the rix mix

My final electoral map prediction, from about two weeks ago,  had Obama over Romney 284 to 254. I considered it sufficiently pessimistic. I  could not give Mitt Ohio. I thought the "Mitt momentum" was bogus, that he had stalled short of a winning tally. I gave Mitt Virginia, Florida & Iowa, although I had pretty good gut feeling about Virginia, nothing rational. If Mitt had won Ohio, he would have lost when Obama carried Virginia. I feared another messed up recount situation like 2000; I could see that potential in my map, likely focused on Ohio.

Obama had emphatic majorities in all the states he carried except Ohio & Virgina. Both of those states reelected Democratic senators.

Last I looked, Obama had run up a three million popular vote majority. It's not 2008, but Repugs never conceded that was any kind of mandate. I think a lot Americans wanted to send Obama home, with no real hard feelings. But Repugs, as currently constituted, cannot come up with candidate via primaries capable of cutting into a Democratic coalition that contains the vast majority of Hispanic voters, young voters, as well as women who do not want social safety nets eliminated or hear outrageous statements from men (&  some women) about rape, right to choose, & matters  intimately conditional on personal circumstances. The Repugs gave away two senate seats, in Missouri & Indiana, because of their misogynist   candidates.

The bad news is we still have a crazy right wing obstructionist House. The good news is Repugs can't do what they said they would do if they controlled the White House & senate. Obama made conciliatory overtures last night, but he no longer believes it is  really possible. He's  a tougher, more realistic  politician now.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Joe Biden won the  debate with Paul Ryan & enraged Republicans in doing so. Today they tell us why he didn't "win" the debate.  Includes being "disrespectful" to Ryan.  Ryan has been trying to hide behind Romney's sudden new "moderate" image, just as Romney used Ryan to firm up his "conservative" rep. Romney & Ryan have a kind of yin/yang of complementary lies.

It's  not  the first time an experienced VP candidate has taken a  "kid" opponent to the woodshed.  Senator Lloyd Bentsen did it to Dan Quayle with the legendary "I knew Jack Kennedy. Sir, you are no Jack Kennedy" retort.  Biden himself did it to  Sarah Palin in 2008. She was easy.  By contrast, Ryan is a cold-blooded wonk. But he has two problems   1. He doesn't know his own numbers.  2. He's pretending to be a "moderate."

There's also the  mainstream media characterization of Joe Biden as a love/hate type, belligerent, tripping over his own words.  Biden (& his educator wife,  Dr. Jill) is a very popular figure out on the campaign trail; down-to-earth, accessible, comfortable outside the "beltway." He's the kind of politician those old Reagan Democrats (now mostly extinct) liked.  Biden knows how to work a crowded diner.   He's no where near as belligerent as Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

I predicted the meeting of these two Irish-American, Catholic politicians would be interesting.  I wish Ryan had shoved back more when Biden pushed him.  Biden never stopped pushing. He tried to get Ryan;'s goat.   Despite it all, Ryan did not come across as the more polite, more even-tempered of the pair.  He came across as one more Republican VP candidate not ready  to be No. 1 backup.  The result  helps President Obama only in that Biden pleased most of the party base, made a decent  impression on the "undecideds," & set Obama up in a  better position for next week's meeting with Romney.  But the President will have to deliver. I'm not certain how he will do that.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

America 1930












America 2012

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, culture, media madness, religion, THE election

On his Wednesday radio show, former New York Governor David Paterson said he believed Mitt Romney would carry New Jersey in November.   He seemed to have come to that conclusion based on Gov. Chris Christie's endorsement of Romney.  I think it's highly unlikely.

New Jerseyans traditionally separate national from state politics. We don't even pay much attention to our senators & congressional reps, all of them low profile in D.C.  Democrats have a voter registration advantage &  better Get Out the Vote machinery. Independent voters in Jersey are mostly centrist; independent women voters are white & educated & generally not sympathetic toward right wing "values" appeals, or cutbacks in health care & education. African-American & Latino voters will be charged up to reelect President Obama, the Latinos also in support of Senator Robert Menendez, both of whom will carry huge majorities out of Jersey's urban areas.

President Obama will make a few public campaign  appearances here when he's in Jersey for fund-raising.  Hillary & Bill Clinton will campaign  for Obama & Menendez (who endorsed Hillary in 2008). Both Clintons remain very popular with the Democratic Party base, & Bill can still excite a crowd  of college students & look perfectly at ease in a Black Baptist church.

