What a curious analogy by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint: if Republicans and others opposed to “socialism” can stop President Obama and Democrats in Congress from passing health care reform, it will be Obama’s Waterloo. He will be doomed to finish out an ineffectual term, kind of like Jimmy Carter.
Most of us Americans have a hazy idea at best about The Battle of Waterloo. A quick recap for those of you who might have been asleep during the lecture on European history: in the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon had managed to return to power in France after being exiled to the island of Elba off Tuscany. (It would be like Obama losing a second term, and then later winning another term.) Napoleon had already held power for a decade. Having been bitten many times by Napoleon, allied powers quickly organized to defeat him again. English and Prussian powers were able to defeat his armies rather handily in June of 1815 at Waterloo in Belgium. After all, they knew what they were up against and brought forty thousand more soldiers than Napoleon to the battle. After the battle, Napoleon went to live on another island, this time St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he died rather ingloriously of stomach cancer in 1821.
In short, Waterloo was the concluding battle of Napoleon’s resurgent short second reign. In contrast, President Obama has been in office a little over a year. The closest analogy one can make between Napoleon and health care reform legislation was Napoleon’s administrative reforms, which included a tax code, a public road and sewer system, establishing a central bank, and a set of civil laws known as the Napoleonic Code which were, at least in theory, quite progressive. Many of these laws and institutions survive today and may be Napoleon’s true legacy in France.
In this health care battle, if any side has superior forces, it is the establishment. It is true that Democrats have the political advantage in Congress. However, the watered down legislation making its way toward the reconciliation process represents significant concessions to the health care and health insurance industries. Single payer health care? Gone. A public option health care plan to compete with private health insurance plans? It has virtually no chance of being added during the reconciliation process, based on press reports. If brought up, it stands little likelihood of making it through reconciliation.
In many ways, if the current legislation were enacted, it would be a great victory for the health insurance industry. These companies understand that in the end they cannot sell health insurance if no one can afford to buy it. The legislation requires most uninsured Americans to buy health insurance from the private health care insurance industry. The government is basically requiring Americans to dole out more of their hard earned money to give to private corporations, not the government. That sounds like the government is assisting the corporatocracy, not socialism. If Americans cannot afford to buy the product, in many cases the government will offer subsidies and tax credits to make it possible.
To label these reforms as socialism is ridiculous. If regulating the health care industry is socialism, then one has to ask the obvious questions of what else the government is doing is socialism, because most of the federal government could be construed as socialist. Regulating drugs for safety and efficacy must be socialism because it interferes with the free market for drugs. Federal highway transportation standards and interstate commerce regulations must be socialism. Most significantly, Medicare and Medicaid must be socialism. Yet, few of those railing against socialized health care are talking (at least openly) about getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid. Many of them loathe Medicaid (health insurance for the poor) but to vote against Medicare would estrange them from virtually every senior citizen in the country. Republicans, of course, thrive on cognitive dissonance. So sure, of course they can be for socialized medicine for senior citizens yet bitterly oppose it for the rest of the working class whose taxes, by the way, are funding the Medicare system that seniors are using.
The only health care legislation that would truly be socialist would be a certain forms of a single payer health care system. This would have the government pay all Americans health care bills. In return, you would have to get health care from a government approved health care provider. Even so, as envisioned, the single payer health care approach is probably not socialistic, because the government would not directly provide the care. Most single payer health care systems follow this model. Great Britain’s Public Health Service is a major exception. Curiously, in Great Britain the Conservative Party is aligning itself as the savior of the PHS.
Is a public option socialistic? A public option provides a government administered (not owned) health care plan open to all legal U.S. residents. It would probably look a lot like Medicare; in fact, it might be Medicare extended. However, practices currently do not have to accept Medicare patients, and many do not (or do so only with grumbling) because they do not feel they are adequately reimbursed. A public option would probably not be wildly successful. A public option would probably be like buying a “good” or “better” model refrigerator. Most Americans would lust for the “best” models available from companies like Blue Cross. However, having a public option, even if it is not as great as Blue Cross, beats having no health care at all. Ask forty seven million uninsured Americans. What a public option does is help make health care more affordable because health insurers would have genuine competition. However, as I noted, the public option has little chance of passing with health care reform.
The argument really amounts to whether the federal government should mess further in the health insurance marketplace. It’s about making sure the government does not grow any further, except in ways that matter to Republicans, like having large defense contracts to privileged contractors like Halliburton. It is apparently okay for the government to ensure that securities are traded in a fair and open manner. However, it is not okay for the government to require a level playing field for health insurers. State corporation commissions ensure level playing fields all the time with electric, sewer and water rates and we don’t fret about it. Some states even regulate health insurance providers. We recognize that industries that are monopolies, or near monopolies like the health care industry in many states, need regulation to ensure that a vital service is available at all. It is hard to think of any service more vital than health care. Moreover, it’s hard to think of an area more in need of regulation, given astronomical premium increases and no constraints about whom a company can insure.
It is clear what the cost of inaction would be: eventually there will be no health insurance industry at all. Maybe that is what Republicans are secretly hoping for, although the way they take major contributions from the health care industry it is hard to believe. After all, if no one but the very wealthy can afford to pay out of pocket for health care, perhaps with all these surplus doctors costs would finally drop to an affordable level. I personally think it’s more likely I will get a visit from the tooth fairy than this ever happening.
So I would not hold my breath there. I can guarantee you one thing: if health care reform does not pass, eventually the health care industry will be petitioning Congress for regulation. The last thing they want is not be the broker between you and receiving health care. So take your health insurance reform now or later. The reality is the current legislation is a great gift to the health insurance industry, which will likely ensure its survival with, at best, only a light touch from government.
