Tag Archives: barack obama

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The GOP revisits its views on hate

Look away! Look away!

Look away! Look away! (Photo credit: Norm Walsh)

“If you want the voters to like you, you have to like them first,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

This has been an interesting time to be a Democrat watching the Republican Party.  My experience has always been the adage, Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line was true.  Watching the GOP respond to the results.  In one corner, you have Mitt Romney blaming his loss on President Obama buying votes with gifts and in the other you have just about everyone else.

Let’s start there.  Romney told supporters, “What the president’s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked…It’s a proven political strategy, which is give a bunch of money to a group and, guess what, they’ll vote for you. … Immigration we can solve, but the giving away free stuff is a hard thing to compete with.”

Now, I should admit that being the savvy operative that I am, I held out for a trip to Paris, you’re not going to get my vote with some free birth control!  I need something real for my vote!  And I live in DC!  Any Democratic candidate will tell you that winning DC is a challenge!

Seriously, how delusional do you have to be to think that President Obama won reelection because he gave people stuff for their vote?  How arrogant are you that you think it is impossible for people to have wanted someone else to win?  How desperate are you to not be at fault for your own failure that you grasp like this? (And how ironic is it that someone who claims to be so pro “personal responsibility” is so incapable of taking any?)

Then you have the “let’s not be the stupid party” wing of the GOP.

For a long time now, I am sure this started before Lee Atwater but I feel like he elevated certain aspects of campaigning, the GOP has been all about “wedge” issues.  This party used fear to elect its candidates.  Now, this last campaign seems to have shown that pitting the country against each other may not be the way to win elections and I say “amen to that!” I also know that we are fickle and what works today may not tomorrow so it may be too soon to get all excited.  But the response of many Republican leaders has given me a lot of hope.

FYI: As a Democrat, I want to see Democrats in office but I also would like to see our political debate be about substance.  We will all benefit from a Republican Party that is more interested in appealing to everyone than one that thinks half of us are to be written off.

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My candidate lost the election, I am taking my ball and going HOME!

Getup Get God

Getup Get God (Photo credit: prettywar-stl)

By now you probably know that people in every state in the country have started petitions to secede from the United States.  First of all, good luck with that.  How often has that worked before?  Oh, right, never.

Secondly, you might want to think a bit before you go ahead and start your own country.  Personally, I like having the US military there to protect me.  Maybe you do, too but whereas I will still have it, you would not.  Think your former country is going to bail you out when some big bad comes knocking on your door?  Think again.

And while we’re at it, I like being able to travel the world with full protection of the US government behind me.  Get stuck in some foreign country and need help, yeah, there’s an embassy not too far away.  Not so much for the newly created Republic of Alabama.

Oh, and to senior citizens in states looking to leave, hope you don’t need that Medicare or Social Security because you won’t be taking it with you.  And Florida, that’s going to impact a lot of your residents.  Texas, too but you’ll be smarting from all the people you have lured away from their states racing home to keep their US citizenship.  Funny, your governor doesn’t seem all that excited about the possibility of giving up all that federal aid you get.

Aside from all of that, this is really absurd.  Part of the deal of our kind of government remains that not everyone will be happy with the outcome of every election.  In some ways, that means we are doing something right. You know where nearly 100 percent of people vote for one candidate over the other?  Places like North Korea.

Personally, I have lived through many elections where I wasn’t happy. I had threatened to move to Canada if George W. Bush was elected but I didn’t go anywhere.  After working on the Gore campaign, I was pretty bitter about the outcome of that race but I didn’t think the state I lived in (New York) should become the nation of New York.  But I wasn’t the whiny bitch you people seem to be.  Seriously, this stuff annoys the crap out of me.

I actually agree with this:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

This, however, is not one of those times.

 

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Hurricane Sandy and the presidential election

Barack Obama

First of all, I hope everyone reading this is safe, warm and dry.

What a difference a week (or day) can make!  Just think, a month ago, President Obama’s reelection seemed almost like a fait accompli and then, BAM!  Debate number one gave Mitt Romney an opening and he’s back from political death.  I blogged in 2008 that I thought he was going to win it all then.  There’s no excuse for taking their eye off the Romney ball the way Obama clearly did.

