tan, rested, and ready
I'm back.
After a five month break, I'm blogging again. There's a lot going on with election season and I've had a lot percolating in my mind lately and I need to articulate it.
If you read one of my earlier posts, you know I voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Obviously, she didn't get the nomination. Rather than be bitter about it (as a Democrat, I'm used to see the people for whom I vote lose), I've decided to give Barack Obama a second look. I have to say that while I do no support him as enthusiastically as some, I will nonetheless vote for him in November. In fact, I think he could make quite a good president, should he win. This is a huge election for this country. I believe it is imperative that Obama be elected. He is not without his faults, however.
Obama needs to explain his shift on the FISA renewal bill. By caving in, yet again, to this disgusting example of a president, the Democrats in Congress really raise questions about their abilities to govern. Instead of safeguarding the Fourth Amendment, Congress felt that it was more important to give civil immunity to the telecoms who executed Bush's illegal, unConstitutional, and impeachable wiretapping orders. For Obama, who vowed to filibuster this bill to support it, to have voted for the "compromise" is something that really enrages me. With the Republicans signing off on this administration's gutting of the Constitution over the last 7 years, I had hoped for more from my party. He is not the only one I'm mad at. But he still needs to explain himself.
What really has me concerned is the possibility that someone like John McCain could be elected. This is not the 2000 model of John McCain. That guy was principled, articulate, and appeared to have a genuine plan as to how to govern. The 2008 model we're stuck with is a toady to a bunch of corporate lobbyists and who can't seem to say what he'll do in office, other than staying in Iraq indefinitely and balancing the budget while not raising taxes. Yeah, that'll happen! That's what the last guy said. He does not appear to have any grasp of the economic crises that this country faces in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage mess. In addition, all he has offered in the way of substance in the last 2 weeks is a discussion of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and tire gauges. Is he really telling us NOT to inflate our car tires to save gas? And to make matters worse, McCain is behaving as someone who believes he's heading for defeat-he's beginning to unleash a really hateful and negative campaign. Now that he has several of Karl Rove's minions in his employ, McCain is trying to make the debate all about the character and race of Barack Obama. The sad part is, negative campaigns work to some degree. There are a lot of people who are wary of voting for a person of color and McCain is exploiting that. This is from a guy whose nomination was derailed in 2000 by Karl Rove's telephone campaign before the South Carolina primary implying that McCain had a mixed-race child out of wedlock. McCain and his wife, to their credit, adopted a child from Mother Teresa's orphanage in India. Now that he's in bed with Karl Rove, you have to wonder how much more of his soul and self-respect he's mortgaged to be president.
Obama needs to hit back hard. There is more than enough material. Of the generally sorry lot of Republicans that were running for President, he emerged as the least unelectable. His flip flops are many and are becoming legend. In 2000, he rails against Jerry Falwell and in 2006 he's giving the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. He opposed offshore drilling until a couple of months ago. This is the kind of stuff that Bush used to go after John Kerry-and it can work against McCain. This guy doesn't know what he's for or against and yet he's supposed to be a decisive leader? Please. Anyway, I'll have more in my next post.
What Does All This Mean?
Today was supposed to be the day Hillary Clinton stood before a group of microphones in either New York or Washington and threw in the proverbial towel. With Bill and Chelsea beside her, Hillary was supposed to congratulate
Obama and urge her faithful onto working toward a Democratic victory in November.
Obama was also supposed to make a conciliatory speech thanking Senator Clinton for all she has done and assuming the mantle of the nominee-apparent. Somebody forgot to tell the voters in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island that all of this was supposed to happen.
I thought Hillary would take Ohio. I did not think she would take Ohio by 10 percentage points. She also had a decisive win in Rhode Island. In Cleveland, we have seen a lot of
ObamaMania the past couple of weeks. My neighbors across the week both support
Obama and have to be disappointed this morning. We received a steady stream of
robocalls on his behalf. We also received a lot of calls from the
Obama campaign offering help in locating our polling place. Say what you want about the guy, he has an impressive ground campaign. Should
Obama become the nominee, I expect to be similarly bombarded come the fall. Not that Hillary conceded anything in that regard. She won Ohio largely because she worked the state. In the debate last week, both candidates could name a number of Ohio communities. I think that by and large that is a tired tactic to convince voters how well they want to appear to know the state. It appeared to work for her. Ohio is an important state for both parties. Two million people in Ohio voted in the Democratic primary while just over a million voted in the GOP primary. While you can't say just from that that Ohio will be "blue" come November, it shows that there were a lot of people motivated to vote for
Obama or Hillary. Heck, John Edwards got 37,000 voted yesterday and his campaign has been suspended for over a month. I am sure a lot of people crossed over from the GOP to vote for one candidate or the other, but I would be surprised if Hillary won because of that. The Republicans would LOVE to face off against Hillary in the general election. My wife's "Survivor" theory does not necessarily guarantee a McCain administration.
