what you claimed was his “claim”, becomes kind of an obvious lie, isn’t it, Chris?

    Well, no, not at all.

    Why don’t you treat questions as questions, instead of trying to mislead people about what people you disagree with claimed or did not claim.

    I’d like to see a campaign to make the Electoral College system better understood and thus more likely (on a state by state basis) to be reformed.

    If you can make people become educated in your views, it would be very likely to be changed to your preferences.

    It keeps our national psyche more knitted together as one.

    Which, in a way, explains why ChrisW prefers a more democratic system of majority rules. Central control is always easier to implement on a divided population too busy fighting amongst themselves to band together politically.

    But I also do not think that the current two party system is anywhere enshrined as the only way to make a Republic function.

    You may see the US President being elected only via a majority of votes as constituting how a Republic functions, but I don’t think I can agree with that view of direct democracy equaling a Republic.

    If your entire purpose is to break up the political landscape of the United States in order for a third party to emerge, then this has nothing to do with how the electoral system works and everything to do with what you believe is necessary to make a third party take hold of the political landscape. You may not like a parliamentary system’s numerous parties, but you do prefer more than two. And when there are three, and things aren’t going well either, people will demand a fourth party. And then a fifth.

    It is very analogous to the tendency to want to divide Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq up into different sectarian parts as a “solution” to political problems. That is no solution to anything. In fact, Balkanization in the form of Serbs and Albanians are the cause of political instability.

    The tendency to want to proportion electoral votes along a state’s Democrats and Republicans introduces new opportunity for political division and argument over whether the “approximate” proportion was counted correctly in addition to whether the number of votes were counted correctly.

20. It doesn’t seem fair that right now there are still states that didn’t vote yet but they have less, if any, choices than the earlier states for their party’s nominee. Also, the open primaries are ridiculous. What good is letting leftists and semi-leftists vote for the representative of the Republican party?

    Correcting these problems would go a long way towards reforming election vulnerabilities.

21. “I’m not asking to go back to those smoke-filled rooms, although I don’t think the results would necessarily be half bad. ”

    I think that the smoke-filled rooms would often do a lot better.

    The corrupt party bosses who populated those rooms were at least realistic about what it took to win elections. They tended to nominate candidates who they thought were electable rather than ideologues. They tended to nominate candidates who had a well-established track record on the national scene rather than newcomers who aroused great momentary enthusiasm.

    AS Robert Samuelson noted in his column “The Obama Delusion” yesterday:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902336.html?sub=AR

    “[W]ith Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I feel that I’m dealing with known quantities. They’ve been in the public arena for years; their views, values and temperaments have received enormous scrutiny. By contrast, newcomer Obama is largely a stage presence defined mostly by his powerful rhetoric. “

22. Terrye:
    “The truth is that in spite of the fact that I am {as harry notes an unprincipled McCain supporter blah blah yadayada} the truth is I think voters should be citizens. I just love it when sore losers mischaracterize the positions of their opponents.”

    Sorry Terrye, but I dont recall mischaracterizing your position on anything. As I recall, the gist of the criticism aimed at those less than happy at the prospect of supporting McCain included our supposed unreasoned “purist” stance on the issue of immigration, which, as I see, encompasses citizenship, identity, and who gets to vote. I thought it an appropriate reminder.

23. Well, no, not at all. But I also do not think that the current two party system is anywhere enshrined as the only way to make a Republic function. And yes, the states can decide how to apportion their electoral votes, but I still favor District apportionment rather than the winner-take-all system most states currently use. I’d like to see a campaign to make the Electoral College system better understood and thus more likely (on a state by state basis) to be reformed.

    Chris claims he doesn’t want to live in “a doofy european parliamentary system with a dozen parties and a new government every 6 months”

    He just wants to put everything in place that would turn the US into “a doofy european parliamentary system….”.

    The first heat would be held in the smallest states whose total EC votes equal roughly 20% of the total. The next heat would follow a month or so later and move on to the next 20% culminating in the largest states whose combined total is that rough 20%.

