Greetings Obama fans. Please do not jostle, push or shove but wait your turn; there is room for everyone to flay the perverse diarist who thinks your hero is but a mortal man. But questions will be asked and answers needed - and soon - to determine who is best qualified to fix the extreme mess being left in Our White House by its present tenant who will be vacating January 21, 2009.
Super Tuesday is over. It appears, from early data, that Senator Clinton is winning the voting states (in addition to winning the caucuses in American Samoa) while Senator Obama seems to be winning more of the caucus states. Right now, Senator Clinton is ahead; very ahead when you count the votes in the two states, Florida and Michigan, whose delegates were taken away by their party.
But in 276 days we will go to the polls for real and choose between a Republican and a Democrat; there will be no other choices; and the candidate we choose had better know his/her stuff before the oath of office to protect and serve the Constitution is taken. The executive office isn’t a classroom and it isn’t a popularity contest. It’s being thrown into the deep end of the pool without a life jacket to sink or swim. In 2000, the guy who claimed victory couldn’t even dog paddle even though he thinks he won a gold medal for swimming.
So let’s quit being distracted by whose the prettiest, whose the best talker, whose "time has come", whose the most loyal to "The Party", and take a real look at these candidates. What we really need to know is whose the best juggler, who can make quick, correct decisions, and who may not be the most technologically competent in this age of instantaneous communication but who knows how to hire a staff this is, and who is the best at standing toe to toe with an enemy and negotiating with foreign governments - friends, "frienemies" or foes - even if the "wrong" politician wins.
You may think that you know enough about these candidates but pretend you are planning to hire one of these people to run your company and your fortune and the future of your company depends on who can take a red bottom line and put you in the black. You are going to want to investigate all 5 resumes thoroughly before you speak those words, "You’re hired!" We should at least investigate that "experience" listed as thoroughly as we investigate the lowest paid worker we hire. No one bothered to even do a routine "background screening" on the previous one and look what popped up on him! Shouldn’t the person that will be responsible for your life for the next four years have to at least go through a process as rigorous as you did to obtain your present job?
So, if one candidate’s (here you can start the bashing) previous experience and associations are off limits to the voters, the previous experience of all the candidates should be off limits; and for you "Hillary Haters" that includes hers because arguing over whether Senator Clinton committed "criminal" acts after Ken Starr’s 8 year investigation found none, or speculating over Senator Obama’s soon to be discovered who-what-when-where relationship of 20 years with the just indicted Tony Rezko detracts from the issues We the People are most interested in because neither candidate will be dropping out of the race now over what skeletons are hidden in their closets. But you have a right to base your vote on how you feel about politicians; just don’t try to convince the rest of us that what’s good for the goose (calling Clinton dishonest) is not good for the gander (Obama’s ties to Rezko).
But I’d like to know more, not just about their stands on The Issues, but about how they plan to accomplish what they say they will do. On this day after what has been dubbed Super Tuesday, where voters went to the polls to elect a candidate they think best reflects their opinions of The Issues, the national debt clock stood at $9,216,361,990,153.66 as of February 5, 2008 at 5:59.25 P.M. or $30,289.32 of debt for every citizen; which is more than one years wage for a large portion of our citizens. And that debt has grown $1.44 billion every day since September 2006. While the new, improved 110th Congress was busy taking impeachment off the table for Bush, $220.320 billion dollars was added to Our nation’s debt. We’re a nation of debtors; we know debt takes autonomy away and gives more power over us to the lenders.
Everything the candidates say they will do depends upon the solvency of the National Treasury. And, like most of our savings accounts, it’s fairly empty. The two remaining Democratic candidates, according to their election websites, share the same goals to reduce government spending and cut the budget in an attempt to balance it.
Both target oil companies with obscene profits and both promised to get rid of Bush’s "Tax Cuts for the Wealthy" and both pledge to close loopholes that allow companies to keep these obscene profits. Obama plans to tinker with the wasteful spending in the Medicare program while Clinton promised to protect the next generation by paying down the national debt. Not quite the specific plan we voters wanted to hear. So how do these candidates plan to go about financing all these changes they plan to make? I think we’re all aware that you can’t remodel a House without paying for it.