What most concerns me as a Democrat this morning is what the effects of a protracted primary fight will be. It is now a certainty that neither Hillary or
Obama will have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Barring a major collapse on the part of either candidate, it appears that we won't see a
clear cut nominee until the convention in August. Everybody keeps talking about the Super Delegates. Many are already pledged one way or the other. It would be truly unfortunate if these Super Delegates are forced to select the nominee. There would be the appearance of back room deals and politics as usual. All of this would be the best possible gift for John McCain. Although his candidacy was beset with other issues, one of the reasons John Kerry was able to make the run he did at Bush was because his nomination was set fairly early in the process.
A longer nomination process doesn't necessarily spell doom for the Democrats. This contest definitely drives interest and keeps the contest in the front of voter's minds. We already know Hillary is an excellent campaigner (although you can make the argument that her recent success is in spite of her campaign, not because of it). If
Obama emerges as the nominee, then he will have emerged from this bare-knuckle brawl primed for the GOP punches awaiting him. On the morning talk show I watched this morning, Bill
Maher made the argument that
Obama will be tested and could emerge a better candidate for it. We'll see. He still leads the overall delegate count. He knew going in that the
Clintons were not going to go down without a fight.
The other thing that really concerns me in the unity of my party. Can one of these candidates end up graciously supporting the other? Will the winner campaign for the loser? I believe that Hillary's supporters can get behind
Obama a lot easier than the other way around. This is especially important when you consider the GOP opponent is not as starkly partisan as Bush. There are a lot of Democrats who will vote for McCain.
Obama draws a lot of support from young voters who respond to him because he promises to be different from "politics as usual." Will those voters vote for a Washington insider such as Hillary Clinton? That's a real issue for Democrats as we wait 7 weeks for the Pennsylvania primary.
Layoffs blow!
Yesterday I heard one of my best friends lost his job. He worked at my former employer. the reason they are my former employer is because I went through the very same thing about 2 years ago (almost to the day, in fact). He was called into a conference room, told that today was his last day, and then given time to gather his things. In a span of about an hour and a half, he went from being a valued employee to driving home not knowing what was going to happen next. I know this all too well. This company had the temerity to tell my team at the end of the day. At least my buddy was told when he got to work. This company isn't necessarily the best at what they do, but they really have become quite good at laying people off and making them feel worthless.
I talked to him last night and kind of shared a little bit of my experience. I hope that I helped him out a little bit. What he'll be going through will test him. He's a good guy and I know in the long run, he'll be fine. He has a lot of people around to support him and he has always had a generally positive outlook. He's also been a very good worker. Any company would be lucky to have him. He's going to have some rough patches ahead, but I know he'll be okay.
What got me thinking last night and today was just how often this very thing happens lately. according to a newspaper article I read last week, Ohio has lost 200,000 jobs since 2000. That is a staggering number. Even if that number is exaggerated, any number in the six-figures would be mind-blowing. I mean if that number is off by 100,000, then that means that 100,000 jobs were still lost. That number may be a ballpark number, but I don't want to be in that ballpark.
The other night we had the Democratic debate here in town. What was never addressed, except in the most high-level terms, was what either candidate intended to do about it. It would have to be a Democratic candidate to address it too since the GOP doesn't seem to concern itself with the bread and butter issues of working people. Hillary talked about how she was against NAFTA and was lobbying against it when her husband was pushing it through Congress. Oh really? She was actively lobbying against one of the signature accomplishments of her husband's administration at the same time she was working on overhauling health care? Don't get me wrong, I still like her but this all is just noise. Besides, I'm not so sure NAFTA is the demon here. What has really hurt Ohio is the fact that so many jobs have been "offshored" to China and India (and other places as well). A lot of those jobs have even left Mexico-because even labor there was too expensive. And what all of this proves to me is that as a nation we are ill-prepared for the new realities of globalization. Countries like India have prepared their citizens for jobs in technology and medicine. Countries like China have so many people living in poverty that a seemingly endless labor pool awaits any company wishing to move. And where does that leave the U.S.? Well we own a lot of the factories in China and call centers in India-but can't you manage a company just as well in China as in Cleveland? We live in an age of conference calls, text messages, and You Tube. Is it really such a stretch to think that that mythical widget company can be run just as efficiently in Shanghai or Hong Kong as in the States? How did China, India, and other countries get to this point? They invested in so-called human capital. They prepared their citizens through education for the challenges of a new economic age. It would have been nice to hear any candidate discuss this in some detail. In many ways this is a greater national security threat than terrorists.
Last night's debate
This morning finds Cleveland under a good deal of snow and recovering from last night's debate. The NBC people, our local affiliate in particular, made a big deal out of it. It was a big deal if you were looking for some insight as to how to vote. It was also nice to see a big national event play out in downtown Cleveland. We all know that a week from today, the candidates and the press will have moved on.
