The Election of 2012: Obama vs. Obama vs. a Republican

            As the radical right takes control of the Republican Party they have embarked on a coordinated campaign to overturn one hundred years of progressive changes in our society.  They have decided to use the power of state governments, and what they call the “limited”  federal government, to refight and this time win the culture war.  They spend their time dealing with abortion rights, gay rights, senior citizen entitlements and even have gone so far as to threaten unemployment insurance, progressive taxation and child labor laws.

            As part of this attack against those who cash paychecks - the Republicans having given themselves over entirely to those who sign paychecks-- the Republican Governors (the majority of them) are using budget shortfalls to repeal public policies some of which were enacted in the era of Theodore Roosevelt. 

            One hundred years ago the Presidential contest was a three way race that decided the path the country would take for the second decade of the twentieth century. There were three candidates: President Taft, former President Teddy Roosevelt and the Gov of NJ, Woodrow Wilson.  Next year President Obama has to seek re-election; he has to campaign for four more years and defend his record - he can’t run against Washington nor can he call for change since he is the incumbent.  There is a second candidate - though not on the ballot.  He is Senator/Candidate Barack Obama of 2008.  His call for change resonated - his campaign positions energized a progressive base in this country.

            A perfect example of the Obama dichotomy is the current struggle over the right of collective bargaining of public employees.  Candidate Obama pledged to put on his comfortable shows and as President join union demonstrators if collective bargaining rights were ever threatened.  You didn’t see President Obama go to Wisconsin.  So what happens next year - do those public employees vote for President Obama? – Most surely.  Do they canvass and work for candidate Obama 2012  -- to be decided.

            In 1912 the incumbent President and Republican candidate Wm H. Taft was the 1908 clone of Teddy Roosevelt. He was handpicked by TR as his successor and was sold to people as a calmer progressive version of TR.  It soon became clear that he wasn’t TR and when the establishment controlled Republican Party wouldn’t nominate TR again he helped form a Progressive Party.  The voters had a choice between the TR clone and the original TR.  The Democrats nominated the one year Governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, who adopted Progressive ideas.  Wilson won with only slightly over 42% of the vote because those who wanted the real TR and those willing to settle for the imperfect clone split the vote.

            Assuming the Republicans in 2012 do not nominate a wacko candidate who becomes the issue and instead run a solid non-threatening conservative (Romney, Daniels,) the issue becomes Obama yes or no.  And can President Obama reenergize that Progressive base that campaigned for Senator/Candidate Obama in 2008 and won the election for him.  They will of course vote for him but will they work as they did in ‘08.  And believe me as someone involved in Democratic campaigns since 1956 never was there such a grass roots outpouring of volunteers and activists as there was for SenatorCandidate Obama.four years ago

            Without an active base Obama may in fact win the popular vote and lose the election (just ask President Gore); 51% or 52% of the popular vote may not translate into an Electoral College majority.  With the reapportionment of electoral votes and so many of the ‘08 Obama states now in play he needs better than 55% of the nationwide popular vote to win the electoral votes (even then it could get problematic). Or worse case scenario Pres Obama could lose to a Republican because the supporters of Candidate/Senator Obama stay home on Election Day.

            The Republicans seem intent on waging a campaign to bring us back to the good old days of the or 1890’s (depending upon how right wing the Republican is) and President Obama has declared a campaign to Win the Future.  In a campaign between the Past and the Future the Present may lose.

            Obama and the Democrats can sit back, self-compromise, toy with the center and bank on the Republicans blowing it with a kook candidate.  Or, the President can return to his roots-- show again his strong support for people’s rights, for labor unions,  and a fairer and better America for all - Yes He Can!

4-4-2011

A Revolutionary Tale

How a conversation between the King of France and his advisers might have been like in 1778.

THE KING: Gentlemen, Dr Franklin continues to petition us (pester us) for more help for the American rebels.  They want weapons, money, our fleet to unblockade their ports and take on the English fleet and even soldiers to stand with them against the English.  What should I do?

The foreign minister: We do not know who these rebels are. There are merchants and planters and then there are ragtag workingmen, rabble from the cities and peasants from the farms. 

The finance minister: We cannot afford this adventure once we start giving them help they will want and need more and the costs to us will go up.  Your majesty will have to either raise taxes or cease giving things to the aristocrats -- we should worry about France first.

