Looking ahead to 2020

Every day with President Donald Trump is a new disaster. We try to distract ourselves with hurricanes, earthquakes, mass shootings, and a trust-fund baby juggling nuclear missiles, but Trump is like the guy at the party who manages to insert himself into every conversation in the room — and ruin it.

If the USA were a publicly traded company and he were the CEO, the shareholders would have kicked him out by now. Too bad it's not that easy to get rid of the Chief Executive of the United States.

It's clear now that electing him was a disaster. Don't worry, if Clinton had gotten elected, we would be saying the same things about her. The 2016 election was a lose-lose proposition.

What can we do to make sure the 2020 presidential campaign doesn't go the same way?

Well, this article on NBC News got me thinking about 2020. The second-to-last paragraph says:

Late last month, [retiring Tennessee Senator Bob] Corker announced that he would not see[k] re-election, fueling speculation that he might challenge the president in a GOP primary. 

Unencumbered by the need to watch his mouth and make sure he gets re-elected to the Senate, Corker has been speaking his mind. Speaking truth to power. Calling out, repeatedly, that the emperor has no clothes. Using his bully pulpit to stand up to Trump and Co.

I don't know, he's starting to sound downright presidential. He would be a better president than Trump.

DETOUR:

After Vice President Pence's little rehearsed stunt at the Colts-49ers game yesterday, I'm starting to believe Corker would be a better president than Pence, too.

If you want to read about Pence's stunt, Google "Pence walks out". Every link I found was biased one way or the other. Read multiple sources to get a balanced view. But it was rehearsed. It was a stunt — a rather expensive stunt.. And if his airfare and hotel were paid for by the U.S. taxpayers, then shame on him. I used to respect Mike Pence.

About Pence's stunt, the great Tom Peters tweeted:

Wonder if POTUS gave VPOTUS a "good puppy" dog buscuit after yesterday's scripted showboating episode?

BACK ON THE MAIN ROAD:

If Bob Corker is serious about running for president in 2020, then he needs to start now building a few things:

• A team - an organization.
• A "base". Trump and Clinton have made this a dirty word, but it's still necessary.
• A platform - a statement of what he believes in, what he's running for.
• Knowledge.
• More name recognition.
• Credibility.
• Likeability.
• Even more visibility.
• Popularity. It shouldn't matter, but every election in the past 100 years (longer?) has proven that it matters bigly.

HERE'S ANOTHER IDEA:

This year, the Mormons have proven to be faster and more effective than the federal government when it comes to disaster relief. Witness the responses to hurricane Harvey in Texas, Irma in Florida, and Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico (and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and the earthquakes in Central America. LDS Welfare Services started shipping supplies, in their own trucks, even before the hurricanes hit. Local and global LDS leadership was on the ground even before the rain stopped falling. Thousands of LDS volunteers were organized and working hard, in force, before the feds ever showed up. Maybe it's time we put a Mormon in the White House?

I don't know if Mitt Romney wants to give it another try, but I think it's pretty clear that he would have been a much better president than the current occupant. If not Mitt Romney, then how about Jon Huntsman Jr., the statesman, businessman, and diplomat?

But don't vote for Huntsman — or against him — just because he's a Mormon. Vote for him because he's a good man.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

I wouldn't mind if the 2020 election turned into a race between two great women — for example, Condoleeza Rice and Madeline Albright. Come on, people, this is the 21st Century. There must be some viable options besides white, allegedly Christian, males.

And there are definitely viable options besides Democrats and Republicans. If enough people opened their eyes and had the courage to vote third party, we would break the duopoly these parties have on the presidency, a duopoly which has proven to be unconstructive, easily corruptible, self-serving, and unfortunately, self-perpetuating.

I don't care if the next ideal candidate is Democratic, Republican, or Pirate Party, as long as it's a person of maturity, integrity, wisdom and vision. All of the above. In no particular order.

