Don't Bury the Democratic Party -- Trump Hasn't Killed It.

To paraphrase from a song popular after the Great War “Sixty-Five million Americans can’t be wrong.”  That’s how many United States voters cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate for President on November 8, 2016.  She won the vote but not the election.  And since then the pundits and consultants and those with their own political agenda have waxed eloquent in their attempts to determine what is wrong with the Democratic Party.  As Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out only in America would those who won two and one half million more votes than their opponent ask what they are doing wrong?

Let’s reduce this election to the simple fact t that just as in 1888 the Electoral College system resulted in the election of the candidate who received fewer votes from the people for President.  Donald Trump thus joins that illustrious list of President's chosen not by the people but by the system devised in 1787: Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush (although most historians would agree that the first and last of those were actually chosen by actions outside the electoral college.)

The message of the Democratic Party, the most progressive platform in a century was not rejected by the American people -- it was in fact endorsed.

The messenger of the Democratic Party, with all her misperceived warts, was not rejected by the American people - but by a system devised when it seemed difficult to imagine a national electorate. And so the Republican Party already in control of the House of Representatives due to congressional and state legislative gerrymandering of districts, and the Senate due to the malapportionment of that body now controls the national governing institutions. The Democratic Party remains with only one indicia of influence -- the support of the majority of the American people.

Will 2016 be 1828 or 1932 and usher in decades of party dominance of the American political scene.  Or will it be 1928, 1964, 1972 lopsided victories were followed by the opposition returning to power in the next election?

As a Democratic Party activist I recognize that there are things my party needs to do.  Things they should have done had they won but most likely in that case wouldn’t have.   The party needs to return to its historic roots. It has spent the past fifty years fighting, successfully, to extend civil rights to those so long denied - African Americas, women, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, native Americans, and Latinos. But while doing that it appeared to forget the needs of those who made it possible for the Democrats to accomplish this historic inclusion of all in the American way of life - the white working class, the Euro-American ethnic groups, the Catholic sons and daughters of immigrants and the evangelical Christians of rural America.

The traditional Democratic principle of economic justice for all and opposition to the uber-rich combined with the struggle for social equality would have kept that coalition intact and in fact could have expanded it. But in the 1990's led by the Clinton inspired democratic leadership council the party moved its economic positions to the center and embraced globalization trade agreements that lifted other societies up and a detente and bonding with the magnates of wall street. This new relationship led int he last year of the Clinton administration to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act a New Deal measure that even Reagan and Gingrich couldn’t repeal.

And, when the bubble burst, the American people responded to the crash of 2008 with the election of Barack Obama whom they expected to be another FDR. Instead they found themselves with a 90's Democrat - liberal on social issues and centrist on dealings with the powers of Wall Street: sort of a combination of Jimmy Carter and Grover Cleveland. His signature accomplishment domestically was the Affordable Care Act which brought health insurance to many millions who had not had it but never resonated as a benefit for all those who already had.

Winning the next national election and remaining relevant to American democracy requires that the world’s oldest political party take some actions:

1) Adopt fifty state strategies asking why we lost where we did and what we have to do to win there. No one size fits all manual that instructs political neophytes how to run a campaign but tried and true tactics that meet the conditions in each state (and within the state, e.g. Pennsylvania, 67 county strategies not a failed 15 county strategy).  

2).Advocate for and fight for the progressive platform of 2016 recognizing the party’s historic commitment to economic justice for all as embodied in the platform of 1896 and FDR’s four freedoms and second bill of rights.

3) Replace my generation of baby boomers from leadership positions at every level and replace them with fighters in their fifties and forties and open the doors of the party to those under forty to be full participants not merely sometime votes.

4)Using every means possible struggle to expand the franchise with early voting and same day registration; fight to change the anti-people aspects of the American political structure - the electoral college and district gerrymandering.

5) Expose the outside forces such as the FBI and the dictator of Russia who interfered in the election and to some extent determined its outcome. And remind Americans again and again that It Shouldn’t Happen Here.

Finally Democrats should remember the injunction of Andrew Jackson that “One man with courage makes a majority” and realize that sixty-five million Americans with courage can make a nation.

3 December 2016.    

IT IS TIME TO LABEL TRUMPISM WHAT IT IS - EVIL.

It has been said that Evil succeeds when good men and women do nothing to prevent it.  The Presidential election of 2016 could well become an example on point.

I am not one of those who contends that Trump is another Hitler (although he does a good imitation of Mussolini) nor do I believe that all Trump supporters are closet Nazis.  I do believe that those in our country who admire the Ku Klux Klan, who consider themselves alt-right nationalists; are white supremacists, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim as well as xenophobic are supporters of Trump. Make no mistake about it Trumpism is home grown American Fascism wrapping itself in the banner of patriotic populism. Trump’s candidacy has appealed to the evil elements of people’s natures not as Lincoln called for the Better Angels. Trump’s candidacy has unleashed those elements and let that genie out of the bottle -even his defeat may not be able to put the genie back in . But, Trump's victory would legitimatize those hate groups as acceptable to the American President.

There are those in America who have not learned the lessons of the past nor even perhaps are aware of them.  They do not understand why hundreds of thousands died in a Civil War to abolish slavery when one candidate tells them that African-Americans have never had it so bad. They do not understand why the “greatest generation” sacrificed so much to save the world from Nazism, Fascism and Militarism.  And quite frankly many do not even realize the evilness of the Stalin Soviet Empire that fell with the Berlin Wall nor how close we came to nuclear war in 1962.