A February 29 Quinnipiac University Poll has Obama leading Romney 49% to 39% in NJ. With Gov. Christie on the ticket as VP, Obama still leads 49% to 43%, so Christie takes no support already given to  Obama away from the President. With or without Christie, white women vote  Democratic 55% to 35%, Since Romney has to concede New York & Connecticut, those dreary numbers, although changeable,  do not invite a heavy Republican  investment of money in the expensive New York City media market, which reaches 2/3rds of Jersey voters. Christie,  whether or not he's the VP candidate, won't be campaigning much in Jersey either. He'll be dispatched to Ohio, PA, Virginia, & other potential blue to red pickups.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

South Carolina isn't representative of The United States. It doesn't want to be representative of The United States. That's the  identity of  South Carolina.

29% of the population of South Carolina is black, 99% of Republican primary voters are white. Newt blew the race dogwhistle (actually, it was an air horn), add in Mitt just being Mitt, & Gingrich gets, what? 8 delegates? 80% of the Repugs  voted for not-Mitt, but 55% still voted for not-Newt. So who's the winner? I'd say President Obama, who probably wasn't planning on visiting South Carolina between now & November anyway.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, THE election

Just a bit more on the Occupy America protests, which took up residence in Jersey City  today. An "unnamed Democratic operative" said:

“The original piece of the tea party that did pick up support among independent voters was when they were taking on Wall St. born out of the bailout and reaction to Bush in 2008,” said one, referring to the earliest days of what became the tea party. “If Democrats and progressives are to reclaim independent voters than standing up for working class voters is a key part of that.”

“In 2010, Democratic base was lackluster and that’s one of the reasons GOP had as big a night as they did,” the operative continued. “Anything that reenergizes Democratic base is vital.”

But  President Obama & VP Biden know it's trouble.  It's reenergizing parts of the base, alright: The parts the Obama administration (& the Democratic establishment for years previous) threw overboard. Four years ago many of the young people now protesting were in college or not long past school, those cheering, screaming crowds that donated $20 each online & registered to vote for the first time in their lives. They  expected a different kind of leader in Obama, a guy with cool AND passion. Obama thought they'd be satisfied with Springsteen & Bono.   Now the unions, trade & public, are joining in, senior citizens, & we'll see who else. Very few "working class" so far.   It's unnerving to the Democratic establishment that politicians  are not the targets of the protests. But the White House is damned lucky the giant Obama puppets haven't appeared yet.  They aren't trying to "reclaim independent voters." They're announcing that they are independent voters. Obama is getting fair warning about 2012, not a bye.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news, THE election

So who won? Partisan pro-Obama commentators painstakingly try to demonstrate that Barack bamboozled the Republicans. He did manage to postpone some of the pain. But the only "trick" he seemed to have pulled on Repugs was limiting future Medicare cuts to providers rather than recipients. Since the providers include  the companies & pharmaceutical interests  that help fill Repug (& Democratic) campaign coffers, politicians will weigh those cuts very carefully against their own bank accounts.  Overall, I think Obama took a large, & largely avoidable whuppin' that he'll have a difficult time explaining next year when it's not sufficient to trot out Michelle & the girls & lead crowds of college students in chanting "Yes we can." Americans are itchin' to  replace  the guy - Democrats, Repugs & independents.   Among Repugs only Romney doesn't come off as a whackadoodle, but as the primaries get going he'll increasingly have to sound like one.

But with the debt ceiling out of the way for the time being, we're back to the state-of-the-economy & news stories like Merck cutting 13,000 jobs even as their sales increased 7% last year. Merck is a major employer in New Jersey. There are three Merck plants in my county, & the corporate offices are out in West Jersey in an affluent town where a lot of Merck white collars  relocated when the offices moved  from Rahway, & maybe a few of them will learn what it's like to miss a mortgage payment  if they're ordered to  lay off themselves after  they cut loose the hourly workers with a "So sorry, we're restructuring."

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news, New Jersey

Taken today.
Word balloon from the Dalai Lama: "Blah blah world peace blah blah."
Thought balloon from the President: Image of Barack playing golf with a ciggie dangling from his lips.

