Citizens United By-Product?

We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burdens on job creators. America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Think about that. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas. – Michelle Bachmann Response

I cannot remember ever having three State of the Union speeches in one year. Normally the party in the White House gives the traditional State of the Union speech followed by the out of office party giving a response. Now thanks to our political system being awash in cash any crank can go on television and get their 15 minutes of fame. My question is who funded this little Bachmann escapade? Michelle Bachmann is supposed to be a money maker and according to reports she is a fund-raising machine, but where does this money come from? No one knows. I would venture to guess that it is the same AstroTurf funders who started the teabagger movement.

I have a hard time believing that it would be difficult to raise money with a platform of tax-cuts for the wealthy, removing regulations on businesses, and repealing health-care reform. I think there are a number of wealthy folks who would contribute to those causes, so the fact that she raises money should not be falsely correlated to her popularity. Cranks like Bachmann will always appeal to 15-20% of the population and while this sells a lot of gold and dog food it doesn’t translate well in national elections. Michelle Bachmann and her ilk are the pit-bulls of the right to make sure any compromise will be their compromise which is no compromise at all. Moving forward the new hostages won’t just be the unemployed, the poor, and the middle-class it will be the full faith and credit of the United States.

The new target will be the infamous entitlements. The line will be that you can’t be serious about deficits if you don’t cut entitlements. This of course will come from the same folks who want to make the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy permanent. What I fail to understand is that we are having this one sided conversation about cutting the deficit without the other side of the equation which is to increase revenues. The way that Bill Clinton created a surplus was not by cutting Social Security and our safety net; he did it by raising revenues. And guess what the sky didn’t fall and the wealthy and the corporations did not move to Eastern Europe where the rates are much lower. The idea that you are going to cut your way out of this debt is ludicrous.

Is it just me or is it coincidental that following the Citizens United decision we are now being provided with every extremist view on full display. My concern is that we will be bombarded by these fanatical views not because those who espouse them are credible or even electable. The strategy will be to push the center further and further to their extreme view so that views that were once unthinkable are now being debated as mainstream. How many formerly extreme views are now a part of our political discussions? Anyone remember the 14th Amendment and how now it is open for public debate and re-litigation against Latinos? It wasn’t that long ago that this would have been considered an extreme remedy for the immigration crisis. Or how about referring to the unemployed and seniors as lazy and stopping benefits in the middle of an economic downturn like we haven’t seen since the Great Depression? Even the most ardent critics would not have proposed cutting off unemployment benefits in the midst of the "Great Recession".

The upcoming Presidential election is going to be full of cranks and fanatics and their goal will be to distract and confuse the electorate. They will be able to do so with the help of the Citizens United decision and the 501(c)4 organizations flush with cash that it spawned. These unnamed donors will be able to manipulate the issues and steer the debate away from the real issues and towards the dark hordes that are storming our borders or the socialist liberals who have the audacity to ask them to pay their fair share of taxes. Thanks to 24/7 cable news and the Supreme Court the airwaves will be flooded with the likes of Palin, Bachmann, and O’Donnell. The teabagger Barbie’s will be on full display and in rare form providing not only verbal, but visual distractions for the punditry.

We now have Supreme Court Justices hiding income from their spouses and conducting behind the scenes political talks for congressional audiences. My question is what job did Ms. Thomas perform to make $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation? Whether there is criminal intent or conflict of interest is not the issue. The issue is that under this Court more controversial decisions have been made and it doesn’t appear those decisions were based in Constitutional law, but instead on a political agenda. It is odd to me that the citizen’s of this country are overwhelmingly opposed to the Citizens United decision and yet our judiciary blatantly and apologetically displays their partisanship in a way that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan

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Democrats Winning Strategy

History isn't on the GOP's side, either. If keeping the top marginal tax rate at 35 percent—the rate under Bush, and the rate that Republicans are fighting to preserve—spurs so much hiring, why didn't America experience any job growth at all during Bush's time in office? And if a top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent—the rate under Bill Clinton, and the rate that Democrats are fighting to restore—is such a job killer, why did payrolls grow by 20 percent during the 1990s? – Newsweek Blog