If Trump wins and the forces of evil are unleashed with the imprimatur of respectability lent them by a President there will come a time decades from now when the grandchildren of today's voters will ask “What did you do to stop Trumpism” If Trump wins it will be because so many will answer that question with “When ballots could stop him I didn’t vote or didn’t see a difference between him and his major opponent.  And when only bullets could stop the evil it was those forces that had them.”  

One can only hope that those elderly voters of the greatest generation remember what happened when evil was unleashed in 1939 and will vote to make sure it doesn’t happen here.

And I pray that my own generation, the baby boomers, will remember the idealism and the sacrifice of the 1960's and vote for the candidate that embodies the best of us - Hillary Clinton.

If you believe that America is a great country that has come a long way toward being that shining city on a hill that the Puritans envisaged and the last best hope of mankind that Lincoln labeled it you are on the other side of the Trump evil forces who believe that the America of the past fifty years has been in decline and they must make America Great -White - Straight- Christian Again.

Will it happen here? Will America succumb to the politics of hate and fear?

Our country rejected that path in the 1930's and then preserved some 60 years of relative world peace and the spread of democratic values. American leaders have become icons and symbols throughout the world: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  And we have elected some Presidents who have become the synonym for corruption Warren Harding and Richard Nixon. To which model of leader will American voters look to this November?  To those who were bold enough to envision a better future or those who were afraid of the progress of the past.

6 Oct. 2016

Can Trump's Opponents Stop Him? -- Andrew Jackson's Couldn't !

I prepared a version of this blog entry two months ago with the assistance of, and in collaboration with, a long time friend, Dr. John Tantillo, "the Marketing Doctor", who is an expert on branding and offered significant marketing and branding insights on my basically political history take; John is the author of the book, "People Buy Brands, Not Companies". 

Political pundits and some historians always try to match current presidential candidates with past political figures. The matches are never exact, but knowledge of history can help prepare us for what might be. 2016 presents what the media presents as a Trump phenomena—a nationwide celebrity defeating the establishment of a major political party and securing the nomination of that party for president. Trump faces a former secretary of state (and US senator and first lady) in a general election that has become nasty and divisive and possibly close.

Almost 200 years ago, as the “the Era of Good Feeling” drew to a close, the political establishment proceeded to choose a new president. The secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, by birth (his father was the Revolutionary icon and second president, John Adams) and tradition, was the obvious choice.  The Congressional Caucus, which in those days nominated the candidates, met and endorsed Secretary of Treasury William Crawford. Speaker of the House Henry Clay saw an opportunity with multiple candidates if the Electoral College failed to produce a majority and the House had to choose from amongst the top-three candidates.

There came forth an outsider, a Westerner, and a national celebrity. Andrew Jackson was known popularly for his victory at the Battle of New Orleans and by many as the victor of the War of 1812. Jackson was also known for his battles against Native Americans (the Indians) in Alabama and then the occupation of Florida; Andrew Jackson was in his day a national celebrity perhaps better known across the country than any other public figure since Washington and Franklin. He became the candidate supported by those on the outside—poor farmers, workingmen, and mechanics of the cities, politicos from the new states, and the entrepreneurs fueling the growing economy known as the “men on the make.” 

For the first time in presidential elections, most states allowed the people to vote to choose the electors from that state; and, Andrew Jackson amassed the most popular votes followed by Adams. In the Electoral College, Crawford (the candidate of the NY/VA Democratic–Republican establishment) edged out Clay for third place, which threw the election into the House with the Speaker not in contention. Jackson and his supporters claimed the moral right to win due to receipt of the most popular votes and the most electoral votes. Adams supporters cited the lack of anyone receiving a majority and the rules in the Constitution specifying what should then happen. Adams was elected by the House with Clay’s support, and, when the latter was made Secretary of State, Jackson called it a corrupt bargain and began a four-year campaign to win the presidency.

Jackson was considered by his opponents as brash, uncultured by Eastern Seaboard standards, a racist, a philanderer and bigamist, a murderer, and a hot-tempered man ill-suited to be the nation’s chief executive. Sound familiar? (And we think today’s political rhetoric is rough!) He had little if any support from the nation’s political establishment. In fact, his predecessors (Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe), though publicly supporting Crawford in 1824, in private correspondence expressed sympathy for the aspirations of John Quincy Adams.

Jackson’s opponents, the political elite and the money establishment of New York and Philadelphia, used arguments against him, which in fact may have gained him votes.

Jackson was not yet president, so he had no record to stand on; furthermore, it was only during his second term that his most controversial actions took place. The opposition to Jackson used what they considered his personality flaws to try to defeat him. They ridiculed his poor spelling (he evidently spelled Congress with a K). But this was at a time when even the most literate Americans spelled phonetically. Because he had married his wife Rachel assuming her husband had gotten a divorce, when in fact he had only applied for one, Jackson was accused of bigamy --  at a time when, outside Eastern cities, record-keeping, to say the least, was sporadic. He was accused of murder, having slain a man in a duel who had slandered Jackson’s wife; this attack at a time when men thought it their duty to protect the honor of their wives. And in a “swift boat-style attack,” Jacksons’ opponents issued the “coffin circular,” which pictured six coffins representing soldiers he had executed for disobedience and desertion. But the men who belonged to militias and had heard the stories of their fathers from the Revolutionary War accepted the concept that you had to execute those in your ranks whose actions endangered all. 