On most days this President might look forward to a philosophical chat with the Dalai Lama, but today I doubt it, not after the week he  had.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, photograph, religion

Just read the transcript. I never watch the SOTU (sometimes the part before to see who the president schmoozes as he walks in). It's nice he's sort-of in his inspirational mode again. I've wondered where that guy went - it's why I voted for him. But my complaint too often is the same: How can one dream big dreams while pissing away The People's Money in wars waged not for national self-preservation, but mainly for the profits they generate through waste of lives & treasure we don't have the nerve to honestly examine?

How did I get on the Heritage Foundation mailing list? Large envelope in mailbox today with wasteful ten-page (printed on one side) appeal for membership.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

Enjoyed President Obama's Tucson speech tonight (transcript). He was probably penciling changes all the way on the flight from D.C. QUite different from  two other fine post-tragedy speeches; President Reagan following the Challenger disaster & President Clinton after the Oklahoma bombing, All three were gentle, uplifting, & touched the right notes. I didn't even mind the image of the little girl jumping in puddles in heaven, the kind of easy sentiment that usually makes me cringe. But this speech was also to honor survivors & heroes, & needed to dance cautiously around the passions stirred up by the shootings. I appreciate that one of the issues being raised is the treatment of mental illness. These disturbed killers, with their incomprehensible reasoning & agendas, display their deteriorating mental states in advance to family & acquaintances, who don't know what do, because no crimes have yet been committed or perhaps even suggested.  Police, though concerned,   have no legal power or cause to intervene.

The college student audience was too exuberant.  A little more somberness & maybe sobriety was in order - the place sounded like beer concessions  were open,  but the President, as an invited guest,  had no control over that.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

Frank Rich: Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha

What might bring down other politicians only seems to make her stronger: the malapropisms and gaffes, the cut-and-run half-term governorship, family scandals, shameless lying and rapacious self-merchandising. In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success.

On This Week, George  Will dismissed Sarah Palin as unprepared, uneducated, a quitter, & a mere celebrity (this time for her cameo on DWTS), predicting she wouldn't run for President, as if his smugly  saying so makes it so.  I laughed. With his Princeton Ph.D, Pulitzer, &  inside-the-Beltway arrogance, Will is almost  as much an enemy to Tea Partiers as Barack Obama. Frank Rich explains why.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news, THE election

That's something the rest of the world already knows. Particularly India & China, which view their own populations as the greatest potential markets for their own goods.

We shouldn't judge the President too harshly for his failure to turn this overseas trip into a series of smiling photo ops & announcements of trade agreements. The multi nation summits were scheduled long ago, & he used them to add on State visits to India, Indonesia, & South Korea he no doubt now wishes he hadn't. Presidents usually arrange for some done deals in advance of their trips, requiring only their ritual public signatures when they arrive.

The emerging global economic order is not something America has the power to prevent. We could've channeled it more to our advantage, but that would've required consumer adjustments (sacrifices) we were not willing to make. The average American's view of India is not only outdated, but colored with  caricature. I like  Indians.  Why not take advantage of our job out-sourcing & loose immigration & work visa policies? The educated, hard-working middle class Indians back there are just like the ones here, their number is growing. India is also an ancient culture (or cultures), which America is not. They are rooted in it, but it also holds some heavy baggage of caste, class, seemingly intractable poverty, & regional contention. Remarkable how much of it they've managed to lighten in sixty years. We must find a way to be friends & allies. We can help each other in so many ways, standing up to China,  against Islamic fundamentalism, providing markets for our goods - if we  manufacture goods they want & need.  India will not be bullied by us. They never were. We weren't their colonial power (although we supported England), & they hovered in the Soviet Union sphere-of-influence as we favored Pakistan when Pakistan was an important piece of our USSR containment policy. They're not a Gandhian nation, yet they still honor Gandhi; something about the Mahatma has always appealed to Americans. We also went up against England when the odds were against us, & with far fewer grievances. Bur where we had the guns, Gandhi only had the numbers - & a longer view of history. We need to take a longer view now. Our current President has the capacity for that view - no potential Repug president does -  & for planning & acting upon it, but we haven't the patience. Americans aren't noted for patience. We need a "new frontier," or something.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

Obama to Call for $50 Billion Spending on Public Works

Imagine the headline "Obama to Call for $50 Billion Spending on war in Afghanistan." Think he'd line up plenty of Repug votes for it?