I have become so tired of the gloom and doom of the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections. It seems everywhere you turn the news keeps getting worse. Based on these reports there won’t be any Democrats left in the Congress following November. I believe that the Democrats can not only survive November but can also prosper. In order for this to happen they will have to do a number of things that Democrats historically don’t do very well.
The first thing they will have to do is to craft a coherent message that they all unite behind. Because of their lack of a national message the Democratic caucus is plagued by rogue members who feel little if any national allegiance to the party. Because so many of their members are products of local issues and electorates too often Democrats are left with the type of majorities we’ve had the last two years. The Dems have been a majority in name only and incapable of crafting a cohesive governing philosophy. What we don’t need and I am certainly not suggesting are litmus tests like teabaggers or wing-nuts, but instead we need to have certain principles that make us Democrats. I know that we have the general terms of working for the middle-class and for the downtrodden, but that is so open to interpretation that it provides little structure in times of great calamity like the ones we are in. As a party the Dems should craft a set of principles that all members of their caucus agree to work and fight for. And once accepted it should be provided to the American people as a contrast to the Republicans. This message should be honed and offered by all candidates as the governing philosophy of this party. Those who are unable to uphold these principles are free to run as independents or Republicans.

The second thing they should do is at every interview, town hall, and campaign stop carry a chart of the federal deficits under all presidents dating back to Eisenhower. This chart should appear in all of the ads and should become the mantra of the party. They should all provide the American public with an image of the failed policies of these fiscal conservatives who have always preached one thing and done another. This would be a symbol to all but the truly partisan of the duplicity of this party and their unrelenting assault on the middle-class. This is the type of symbol that resonates with the independent voters. This President and these Dems were elected by drawing just such a sharp contrast between their policies and the policies of the wing-nuts. Unfortunately, in America it is not enough to just talk about the lack of consistency and the hypocrisy of the Republicans many of our citizenry need an illustration to drive home points. The success of the bumper sticker rhetoric of the wing-nuts will bear this fact out. This point of preaching austerity and yet every chance they get to govern they raise the deficit to record highs must be repeated over and over. The Dems should take a page from the wing-nuts and that is if you repeat something long enough and loud enough people begin to accept it as fact.

Finally the Dems should propose sweeping public improvement and infrastructure projects to attack the intransigent unemployment that is gripping this nation. It is time to force the Republicans to either support the American people or be seen for the hypocrites they are. Regardless of anyone’s political persuasion few can argue against the historical truth of the “New Deal”. It is time for the American people to get another new deal. Just as FDR recognized the economy had been shanghaied by the wealthy of his time so it is again today. Instead of hoping to negotiate with those seeking short-term greed, it is time for this President to call them to task for the sake of the country. No group, no single person’s agenda can be allowed to supersede the greater good of the majority of Americans. It is time for the Dems to go on the offensive. If they truly believe that they have the best minds with the best plan for America then now is the time to show it. The time has come to craft a set of programs that will actually stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment and at the same time they must demonstrate how implementing these initiatives will in the long run reduce the long-term deficit by fueling the expansion of the economy. Just as the New Deal laid the foundation for the greatest expansion of the American economy in our history so it must be done again.

If the Dems are going to survive and keep the momentum now is not the time for timidity, instead it is the time for bold visions and actions. The Republicans have shown that they are devoid of any new ideas to address the major challenges we face as a nation. So rather than cowering in the corner waiting for the day of reckoning the Dems must provide the American people with a stark contrast of the future of America. If the Dems cannot defeat the rehashed ideas of the past then they are not worthy to lead into the future.

“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” - John M. Richardson, Jr.

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Why Do We Fear Hope?

In this country many of us equate strength with the lack of emotion. The strong one is the one who can endure life without feeling. The weak one is the one who shows their emotions and thus are banished to a life of disappointment and tragedy. With the introduction of the political narrative of Barack Obama there has been a lot of talk about the word hope. I don’t ever recall this word being dissected to the degree that it has been during his unlikely run towards the White House. One would believe that no other politician has ever invoked the word in an election before. So what makes it so different today than say in 1992, when a young upstart politician challenged the status quo?