I do not want Romney to get to move into the White House.  Not even a little bit. Why?  Mostly because I have no idea who he is or what he stands for.  He was pro-choice before he was anti.  He was pro-health reform before he was anti and then pro again when it served him.  He has taken the whole “run to the right in the primary and then to the center for the general” to levels that I never thought were possible.  Really, Mitt?  You’re now proud of your Massachusetts health care plan?  And you really still think FEMA should be privatized?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?  What day is it?

The Supreme Court could be enough of a reason for me to vote for Barack Obama.  But then I also remember that the president sets the tone for the entire federal government.  I think the Violence Against Women Act was a good idea and want our Justice Department to enforce it.  You know who doesn’t?  Most of the GOP.  And don’t get me started on binders and the GOP’s thoughts on rape.

Then there’s Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI).  Full disclosure, I have a pretty huge crush on Ryan.  I

Congressman Paul Ryan (R,Wisconsin)

Congressman Paul Ryan (R,Wisconsin) (Photo credit: Tobyotter)

am not proud of it.  I don’t like it but… would I kick him out of bed?  Probably not.  If he could only stop talking and just sit around looking pretty, we’d all be better off.  If he is intent on talking, maybe he can just STOP writing.  I read his plans for Medicare and they are really, really bad.  And no, Joe Scarborough, he isn’t great for being the only one to propose something about the federal program which does need restructuring (we need to deal with health care costs, a voucher program is not the answer).  This is like, the neighbor’s house is on fire!  Somebody, do something!  Ahh, Paul Ryan brought doughnuts.  Doesn’t help with the fire, per se, but technically, he has done something.  And we want this guy to be a heart beat away from being president?  I may think he is some pretty nice (and very hydrated) eye candy, I don’t think he belongs in the White House.

And now, this storm may be a game changer.  (Do Mark Halperin and Jon Heileman have copywrite on that phrase? )  President Obama gets to look, well, presidential.  Something he needs to work on. Now, should he lose the election (and he might), there will be a ton of blame bantied about.  I will blame only one person; the president.  He looked so bored during that debate that I had a hard time watching it.  He made me like Chris Christie and that’s not a small feat.  At least he appreciates FEMA.  Fuck, anyone out there thinks privatizing that important agency makes sense?  It doesn’t.  And we want the guy who wants that to be president, I know I do not.

President Obama has not lived up to a lot of our expectations but truthfully, he never really had a shot at that.  Unless he could completely change the way we approach politics (a crazy high bar to reach), we weren’t going to be satisfied.  Part of this is also his fault.  The candidate of “hope and change” became the president of “it could have been worse.”  Not exactly awe inspiring.

But not terrible either.  I wish Obama had been more hands on when dealing with Congress, though I am not convinced that would have helped woo people like Eric Cantor, who clearly were going to oppose anything he proposed.

I guess in a week we will know.  Do I have to move to France?

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The politicians we settle for

079 Capitol Hill United States Congress 1993

079 Capitol Hill United States Congress 1993 (Photo credit: David Holt London)

Current conventional wisdom goes something like this:

Our system is more partisan and mean than it has ever been.  Politicians don’t have any interest in leading, they base their decisions on poll numbers and focus group data and refuse to tell us the truth.  Things have never been this bad.  If only the parties would nominate some qualified candidates who would put the good of the nation ahead of themselves.  None of the jokers running are at all qualified to do anything.

Whine, whine, whine.  I may not agree with Secretary Clinton‘s recent comments about women but I sure share her opinion about this.  Let’s call it whiner fatigue.  I don’t know what I hate about it the most, the whining itself or the fact that it puts me in the scary position of wanting to defend people like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.  I think I disagree with everything Paul Ryan has said but when someone I know  said he was no more qualified than Sarah Palin, well, no, Virginia, I guess there isn’t a Santa Claus.

Mr. Pot, I’d like you to meet my good friend, Ms. Kettle.

I think one reason we love to hate politicians is because we love to hate ourselves.  I can think of no other explanation that makes sense.  The people in our government weren’t beamed there from outer space.  They weren’t born there.  We sent them there.  We want many things from our elected officials.  We want them to be both better than and the same as us.  I, personally, want them to be smarter than me.  Statements like, “all politicians do that” are bad for a number of reasons.  These statements let our politicians slide but more than that, they let us do the same.  Plus  by expecting so little of them, and ourselves, we set everyone up for failure.