Though Jackson as president was a divisive character, he was loved by the people enough to win three popular votes for president and elect his successor; his name has been used to denote the era in American history before the Civil War: the Age of Jackson. Hatred by his opponents caused the coalescing of the opposition groups into the Whig Party. He was a fierce nationalist and a believer in a strong presidency. His policies divided the three branches of the federal government, but in most cases the position of the executive prevailed. Among the nineteenth-century presidents, only Lincoln surpassed him in national homage.

Is Donald Trump the twenty-first-century incarnation of Andrew Jackson? Certainly there are similarities in temper and his possible rise to the highest office.  Jackson, like Trump, could be civil and polite in society. He also could be stubborn and even sometimes cruel. Once he determined on a course of action, nothing stopped him. When he declared war on a political enemy, it was total. 

While there are similarities between the two candidates there are even more in the reaction to the candidates.  Jackson’s opponents attempted to turn his strengths into weaknesses and may, in fact, have merely enhanced the repute of his strengths. In 2016, Trump’s opponents might do well to study the failure of Jackson’s opposition and develop a better strategy to stop him.  They should recall Santayana’s dictum: “those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.”  Jackson ultimately won the presidency in a wave of popular dissatisfaction against the establishment, the effete elite, and the big money interests who allegedly owned Washington DC politicians. 

The intent herein is neither to denigrate Andrew Jackson nor to elevate Donald Trump. America has been graced with much good luck throughout its history. Jackson, who followed some disastrous economic policies and a horrific Indian removal policy, nevertheless ushered America safely into a new era and created a popular attachment to the union that bolstered Lincoln as he won the Civil War.  Should Donald Trump be elected president, let us hope that America’s luck has not run out!

Andrew Jackson was an American original. Donald Trump is likewise -- whether one likes him or not. The inside-the-beltway bureaucracy, along with the historical elite, have decided to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill. It would be ironic if the people now send a 21st century version of Jackson to the White House.

9 Aug 2016

Liberal - Progressive -- A Rose By Any Other Name...

The labels Liberal and Progressive are thrown around in Democratic Party politics without any reference to either historic meaning or consistent current definition.  We have reached a point in our politics today where anyone can label them self what they like, their opponents can label them what they want and people just accept those labels -- giving those labels their own understood meanings.  Thus the labels become meaningless.

In 1896 a relatively conservative Democratic party controlled by the money interests of the northeastern states and the ex-confederate Bourbons of the South was subjected to a popular revolt and transformed into a populist party. That original Populist agenda included many items of economic justice (anti-big banks, anti-monopolies), political justice (direct election of Senators, referendum, recall) and global justice (anti-imperialism and anti-war).  After the turn of the 20th century Populism, whose roots were rural and western, merged with urban Progressivism and became the Progressive movement. Progressives added social justice (labor conditions, health care, and slum eradication) to economic and political justice and on the global scene became advocates for an American style world justice and organization.  The Progressive movement was personified by Theodore Roosevelt and institutionalized by Woodrow Wilson.

After World War I, as Progressives embraced woman suffrage, extreme elements pushed successfully for prohibition and many nativist elements opposed Wilsonian world leadership. These divisions, which often reflected urban  rural differences, lasted throughout the 1920's.  And, then came Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal.

FDR, a firm Wilson Progressive and cousin to Teddy Roosevelt, considered himself a LIBERAL.  Read his speeches and you will be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t use the world Liberal in it. He advocated economic, social, political, and global justice. He preached Four Freedoms “everywhere in the world” and an Economic Bill of Rights.  His twelve years in office made the Democratic Party a Liberal Party. Truman, Stevenson, Kennedy, Johnson and Humphrey were all proud to call themselves Liberals. 

The Vietnam War divided Liberals on global issues and the degree to which the US should be willing to engage in war to defeat communists and so called fellow travelers.  After the 1968 convention the anti-war Democrats took control of the party apparatus and the 1972 convention and nominated George McGovern on a Liberal platform strongly anti-war.  His crushing defeat by Nixon caused a reaction among Democrats that can only be described as cowardly as most Democrats began to deny the word Liberal and instead use the word Progressive which they felt would denote liberal views on social and economic issues and not carry the “stain” of McGovernism.  In contrast when LBJ decimated the Goldwater Republicans in 1964 they responded by hunkering down and pushing conservatives from the school board to the court house and building the base for the Reagan revolution sixteen years later.

And so for twenty years the Democrats, having rid themselves of the segregationists and having taken a clear pro-choice position on abortion, see sawed between centrists Progressives like Carter and Liberals like Mondale and Dukakis.  Finally in 1992 the centrist Democrats led by Bill Clinton took control of the party and Liberal became an unused label.

It was not until 2014, when Senators like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown began to crusade for economic justice again - and people went into the streets to demand that government reign in Wall Street, raise the minimum wage, and rescue the middle class from extinction, that the word PROGRESSIVE began again to have its historic meaning of economic justice and opposition to the power and greed of the wealthy and the corporate interests.  And people also began to again use the word LIBERAL with pride as contra CONSERVATIVE.

The two labels tend to denote the same views on social issues and support for the economic programs of the New Deal and the Great Society.  I would argue that Progressive today includes liberal values with a heightened concern about the oligarchic power of big business and the influence of the military industrial complex on our international relations.  But, I would also say that it is difficult today to give precise meaning to the two labels: Liberal and Progressive. While both support equal rights for all only some in each oppose the death penalty. Today both labels now denote opposition to corporate power and Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United; but, Progressives place more value on minimum wage and single payer health care than many Liberals.  And, most unfortunately, many Liberals today are not advocating political reform - they are satisfied with the reforms that were enacted post 1972 and the party structures they control and so resist changes such as open primaries, abolition of automatic delegates, ending caucus systems.     