In fiscal 2011, Afghanistan is projected to cost $117 billion, Iraq $46 billion. To date, Pentagon spending in Iraq has reached $620 billion, compared with $190 billion in Afghanistan.

USA Today 5/13/2010 .

Who benefits from a permanent state of war, financed with borrowed money?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s trashing of his civilian colleagues was unprofessional and may cost him his job. If so, it will be a sad end to a fine career. But no general is indispensable.

Thomas Friedman

I can think of one, maybe two indispensable American generals: George Washington & "Stonewall" Jackson.  Not McChrystal.

Of course, McChrystal is a darling of the right. Insubordinate-sounding generals who trash talk civilian authority always are. & maybe we should thank The General for exposing the confusion & in-fighting within the Obama administration. But heroes can be assholes. & he's apparently surrounded by sycophants, just like McClellan, Hooker, & MacArthur, to name three other commanders who disdained the Commander-in-Chief. With the first two,  which this situation most resembles, since McChrystal's contempt is for people more  than policy, Lincoln was willing to risk the trash talk if they'd just engage & defeat the Army of Northern Virginia. Does anyone including McChrystal believe we can secure Afghanistan? Afghanistan isn't even a f*ckin' nation.

Obama  had no choice but to fire McChrystal, & most military experts seem to agree. The President is the boss. A President can't tolerate a top commander & staff blabbing like that in front of an invited journalist. & the griping was so personal & so scattershot; President, Vice President, Ambassador, Joint Chiefs, on & on. Imagine how   harshly any lower soldier would be disciplined by a superior for talking that disrespectfully in public?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

Hank Kalet is a reliably progressive journalist in Jersey. I'm a fan. He's also a poet. In a prose column, "Letter to Liberales," he writes of President Obama

He is better than the alternatives were, at least the major party candidates, but he is proving not to be a transformational president. In fact, he is nothing more than a milder, more liberal version of Bill Clinton, a member of the corporate status quo interested only in tinkering around the edge.

Hank then lists seven disappointments. Yes, every one is very disappointing.

But I found myself hung up on the word transformational. The word itself is suspect, coming as it does into general usage from academia, specifically theoretical linguistics & a professor named Chomsky who wasn't assigned an English Dept. undergraduate grammar course (a class I regret ducking because, oddly, it wasn't required of a Lit major unless you wanted teacher certification).

Alright, I'll buy a vowel, Pat, even though I'm not certain what it means. I'd prefer transmogrification, via cartoon character Calvin's Transmogrifier, which really did change or alter greatly with grotesque or humorous effect.

As a poet, Hank must know Barack Obama is transformational, if he's applying the word the way I think he is, or maybe wants to but is holding back. To say Obama is not requires compartmentalization, another useful word I don't much like, but gets past the Blogger spellchecker.

You go to the political sphere for bad language, for lies & evasions, for words that don't mean what they appear to mean - that may mean the opposite; for cliches like "at the end of the day" & "putting the cart before the horse" & "comparing apples & oranges"; for sloganeering - "Repeal & replace." That last one is stirring, eh? Tweet away, brave revolutionaries.

There's a poetry-lover on the Rahway NJ Democratic Committee. It's about as high up in American party politics as you'll find someone who would smile sadly & knowingly if you pointed to the crowd at a Teabagger rally & said, "The pure products of America go crazy" (if we steal the phrase & broaden it some). I doubt she has political ambitions. I hope not. Her day job involves teaching adolescents to read & listen through murky language. A good way to do this is to talk back to TV commercials & politician sound bites: What the f*ck do you mean, "At the end of the day?" When does your day end? Why are you puppet-rapping for McDonald's & reciting "I'm loving it" when your hip hop predecessors were censored or shot each other over words they invented?

Barack Obama is a dark-skinned, biracial Hawaiian elected by a clear majority of voters. That's somewhat transformational. By electing him, America skipped over two decades, the '30s & '50s, neither of which have birthed a president.

Congress endorsed, however imperfectly, the ideal that every American has a right to health care. The ideal is the fundamental dispute, not the requirement that every American must have health insurance. The right wing is angry about the requirement, but it wants to repeal the right. What is really driving it crazy?

The 2010 census will reveal in detail what we already know about America's changing demographics. Transformational.

One-hundred blooming flowers transform the yard. There's your photograph. The gardener is proud. The gardener remembers browsing the seed catalogues. The gardener turned the earth, planted the seeds, sensed when they germinated, watched the seedlings break the surface. The poet understands & learns from the gardener.