I am tired of it.  I expect more of myself and I expect more from them, it’s just that simple.  You may be wondering how this will impact my presidential pick.  You know what?  That’s a bullshit question.   I do expect more from the person who will get my vote for president but even if I didn’t, my entire view of our system does not rest on one person or one office.  My vote has the least influence in the presidential election, where I don’t even vote for the person directly.  Where it can make a bigger difference is in local elections or for members of Congress.  Now, I have no real representation in Congress but I vote for my non-voting member and so should you.

Having said that, my opinion about Barack Obama is not the point.  In fact, in one draft of this I gave the reasons I think he deserves another four years but removed them because they detract from my point.

Bottom line:  Our electeds represent us in every way.  They are reflections of us in every way as well.  We need to own that and move on if we expect to change anything.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Seriously, things have never been this bad in the history of the world except of course when they were.  My career got its start during the Clinton administration.  You know, that rosy time when Democrats had everything they wanted and the economy grew so much that all over Washington people greeted each other with puppies and kisses.  Oh, wait, they didn’t.  (for the record, I wrote this about that time.)  Bill Clinton was concerned to not just be a bad president, he was evil.  He was accused of everything up to and including murder.  So was Hillary.  She offed Vince Foster donchaknow.  He was impeached.  Republicans alleged that as governor he ran drugs and guns into his state.  As president, the nefariousness just never ended.

So now, things are bad.  Congressional districts are becoming increasingly radical.  Members of Congress go on the record to say they will never use the word compromise, ever.  Congress used to stay in Washington over the weekends but now they go home.  We don’t even get our news from the same sources.  My side watches our news and your side watches yours.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say you have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts but that may not be true any more because we literally cherry pick our facts.  Yet, whining about this is still whining.  It might feel good at the time but unless you’re going to get out there and do something to change the tenor of public discourse, shut up.

Bad people get sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote…

That used to be my outgoing voicemail.  I went on to give information about polling places and a number to register to vote.  We are an apathetic country and this is actually a sign that our system is working vs. not but that it doesn’t excuse not voting.  Not even a little bit.  And if you don’t vote and then come whine to me about government, the shit storm that comes your way is your own damn fault.

If you have made it this far, you might be wondering why I wrote this.  I get just as fed up and upset at the state of affairs in this country as anyone but as bad as our system can be, it still beats most of the other systems on the planet.

 
 
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Molehills out of mountains and vice versa

In the middle of a campaign for the most important position in the country, we should be talking about the global economy, tensions around the world such as problems in Iran, Syria and elsewhere.  We should be talking about how to best prepare ourselves for the new economic circumstances our world now inhabits or how to overhaul our tax and entitlements systems.

But we are not.

The GOP presidential nominees aren’t talking about these things.  They are focused on contraception and questions of “good and evil.”  The Republican Party, seems intent on not returning our country to a more prosperous state but to a different era.  It has become normal for politicians on both sides to wax nostalgic about “the good old days.”  Those days seems always have been in the 1950s, when — by the way, the tax rates for the highest earners was at its highest level ever.   But the current crop of candidates don’t think going back to even the 50s is enough.

I get why the Republicans feel the need to return to social and religious issues, their base loves it.  Think about what they want to talk about: contraception, religious wars, gay marriage.  Really?

Newsflash:  It’s 2012, Women can vote and most use contraception.  Gay marriage will be legal everywhere in the United States during my lifetime.  Nothing you do will change either of those facts.  Just to be as clear on this as possible — you are on the wrong side of history on these issues but that isn’t the real problem.  History doesn’t care.  The problem is by wasting everyone’s time on issues that won’t be changed at this level, we fail to talk about the policies that will.  You cheapen the process.

All of this is great for the Democrats.  And I want President Obama to win.  But as good as this is for his reelection prospects, it is bad for the country.  Presidential campaigns provide an opportunity to really examine and evaluate the state of the country and the best ways to deal with the challenges we face.  These should be lofty conversations and debates not petty bickering about social issues that were settled years ago (not to harp, but nothing Rick Santorum can do will turn that clock back).

When President Obama took office, I characterized the situation he faced as his “Himalayan problem.” All problems were so large individually but it was hard to gage their enormity when clumped together.  I misspoke, this was not his Himalayan problem, it was ours.  By choosing to focus on issues that excite  one base or another at the expense of those that impact all of us, the GOP is making molehills out of our Everest sized problems and that’s unfortunate.