    But the ‘smallest’ states in the US population-wise are the largest in land area making it expensive to go there and meet voters and gather electors.

    The campaigns would largely write off those states in the general and fight over the remaining big city areas–the western states, and rural areas would be effectively disenfranchised by such a system.

    Exactly what the EC was created to avoid!

    The biggest beef that the dirty leftists have with the EC is that it gives us gun-toting hicks and Christers out here in fly-over country as much influence in the general election as their Prius-driving, chardonnay sipping big-city lefty friends

24. There is an effort to subvert the Electoral College that is actually making some progress. It’s called National Popular Vote. Their bill has been passed in New Jersey and Maryland, and is receiving consideration in a number of other states. As near as I can make out, it requires electors from states where it is in effect to wait for the full national popular vote to be counted, and then cast all their ballots for the winner. So if New Jersey goes Democrat this year, but McCain wins the general, the New Jersey electors would be required to vote for McCain? No, not yet, as it includes a provision that it will “take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).” The ridiculous result hypothesized above cannot come about until it is too late for the people of these states to see what they have done to themselves. It would also make the practice of “calling a state” for one candidate or another useless, as no-one would know how the state’s electoral votes would be cast until the whole country was counted.

25. They include such things as setting up insufficient booths in minority-inhabited areas, so that long lines discourage voters;”

    Not to mention the poor schools, horrendous crime rates, and collapsing levees which are associated with Democrat control of these “minority-inhabited areas”.

26. Gray seems very confused about a number of things. First, keeping track of the differences in my comments between primaries, caucuses and the general election. A more careful reading of my comments (rather than the ‘oh, it’s CW, he’s a lefty a**hole, I need to disagree with everything he says’ approach that follows a casual reading) would reveal that my thoughts on when to schedule primaries has little to do with the electoral college.

    The current primary system, with New Hampshire’s traditionally being the first one held, is designed, in part, to encourage candidates to spend time on the ground in a rural state, dealing directly with voters. I merely suggested a slight streamlining of the process as it now stands. By beginning with the smaller, more rural states, the five heat primary/caucus system I suggested in some ways mirrors the way the EC keeps elections from being totally dominated by the big metropolitan areas and most populous states.

    I’d also like Gray to explain how District apportionment of a state’s electoral votes would disenfranchise or slant the vote in favor of urban or liberal areas. Wouldn’t it be as likely to see added EC votes for the “Red” candidate from a “Blue” state like Massachussets where some of the western districts might well vote “Red” instead of insuring that the more populous Boston area (where all the Prius-driving, chardonnay sipping big-city lefty types vote) dominates?

    None of the refinements I’ve suggested would change the election cycle, nor lead to a parlimentary style approach to choosing a President. It would, however, encourage multiple parties and hopefully get us beyond the current adversarial US vs. THEM approach to politics. If, for example, a newly elected President McCain knew that his margin of victory came from voters for whom he was the second choice behind a more conservative alternate party candidate, how might that effect his cabinet choices?

    And, Ymasakar, a question for you; you seem to think I have an underlying desire for “Balkanization” (which is false), yet you also seem to have little use for international organizations and accords. I believe you’re among those here who fear that some among the elite want to see a unified North America. If you are against small sovereign units and against large units as well, which political bowl is ‘just right’ for you?

27. harry:

    I am not responsible for your delusions. If you insist that anyone and everyone who disagrees with you must want non citizens to vote there is nothing I can do about it.

    Now, be sure and remember to vote for Obama in November. Got to get that spite vote in. He is counting on it. That way he can hand out drivers licenses to illegals and you will have something new to get all outraged about.

28. The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 02/21/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

29. And what the hell has that got to do with the subject at hand anyway harry? Is McCain responsible for the primary system and Deomcratic party rules as well as illegal immigration?

    When you stub a toe do you blame Juan McLame?

    McCain Derangement Syndrome manifests in much the same sort of bizarre behavior we have to associate with its sister, Bush Derangement Syndrome. A sense of persecution seems to be the most prevalent and obvious symptom.

