Why Virginia Governor Northam has to go

And why it's for the greater good that he's going to hang around twisting in the wind for a while before he goes.

So, basically #GovNortham is retreating to the classic "These aren't my pants" defense so familiar to street cops.https://t.co/PuaU9T3MMB

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) February 2, 2019

Not for nothing is Tam known as the Queen of Snark.  Northam is trying to hang on but that's really just embarrassing and damaging his party now.  Five years ago this all would have been dealt with quietly, with Approved tut tutting and "mistakes were made" noises from the GOP side.  No more:

Democrat Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia just stated, “I believe that I am not either of the people in that photo.” This was 24 hours after apologizing for appearing in the picture and after making the most horrible statement on “super” late term abortion. Unforgivable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2019

Northam has done what few pols accomplish - stepping into it up to his chin twice in two consecutive days.  The last time a Governor has been this amusing was when South Carolina Governor Mark Stanford hiked the Appalachian Trail all the way to his mistress' apartment in Buenos Aires.  

The Press is, of course, outraged.  Not at Northam, although privately they're mad that he's peed in their punchbowl - no, they're mad that people like Tam are mocking a Democrat.  And that she's being joined in the free for all by the Mocker In Chief.

What they're really mad at is that the tools that they used to monopolize - mockery of your political opponent - are now available for everyone, and are being used against their political allies.  And quite frankly, this is why Northam has to go after a long, agonizing, and damaging time (weeks?) of twisting in the wind.  You see, the power that the Press used to monopolize was used corruptly, and there are mathematical proofs that using this back at them will tend to reduce their corrupt use of it in the future.

Really.  I've written before about this:

Game Theory is a field of mathematics originally developed to try to mathematically derive optimum solutions for card games in the 18th century.  It has developed into a major field of analysis used in computer science and even the design of crypto systems.  Any of you who saw the film "A Beautiful Mind" have at least a passing familiarity with the subject. 

You probably even know the most famous example of Game Theory: The Prisoner's Dilemma.  Two prisoners are (separately) offered a deal - rat out the other guy or keep silent.  If they rat and the other guy doesn't, they go free and he gets a long sentence.  If neither of them rat, they both get short sentences.  If they both rat, they both get long sentences.  And most importantly to the prisoner, if he doesn't rat but the other guy does, he gets a long sentence while the other guy walks. 

It's a one-time deal, which makes the math simpler.  Real world situations are not so simple, and a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma has incorporated this.  Tit For Tat is a sequential set of prisoner's dilemma events where the strategy is to play what your opponent played in the previous round.  If your opponent was cooperative, you will be cooperative; if he screwed you, you will screw him back.
What's interesting about Tit For Tat is that mathematical proofs have shown that it leads to the outcome with maximum combined utility.  If your opponent always screws you, you're no worse off playing Tit For Tat, but if your opponent is always cooperative or also plays Tit For Tat then both of you derive the maximum benefit.

Politics has been played as a disconnected series of Prisoner's Dilemma rounds.  The Republicans have pushed their own to resign in the face of scandal, but it's only been the last year that the Democrats have shown a sign of doing the same.  This has been good politics for Democrats over the last 15 years or so.

This is why Northam has to go.  House GOP leader Steve King was stripped of his posts within a day or two of an interview that (depending on who you listen to) may or may not have been taken out of context or misrepresented for political purposes.  If these are the new rules, then Northam has to go because he admitted to (and later changed his story) the events.

I don't think that the Republic is well served by scalp taking, but it is even less well served by scalp taking applied to only one side.  The math tells us that we maximize the Republic's welfare by taking scalps from both sides.