Waterloo? In this case, Napoleon is not President Obama, but the health insurance industry. Perhaps the rock group Abba got it right:
There are few things more American than the right to make an ass of yourself. Perhaps it is the swine flu but lately it seems like the Republican Party is being gripped by a form of insanity. It must be a fever because what else could explain such delusional thinking of late? Substantial numbers of Republicans actually believe that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen, but was born in Kenya. Then there are these orchestrated protests at town halls being given by our congressional representatives and senators that seem to be attracting large numbers of orchestrated lunatics. It is one thing to be opposed to health care reform and to speak up in a civil manner. It is quite another thing to show up at these events, recite inanities if not outright falsehoods about health care reform and basically try to prohibit even a discussion on the topic from taking place. The National Republican Committee seems to be behind these protests, but they are also being whipped up by prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck too.
What is really going on here? What is happening is that America’s demographics are changing to the point where their impact is being acutely felt. What is really very scary to these protestors is that white privilege is losing its grip on America. For years the demographics of America have been trending less white and more multicultural. America witnessed a watershed moment with the election of Barack Obama. In the minds of most of these protestors, having an African American as president was insulting enough. It was just as insulting that Barack Obama would also try to rapidly enact the exact reforms on which he campaigned.
The opposition, as it always does, tries to push back. What is unique this time is the extraordinary lengths this group is going to in order to get attention. Obviously these people have been seething since the election. When a balloon pops, it pops at its weakest point. Today we see that when these feelings become overwhelming, they are articulated by their loosest cannons on the GOP ship of state.
Do not assume though that these loose cannons are rolling around the deck because their pins rusted out. The crew (in this case the National Republican Committee and prominent conservative commentators) has been actively working to pull out their pins. They do so deliberately because they know that talk has its limits and to effect change it must be followed by actions. These tactics seem to be working to some extent. People whose support for Obama was tentative to begin with might be persuaded to believe the incredible about him if sufficient numbers of their neighbors say so, particularly in a bad economy. Similarly, much of the disinformation about national health care reform feeds into general American paranoia about Washington and its surreptitious motives.
The general thrust of all these actions is arguably quite conservative. Conservatives by their nature do not welcome change. They resist change. Conservatives are used to a power structure where white men hold most of the political power. It is as American in their minds as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. However, when you run out of convincing arguments and when the American people are generally not behind you, then in their mind some extreme tactics are required. Playing by the rules simply means they will become further marginalized. Go on the offensive using bizarre and unworldly tactics and at least you have attention and can attempt to direct the conversation. Trying to do so in gentlemanly conversations in Congress does not change the dynamics.
The attempt will likely prove futile. At best it may prove effective in the short term, but it will not prove effective in the long term. While there is an excitable minority that believes in conspiracy theories, most of us have brains that are more firmly attached to reality. For those of us who inhabit the real world, the silly belief that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and is thus a “false” president, is laughable and ludicrous. It amazes us that anyone other than the tiniest fraction of the weirdoes could possibly believe something proven so demonstrably false.
Similarly, we wonder what these people are smoking when they worry about socialized medicine. We already have Medicare and Medicaid. Many of the people squawking the loudest are already receiving Medicare and would be unable to pay for their own medical care if it disappeared. Many of these same people choose to remain blissfully mindless that health insurance companies already effectively decide who lives and dies by deciding which treatments they will or will not cover. The only way to make sure that insurance companies will not deny necessary coverage is to have the law require universal coverage. In any event, America is a democracy. Who would you rather make this crucial decision, a representative democracy where at least you could petition for changes or an unelected insurance company accountable only to their stockholders?
America’s changing demographics is a trend that cannot be changed. America is already very multiracial. The biggest change is that changing is that the era of white male privilege is going away, and it is being noticed in the form of “scary” things like Hispanic Supreme Court justices, African American presidents and new policies that include audacious notions like health insurance companies shouldn’t be able to pick and choose who they cover. This is a privilege, by the way, that has been enjoyed by members of Congress and federal employees for decades with no complaints. No member of Congress, even the conservative Republican ones, is anxious to change their Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan so they could be excluded from coverage because of their preexisting conditions. Regardless of what happens to other Americans, they will give up their FEHBP coverage shortly after their cold dead fingers are pried off their guns.
The sad reality is that protestors trying to crash town hall meetings on health care or who push crazy ideas like Obama was not born in the United States are being manipulated by people who really do not have their best interest at heart. Except for the self made millionaires attending these rallies, attempts to avoid health insurance reform simply mean these very people are likely to be excluded for their own preconditions, if they have not been already. Moreover, they will likely soon be priced out of the health insurance market altogether as premiums continue to rise beyond their ability to pay for them.
I would hope most of these points on health care reform would be obvious, but based on the debate in Congress, apparently not.
Just as there is no free lunch now for health care, there will be none after we are done reforming health care. It is going to cost a ton of money no matter what happens or does not happen. In the end, doing nothing will be far more expensive than creating universal health care.
The first decade of universal health coverage is going to be particularly expensive. There is no way around it. This is because there are forty seven million uninsured Americans and their health is often poor. Treating their chronic problems is going to be very expensive. For many of us who are insured, our health is poor too. We eat too much, exercise too little, and have too many bad habits. Often, we also do not particularly like who we are and where we are in life. In short, we are a seriously messed up people, physically and psychologically. This is due in part to our pretension that we are all rugged individualists when in fact we are all intimately tied together in a mutual codependent relationship. What do you think all those roads, bridges, railroads, telephone lines and networks mean, anyhow?
The reason a public health care plan is being opposed has nothing to do with socialism, but profit. The American medical industry is hugely profitable and the powers that be want to keep it that way. In short, profits come before people and as a result, people are needlessly dying or living in unnecessary misery.