The ambassador: Our allies are skeptical of this revolution.  The Czarina Catherine of Russia says she supports them but can’t do anything to help them.  The Netherlands says it might lend them money and might recognize them but not yet.  Spain says it will help us if we fight England but won’t help the Americans

The minster of war: These rebels probably can’t win, maybe not even with our help.  They control only one of the five coastal cities (Boston) and that because the English left and it is the northernmost of the cities.  The English control three (Savannah, Charleston and New York).  And the so called capital seesaws back and forth between the two forces (Philadelphia).  When the rebels win a town they then lose it or leave it.

The General: These revolutionaries are untrained.  They wouldn’t know what to do with weapons if we gave them anything but the most elementary of rifles.  They have no army just what are called militias who turn and run whenever the English stand and shoot.

The King’s Attorney: They have no government to recognize.  There are 13 Governors and 13 legislative bodies and innumerable committees of correspondence and local councils.  They come together in a Continental Congress but it talks and has no power.

The Cardinal: Their radical ideas and writings by men like Paine and Jefferson, Deists who don’t believe in the Christian Church, will infect people here in our country, and if we send soldiers they will return with these ideas, this will come back to haunt us and maybe cripple the monarchy.

The philosopher: Your majesty these Americans are on the right side of History - so should be France.

THE KING: Gentlemen I’ve heard all of you and made my decision.  We will send arms to the rebels.  We will send the French Fleet to end the blockades and create a level playing field.  We will send soldiers to stand with their militias and train their troops so they can defeat the English.  And when they create a government we will recognize it.  And who knows perhaps some day they will return the favor and help France.

Louis XVI sent aid to the American rebels who in 1781 at Yorktown won their independence.  (Louis lost his life during the French Revolution which was inspired by the American Revolution.)  It was 163 years later when thousands of young Americans stormed the beaches of Normandy and died to liberate France from the Nazis. In 1781 France was on the right side of history as was America in 1944. 

3-30-2011 

A Reminiscence About a Dear Friend - Geraldine Ferraro

            I first met Geraldine Ferraro in the spring of 1978 when the then assistant DA of Queens County decided to run for Congress from the 9th Cong. Dist of NY.  She had announced her candidacy against an almost 40 year incumbent James J Delaney, whom I had worked for prior to my election the New York State Assembly in 1976.  My Assembly District was entirely within the 9^th Congressional District. When Delaney decided not to seek another term, Ms.Ferraro sought my support.  Our lunch was inconclusive and when I decided to stay in my Assembly post I did not endorse any of the three Democratic primary candidates.  Geraldine Ferraro won with a majority in a three way race and made an impact on the district, the state and ultimately the nation.

            She was tough.  She didn’t mince words or as the right likes to say today “nuance” her positions. You knew where she stood. In those days in the predominantly Catholic part of Queens County, being a Catholic who supported a woman’s right to choose an abortion was a tough position for any candidate.  Geraldine never faltered in her commitment to women’s rights.  Once after her election we were both invited to an event sponsored by a pro-choice organization.  The right-to-life folks decided to picket it; and Geraldine was the only Catholic Democrat to cross the picket line and attend - she sat at the same table as me.

            Upon her election she sought out a suitable location for a district office and found the one she wanted that was the size and location she needed. But, the landlord wouldn’t rent to her until the middle of her first year in office.  So of course the advisors (consultants and DC folks) said get another one. I invited her to share one of my district offices until the one she wanted was available.  She did and ultimately got the one she wanted.  She usually did get what she wanted and set out to accomplish.  We had a local issue in my neighborhood that had rankled the folks for decades.  Our zip code had a Brooklyn prefix and we were in Queens but it was a real hassle for our folks when it came to insurance and to home values to explain away the zip code.  Even Cong. Delaney, one of the most powerful Congressmen of his era (he chaired the House Rules Committee), couldn’t get the zip code changed.  When Geraldine ran in 1976 she said she’d get it changed. No one thought it could happen. In 1978 it was changed to a Flushing prefix - to the folks in the neighborhood it was like a miracle.