30. Terrye: BDS is caused by predetermined hatred of Bush.

    People’s dislike of McCain is a reaction to the things he has done and his positions.

    Therefore there cannot be MDS.

    Stop being such a sychophant, it’s embarassing.

31. would reveal that my thoughts on when to schedule primaries has little to do with the electoral college.

    Right. The EC has nothing to do with scheduling primaries–which is why I cited the General Election in my post.

    So, A more careful reading of my comments (rather than the ‘oh, it’s Gray, he’s a neocon a**hole, I need to disagree with everything he says’ approach that follows a casual reading) would show I was only referring to the comments you made on the Electoral College.

    I don’t care when parties schedule their primaries–that’s a party thing….

32. I don’t see the pluses outweighing the minuses when 51% majorities in key states result in “landslide” electoral victories.

    That’s an enormous plus. It amplifies small majorities so that they don’t get lost in the noise of errors and voter fraud. Of course, it can amplify a well-managed graveyard vote, too. But there is no system that cannot be gamed. If improving the resistance to gaming slightly means that the decision process is stretched out into months, I’d call it a poor choice.

33. Chris White Says:

    February 20th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    ” and thus be able to vote for a Nader or Perot without “wasting” my ballot or having the practical effect of helping the candidate I like least.”

    The system is designed to force moderation… and to prevent just that kind of stuff…

34. Vince P Says:

    February 21st, 2008 at 3:06 pm
    Terrye: BDS is caused by predetermined hatred of

    “Therefore there cannot be MDS.”

    It’s still MDS when it goes way beyond anything he actually did.

    Often the same as with BDS…

35. While the National Popular Vote system might, in a very close election (like the 2000 contest in which the candidate with the lesser popular vote won due to the EC and Supreme Court) lead to the decision process stretching into months … if various candidates fight to the bitter end and contest the count in hundreds or thousands of voting districts … it is extremely unlikely that an Automatic Runoff system would lead to contested outcomes that cannot be resolved at least as as easily as they are today if not more easily. It is a system that could use paper ballots with optical scanners connected to a simple computer counting program producing both clear results and a paper trail.

    And Gray, if you’ll re-read our exchange above you’ll see that in your most recent comment the third paragraph has you quoting me discussing primary scheduling, so in what way are you connecting that to my views on the EC or voting systems since you claim that’s what you were responding to?

36. Thanks for the important clarification Vince P.

    Look, my entire point was a reminder of the importance of conservative principals and how that had been derided as “extremist” and “far right” among people who had previously sounded conservative themselves.

    You could say I was beating a dead horse here.
    An Appaloosa maybe. Perhaps even a maverick. I don’t know.
    Im just sayin….

37. The first heat would be held in the smallest states whose total EC votes equal roughly 20% of the total. The next heat would follow a month or so later and move on to the next 20% culminating in the largest states whose combined total is that rough 20%.

    So you want to tie the primary schedule to the EC votes of a state!?

    Let me get this right, I didn’t understand before: You want to tie the method a party uses to select a candidate to Federal Election Law!?

    So as states gain or lose representatives the state parties legally have to change when their primary elections are?!

    I misunderstood ‘cuz I didn’t think you were that loopy: I don’t think you’ve thought this through.

38. harry, I took your point, and in the abstract it is a good one. When pressing it for juice, however, it doesn’t produce what you hoped. In both cases you are representing your opponents’ view in caricature and contrasting it to your own. That’s a common enough failing in this world, but you can’t expect to convince people that way.

39. harry:

    Oh please, who died and made you boss? Did it ever occur to you that other people might have a slightly different idea of what those principles are?

    I don’t even know you. Why should I want you to lecture me about what is and is not proper conservative principles? Maybe that is where some of the impatience you have encountered is coming from. People are just tired of you preaching to them about what is good and proper. We are grownups, we can figure somethings out for ourselves.

    McCain won the damn primaries fair and square whether you like it or not.

40. The point of the Electoral College is to make sure that all the states are represented, it was not based on popular vote. It usually ends up working that way, but it was not its purpose.