While there is much we can do to control health care costs, in the end costs will only level off if we get off our fat asses, lose weight, kick our bad habits, and live healthier lifestyles in general. In short, we have to grow up and face the music. We need a government that tells us this truth and provides incentives so we will choose to get there.
A public plan will deliver quality care for lower cost than private plans. America’s public plan may not turn out to be as well thought out as health care plans in places like Europe. By squeezing out the middleman, it will be more affordable than any plan private industry can put together. Moreover, private industry knows it, which is why they are fighting so hard against a public plan. It is their death knell. Just look at the administrative cost of Medicare, Medicaid and the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan and compare these expenses with our private health insurance administrative expenses. The latter are many orders of magnitudes more expensive.
A public health plan would only be socialist if the government owned all the hospitals, doctors’ offices, labs and clinics in the country. That is on no one’s radar. However, a public health plan would require universal insurance coverage and set uniform standards for patient care. This is not socialism because the government does not own the means of production. It is no more socialism than the FAA is socialist because it directs the air traffic.
A workable American version of a universal health care plan would have three levels of service: basic, silver and gold with the level of care rising depending on your ability to pay. This is because, despite our pretensions, America is class conscious, so we will want a higher level of service based on our ability to pay. Those of us who can afford gold service will want to flaunt it.
We already are paying through the nose because we do not have national health insurance. The cost is manifested in our emergency rooms and added on to premiums paid by the insured. All things being equal, if the uninsured contribute to their health care, it drives down premiums for the rest of us.
President Obama is right in that we cannot move in a revolutionary way from our current system into a single payer system. A single payer system is a likely final destination. We can get there by letting private plans compete under standardized rules with a public option. A single payer system will emerge when it becomes clear that the private sector cannot be profitable while delivering the same level of care as the public plan. When this happens, no one will shed a tear except those currently reaping windfall profits.
Medicare and Medicaid already prove the government can run health care systems. They exist because the private insurance market did not want to serve these markets. Private industry does not want to offer affordable health plans to the uninsured or the uninsured would have them. What are we afraid of?
Despite the American Medical Association’s position, most doctors’ offices would be thrilled to accept a modest fee to do away with the nightmare of dealing with insurance companies. Their paperwork is costly, burdensome and adds no value to patient care.
Rugged individualism is a nice virtue but incompatible with 21st century medicine. When it comes to medical care, we all go down together or we all rise together. This will provide plenty of incentive to make a workable and universal system.
An effective compensation system will reward solutions rather than reimburse for tests.
There is plenty of bleak economic news among the recent headlines. Today I read online that housing prices are 18% less than they were a year ago. The last unemployment report showed 7.2% unemployment, but yesterday came a raff of announcements from major employers that they too were cutting jobs. These include Caterpillar (20,000 jobs), Pfizer (8,000 jobs), Sprint-Nextel (8,000 jobs), Home Depot (7,000 jobs) and General Motors (another 2,000 jobs). Even Microsoft is planning to lay off people. It will shed 5,000 jobs over the next eighteen months. In fact, in 2008 the economy shed 2.6 million jobs, the most since 1945 and 2009 is just getting started. We can expect even higher unemployment numbers to be reported in early February. One has to look hard to find any company that is beating the odds. IBM still made a profit and beat Wall Street expectations, but it is unlikely that their winning streak will extend through the current quarter. As for the value of stocks in general, the S&P 500 index is at about 62% of what it was a year ago.
The only thing we can say with confidence is that we have not hit the bottom yet. Many economists think that things will turn around when the government stimulus finally kicks in late this year. I am no economist but my hunch tells me that a real recovery is likely in 2010 or later, rather than this year. In short, this economic downturn may well be the 21st century’s Great Depression. It is dramatically altering our financial landscape and fundamentally changing our assumptions about how society is supposed to work.
Banks are supposed to be in the business of lending, but few want to lend to anyone but their most creditworthy buyers, even after getting huge capital injections courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. Why? There is too much uncertainty in the market. Why lend out money when you might not get it back? Moreover, sustained deflation is a real possibility. If it happens, it means that banks that hold on to their assets may yield more relative wealth than by loaning it out, even with interest. Of course, if no one lends money the economy halts, which is clearly well underway.
How did all this come about? It all comes down to one word: trust. The global economy runs on it. We have to have trust in our institutions to play by a set of fair rules. Until and unless it does, the economy is unlikely to markedly improve. Equally as important to our recovery as the massive stimulus bill being debated in Congress is the establishment of a new set of financial rules to govern the country and the world.
You may have noticed that the new Obama Administration is working hard to be the most transparent administration in history. It is doing this by putting far more public records online and in a more timely fashion than ever before. By being open about the way it is governing, it is desperately hoping to foster trust.
Yesterday within an hour of belatedly being confirmed, President Obama swore in as Timothy Geithner as the new Treasury Secretary. The evening was well underway when Geithner was sworn in, but Geithner went swiftly from the ceremony to work at the Treasury Department. He did so because the sooner he could affect a new set of financial rules affecting the country, the faster trust could be restored. Geithner and President Obama realize that the new rules must be judged fair, transparent and must be impartially applied. This is how trust is restored.
When Ross Perot first ran for president in 1992, he talked about the “great sucking sound” that would result from the then unratified North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He predicted that NAFTA would cause more jobs to move from the United States to Mexico than would be created. Whether he was right or wrong was debatable, but in 2009, we are hearing a global great sucking sound as millions of jobs vanish and wealth disappears by the trillions of dollars. That is the sound of trust being lost.