But, now (2016) in the mind of the public the labels Liberal and Progressive have become somewhat synonymous. Many people see them as the same-- which they are not.  And, many party activists argue over the Progressive bonafides of candidates.  If the key litmus test is economic justice and attitudes toward Wall Street and corporate political power than we should begin using the terms Progressive Liberal and Traditional Liberal. A Progressive Liberal being one who holds basic liberal values on most issues but is clearly anti-Wall Street and all that entails.  A Traditional Liberal would be one who holds basic liberal values on most issues but has become comfortable with the role that corporations and big business play in our government. (To be clear I would denote Bernie Sanders the former and Hillary Clinton the latter.) Personally I prefer either type of Liberal to a conservative, or an extremist tea-partier, or an enabling so-called moderate or Trumpian.

24 July 2016

THE DO'S AND DON'TS OF RUNNING AGAINST TRUMP

The 2016 Presidential election contest has become unique by the presence of the "first" non-political candidate -- Donald Trump.  Not since Wendell Willkie in 1940, some seventy-six years ago, has a non-political type dared to enter the presidential sweepstakes. Trump=s primary opponents and now his general election adversary seem at a loss as to how to campaign effectively against him.  They complain, they react, they act bemused sometimes outraged and often incredulous. They simply haven=t a clue about what he is doing and what he may be all about.  He has developed a 21st century version of Populism that harkens back to the 1890's but in many ways is more nostalgic and certainly less progressive than William Jennings Bryan=s transformation of that label.

As someone who has spent his entire adult life in politics -- running for office, managing campaigns at the federal, state, county and municipal levels one gets a feel for the do's and don’ts of campaigning. True I=ve won some and lost others. I claim no great expertise or predictive abilities, but do believe that I am as cognizant of the new politics of today and the impact of the technology of our century as anyone in the political analytic process.  Where Lincoln used lists of voters to get out the vote for Henry Clay, we use computer print outs with information on voters that in Lincoln=s day only the local minister had.

I offer this list of Do=s and Don=ts on ways to campaign against Donald Trump.    

DON=T ridicule Trump or treat him as some sort of buffoon who doesn=t know what he is talking about.  He is a well educated man who has an ability to read an audience and express in terms that audience understands what he, Trump, is thinking. 

DO take Trump seriously. His supporters enjoy his approach - his opponents do not.  Let him turn off the undecided by himself. He can do a good job of that.  Voters don=t like to be told why not to like someone they like to come to that conclusion themselves.

DON=T react to Trump=s actions and comments.  If one does so they continue the story he has begun and let him set the agenda of what is considered significant by the media. 

DO offer positive programs and goals and reasons for people to vote for the Democratic candidate.

DON=T explain every Democratic proposal or critique every one of Trump=s with extensive description and multiple points.  Trump has found a way to replace the 30 second commercial and the 10 second sound bite with a 140 character tweet, and bumper sticker slogans. Trump is speaking in clear affirmative sentences not paragraphs of verbiage.  His slogans are curt and to the point. And if one tries to take them apart the listener is lost in the weeds of the explanation. This may well be the campaign model of the 21st century.

DO present ideas in clear sloganesque format e.g. Health Care for All; Debt-Free College Education for All; Personal Equality for All; Religious Freedom for All; Pre-K classes for All Children.

DON=T just defend the status quo. Take a lesson from the Brexit campaign in England the very word Remain was passive and satisfied while Leave expressed change and action.

DO expand on popular programs, e.g. Social Security; build on positive ideas that have been around. Trump wants to make America Great Again - rejoinder: Let=s Make a Great America Greater.

DON=T treat Trump and his supporters like ignoramuses, red-necks or the great unwashed. That plays right into Trumps anti-intellectual anti-professional class approach to winning over the 50% of Americans who don=t vote.

DO reach out to every voter -- remembering Thomas Jefferson=s injunction AError of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.@.

Don't let this become a campaign about the character and personality of the candidates. Neither candidate is popular in the Obama/Reagan mold.

And, don't run a campaign of fear of what Trump will do to programs and the world as he runs a campaign about fear of immigrants and terrorists.  

If this becomes a campaign of fear, I believe the anxiety about personal safety will trump concern about losing material benefits.  

  

Donald Trump could become more than a unique phenomenon.  If he wins he could well be the precursor of what political candidates will be like in the future.  And, the probability of his victory is increased if the campaign against him is based on old conventional wisdom and the political practices of the past.

19 July 2016

MIKE PENCE PRESIDENTIAL TIMBER -- SERIOUSLY ?

So, Donald Trump has chosen his Vice President: the Governor of Indiana, Michael Pence. A former Congressman who when he left the House gave twelve years of his papers and notes and emails and anything else connected with his service in the House of Representatives to the University of Indiana with condition that it be sealed from access by anyone until after 2020.  So the press and more importantly the public must now judge the Trump-Pence ticket without Trump’s tax returns and without Pence’s papers.  Yet, the Republicans continue to misrepresent more and more info from Clinton’s thousands of personal emails which were released to public scrutiny.

Michael Pence has been a run of the mill average pro-life pro-gun pro-business (owned by the Koch brothers) Governor who was in some evident trouble getting reelected this year. The Indiana Republicans are said to be happy that he is now running for VP so they can run a stronger candidate for Governor.

