My first Political Science teacher once said, "Political Science is the study of power" (except he said it with this really comical Quebecois accent). I've been thinking a lot about power and the nature thereof. My theory is that power, or at least the larger part of political power, is the ability to control the choices available to others. Since each person is presumably sentient and independent actor, you can never really control anyone (zombifying drugs notwithstanding). But then, people can't just do ANYTHING, we all operate under certain constraints–our minds perceive the situation and present us with several alternatives. The person who controls your selection of choices has manifested their power over you.

For example, consider elections. American voters will get to choose between Dumbass A and Douchebag B (Asshole C optional); but the voters generally have little power over their choices.

Small aside about the presidential race: even if my vote counted (which it doesn't, really, as a New Yorker), by the time the Democratic primary was held here, Kerry had already bagged the nomination on the strength of his showing in Iowa.

So we get to choose, but we don't really have the freedom of an infinite (or even nuanced) field of options. I think this is a large part of why people don't vote: they feel powerless based on the lack of acceptable options at the poll.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about was a post on a Daily Kos blog (and related peripheral discussion on that site) about how Cheney is kind of an albatross around Bush's neck, and that Democrats ought to make sure Dick stays on the ticket. There was a comment made by a user (which I cannot find, even with Google) which made a brilliant suggestion: Kerry should call on Vush to replace the veep. Then there'd be no way Bush could drop Cheney, because then he'd look like he was taking orders from Kerry–a classic power move which limits your opponent's options (oh, unless it backfires horribly and they get, I don't know, McCain to run for Veep).

This discussion happened on DailyKos almost a month ago, but I was thinking about it because of the Democratic convention currently going on in Boston. Now, this convention is functionally pointless in the mechanical sense–Kerry's won the all the primaries. This is just an excuse to give speeches. And in my case, there's really nothing the Democrats can say to sway my vote here, so I'm kind of ignoring the whole event, much like network television.

But then I thought… what if they'd had Edwards call for Cheney's resignation? Now that's humiliating–having the guy who lost the Democratic primaries get you dropped from the ticket! Probably better to take the high road, but it would have made things more interesting. And as you know, what's important in American politics is that I stay amused.