To make this plan work, it will require a mountain of unpopular legislation that must get past Republican roadblocks and a few Democratic stumbling blocks before it will reach the new president’s desk. Senator Obama has promised to "stop funding wasteful, obsolete federal government programs that make no financial sense" without specific targets being named. What are these programs? Medicare/Medicaid? Euphemistic "entitlements" of which the independent FICA Social Security program is now consider a part of? Military spending? How much will these changes save us in real dollars to implement the proposed changes?
Senator Clinton’s plan is about the same, except there is more emphasis on helping workers and homeowners with government programs to raise wages and exert more government intervention to stop home foreclosures after the release of figures showing a $1,300 drop in income for workers.
Can Senator Clinton persuade the members of Congress and the Senate to legislate the bills she will need to make the changes she proposes?
While what they did prior to gaining their senatorial seats is irrelevant because neither had any power in Washington, D. C. to change anything their voting record in the Senate after election is relevant. So what grades do these two candidates receive in the legislature experience part of their resumes. Senator Clinton became a member of the United States Senate in 2001 while Senator Obama became a member of the United States Senate in 2006 so their record of service is easy to research and tally. And their ability to get things done, to change the course of the country is what the vote is about, so how did they score on the test.
According to a Congressional voting data base, Senator Clinton is considered "a radical Democrat according to an analysis of bill sponsorship" and Survey USA has reported a job approval rate of 60% in November 2007 while an average approval rate for other senators surveyed is 53%. Since being sworn into office she has missed 145 votes of a total 2,396 votes (6%). She has sponsored 352 bills and 305 of these haven’t made it out of committee (considered an extremely poor record) although 2 were enacted and, she is considered "a radical Democrat" in a conservative Senate. She has also co-sponsored 1,713 bills (considered average relative to peers). She is a member of 11 committees and chairs one Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health.
Senator Obama is considered a "rank-and-file Democrat according to an analysis of bill sponsorship" and job approval rating is not listed. Since being sworn into office in 2005, Senator Obama has missed 179 of 1,088 votes (16%). He has sponsored 129 bills and 120 have not made it out of committee (considered a poor record) and 1 was successfully enacted (average relative to peers). He has co sponsored 535 bills (considered average relative to peers). He is a member of 12 committees and chairs a subcommittee on European Affairs.
If you are an analytical voter, these statistics may appeal to you; however, the content and quality of the bills they introduced or sponsored are not discussed and none of this gives any concrete ideas on just how these two plan to balance that budget, take away those obscene profits and special laws from oil companies or save our grand children’s legacies but it does show that they both have a tough time getting their bills to change things out of committees. One must take these plans, as the old saying goes, with a grain of salt and remember that the hopes and dreams of that 2006 election never materialized after the voting was over because every real Change begins with one small change. One little fix.
So, let’s leave the big promises of the campaign trail and check out some little things that seem to be slipping by we preoccupied voters on the very day we went to the polls to select our next representative. Like these articles that surfaced on Super Tuesday reminding us that the Bush era is far from gone and will be around for some time to come no matter who calls him/herself President.
Changes we voters didn’t anticipate
We all want more food inspectors after the e coli scares of the last decade and we all want someone to repair the infrastructure we are forced to use daily after the Minnesota bridge collapse alerted us to the possibility that, while commuting to and fro, we might soon view the bottom of the river we were crossing. And although candidates are busy reassuring us they plan to change The Issues, we should think of these small items as the fine print attached to the approval vote we give them on the big ones. And here’s just a few that should be included in that fine print.
The first news article that caught my attention was titled "Police protecting U. S. icons "Failed", and reported that with all the legislation from the Bush administration "guarding us against terrorism" with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, revocation of Habeas Corpus and the revised FISA bill, you may find it difficult to believe that our National Monument guardians (The U. S. Park police) are not only understaffed, under equipped, undertrained and demoralized but that there is no "command level" person responsible for protecting our Washington monuments and Statue of Liberty in the home office location of the biggest terrorist prevention organization in the U. S. You will also find it astonishing that airports with well equipped customs agents responsible for letting foreigners in the country are augmented with well equipped guards frisking traveling U. S. citizens, while the number of officers guarding our capitol’s treasures has fallen below pre-9/11 levels.