Pence joins a distinguished list of Indiana pols who have served as Vice President of the United States:

                                                            Schuyler Colfax

                                                            Thomas Hendricks

                                                            Charles Fairbanks

                                                            Thomas Marshall

                                                            Daniel Quayle

These Indiana Veeps personified the old adage that a man had two sons one went to sea and one became Vice President and neither was ever heard of again.

Pence is a Ted Cruz ultra right wing Republican whose positions on social issues are far more extreme than Trump’s and where Trump takes non-establishment positions on immigration and trade agreements Pence turns moderate and traditional - including support for the TPP..

Donald Trump the self proclaimed populist who wants to shake up Washington DC makes the safest choice for Vice President.  Trump chooses someone that the right wing Tea party establishment is comfortable with, someone who the donor class is comfortable with and someone who the inside the beltway crowd is comfortable with. Apparently Trump, as he gets closer to the White House and hears the strains of Hail to the Chief, gets more comfortable with being the Republican candidate for President not the Donald. 

  15 July 2016  

WHY TRUMP DOESN’T NEED A GROUND GAME AND CLINTON DOES

The political pundits and media commentators have found a new conventional wisdom to share.  They are decrying the fact that Donald Trump doesn’t appear to have a solid ground game which they have decided is necessary for him to win in November. And, Democrats especially in states where the Trump campaign seems less organized structurally, may be adding this ground game factor into their already naive “Trump can’t win therefore we can’t lose” belief.

Since most of these commentators, especially those just out of college, have little or no campaign experience it is a wonder that they even know what a ground game is.  Before deciding if a candidate needs one we should ask what exactly constitutes a ground game.

In my experience a ground game, or field campaign, is the organizing of volunteers and paid staff to do a number of campaign actions.  First and foremost to canvass door to door spreading information about the candidate and identifying the candidates supporters. This is particularly important in contests that do not attract media attention and massive television /radio advertising that can spread the message. In today's age, when few voters are interested in reading more than a bumper sticker, literature has lost its value and certainly when your platform is “Make America Great Again” you don’t need to distribute a slogan.

It is also critical to identify supporters if one plans a major pull operation on Election Day to get a maximum turnout.  Trump’s apparent plan to win is to get the angry, the disaffected, the disgruntled, and the disappointed to come out as never before and protest all that they don’t like by voting for him. He has no identifiable bloc of voters he can safely blind pull. And, those secret Trump voters are not going to identify themselves to canvassers or phone callers. Trump’s GOTV plan will be to bombard people with TV ads to generate turnout.

Clinton on the other hand, with an enthusiasm problem, and in a way appealing to those satisfied with the status quo but who would like to see some changes needs a sophisticated ground game.  She needs to “blind pull” minority voters: African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-American’s to get a maximum turnout from those groups which polls show will vote overwhelmingly for her.  She needs to focus on key states that fit the demographics of her supporters and because of the Electoral College system she needs selective state strategies.

Trump is basing his campaign on a national homogeneity. Not one of ideology but one of similarity.  He is appealing to the masses that become fans of a particular television show and cut across the age and gender and race demographic lines.  These are the very TV shows he has produced and made a name for himself in -- the reality shows.  The 21st century version of the silver screen or the living room tube.    

For some time it has been evident that the Presidential contest gets the greatest voter turnout in our country.  If it were not for the Electoral College, which makes some votes worth more than others and leads to a focus on states that polls show are very close, there would be no need to pull out voters for President. A ground game involves covering polling places - inside to prevent abuses; outside to greet voters and at the doors and on the phones pulling out voters.  I have already explained why you don’t need to pull voters in a Presidential election unless there is clear evidence of closeness of the expected vote.  As for poll overage - few of our precinct officials today know how, if it is possible to alter or affect the results, and our volunteer watchers usually have little knowledge of how to prevent it if they do.  As for poll greeters since the Presidential race is driving the turnout most voters are interested in sample ballot cards for down ballot candidates since their Presidential choice is the reason they are coming out to vote.

Before the electoral debacle of 2000 and Obama’s close wins in North Carolina and Omaha in 2008 the political punditry had been talking more and more about the homogeneity of the American electorate especially when it came to voting for President.  In fact if we look at our recent Presidents, more have won by carrying most of the states, e.g. FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Clinton in ‘96. In fact what has often been the case was a tendency for a national consensus to develop behind one candidate.  The new use of social media and the predominance of 24/7 cable news may have made the ground game much less crucial to victory in a Presidential general election.

12 July 2016

ENGLAND HAS LEFT THE E. U. WILL AMERICA LEAVE THE WORLD?

As decades roll by it often occurs that people seemingly forget the trials and tribulations of past years.  In fact the often replace those learned memories with a nostalgia for a time before them which is seen as simpler and peaceful.  Such is apparently happening in the United Kingdom, parts of Europe and in America.

For almost five hundred years the nations of Europe consolidated their borders and warred with each other forming often different alliances based on religion and on national ambition.  With the devastation of World War I, and the almost  total annihilation of populations in WWII, many European leaders began advocating some form of European integration.  With American support first the Benelux nations formed a common market and then when DeGaulle and Adenauer reconciled the two great rival nations France and Germany the European Common Market was born.  In the 1970's with both of those out of power the Common Market merged with a rival European Free Trade Union and created the European Union which the United Kingdom (after a popular referendum) joined. The EU was the culmination of efforts to forge a new Europe one with continental identity and one that would exist in peace. When soviet control of Eastern Europe imploded in 1990 those nations sought entrance into the EU as a sign of their desire to be European.