Labels: about writing, Barack Hussein Obama

In my email this morning, the Daily Bible Verse is:

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
- Ecclesiastes 1:10 (NIV)

From A.Word.A.Day:

cloud-cuckoo-land
MEANING: noun: An idealized, unrealistic state; a place out of touch with reality.

ETYMOLOGY:
Loan translation of Greek Nephelokokkugia, from nephele (cloud) + kokkux (cuckoo). The word was coined in The Birds, a comedy by Athenian playwright Aristophanes (c. 450-388 BCE). Nephelokokkugia was the name of a city in the sky, built by the birds in collaboration with some Athenians.

From A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole. -Mohandas Gandhi

& posted on Facebook wall from my distant Brit cousin, Jan, a middle class, suburban small business owner (who skipped a vacation this year due to poor economy), & frequent, grateful user of the British National Health Service:

all I can say is 'Rock on Obama!' Well done that man - don't pity the insurance companies they have had a good run for their money!

I think statements like Gandhi's tend to discourage people, but he did try to follow his own advice, so millions followed him.

Health care reform is a major step out of cloud-cuckoo-land for Americans. We can't afford to trip. We've had many, many chances to do it even more incrementally, with bipartisan support, going all the way back to President Nixon. If we don't also reform our financial institutions, it may go for nought. But a start at health care reform is absolutely essential over the long-term. We have to get used to idea that everyone can be insured, because Americans want everyone to have health insurance. Just how we expected that lofty goal to be accomplished without a national direction was a puzzlement. Our private insurers, pharmaceutical corporations, & many providers of health care services operate nationally & internationally, putting individual states at an impossible disadvantage. Juggling Medicaid benefits & eligibility leaves states with the problem of uninsured working people & those who've lost benefits through recession layoffs. I think this dilemma is like the levees of New Orleans. You don't solve it by advising people to move to Houston & Memphis.

I don't know if urban health care suppliers have the capacity to service millions of newly-insured Americans. But they're already struggling with it. They have a few years to adjust. An important test is how much, or if, this legislation lifts a burden off small business. Fortunately, that's one of the "popular" provisions taking effect sooner rather than later.

My friend up the street is barely keeping her business afloat in an economic climate where what she sells is not essential. She had three full time employees in addition to herself, plus part-timers she called in as needed. I think she's down to two full time now, & her values compel her to offer decent health coverage to both at shared expense. She could have gone to all part-time employees. Her work requires wide skills, but there are plenty of freelancers around she could hire. She can assign some of the unskilled work to teenagers or volunteer friends. I helped her out a few times doing dummy tasks on large, corporate jobs that dried up in the current economy. She thinks they'll come back if she can hold out. She likes being an employer. She doesn't like the thought of laying off her employees, closing her business, & working for someone else. Keeps her awake at night. She's gone back to school to learn additional skills she can apply to her business. She's a companionable, good-hearted person. I hope reform helps her. I'm sure she'll be studying it.

(& whattheheck has happened to Chris Matthews? I used to think the guy was smart & connected even when I disagreed with him. But he was utterly blindsided by how health reform unfolded. He had zilch inside track on what was happening behind the scenes. It was like six months ago he decided what would happen & stopped answering his phone. MSNBC ought to tell him to shape up or go.)

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news

The truth is, the American people are not angry because of all the money the government has spent this year -- except, of course, the people who believe Obama was born in Kenya, is a Muslim, and a Socialist. The rest of the people, the ones Obama has a chance of reaching, are angry because the vast majority of that money went to -- and continues to go to -- rescuing Wall Street, which has thanked taxpayers by reducing lending, recording record profits, paying out massive bonuses, and using our money to pay lobbyists to scuttle financial reform. That is what is putting voters on the electoral warpath.

Arianna Huffington

Reading the transcript of the SOTU speech, I was relieved at least that the Prez hadn't really given up any serious ground. He's not Bill Clinton circa 1995 & stuck with a new Repug congress. But Obama needs to do more of what he did today: Go out & campaign. I've seen the numbers from the 1994 "Contract With America" debacle. We know what turned it from traditional midterm losses into a rout was the failure of Democrats & pro-Clinton independents to vote. There was no upswing in Repug votes over 1992. They just showed up at the polls. In his one brilliant idea, Newt Gingrich made that midterm a presidential election with a theme instead of a candidate.