The world is reacting like a wife who discovers her husband is a philanderer. Just as marital trust is hard or impossible to renew after an affair, when shady Wall Street deals abuse our trust (evidenced in diminished stock portfolios and plunging home prices), financial trust becomes hard to reestablish too. In most cases, the abused wife will divorce her philandering spouse. She may marry again, but only if she is confident that her new husband would have the qualities her old husband lacked. When a massive trust crisis happens to a populace, a depression can result.
President Obama, his administration and the Congress thus must work very hard to establish the trust and confidence of the American people and the world. Like it or not, our wealth and future prosperity now rests in their unproven competence. This is why President Obama is working so hard to find common ground with Republicans. Trust is enhanced if both sides of the aisle can embrace a new set of governing rules, and is diminished when it does not exist. This approach may be unpalatable to many on both sides of the political spectrum, particularly given the Republican’s recent and toxic record, but it may be crucial to our recovery.
The good news is that we now have a true grownup leading our country. He understands in this critical time what is required for the rest of us to regain trust. So there is genuine reason for hope. Let us hope that we can work through our jitters and through transparency, decency and fair play come out of this and into a better future.
I could not help but marvel today watching Barack Obama’s historic inauguration on television. It is true I marveled at seeing a black man take the presidential oath of office. If you had asked me in 2004, I would have guessed we would have to wait another two decades before we were collectively mature enough to elect a black man as president. It is also true that I marveled at the million plus Americans standing shoulder to shoulder on the Mall in freezing weather. They stretched from the Capitol all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, with most cheering and waiving American flags. What I found the most marvelous of all was the peaceful transition of power itself. In many, if not most places in the world, a transfer of power of this magnitude is a cause for civil war or rioting. In the United States, it is a time for celebration and partying. Every four or eight years the world has a chance to witness and marvel at America’s peaceful transfer of power.
I felt the spirit of George Washington alive today in the city named to honor him. In his life, George Washington was so popular that could have been president for life. Instead, Washington performed perhaps his most patriotic act by declining a third term in office. In doing so, he showed us fledgling democrats that regular changes in leadership were healthy for a democracy and that our constitution transcended the personalities in power at any given moment.
Thanks in part to George Washington’s precedent another peaceful transfer of power went off today like clockwork and with great celebration. At precisely noon, President Obama became our 44th president, even though he had not yet taken the oath of office. At that exact time, the President’s military aide carrying our nuclear launch codes moved from President Bush’s side to President Obama’s side. Following protocol the new president saw the retiring president out of the Capitol and waved goodbye to him as a helicopter carried him out of Washington. Doubtless inside the president’s desk in the Oval Office was a letter from Former President George W. Bush to President Barack H. Obama with a customarily letter of congratulations and some personal thoughts on the transition of power.
As a civil servant myself, I watched this transfer of power at a somewhat lower level. Last Thursday, I was invited to a high level meeting. I sat across the conference table from our Associate Director. Also in the room were representatives from another department that we meet with quarterly. With one working day left on the George W. Bush Administration, the transition of power was on everyone’s mind and was freely discussed. Everyone was completely matter of fact about it and deeply respectful of the process which by then was well underway. Our Director was a political appointee and wanted to hang on in his job. Hearing nothing from the incoming administration though he knew what was expected and tendered his resignation. He did so not because he wanted to but because that is the way our system of government works. By losing his job, he demonstrated his respect our constitutional process and for the judgment of the American people.
Arguably, the outgoing administration was one of the most egregious in ignoring the law and the constitution. Yet, even this administration could not ignore our democratic electoral process. Had the outgoing administration, like so many banana republics, tried a coup d’état, I have no doubt where the loyalty of our armed forces, our secret service and our civil servants would have lied. Any such attempt is doomed to fail in America. Americans would not allow it. If push came to shove, the military, as is true of civil servants like me, are required to put the constitution above the orders of the president.
It says so much about the character of our country that these values are hardwired into us, in both good times and bad. Back in 2003, I penned a post where I lamented that America had lost its soul. Perhaps it was lost for a while. Perhaps our constitution was a more than a bit tattered by the latest Bush Administration. Yet, we survived and we did so in part because of George Washington’s example and the orders given by the people who once every four years weigh in on who their leader shall be.
Each inauguration is like a heartbeat in the life of our country. The mere fact that it happens like clockwork, in good years and bad, is proof that our country shall endure. Through regular repetition, these events ensure, however imperfectly, that our democracy will continue and we will keep moving forward toward a more perfect union.
I was not worried about yesterday’s election outcome. When the economy tanked in mid September, it became abundantly clear to me than no Republican presidential candidate could beat this political headwind. The only question was the magnitude of Barack Obama’s win and how many other Democrats would be pulled in his wake. Given the circumstances, the Republicans in general did pretty well.
President Bush, a deeply unpopular president whose approval ratings were in the twenties, clearly dragged down the Republican brand. Republicans also carried an enormous set of baggage into this election. They were instrumental and wholly complicit in creating the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression. It was somewhat karmic that it untimely reached the severely acute phase just six weeks before the election. Republicans had also embroiled the country in two foreign wars and dug us more than ten trillion dollars into debt. Because of their policies, most Americans have seen their real wages decrease. Virtually everyone who put money aside has watched the value of their portfolios drop precipitously. All of these stupid actions were entirely preventable had we elected pragmatic men and women instead of ideologues.
Yet, in spite of all these things, McCain lost by only six percentage points, which suggests his campaign was reasonably effective. Moreover, while Democrats made broad gains in the House and Senate, their gains were not as sweeping as pundits like me anticipated. There are five Democratic Senate pickups for sure, with four races still in dispute. At best only one of the four in dispute will tip toward the Democrats. Democrats will not have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Democratic House gains were relatively modest under the circumstances too. Democrats picked up 19 seats so far while eight other races remain in dispute.