Almost forty years have gone by since England voted to join the EU.  And it is now over seventy years since the end of World War II.  The causes, the incentives and the motivations for integration in Europe apparently have been forgotten as national economies struggle with  recession and debt. And, a great migration of Middle Eastern refugees (Muslim) floods the EU countries which allow easy entry from one nation to the other. 

In the United Kingdom a coalition of the disaffected and dissatisfied, often inflamed by the fears of the Muslim migration, voted to "Leave"  the European Union.  Despite the support for remaining in Europe which was announced by every major British political party the vote to leave garnered 52%.  There are now increased fissures within the four nations of the United Kingdom and great uncertainty in Europe where right wing groups in other nations are urging withdrawal.

As America watches post war Europe unravel it faces an possible Exit of its own. US foreign policy since the days of Theodore Roosevelt has been based on urging the world to unite to solve problems. The United States was the moving force behind the League of Nations (which we did not join), the World Court (which we also failed to ratify), and after WWII the United Nations, and a myriad of specialized agencies: the International Labor Organization, the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Trade Organization, and others.  America also led the formation of regional organizations mostly keyed toward mutual defense and collective security: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The Organization of American States, the Association of East Asian Nations -- and other regions soon copied these models, e.g. The Organization of African Unity, the Arab League, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union the a Commonwealth of Independent States.  America has preached two political philosophical values across the world -- Democracy and Federalism.

In 1940 a non-politician - Wendell Willkie - took the Republican nomination for  President  by  a popular people’s revolt against the party establishment.  Willkie among his many remembered arguments was his belief that we now lived in One World. It was that phrase and his advocacy that moved the Republican Party away from isolationism and began, what Sen. Vandenberg of Michigan completed, a bipartisan foreign policy that lasted almost fifty years.  It also enabled FDR to bring America into the role of world leader - the role it had rejected when sought by Woodrow Wilson.

Now a new non-politician, Republican Donald J Trump, says make America independent again.  Independent  of  What? Of Who?. He would leave NAFTA (a three nation trade agreement). He will rely on the right wing extremists who already  advocate leaving the UN.  Trump says we don’t need NATO.  Apparently he would have America retreat behind oceans and a wall and deal unilaterally with 191 other nations singly and separately.  America is the one economic/military superpower left on the planet. The entire world looks to our every action.  And despite our own negative views of our country, most people still see America as the shining city on the hill that the Puritans opined for.  What Trump is doing is appealing to nostalgia for a simpler time. His make America Great Again and his make America Independent Again are brilliant marketing slogans that appeal to whatever the voter/consumer considers Great  Again or Independent  Again to mean.

The world is getting smaller. New generations, using social media, identify  themselves as people and citizens of the world. They don’t accept  the artificial differences of color, ethnicity, and nationality and gender that the wealthy economic interests have used for centuries to maintain control over the masses of people.

In 1918 the little nations, and the oppressed nationalities, saw the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles as a harbinger of peace and collective security to come.  It was said that when the United States rejected the League in 1919 “America broke the heart of the World”.  One hundred years later we cannot let a manufactured and manipulated fear of Muslim migration cause us to withdraw behind a Fortress America and leave the world - this time we would not just break its' heart -- we might break the world.

5 July 2016

PENNSYLVANIANS NEED A NEW SENATOR

I have been a personal friend and political supporter of Joseph Sestak since January 2006 when he first visited with me to discuss his running for Congress. I was impressed that day and have become more impressed over the years with his integrity, and his commitment to and caring for others.  And so of course I supported him for Congress twice and for the US Senate twice.  I believe he would be our US Senator today if a few pols in PA hadn’t stood by allowing the ghost conservative Toomey to win because of personal pique at Sestak’s willingness to take on their long time friend Specter.

This year the entire state party establishment (by that I mean the leaders not the activists and committee persons) decided to stop his so far successful effort to wage a six year campaign for a Senate seat.  They engineered a candidacy and they appealed to those in DC with access to party funds to assist at the last minute in sabotaging Joe’s reputation with scurrilous ads.

  

The party establishment was successful in winning that primary and we know how much they care about November from their inactivity six years ago.  Incumbent Senator Toomey the conservative enabler, who ideologically believes the kind of things that Trump speaks about, is now poised keep his seat.

The political pundits and the media all focus on -- will Bernie’s supporters vote for Hillary?  The question in PA is will Joe Sestak’s supporters vote for the Democratic candidate for Senator in November.

If those of us who supported Joe allow our personal annoyance, in fact disgust, at the actions of the self proclaimed political giants, to prevent us from voting Democratic for US Senate in the general election then we are allowing the Senate seat to be decided by our personal pique.

I do not believe the Democratic candidate for Senator was the best of the three presented in the primary.  But to allow the incumbent Toomey to be re-elected - NO. Let us be clear in our thinking.  If Clinton is President and the Senate remains Republican we face four more years of non-functioning government in DC.   And, if Trump is President and the Senate is Republican we face a body of enablers who will ratify his appointees to the Supreme Court and accept his nostalgic desire to return America to the age of the Roaring Twenties.

Whatever we may think about the personalities or campaign style of either of the candidates let no one forget that Toomey opposes 99% of what Democrats in DC and Harrisburg offer as solutions to our nation's problems.  If one is in support of the Democratic administration and its current efforts than one cannot allow Toomey to in another term.

We cannot allow Mitch McConnell and the Republicans to remain in control of the Senate. We cannot allow them to block needed gun control reforms, we cannot allow them to continue to block decent SCOTUS appointees, and we cannot allow them to ignore immigration and voting rights problems.  And the replacement of Toomey with a Democrat to work with Senator Casey will be a step in the direction of restoring sanity to the Senate. 