For his part, Bill Clinton organized his campaign around another of the oldest and most powerful themes in electoral politics: change. As a youth, Clinton had once met President John F. Kennedy, and in his own campaign 30 years later, much of his rhetoric challenging Americans to accept change consciously echoed that of Kennedy in his 1960 campaign.[1]

Or what about in 1960, when another youthful hope monger spoke so eloquently of hope for a new world while accepting the oath of office for President of the United States:

Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need -- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation,"² a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.[2]

So if it isn’t that the concept of hope is something new to elections, what can it be? I remember being a child and towards the end of November I would be filled with hope of the coming season. I wish I could say it was because I looked forward to exercising the true “spirit of the season” and all the good will towards my fellow man stuff, but that wasn’t what filled me with joy. I would begin to have hopes of the new toys that I looked forward to receiving for Christmas. I would watch in excitement at all the commercials of the coming new and latest toys and I would mentally create these lists of must have gadgets that I was sure to see under the tree on Christmas morning.

There was just one small problem, my father was a selfish man who found it difficult to spoil his children. So for many years there was the promise and hope for all of these things only to be followed on Christmas morning by the stark reality that was less than I had hoped for. You see as a child I could not understand or accept that my father was the man that he was, you see I wanted him to be like me or who I thought I was. The truth was that he could only be the man he was, not who I so desperately wanted and maybe needed him to be. I would awaken on Christmas morning to small tokens and I would end up crying later. After a while, my hopes began to lessen year by year until they were replaced with the gradual numbing of reality. The reality that no matter how much I hoped there was always going to be disappointment. In the end, I just stopped hoping and came to accept the cruelty of life.

As my life continued, I came to the conclusion that my problem in the first place was that I had dared to hope, that I had dared to believe in anything other than myself. I decided that from that point on that emotions were my problem, I would no longer allow anyone the ability to control my emotions. In fact I would bury them, my hero became Spock from Star Trek because he had no emotions. For many years I lived as emotionless as I could. But after two broken marriages, addiction, and suicidal moments I realized the that the strength I thought I had found in having no emotions was actually my downfall and my weakness. What I learned was that true strength and power does not belong to the cynic or the emotionless, but to those who are willing to express their emotions and become vulnerable to disappointment and hurt. True courage is not to never be afraid, but to be afraid and go on anyway.

Barack Obama is not God or a second coming of Jesus and his supporters do not believe this despite the cult analogies. He is simply a man who dares us to believe beyond ourselves. He is not promising to solve all of our problems or that the Government can. What he is offering us is a chance to put behind us many of the things that currently divide us and to focus on the many more things that unite us. After all what really can one man, even the President of the United States do? Over the last few decades we have seen what the politics of division and win at all costs has wrought, a country so divided we are on the verge of breaking. There are many who say that the answer is to continue as we have, that the only way to succeed is to beat the other side to a pulp. Today we are refighting the Civil War only class has replaced slavery. Will it take a bloody conflict to resolve our differences? I don’t know. There are many who are placing their hopes and aspirations on him and those people will be disappointed, because he can do nothing against those forces without our help and our actions.

What I do know is this, if we are able to appeal to the common good in all of us shouldn’t we to avoid that bloody conflict? Make no mistake about it if we do not enlist their help to change this country are we prepared to fight to take it? If Barack Obama’s hope fails it won’t be because he failed, it will be because we failed. If it is to succeed it will require many of us to overcome our cynicism and partisanship to come together for the greater good. The reason he does so well among the young is because they are not as jaded as their older counterparts, they still believe in change. The question now becomes can we transfer that hope into action or will we sit and wait for the disappointment so we can say, “See, I told you so”. It is no longer enough to vote, the last midterm election should have shown us that. We must follow up those votes with action. Just as with any seismic change in America, it must be bottom up, not top down. Our biggest fear is not that we are doomed, our biggest fear is that our hero will be bested; that the things we cherish love, hope, justice, and kindness to our fellowman will not win in the end.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1992
[2] http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm

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No to Billary and the Politics of Division

There has been a lot of ink and paper used up to explain the South Carolina primary and what it means to the candidates and the electoral process. The two facts that I think South Carolina makes abundantly clear are that the voters are rejecting the politics of divisiveness and the idea of a co-Presidency. Now while much will be made of the fact that the majority of Democratic voters in South Carolina are black, I believe that there is still data that can be gleaned from the results and despite the fact Bill Clinton made absolutely clear that Jesse Jackson carried South Carolina the electorate today was different than when Jesse ran.