Who won the debate? I don't know. I didn't watch all of it. My wife, who is a Republican, commented on how well prepared and tough Hillary was. She also commented on how well prepared and smart
Obama was. She floated an interesting hypothetical, though. She is a big fan of the show "Survivor." When "Survivor" gets down to a few remaining contestants, one of the factors which people weigh is who to go up against in the final. If you go up against someone who is less popular than you, then you are almost assured to win the million dollars. My wife suggested that as a Republican, she would rather have McCain face Hillary (as would most of the GOP). She said that since the Republican contest is all but over, a lot of Republicans would cross over and vote for Hillary since it could potentially benefit them in November. Interesting. I told her I would never do that. But it is food for thought.
Finally-My First Post!
I finally make my first post today. I've had this address since August of 06 but I kind of forgot about it. It's not like I don't have anything to say. Sometimes it's just hard to summarize thoughts and post them to cyberspace. Well today that ends.
The big news here in Cleveburgh today is tonight's Democratic debate at Cleveland State. It has only been in the last couple of days that I have decided for whom I will vote. I am a Democrat, which is tough to claim at times. For most of the current administration, I have been ashamed of my party. As big a f-tard as the current Occupant of the White House is, in my opinion, he has largely gotten as far as he has by an enabling Democratic Party. He has much to answer for, but so does the Democratic leadership.
So you would figure that I would be looking to support someone outside of the mainstream Democratic Party. I did. I was looking forward to supporting John Edwards-although I had reservations in doing so. Edwards was running the kind of issues-oriented campaign that I thought was what was needed for this country. I thought, when it came to the economy, Edwards "got it." Edwards understood the need for drastic economic change in this country. That scares a lot of people. Yet I believe we are to the point where the distribution of wealth in this country rivals, if not surpasses, France prior to the Revolution. There are simply too many people that have no chance to make it. I see this in my drive to work every day and it's very depressing.
My only reservation with Edwards was his experience. He basically served one term in the Senate and did not run for re-election in 04-choosing instead to focus on his Presidential bid. I wished he had run. Another 4 years in the Senate would have given him an opportunity to hone his credentials (assuming he had won re-election). Despite that, I was prepared to vote for him. This was last Fall.
Once I started look at the candidates a little closer, I was intrigued by the Joe Biden candidacy. Joe Biden is certainly the most experienced candidate when it comes to foreign policy. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden understands what a disaster the last 7+ years have been for this country in our relations with other nations. After watching a couple of his speeches on C-SPAN (I'm a C-SPAN nerd), I thought Biden, too, "got it" when it came to the economy. Sadly he never made it out of Iowa. So I was prepared to look to Edwards. I live in Ohio so I never got the chance to cast a vote for him.
Since Super Tuesday I have really wrestled with whom to support. I like the fact that Obama represents change and has a lot of Republicans looking favorably upon his message. He truly does appear to be someone who can unite large segments of the country. In and of itself, that is no small accomplishment. Hillary Clinton can also unify large portions of the electorate-against her. There are people who will not vote for her under any circumstances. That is truly unfortunate. Hillary is getting my vote despite that.
Putting aside the fact that she has run a pretty mediocre campaign to date, I really believe she is the best remaining candidate. Her experience in the Senate as well as whatever she was able to gather being First Lady for 8 years trumps Obama, in my opinion. She has weathered the Republican smear machine better than the last 2 Democratic nominees. She has served in the Senate and has been re-elected. I think that whatever of her husband's charisma she lacks, she more than makes up for that in integrity and intelligence. She has learned some pretty difficult lessons and been publicly humiliated as few people ever have. She has persevered through all of that. She has established herself as an accomplished leader. Certainly her husband has helped her. Theirs is a unique situation. There are lots of things about the Clinton years I don't wish to see repeated or revisited. I think that Hillary's experience certainly is a big mark in her favor. Quite frankly, I would expect her to be a better president than her husband.
That is not to say I do not like Obama. I do. My reservations with him have more to do with the fact that he started running for president the minute he got to Washington. Hillary knew to sit out 2004. That was risky on her part given how close John Kerry came to winning. Everyone says Obama has a "rock star" appeal to him. Yet what happens to most rock stars? Most of them fall almost as quick as they rise. The difference between headlining stadiums and playing state fairs isn't all that big. Certainly he is the front runner now. Should he win the nomination, I will vote for him. He will not get my vote in the Ohio primary.
I'll write more tomorrow. I have more to say. Hopefully it won't be this long. thanks for staying with me.
What's League Park?
League Park is, aside from the name of this blog, the name of the old home for the Cleveland Indians baseball team. More information, including some interesting photos of the old ball yard can be found at this page courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project.
http://www.clevelandmemory.org/league/
I'm an old ballpark fan. As much as I love the new generation of retro ballparks, there's something to be said for the old classic parks. Sadly, too many of them no longer exist. Since I also happen to be a lifelong Indians fan, "League Park" felt like an appropriate name.
Welcome to League Park!
8/2/06 My very first blog posting. Not exactly an auspicious debut, but it'll get there.