Viewed over the last two years, the magnitude of our political change has been remarkable. Before the 2006 election, we had one party Republican government. In January 2009, we will have one party Democratic government. Republicans will still be able to block legislation in the Senate via filibuster but they do not control the agenda.
Still, thinking Republicans should feel shell-shocked. This election showed that the solid red South is crumbling. In an election or two, it might disappear altogether. Florida has always been somewhat iffy, but was decidedly peeled away. My state of Virginia, which has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, voted for Obama over McCain by five percent. North Carolina still has not been called, but if the current results stands, Obama should carry that state too. McCain is likely to hold on to Missouri, but just barely. While the current electoral count is now 349-163 for Obama, the final count is likely to be 364-174, a trouncing of nearly 200 electoral votes. Moreover, Republicans have no clear path back into power. New younger voters preferred Democrats by nearly a factor of two to one. Their best hope for returning to power is simply to hope that Democrats governed like buffoons too. When the Republican Party eventually is voted back into power, it should look substantially different from the current party.
While for me the outcome was never in doubt, I felt euphoric nonetheless when it arrived. I felt happiest for my African American brethren, most of whom assumed they would never live to see an African American elected President of the United States. The scenes on TV of so many African Americans crying in joy after the networks called the election for Obama were poignant, heartfelt, wondrously joyful and oh so heartfelt, as was Obama’s masterful victory speech. As a metaphor, the election of Barack Obama works well on so many levels. For the last eight years, America has projected itself as an insular, unreasonable, mean and dogmatic nation. Last night I saw reemerge the America I knew growing up. With Obama’s election, racism in our country was dealt a fatal blow and African Americans realized they too were fully enfranchised citizen not just in law, but in fact. A new and better America has emerged that is more tolerant, generous and inclusive than the America of the 20th century. In the 21st century, real America is not rural American, but is colorfully multi-hued, as reflect by its new president elect.
It remains to be seen whether through sheer force of personality President Obama can truly unite us. Unquestionably, he inherits problems of a magnitude not seen in more than a generation. Yet, since we must move through these times anyhow, we are blessed with one of the few leaders up to the job of leading us safely through this treacherous minefield.
For many of us older Americans, the end of the Bush Administration feels like the moments after Watergate’s sad denouement. We remember a sense of relief and a feeling of national shame as we watched the presidential helicopter carry away a disgraced President Nixon. When President Ford told us that our long national nightmare was over, we cried in relief (but not in joy) and wondered if our nation would really remain true to its ideals.
The sad truth for those of us who lived through the Nixon years is that these last eight years have been far worse. Back then we were not numb to the implications of Nixon’s unconstitutional and unlawful actions. Yet President Nixon was at least held accountable by Congress. This congress has given this administration a pass for its crimes. Just to make sure no one is held accountable, President Bush is likely to offer pardons to all the usual suspects. Over these last eight years, we have repeatedly witnessed egregious and previously unthinkable crimes by our government, executed in a premeditated and matter of fact manner by our insular and headstrong leaders. We have seen our nation engage in torture. We have watched our president blithely ignore laws he found it inconvenient by issuing signing statements that he embodied with the force of law. Our armies have inflicted mass suffering on Iraqis by the millions. In doing so, we inherited a staggering karmic debt that will take generations of good deeds to repay. We have spent like a drunken sailor, mortgaged our future and nearly kicked off another Great Depression, bringing the whole world with us. We have witnessed ideology wholly divorced from reality and suffered its disastrous consequences.
My euphoria last night, like that of many Americans, came from the realization that our constitution still works in a creaky sort of way. Sadly, due to our spineless Congress, it did not work through our system of checks and balances, but in a delayed manner through our electoral system. Yet we finally did emerge from our fear-induced stupor and by electing Barack Obama took the critical step necessary to put the nation aright again. In seventy-six days, for the first time in eight years we will have a president that actually puts the rule of law and our constitution first. Imagine that! In seventy-six days, the lunatics will be formally kicked out of the asylum and the grownups will be back in charge.
I was one of those people watching the Obama infomercial last night. I didn’t actually watch it live. I was buying a rug at the time. After it was hauled home and laid out over our new wood floor, I took the time to watch it online. Man, that was one slick infomercial!
Frankly though, I have come to expect slick from the Obama campaign. If Obama wins the presidency next Tuesday as all but a handful of polls suggest, the credit will have to be shared equally between Obama, who is a uniquely compelling candidate, and his campaign staff which is running probably the best run political campaign I have ever seen.
It helps to have tons of cash, of course. Many of us older Americans are still in shock from learning of his $150 million haul in campaign contributions in September. In fact, I still cannot get it through my brain that Democrats, mostly through grass roots efforts, are raising more money than Republicans. Until recently, one thing you could always count on during a presidential campaign was that the Democratic nominee would be at a significant financial disadvantage. Typically, Republicans with their fat checkbooks raised and outspent Democrats two to one. It is my belief that this money advantage more than anything else explains why Republicans have disproportionately held the presidency for the last fifty years or so. Money buys access in the form of commercials, flyers, pollsters, number crunchers and data miners. Moneyed people, who are disproportionately Republican, also tend to either be or have more influence with powerbrokers.
The Obama team though changed the game. It starts with a compelling candidate. Clearly, Obama was not the ideal candidate, particularly when it came to experience. It would be easy to say Obama simply has charisma, but he is blessed with so many talents as a politician and speaker that it is hard to number them all. Among them is his natural eloquence, both spoken and written, as well as marked intelligence, sincerity, people skills and general niceness. I am sure there are Obama haters out there. You may loathe his policies, but you have to be part Grinch to dislike him as a person. Most politicians like, say, John McCain, paste a phony smile in front of a crowd. It is obvious that John McCain is not a happy man. That is not Obama’s problem. He smile is downright beatific. It projects the soul of a man who is at peace.