              In early 1984 when Walter Mondale asked her to chair the Democratic Platform Committee, she assumed that meant that the talk of a VP nomination was just that - talk.  We all did at that point and she began planning a 1986 race for US Senate.  Then In July just before the convention Mondale asked her to come to Minnesota and he offered her the second spot on the ticket.  The convention was electrified by the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro which had been announced before we convened.  Under the rules we needed a petition of a few hundred delegates to place her name in nomination before the convention and I was asked to collect signatures for Ferraro.  I went over to the Georgia delegation and sought out an old acquaintance of my grandparents and asked him to sign which he enthusiastically did.  Turned out he was the leader of the Georgia Democrats for Life - imagine that.

            I campaigned for her throughout that fall in our district and frankly she was treated both by the media and by many voters and organizations somewhat differently because she was a woman.  And the fact that she was the first Italian- American on a national ticket also played into some of the treatment.   But she took it all in stride, she often told me “If my name were Gerald Ferraro I wouldn’t have been chosen to be V.P.”. That was true; and it explains somewhat what she tried to say, somewhat inartfully, about Senator Obama’s candidacy against Senator Clinton in 2008.

            She was unapologetically a liberal Democrat in the era of Reagan and the first resurgence of conservatism.  And she always believed, as she said in 1984, “America is a land where dreams can come true for all of us.”  When the first woman is elected President of the United States -- and that day will come - the name of Geraldine Ferraro will be repeated again many times as the trailblazer   she was.  But she was also a middle class Italian Catholic girl, raised by her widowed seamstress mother, who rose to the political heights and lived a life of decency,  hard work and compassion.  She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and almost a Vice President of the United States.  WELL DONE.

3-26-2011

           

The Government is Broken - We Can Fix It!

 

The government of the United States is broken.  The Senate is dysfunctional and the Senators who represent states not people (at least not proportionally) won’t fix it. So it becomes a brake on doing what the people’s House wants done.  The Supreme Court has become again, as it was in the 1850's and the 1930's, the bastion of conservative orthodoxy and the opponent of popular democracy. With the Citizens United decision, and what will probably be the crushing of Health Care reform, following the tradition of the Bush-Gore recount case, the Supreme Court has now become a third partisan political branch of the federal government.

All our elected offices are now up for the highest bidder.  Money in incredible amounts determines 99% of our elections.  There is talk of the President needing $1 billion to run a re-election campaign.  And it is not unheard of for campaigns for state legislative seats to cost from $250,000 to $500,000.

When the U.S. Confederation government was broken in 1787 the nation’s most prominent leaders called a constitutional convention and proposed a new form of government; which was ultimately ratified by the people of the separate states through conventions called solely for that purpose with delegates chosen by universal white male suffrage (an expansion of the then limited franchise).

When the U.S. union was broken in 1857-9 it was ultimately remade after a horrendous civil war, that cost 600,000 lives, and the constitution substantively amended by the 14th amendment that essentially made the federal republic one united nation.

When the U.S.  economy was broken in 1929-33 the electoral process brought a complete change in all branches of government and once the Supreme Court oldsters got out of the way the American system of capitalism was saved and a social safety network put in place “to protect the American people from the vagaries of the economic system” (FDR.)

The question now, as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, is how i.e. by what process and in what manner, do we fix our broken system.

America today needs a leader like George Washington who can transcend political parties and bring groups together to fix our broken system. That can be done either by calling a new Constitutional Convention or mobilizing people to pressure Congress and the State Legislatures to enact the necessary changes.

Some of those changes could be:

n  The direct election of the President  by the people without the anachronistic electoral college

n  A six year term for President with no re-election thereby reducing the value to the opposition party of devoting its’ time to taking down the President.

n  A line item veto for the President, as envisioned in the original language of the constitution, which would go far to ending the abuse of earmarks and Christmas tree legislation

n  A majority-vote run Senate with it clear that only specified actions, e.g. treaties would require any super majority

n  Term limits of ten years (with one reappointment allowed) for Justices of the Supreme Court;  and twelve years of service allowed to Senators and Representatives – 2 terms for the former and 6 terms for the latter

n  A required federal balanced budget allowing for deficits of no more than 10% of the GDP (with a 60% vote of both houses)

n   Clear and concise language as to personal rights and civil rights for all citizens

And we should adopt an idea proposed by James Madison in 1787 that the federal government should have the right to override a state action when that action or law was detrimental to the interests of the Union.

These constitutional changes should be submitted  for approval to conventions elected by all the people of the states in order to form an even  more perfect Union – One united national government.  To those who say that our system is broken because it is too democratic I respond with Al Smith “the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy”.

3-23-2011