Democrats have three political positives this year: They control both houses of congress; they have a Democratic President who more or less knows what he wants; Republicans are distrusted even more than Democrats. There's no evidence that the majority of Americans want Republicans running the country again. Newt's appeal was basically, "Give us a chance, we'll do better." Well, even teabaggers now know they either won't or they can't. They're deeper in the pockets of banks & corporations than Democrats, their empty form of "populism" can be discredited, there's still time.

Obama needs to attack Republicans as obstructionists & demand that they present alternatives. Because when it comes down to details, to alternatives, Republicans are hardly unified. He also must convince his base that its vote in November is just as crucial as it was two years ago. It won't be easy.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama

Democrats making bonehead decisions.

DOVER, Del. – Beau Biden announced Monday that he will not seek election to the U.S. Senate seat long held by his father, Vice President Joe Biden, putting another Democratic-held Senate seat in jeopardy and dealing another blow to President Barack Obama's flailing party.

Illinois got Roland Burns when Obama was elected. Paterson appointed a nonentity to Hillary's New York seat, probably the most desirable in terms of media access. MA Democrats nominated a stiff to replace Ted. Delaware Dems did Joe Biden a favor by keeping the seat warm with a placeholder for son Beau, who declined to run. Chris Dodd screwed himself when he kissed off his constituents & packed his family off to Iowa for a hopeless presidential run, so he's going & that seat's open. None of these senate seats should be seriously in play for Repugs, even in a down midterm year. It's like Democrats have no A-list anymore.

Had the Prez rolled out his "middle class under assault" ideas months ago, they wouldn't seem like a panic reaction now. This was a rather odd thing to say:

"Unfortunately, the middle class has been under assault for a long time. Too many Americans have known their own painful recessions long before any economist declared that there was a recession."

Odd for its belatedness. 2007 was a bad year. It & most of 2008 are not considered "recession" years because the government defines recession as an economic threshold crossed, while the American people feel the whole process coming & going, every bit of the uncertainty. The People are a lot wearier than Beltway politicians.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama

I'm probably a typical American in my unwonkiness. I read much & read widely, watch the news & late night talk show monologues. But basically I click on headlines from Associated Press & a few online newspapers, read the page, & go to something else. I form opinions less on the "facts" than on what others say or write about the "facts." There, of course, I have my preferences.

Matt Bai's piece in the today's NYT, The Great Unalignment, is much my view also.

I'm a liberal. More left than liberal in some ways. But I'm not especially ideological. Political ideology is something I believe ought to be kept close, a kind of pure standard. Ideologues in public office scare me. Ideologues always believe it's an ideology that wins an election, not a candidate. But good candidates often enough overcome prevailing views & sentiments to win elections. Brown had to do that In MA. I didn't see the election of Obama as deeply ideological. It was a coalition victory wrapped in liberal populism. Liberal populism is a still a strong sell in most states Obama carried, too bad Coakley wasn't carrying the brand. Obama seemed the obvious pragmatic liberal's choice in 2008. He probably was the best choice. I wish he was capable of leaning harder on his own party's legislators; he lacked the long experience of a political insider Hillary Clinton might have brought to the job, but that inexperience was his non-ideological appeal to me & to millions of others. So far, he disappointed me more on economic & banking issues than on health care, because I think he entered office with a real mandate to clean up Wall Street, not just punish a bunch of individuals who got rich legitimately no matter how much we dislike their methods or greed. Wealthy commuters with new mansions in Colts Neck NJ don't disturb me. Boarded up houses do.

On health care reform, the door had yet to be opened, & the bottom line was to get Americans accustomed to the idea that every citizen ought to have affordable public or private HMO coverage regardless of job or income, & that it would cost a lot of money upfront no way around it. But you couldn't just create a pharmaceutical company windfall, like W's "Medicare D" where there's complexities, baffling inducements for various plans, but nothing to make drug companies compete with each other to lower prices & contain costs. So Americans spend money subsidizing the national health plans of other nations, which then use these plans to entice business development. Western Europe sells an educated workforce & long term ideas while America still pushes nonunion labor & a one week vacation to start.

But how can a nation plan when the populace, driven here & there by a 24 hour news cycle, is unwilling to commit to any particular course of action other than to object to whatever is being done now? A political party has to stand or fall on some kind of basic ideology.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news