We will not have the opportunity to send Admiral Sestak to the United States Senate but we can retire the man he campaigned so valiantly against these past six years.

I wanted to vote one more time for my friend Joe. I wanted to be there with him the night he won his Senate seat. That will not happen.  But I cannot be true to all Joe has fought for and stood for in the Congress and in his campaigns if I pass on this contest and allow Toomey to get another term.  The United States Senate is the second office on the November ballot just after the joint vote for President/Vice President.  I would urge all those who supported Joe to join me in pressing the Democratic button for Senator.

30 June 2016

IT’S OVER -- CONTINUE THE REVOLUTION -- STAND WITH CLINTON

The Democratic presidential primaries are over. The contest for the nomination is ended.  It is clear by any method of computation that Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination for President.  She has won a majority of the pledged delegates.  As for the so-called super delegates she has a majority whether you count them by their announced wishes, or by the states won by the candidates, or by a proportion similar to the votes in their state.  Absent an act of God the Democratic convention will nominate Hillary Clinton at its conclave in Philadelphia in July.

There remains the adoption of the party platform which has in some instances, e.g.1896, set the tone and policy of the party for fifty plus years.

There remains the adoption of party rules which in many instances in the past has had both intended and unintended consequences in subsequent nomination contests.  And, there remains the nomination of a Vice Presidential candidate.  

Senator Sanders of Vermont, who has had and continues to have my support, has amassed some 1900 delegates.  He should lead those delegates to fight for a progressive party platform even if that includes proposing and voting for minority reports.  He should lead those delegates in demanding reforms in how nominees are chosen in the future -- no super delegates, no caucuses - open primaries.  He should have his name placed in nomination and a roll call taken.  But his supporters need now to accept that Clinton will be the nominee.  I was a delegate for Gary Hart in 1984.  We fought for platform changes and rules changes and we voted for our candidate as did those pledged to Jesse Jackson.  We knew before we arrived in San Francisco that Walter Mondale would be the nominee.

It serves no purpose for Sanders supporters to put off facing the choice they have in November: Clinton or Trump. It is said that Democrats need to fall in love with their candidate while Republicans fall in line.  Well the Republicans are falling in line behind Trump and those who believe that the Democratic Party can be the best vehicle to accomplish social and economic justice for our people must now do the same for Clinton.

I did not support Clinton in 2008 or in this year’s primary contests.  But there are some important reasons why a liberal progressive should vote for Hillary Clinton in November.

   

In the next four years it is likely that 3 or even 4 seats on the Supreme Court of the United States will become vacant.  Who fills those seats sets the control of that court for decades to come.  If you believe that most of the decisions of the Court since 1956, e.g. Brown (integrated education), Roe v. Wade (freedom of reproductive choice), Griswold (right to privacy - contraception), Baker (one person one vote) should be upheld and one Citizen’s United overturned then there is only one choice for president -- Hillary Clinton.

 If you believe as I do that world leadership means leading like-minded nations not bullying them and threatening them then there is only one choice for president - Hillary Clinton.

If you don’t want to see one party, the Republican Party, dominate the federal government and all its branches for possibly the next fifty years then there is only one choice for president - Hillary Clinton.

If you believe that America is in the right direction by assuring equality to all regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or life style then there is only one choice for president - Hillary Clinton.

If you believe, as  I do, that we must stop the drift of our country into a society owned lock stock and barrel by a few then we cannot elect the poster child for that style of greed Donald Trump.

Do not assume that I have no differences with Clinton. I do and I have. She is too beholden to Wall Street for me, she is far from a reformer when it comes to political party processes and structure, and she has failed to articulate a vision that our young people can rally behind.

But, neither Franklin Delano Roosevelt nor Ronald Reagan is running in 2016.  We have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

I will make that choice not as a Democrat but as an American and a grandfather.

As an American I will vote for the continued progress of the country that my father’s ancestors fought for and built ever since they came to these shores in 1607; and the country that opened its’ doors to my mother and her family in the 1920's when they fled the depression in Europe.

As a grandfather I will vote for a future for my country that my grandchildren can thrive in. I want them to be in the middle class I grew up in not a new peasant class that the wealthy would create. In November this liberal progressive is voting for his grandchildren: Elizabeth, Sarah and Joseph

I have voted for every Democratic nominee since Hubert Humphrey in 1968.  I apologize for none of those votes.  I preferred Mo Udall, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart and Bernie Sanders over the eventual nominees; I make no apology for those endorsements.

To be true to the things I believe in and the values I espouse; to continue the fight to make a Great America a Great Society I will vote for Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

17 June 2016 

I AM PROUD TO VOTE FOR JOE SESTAK FOR SENATE

It will come as a surprise to no one that I am voting for JOE SESTAK in Tuesday’s Democratic primary election for US Senate.   I have known the man since the day he began his race for Congress in my district. He is fiercely independent; in fact he was registered independent all those years he served in the Navy because he believed that a naval officer should be politically non-partisan.  He can be stubborn as he clings to his principles.  He expects those who work for him to work as hard as he does and love 7am meetings.  He evaluates a situation or a proposal and then makes a determination.  He can be convinced to alter that determination but only by a clear recital of relevant facts.  Political arguments, especially what does or does not benefit him politically, carry no weight with him.  He does not think like a politician but he is a great candidate for office.  And he was a superb Congressman for the four years he represented the people of three counties. He is a Liberal but not knee-jerk.  He is progressive in his thinking but moderate in his rhetoric.  He is an advocate of a strong defense yet supports negotiation over confrontation.