Despite protestations to the contrary by Clinton supporters many Democrats both black and white were uncomfortable with the tone the campaign had taken the last few weeks in South Carolina, led by Bill Clinton. The thing one must remember is that in politics perception is reality. So while many of his comments may have been misconstrued, the fact that a number of prominent Democrats were complaining should have been a clue to tone it down. I received many comments that Bill Clinton was only doing what the spouses of other candidates were doing, which of course is ridiculous. No matter how hard they try the other candidate’s spouses can never speak with the authority or the perceived expertise of a Bill Clinton. Many people thought that Bill had elevated himself to candidate Bill Clinton and not just husband-advocate Bill Clinton. The problem for Hillary is that having Bill Clinton out front detracts from her and her message of independence and experience.

Whether you believe the comments made by Bill and campaign surrogates were divisive or racially motivated is really unimportant, what is important is what the voters believed. In South Carolina, the voters believed that they were. Now it can be argued that the voters were swayed by the coverage and the responses of other Democrats, but that misses the point and sounds condescending. Are we to believe that the voters, the majority of who are black in South Carolina cannot determine for themselves what is divisive and racially charged? The thing that the Clinton campaign misread was the psyche of black people which is strange since Bill was the “first black” President. Blacks may have questions about another black person, but when that black person is attacked it is as if all black people are attacked and the wagons are circled. I find it hard to believe that the major events of last year would not have made this very clear to any outside observers.

The way you campaign in the black community is not with a white man attacking a black man, this will automatically raise the communal defenses. For examples of this phenomenon in action one merely has to review the history of black elected officials in America. From Adam Clayton Powell to Mayor Marion Berry, the black community will more often than not rally around a black man being attacked by whites even if those attacks are justified. Bill Clinton falsely believed that he had the juice to cross the race line; he found out sadly that he did not. He listened to the old blacks on the payroll who were chanting, you were “the first black” President, you can do it. Billary! Billary! Billary! What he didn’t recognize was that those blacks had lost any juice they had in the black community years ago and they were just as clueless as he was.

The other issue that the voters in South Carolina and I think may be played out across the country is this idea of a co-Presidency. While many Clinton supporters find the idea appealing, the two for the price of one argument has lost its luster. The idea of a co-Presidency congers up too many images of divisiveness and past battles. To give an example after the defeat in South Carolina, the first Clinton on the airwaves was not Hillary, it was Bill. And even after the primary Bill is still making more headlines than Hillary. This does not bode well for an independent female candidate running on her own experience and strength. It is too early to tell if the co-Presidency is dead, but for many it is a past they do not want recycled. Many people believe that if Bill is taking such a large role in the campaign will he also be taking a similar role in the White House? Also, if Hillary was co-President in the last Clinton administration it only stands to reason that Bill would occupy that same position in the new administration.

South Carolina is one state and too often people try to draw too many conclusions from one primary, remember Iowa? The one thing the Clintons are is smart and once again Hillary will reinvent herself and continue to fight. This election will not play out like past ones there are just too many dynamics at play, dynamics that have never been in play on such a large scale before. Anyone who claims to know the outcome is a fool. This electorate is too volatile and the issues too explosive to be able to predict or to rely on polls. Hillary will have to rein Bill in and once again become the focal point. This election is hers to win or lose. Relying on Bill’s popularity as we have seen in South Carolina is a two-edged sword; if I were Hillary I would use that sword sparingly.

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Which Clinton Is Running For President Anyway?

In what is quickly turning into a two-headed monster, the Clinton’s have developed a new strategy culled from their victories in New Hampshire and Nevada. The new strategy seems to be to run Bill Clinton for sub-President or assistant President. As I am writing this a crazy thought came to mind, can Bill Clinton be Hillary’s running mate? I have just dispatched our crack investigative team to research this and report back. You have to admit the strategy is brilliant, if not devious. You run a former popular two-term President in areas of his greatest strength against a one-term Senator who has never run a national campaign. Add to this strategy the constant refrain of “the first black” President and you have the possibility of black people voting for the black President that really isn’t black versus the guy who really is black. This could get confusing.