41. AVI:
    harry, I took your point, and in the abstract it is a good one. When pressing it for juice, however, it doesn’t produce what you hoped.”

    How is it you know what I had hoped? My only “juice” was a reminder of how swiftly some of the other “conservatives” on this blog where quick to plant the label of “extremism” upon values that I had always took to be mainstream and very basically conservative. The immigration issue definitely being one of them.

    I think many people in the Republican party have been infected with Go-Along-to-Get-Along, syndrome which includes a secret desire to be appreciated by people on the left, or at least seen to be somewhat less inflexible, “purist”, “extremist” and therefore, really not such a bad sort of fellow in the eyes of your fellow Americans.

    Maybe if you can seem to be “more reasonable” to the average Joe than us inflexible klansmen you can convince the undecided to vote for a 70 year old guy who is clearly willing to sell out in order to have a chance of beating the charismatic multi-cultural messiah. Perhaps it will work. I just dont think its the best way to get there.

42. 1. Leave the Electoral College alone. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. The EC keeps the big cities from running the whole country. I think anyone with a functioning brain can envision how disastrous that would be.

    2. Repeal the 17th Amendment. The Senate was supposed to represent the states’ interests, not made up of winners of giant popularity contests.

    3. Open primaries must be abolished. A common tactic in open primary states is to vote for the worst candidate of the opposing party, rather than the best candidate of one’s own party. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this has a tendency to lower the quality of the winning candidates from both parties. Whoever originated the idea of open primaries must have been an idiot or a traitor.

43. I been on the Repeal the 17th Amend bandwagon for a few years now.

    Also, Congress should use it’s Article III powers and restrict certain laws from Supreme Court review. Like laws regarding treatment of illegal combatants. And other types of laws where the courts keep overstepping their bounds.

44. No election system is free of defects that can became meaningfull in some situations. In voting with preferences, for example, we can have situation when A is prefered to B, B is prefered to C, but C still is prefered to A! (This is known as Condorcet paradox.) Dusputes about relative advantages of proportional or majority system are also as old as the very practice of consensual government. In practice proportional system leads to many short-lived parties and unstable coalition governments incapable to achive any long-termed goals and often completely paralyzed, as in Italy or Israel. Such system works only there is a strong national leader, like Golda Meir or Berluscony, and in such periods hardly differ from personal authority, in Mussoliny style.
    Perfect political system is impossible, and any legal regime is “injust” to somebody – or at least is percieved by some as such. The oldest republics, like Athens, Florence or Venice, used casting lots to select magistrates, and do it very often: their concept of fairness was accepting heavenly choice and frequient rotation, so nobody can stay in office too long to aquire undue influence.

45. I believe that even today Korea accepts the casting of lots when an electoral tie can’t be broken.

46. Indeed, leave the EC alone and repeal the 17th. As for open primaries, there are a lot of people who are under the mistaken impression that all states are party registration states, and that is not true. There are quite a few states that have only registered voters, no registered Dems or Republicans. There is no way to “close” a primary if the state has no official party rolls.

47. rightwingprof: I also think primaries should be closed—it makes no sense otherwise. But there’s no way to compel a state to do it.

48. rwp&nnc: If we could accept that primaries belong to the parties, rather than the state, we could close the primaries by letting the parties allow voting for their candidates only if people registered with the party. Let the parties manage it, in other words. I am sure we are well beyond that. In fact, if I were a party boss in such a system, I would probably look for ways of restricting such membership to people I trust, which would lead back to greater state regulation. Never mind.

49. > which would be anathema to those who think the selection of a nominee ought to reflect the pure popular will of the people.

    What, you mean like those who think that the electoral college should be disposed of, and that Gore should’ve won in 2k?

    LOL. Funny how such stuff only matters when people lose.

50. > The democrats only want a system that allows them to win. If that system fails they want another system. Power is all the care about even if it brings about the death of the nation.

    Liberals, not Dems, but these days that IS, admittedly, a fine distinction:

    “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.”
    – Harry S Truman, pp. 55, American Heritage 7/8 1992, from a 1970 interview —

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