Obama’s problem though is not his liberal position on many issues. His real problem throughout the campaign has always been his race. While most Americans are not overtly racist, a sizeable minority remains reflexively racist, and an even smaller amount is overtly racist. Many of us are not even aware of our inner racism. I too sometimes have to fight feelings of wanting to walk on the other side of the street when a group of African American males is about to pass me on the sidewalk. I have to assume that a certain amount of racist feelings are hardwired into the primitive parts of our brains.
Thus, it is no small matter for us white Americans to turn off that part of our brains. Yet, for the most part, Obama has succeeded. Obama though had another unique advantage: having a black father and a white mother. He is not so much black as he is multiracial. Having grown up in predominantly white neighborhoods, he understands white America. He has spent his life traversing through it. In many ways, black America is more unfamiliar to him than white America. After graduation, he moved to Chicago specifically to get the African American experience that largely passed him by growing up.
Obama’s campaign is amazingly well managed. John McCain is getting (he hopes) some mileage by saying Obama is already measuring the drapes for the Oval Office. Here’s the thing: that’s not a bad thing, that’s a good thing. It’s not that Obama is taking his election for granted, although the polls suggest he is a shoe in, it’s just that in a well managed campaign these are exactly the sort of activities you should be doing during this part of the campaign. If John McCain is not doing the same thing, he is inept at managing his campaign.
While it remains to be seen if a President Obama will be as successful a manager of the federal bureaucracy as he is with his campaign, his slick campaign can be taken as a very hopeful sign by us disgruntled citizens. It’s been a while since we’ve seen government work in any meaningful fashion. Obama seems to intuitively understand how to walk the fine line between leadership and management. The trick is to know who to pick to be your managers and exercising the right strategies to empower and police them.
With a few notable exceptions, the Obama campaign has been classy and always three steps ahead of the competition. Reporters following him on the campaign trail are a bit disgruntled because they too are being well managed. A well-managed campaign knows how to use the press to its advantage. This means many reporters have limited access to the candidate.
Running a presidential campaign is a huge project. It spans all fifty states and even goes abroad at times. Just the logistics of managing rallies would be intimidating enough, but there is also a huge, interconnected ground game underway. Since I have given the Obama campaign money, I too have been contacted, once a week lately, to see if I will attend rallies, or canvas my neighborhood, or call undecided voters. Obama is smart enough to know that at the grass roots level, people have to feel vested in the outcome. So to the extent possible the campaign staff is letting committed activists in neighborhoods take the lead on local canvassing.
One of the major reasons that Hillary Clinton lost was because she was out managed. The Obama campaign was always several steps ahead of her, and that was because they ran a better organized and more sophisticated campaign. While Clinton was worrying about winning primaries, the Obama campaign was caucus savvy and working both the grassroots and the Netroots ruthlessly. Obama runs a proactive campaign. Only a few times in this long campaign has his campaign suffered serious distractions. The only problem that turned out to be a major problem was his relationship with his incendiary pastor Jeremiah Wright. Even so, in time Obama was able to assuage most of these fears.
Yesterday’s final Obama infomercial was a brilliant conclusion to a meticulously well-managed campaign: well produced, heartfelt, pragmatic and timed to seal the deal. It moved us past the election to let us envision very clearly what an Obama Administration would look like. The vision was both pragmatic about the challenges and hopeful. It was a message I have not heard in a long time: a call to mutual service. In exchange for us stepping up to our civic and family duties, he would bend our recalcitrant government to make it work to meet the needs of ordinary citizens.
My thanks to my friend Renee, who invited a whole bunch of us over to her house last night to watch the first presidential debate between Senators McCain and Obama. It is more fun to watch debates in the presence of other likeminded people. If you are a political junkie like me, the first presidential debate is the highlight of your political year. This year it is hard to imagine a debate where the issues mattered more. There as always was the stoic Jim Lehreh at his desk facing the candidates, two podiums and an audience full of eerily silent people lurking in the dark.
As theater, the debate did not quite meet my expectations. I only grudgingly give it a C. I came prepared for a good verbal swordfight but with a few exceptions, nothing like blood was shed. It soon became clear that Barack Obama was going to be gentlemanly throughout, no matter what mud was slung his way. If you are trying to appear presidential and bipartisan, this is likely a good strategy but makes for ho-hum television. Still there were so many missed opportunities to hit McCain. Obama reiterated the obvious ones, like McCain’s support for the Iraq War and his tendency to vote the party line. I guess it would have looked mean spirited to inflict too many wounds. McCain after all is an ex-POW and was tortured by the North Vietnamese. Perhaps Obama figured he should not suffer too much.
Frankly, I had far more fun watching and listening to Senator McCain than Senator Obama. The frequent split screen shots were quite revealing. I figure McCain must have cracked a molar from pressing his jaws so tight. While obviously trying to hide his true feelings, McCain’s face was actually a window into his soul. Basically, he was seriously pissed. For the most part, he could not actually come out and act pissed so instead we got many half smiles that looked totally fake while inside you could see that major earthquakes were going on. There were times when I felt certain that McCain was fantasizing about walking across the stage and giving Obama a shiner. It was perhaps borne out by his inability to look at Obama during the debate, and his halfhearted handshake before and after the debate itself.
Not that I was planning to vote for McCain anyhow but his body language and screwed up face just confirmed for me that I want neither he nor his vice presidential pick to have their hands anywhere near our nuclear launch codes. When he did criticize Obama, it was in a mean and condescending way: poor little Barack, he is so dangerously naïve and inexperienced.