Mr. Clinton will be in South Carolina every day until the primary, often joined by his daughter, Chelsea, as he courts fellow Southerners and black voters. He also attended services on Monday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s old congregation; Mr. Obama spoke there on Sunday.[1]

According to Mr. Obama and many pundits it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell which Clinton Mr. Obama is running against. While I admire the ferocity of Mr. Clinton’s advocacy of his wife, as an ex-President and current leader of the Democratic Party I must take umbrage with the tone of his underscoring the differences in the two candidates. While as an American he has the right to campaign for Ms. Clinton that right must be tempered with the fact of who he is and what he represents. Mr. Clinton it seems is beginning to have flashbacks of his own days on the campaign trail and rather than taking his cues from his wife’s campaign, he seems to be mounting his own campaign strategy for defeating Barack.

I can understand Mr. Obama’s current level of frustration, it is difficult to campaign against a former popular President who isn’t even running for office or is he? In what could be termed a non-violent coup Bill Clinton could be positioning himself to create a Constitutional challenge. Is there any doubt that Mr. Clinton would be able to exert undue influence on his wife and thus return us to his “glory days”. Does the country really want a retro parade down memory lane with the Clintons as Grand Marshals? I can’t speak for the rest of the country, but I have no desire to return to the past no matter how rosy it may now appear. The thing about trying to recapture the past is that you lose sight of the future. You become fossilized in an isolated moment in history, but the problem is that you have not been frozen in some cryogenics chamber so you are not the same as you were then. Because you are not the same you will not be able to experience it as you once did.

It’s like adults trying to go back and recreate their missed prom or other lost opportunities, they can never be recaptured. The reason they can never be recaptured is that you will never be that person again, you will never be 17 again. You can never re-experience those feelings of awkwardness, vulnerability, or anxiety. Bill Clinton is campaigning on the myth of returning to the past only with changes. You can’t have it both ways Mr. Clinton you can’t promise the past and promise change. If you change it, it won’t be the past.

According to my crack research staff, conceivably Bill Clinton could run for vice-President. According to the Constitution he could not be “elected” to the office of the Presidency, but it could be argued that it doesn’t mean he couldn’t “serve” in that capacity. So let’s say he runs as Hillary’s running-mate and they win and something should happen to Hillary he would not be barred per se from serving. The tricky part would be the interpretation of the 12th amendment which states that you cannot run for the office of vice-President, if you are constitutionally ineligible for the office of President. All of this of course would require an interpretation by the courts and with the current political leanings of the Court I wouldn’t bet on a friendly outcome for the Clintons.

While it is clear that under the Twelfth Amendment the original constitutional qualifications of age, citizenship, and residency apply to both the president and vice president, it is unclear if a two-term president could later be elected—or appointed—vice president. Some argue that the Twenty-second Amendment and Twelfth Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the United States Presidential line of succession. Others contend that while a two-term president is ineligible to be elected or appointed to the office of Vice President, he or she could succeed from a lower position in the line of succession which he or she is not excluded from holding. Others contend that the Twelfth Amendment concerns qualification for service, while the Twenty-second Amendment concerns qualifications for election. Neither theory has ever been tested, as no former president has ever sought the vice presidency, and thus, the courts have never had an opportunity to decide the question.[2]

So is Bill Clinton running for vice-President? I doubt it. But it’s like having Michael Jordan as your dad and being invited to play a dad and kid pickup game. He may go in with the intentions of going easy on the other teams, but once those old competitive juices get to flowing; look out other teams. Bill Clinton is a political junkie and a master politician he doesn’t know how to take it easy. You invite him into your campaign and you’ve opened Pandora’s Box. If it is his wife’s campaign you really got troubles now. I’m just glad Chelsea didn’t run for class president or something. Could you imagine the tactics Bill would have had her employ? Be careful Bill, were all family here.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/us/politics/22clinton.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

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