The United States Park Police is one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies and provides police services in U. S. parks and monument areas throughout the country. The report indicated that investigators conducted more than 100 interviews and made numerous visits and found that
•About 27 of the 110 closed-circuit TV cameras at Statue of Liberty facilities were not working.
•Park Police officers were witnessed patrolling in a van that had no emergency lights or sirens. At the same time, two relatively new and well-equipped police cars were parked at one station, where they were being reserved for then-vacant police positions.
• Private security guards hired by the Park Police to supplement officers at the Washington Monument were under-trained and ill-equipped, spoke little English and had little contact with the Park Police officers.
• A large suitcase was left unattended against the Washington Monument wall for more than five minutes before being reclaimed by a visitor.
• A grate leading to an area below the Washington Monument was open and unattended for about 20 minutes.
• One officer appeared to be sleeping in a car at the Jefferson Memorial.
• In Washington, one officer must monitor 96 closed-circuit TVs during a 12-hour shift.
If it is true that terrorists are such a high risk to our country, why would the icons representing our country not be adequately protected? How would we feel if, like the Twin Towers, the Washington Monument became rubble across the Mall and another of bin Lauden’s success stories?
And, in spite of candidates vowing to stop the encroachment upon our civil liberties guaranteed in the Constitution, the onslaught didn’t even falter during this election year. A new report on CNN.com says, "The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort to better identify criminals and terrorists". For budget conscious candidates, the project which is raising major privacy concerns, will cost one billion dollars and award a 10 year contract to some unnamed company to "help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information - from palm prints to eye scans."
Wouldn’t you be interested in what the two candidates who seem most likely to take that oath of office to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" thinks about a project that Kimberly Del Greco, FBI Biometric Services section chief informs us is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorist out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so that can have good jobs and have a safe country to live in."
Shades of 1984! When you read the report, you realize that big brother is preparing to protect you to death.
Although the much vaunted no-fly list was supposed to protect us from terrorist (even if not give our kids "good jobs"), to date it has netted, most notably, a four year old on his way to Grandma’s, a few priests and nuns, some antiwar activists, a grandmother or two, and a mother with a sippy cup problem but not one terrorist.
And this report by Sharon Begley of Newsweek (Feb. 2, 2008) seems to sum this divisive election season up by telling us that
It is a core tenet of political psychology that voters know nothing. Or next to nothing. Or next to nothing about what civics classes (forgive the anachronism) told us really matters. In 1992, the one fact that almost every voter knew about George H. W. Bush, besides that he was the incumbent president, was that he loathed broccoli. A close second was the name of the Bushes' springer spaniel, Millie, which 86 percent of likely voters said they knew. But when it came to the positions of Bush and his opponent, Bill Clinton, on important issues, voters were, shall we say, a tad under informed. Just 15 percent, for instance, knew that both candidates supported the death penalty.
And, according to political scientist Samuel Popkin (University of California - San Diego), author of The Reasoning Voter (1991), we voters rely on something he calls "gut rationality" and cites the example of Ford trying to eat a tamale without removing the husk during his presidential campaign in Texas to explain it. Popkin says Mexican-American voters believed this meant that Ford didn’t know much about their culture and thus voted for Reagan. So what’s our "gut rationality" telling us about this coming election. Mainly that all the candidates have grandiose ideas but little idea of how they are going to put them into practice.
Most of their plans are going to require huge fights among the legislators and some of the richest of our nation. We already know that the big Issues we have told them we want fixed are talked about a lot during campaign speeches but no real change is in our foreseeable future. If we do vote for someone based on our "gut rationality"; which it seems we are; then it is following the line of reaction that says "this one shares my experience". Which is why black voters identify with Obama (the non Mexican-American Reagan over Ford) and female voters identify with Clinton (the second class employee, working mother). But the "gut rationality" among most voters I know says not to expect much change in substance but in style because whoever wins, he/she will bring a much improved vocabulary to the Our White House.