Obama was, in a word, unflappable. For McCain, debating Obama turned out to be like being at a carnival game booth where you keep trying to hit the moving ducks and you find out that you never came close. Obama was consistently measured, respectful and when he criticized McCain, it was always based on the facts.
It was also hard not to contrast their styles. Obama has a broad and natural grin that just radiates sincerity. McCain looked like he had an inflamed hemorrhoid. You could see that at times not all his neurons were firing in the proper order. His sentences often rambled and his thoughts were not always coherent. He frequently repeated himself. He went on and on about earmarks, as if cutting them would seriously address federal spending. Puh-lease. If you really want to cut federal spending you have to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and neither of them are suicidal. Obama slipped up a few times too. He called McCain “Jim” at one point but quickly corrected himself. As a master speaker, McCain was wholly outclassed.
The pundits are suggesting that neither McCain nor Obama won the debate, but of those who had an opinion, Obama generally got higher marks. Who won really matters little. What matters is: did the debate change the dynamics of the race? Various focus groups of independent voters watching the debate showed that overall Obama did a better job of wooing independents than McCain. I doubt the polls will change much as a result of the debate but if they move at all, they will move toward Obama.
Overall, McCain performed better than I expected. While rambling and incoherent at times, I heard less of it than I anticipated. Moreover, there were times when he looked genuinely sincere and thoughtful. Those times though were few and fleeting. Behind in the polls, he felt the need to sling as much mud as he could at Obama to see if any of it stuck. In my opinion, none of it landed. In this jousting match, neither rider was thrown off their horse. Obama had McCain reeling a few times but McCain managed to stay on. McCain hit Obama’s armor a few times but neither he nor his horse had to check their stride.
Most of us were hoping that both candidates could be pinned down on the current economic crisis. Neither McCain nor Obama rose to Jim Lehreh’s bait, and gave circumspect replies that basically did not tell us how they felt about the package beyond some principles they wanted to see in the final legislation. Both seemed anxious to weasel around the question. That was disappointing but perhaps not wholly unexpected given that the issue is in such flux now. What legislation that finally emerges at this point is anyone’s guess.
The vice presidential debate next Thursday is likely to be far more entertaining.
I have to hand it with Republicans. When it comes to a campaign playbook, they stick with what works. An election won is an election won, whether won fairly or through foul tactics. The last leg of the 2008 presidential campaign is shaping up to look a lot like the 2004 campaign, which is heavy on the negative advertising (generally because it works). This time the McCain campaign is running ads that are outright lies. They do not just stretch the truth; they actually lie. Perhaps the most egregious ad was this one where they claim Obama was in favor of sex education for kindergarteners, a lie debunked by many reporters and documented on FactCheck.org.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney have proven that scruples only matter to losers. McCain has this one last chance to be president. With Bush and Cheney blazing the way, he can feel comfortable tossing his alleged principles aside and just do what it takes to win. All is fair in love, war and politics, apparently, including lying these days.
Fortunately, the Obama campaign is doing better than the Kerry campaign did and generally is swift in responding to attack ads. The problem is that the Obama campaign is responding. It is reacting. This is a poor way to win a campaign because the campaign is always on the defensive, which makes it hard to get its message out. The School of Karl Rove has validated some crucial lessons: elections are often won by whichever side stays on the offense. Rarely is a football game won through an interception.
The McCain campaign is playing the campaign game like a dirty game of rugby where you repeatedly kick the legs out from under your opponent. It is hard to grab the ball when your opponent keeps making you land on your ass.
Unlike the pathetically desperate McCain campaign, the Obama campaign does not need to resort to lies to go on the offensive. Joe Biden understands what to do, as did Harry S Truman. Tell the voters the truth and the opposition will think it’s hell. It becomes a matter of knowing which truth-telling shells to lob, when to lob them and where to lob them. It is time to lob some artillery shells and fortunately I know when and where to lob them, and which ones to lob.
For the moment, Sarah Palin is the wind in the Republicans’ sail. McCain’s pick has been surprisingly effective in picking off more disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters than expected. It is likely that these voters have a good gut feeling about Sarah Palin, but do not know some unseemly facts about her limited record. If many voters like her because they have a good feeling about her, those feelings need to be replaced by reasonable doubts.
These swing voters need to know that she has a history of vindictiveness. Voters need to be educated about her repeated efforts to use her influence as governor to twist the arms of the Alaskan State Police to fire her former brother in law. They need to know of her repeated attempts while she was mayor to fire the Wasilla town librarian for stocking books she did not like, as well as to ban books from their library. They also need to know that while mayor the town had a policy of charging rape victims the cost of rape kits used after they were sexual assaulted, as she did nothing to change the policy. The campaign should create ads like this and play them repeatedly in swing states where Hillary voters predominate, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri.
After a week or so, they should air ads demonstrating not only that she has a cruel and vindictive side, but also promotes policies anathema to many Clinton supporters. She is obviously no supporter of abortion rights, not even in the case of rape or incest. She does not support national health insurance, a cause dear to many Clinton supporters. She does not believe global warming is real. These ads should enforce a meme that she is inconsistent and her positions are outside the mainstream. Talking Points Memo, for example, put together this video that clearly shows that Palin repeatedly supported the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska before being against it. There is no arguing with video.
Palin is hardly someone who opposed to taking federal money. In fact, she proved especially competent acquiring it. She gave money to DC lobbyists to make sure that Wasilla got far more than their share of the federal dole. As it is, Alaskans already receive more federal dollars per capita than any other state. While mayor of Wasilla, she pulled in more federal dollars per capita than any other town or city in the state. The ads should end with her image positioned next to President Bush’s. “Stubborn. Says one thing but does another. If Sarah Palin becomes president, will she too just be more of the same?”