A cynical public may doubt his reason for seeking and holding public office which is to give back to the country that provided him with a superior education (Naval Academy and Harvard University) and the health insurance that saved his daughters life.  I know the man and I know that his reason is sincere. He has spent the last 5 years continuing to campaign for the US Senate time and again not seeking other offices just for political advancement. When in the midst of his last Senate campaign in 2010, I suffered a stroke and underwent an 8 hour operation, it was Joe Sestak learned of the operation, found the hospital and spent time comforting my wife and daughters while they waited. He never told that story during that campaign. 

We live in a time when lying and creating one’s own facts are the standards of the day in political campaigning.  In Joe’s case his opposition, is the Democratic Party establishment of Pennsylvania and DC. (By establishment I mean the party officials and Democratic public officials who are self proclaimed leaders of the party. Joe is actually supported by many of the rank and file committee persons and local activists.) These Democratic leaders have lowered themselves to the level of distorting his liberal progressive and pro-Obama administration Congressional voting record.  And, they are even spending 4 million dollars (of contributions made by sincere donors to the DSCC to help make the Senate Democrat) to defeat Joe in the upcoming primary. Their choice is someone they are more comfortable with and someone they think will do and act as they are told to.  You see that’s Joe’s political problem.  He refuses to think, talk, vote and act like other political leaders want him to. If he agrees with them of course he will advocate for their position.  If he disagrees with them he won’t remain silent.

I know this better than most because I was chairman of the Democratic Party of Delaware County for most of the four years that Joe Sestak was Congressman. I have spent my entire adult life in politics and some have said that I eat, sleep and drink politics.  I have known many elected officials in my life; some of the best and some of the worst.  Joe Sestak is not a politician.  He is a decent compassionate man.  He is a hard working and really great candidate for public office.  He is a conscientious, tireless public official.  He served his country for years on the seas in war and peace. He served his county for four years in the Congress of his nation. As for the United States Senate “He is Ready to Serve”. And, the sinking ship that is the US Senate certainly could use an Admiral to set it upright.  

22 April 2016.    

I STILL "FEEL THE BERN"

Next Tuesday April 26th is the Pennsylvania Presidential primary.  The contest in the Democratic Party is of great interest to me as I have spent my entire adult life as a Democratic Party politician holding both public and party offices.  I’ve been campaigning for Democratic presidential candidates since I distributed cards for Adlai Stevenson on my block in Ridgewood Queens in 1956. I consider myself a Liberal Democrat and also a Progressive which word I have never used to hide the L word but to supplement it.

I will vote in next Tuesday’s primary for Bernie Sanders of Vermont to be our party’s candidate for President. I will do so even though I’ve been a part of the party establishment (attended three national conventions as a delegate) because I believe that my party establishment today has become rigid in its thinking; self absorbed in its exercise of power, and subservient to the Wall Street interests and the military industrial complex that it fought so hard and so successfully in the New Deal era. I believe my party needs to be reformed; it’s commitment to the middle class and the programs of the New Deal and Great Society needs to be renewed; and its structure needs to be rebuilt.  And only Bernie Sanders shows a determination to achieve that end and the capacity to energize a new generation of Americans to accomplish it...

FDR enacted Old Age Insurance (a.k.a. Social Security) for all Americans not just some.   JFK challenged America to put a man on the moon not just get half way there and return.   LBJ signed Medicare for all seniors; and guaranteed Voting Rights for all Americans.  He didn’t just settle for some health care to some older people; nor did he settle for repealing some voting restrictions he opened the doors and let the sunshine of human rights in.   After George McGovern’s defeat in 1972 a traumatized Democratic Party establishment encouraged by a centrist Jimmy Carter began to tone down its rhetoric and run away from the word Liberal. And what was the result - the Reagan revolution.  By 1992 the party had adopted the strategy made popular by Bill Clinton of being moderately progressive and working with the economic powers that be.  What was the result - the Gingrich Revolution.  It is time the Democratic Party returned to its roots: the political reformist and economic populism of Bryan, Wilson and Roosevelt. 

Bernie Sanders advocates expanding social security to increase the benefits and extend the lifetime of the system.  I ask Why Not?  Bernie Sanders supports extending the public commitment to free public education beyond the 12th grade to a college degree.  I ask Why Not?  Bernie Sanders says, as our party leaders have before, Break Up the big banks? And with Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson I ask Why Not? Bernie Sanders calls upon us to rebuild the great American Middle Class that the programs of FDR’s New Deal and his G I Bill helped create.  And, I ask Why Not?  The centrists in our party say we can’t afford these programs.  Yet we could afford to save the World in 1945 and rebuild Europe in 1948.  We could afford to bail out Wall Street and the Big Banks in 2008 and General Motors in 2009.  If this country’s history has shown anything it has shown that whether it was the Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad or the Space Shuttle America can do anything it believes in.

I was not born in time to vote for FDR.  I was not old enough to vote for JFK or LBJ.  I can vote for Bernie Sanders.  I can vote for someone whose lifetime commitment to reform and progressive proposals will serve as a continuation of the liberal progressive movement that began at the end of the 19th century over 120 years ago (with ideological roots that went back much further).Twenty years from now young people of today will be the candidates, the party activists and the majority of the nation’s electorate.  I want them to have a future they can believe in. I want them to look on Bernie Sanders as my father’s generation looked on FDR and mine looked on JFK.  So I will vote for an American they can believe in - I will vote for Bernie Sanders.   

20 April 2016