Doubtless, there is much more in Palin’s record that could be brought out, but a couple weeks of clever and focused advertising using my strategy would remove any luster she currently enjoys.
The Obama campaign should then run videos that emphasize his correct judgment vs. McCain’s incorrect judgment. Show him courageously speaking out against the Iraq War when it was considered anti-American to do so. Relentlessly hammer in the point that McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time. Show that Obama’s tax plan would reduce taxes for 95% of Americans while making the rich pay more. Hammer in that McCain’s plan would actually give more tax relief to the richest 1% than they currently enjoy. There should be two major closing themes. The first: voting for McCain and Palin is like giving George W. Bush a third term. The second: judgment matters and Obama has demonstrated the wiser judgment needed to be president.
No candidate running for president will run a perfect campaign and that certainly includes Barack Obama. When I endorsed him in January, I said he too was a flawed candidate. Overall, Mr. Obama has pleasantly surprised me with his post nomination campaign. He comes across as very thoughtful and articulate. It is clear that his campaign is remarkably well managed and on message.
If a presidential candidate is serious about winning, some accommodation toward the politically fickle winds of the moment is generally considered necessary. So we have seen in the last few days some statements by Barack Obama that have my head shaking. Pandering may seem necessary when winning at all costs is the goal, but when it happens it lowers my opinion of the candidate.
Obama’s proposal to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was one of these political accommodations that made me wince. What a bad idea! Yes, I know his plan is to remove the easily refined light sweet crude oil from the SPR and replace it with the harder to refine heavy crude oil. This is supposed to result in no net loss from the SPR. As a result, he believes this will provide some working relief to the middle class, which is still reeling from the latest oil shock.
The SPR is there for a reason: to accommodate the nation’s needs in a national emergency. No such emergency exists. I grant that many families are suffering under the burden of $4 a gallon gasoline. Still, the economy is in no danger of collapse. Artificially lowering gas prices, if it works, simply encourages more of the dependence that got us in trouble in the first place. Obama says such a release would be temporary. He points to the effect of a decision made late in the Clinton administration to sell oil from the SPR and says that decision reduced gas prices. It is unclear whether it would have that effect today, but it would make it harder for America to get over its addiction to oil and move toward a post oil age. This is a politically expedient decision but overall a call I think he will regret.
Another bad call: tacitly agreeing with John McCain that we need to drill for oil off our coasts. Obama characterizes this change of heart as one part of an overall energy strategy and suggests such drilling would be limited. He knows that any oil we discovered would have but the most modest effect on oil prices. If oil companies started drilling tomorrow, it would be at least six years before we would see any oil from these fields.
There are a few reasons that oil companies are not drilling in these tracts that they are already allowed to drill in. Their geologists have surveyed these oil fields. The likelihood of getting oil in the quantity desired is slim and the cost of drilling in these deeper waters is high. In addition, you cannot force an oil company to drill for oil. Oil companies will look out for their bottom line, and if it does not increase it they will politely spurn politicians’ suggestions. This means that both Obama’s and McCain’s calls for drilling are specious. There are the many coastline states that have prohibited offshore drilling. They recall California’s 1969 experience that fouled 35 miles of beaches. Any oil that is recovered would have only the most modest effect on oil prices and would do nothing to move us to a post oil economy. Even if there were no oil spills, the drilling would have a major environmental impact on our seaboards.
What the nation needs is a comprehensive energy strategy that moves us into a post oil economy while simultaneously moderating greenhouse gas emissions. It may not get much in the way of votes, but if the nation had a strategy like this backed up by money and commitment it would be good not only for the nation and the environment, but good for the economy too. It would stimulate growth in jobs that are environmentally friendly.
However, I did like Obama’s speech today in Berea, Ohio. Obama pointed out a few days ago that a great way to reduce oil consumption is for drivers to make sure their car is tuned regularly and their tires are properly inflated. Republicans for some reason latched on to it as a crazy idea and began handling out tire pressure gauges to draw people’s attention to the proposal. This attitude is particularly odd coming from Republicans, who are reputedly big on individual responsibility. His proposal is not laughable; it is effective and can be made workable.
If I were running for president, I would do more than just suggest that Americans do these things. I would give modest tax deductions or credits for having your car tuned. Aside from the 1-3% reduction in oil consumption, if Americans practiced this regularly, it would help get Americans into the habit. Most Americans are too busy to be proactive about car maintenance. Knowing they can get a tax deduction for being kind to the environment (and their wallet) can lead to a pattern where most people will have their cars tuned regularly.
Getting people to check their tire pressure regularly can be accomplished too. We could offer modest credits for gas stations that add or expand air pressure hoses. A tire pressure center should provide tire pressure gauges on site and easy guides for determining the correct tire pressure for your tires. Why not add a penny to the gasoline tax but offer a penny a gallon rebate for checking your tire pressure within one hour of filling your tank? Simply insert the same credit card you used for your gas purchase to activate the tire pressure system at your gas station where you filled your tank to claim your credit. These modest steps, along with regularly increasing CAFE standards are pragmatic steps toward energy independence.
I suspect that before this campaign is over we will see many more accommodations by both Obama and McCain to lure in swing voters with proposals that are stupid. I just hope that these latest proposals from Obama are not serious and are discretely dropped when, as I expect, Obama wins the election in November.
Is Twitter a fad that is ending? I am seeing less tweets from those I follow, and I certainly put out fewer myself.06:29:53 PM March 08, 2010from Echofon
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