More proof that Barak Obama is a classy guy

I have written that Barak Obama is a classy guy. I have never written about his wife, Michelle Obama, who is even classier than he is.

By "classy", I don't mean someone who is rich or powerful, or well-dressed. Normal, everyday people can have class. Donald Trump, in spite of all his purported riches, has no class. Zero. Hillary Clinton, in spite of her professional and political career, has no class, either. But Obama has tons of it.

You don't have to like his politics, and you can even disagree passionately with some of his words and actions as President. (Personally, I still do.) But you can't deny that the man has class.

As yet another piece of evidence, I offer this photograph, by official White House photographer Pete Souza, published in a photo essay in the Huffington Post called simply, "Obama With Kids." This is a picture of the prez with Ella Rhodes, daughter of National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, in her elephant Halloween costume last October.

That's the Oval Office, people. And the President of the United States. In a really expensive suit and shoes. During business hours. AND this isn't the first time he's gotten down on the floor to play with this little girl.

I will say it once more.

The man has class.

Election 2016: Let's All Vote Third-Party This Year

With a respectful nod in Mr. Sanders' direction, it looks like, when November 2, 2016 comes around, we will be faced with a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Not necessarily.

I have some alternative proposals for you to consider. The first one is too easy, it's the one that most people will do, and it may backfire. Don't do it - think a little harder. The last proposal is the greatest idea ever. But to work, requires an open mind, a bit of daring, and a lot of cooperation - like millions of people combining to do it.

The cool thing about voting in the United States of America, exit polls notwithstanding, is that it's a secret ballot. You don't have to tell anybody how you voted. Remember that.

1. Vote not-Clinton or not-Trump. Choose the one you hate the least, the proverbial Lesser of Two Really Bad Evils.

(Maybe you are one of the rare Americans who really does support Clinton or Trump. Good for you. Vote your convictions.)

2. Vote for Dictator, not for President. Decide which one you would be most willing to live under as a dictator, because that may happen. Vote for the dictator of your choice.

3. Vote for the Vice-President. Look carefully at the candidates for vice-president. Vote for the vice-president who will make the best president, on the assumption that the elected president is likely to get impeached or otherwise removed from office before his or her term is up.

4. THIS IS MY FAVORITE: Vote for somebody else - anybody else. We tend to forget that the Democrats and the Republicans are NOT the only political parties in the nation, and are definitely NOT the only parties with candidates for president. And while the conventional wisdom has always been that (1) third-party candidates cannot win a presidential election  and that (2) a strong third-party candidate unnecessarily muddies the waters, this year they may be very useful. Stay with me here. Read on.

WARNING: There is some math in the second paragraph following this one.

It is common in modern politics for the winning candidate to claim a "clear mandate from the people." The word "mandate" implies that, through the popular vote, the people overwhelmingly chose this candidate to rule. The mandate is claimed even when margin of victory is laughably slim. This year, let's deny the winner any mandate.

It's inevitable that one of the two major candidates will win the election. But if enough people vote for a minor-party candidate, then the winner will be denied a majority of the popular vote. If the winner gets less than one-third (33%) of all the votes cast, and the loser gets even less than that, then more than one-third of the votes (more than the winner got!) will go for the bloc of third-party candidates. We will have demonstrated to both major candidates, and both major parties, that we don't like them and that We The People are supremely dissatisfied with the way this election turned out. We will show them that they do not have a mandate to rule, and that we prefer anybody else to them.

So vote Libertarian. Or Green. Or United States Pirate Party (arrr!).

Or vote for comedian Ron White - yes, he's a registered presidential candidate this year. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Your candidate will not win, but your vote will be counted, and if enough of us do this, we will deny the major parties their so-called mandate, and somebody important will finally Get It. We will send a message to Washington D.C. that they won't dare to ignore.

---

Picture credits:
 "Giant Meteor 2016" appeared on the Nihilist Memes FB page as a reader submission. 
"Alien Invasion 2016" was created by Randy Cassingham at This Is True, the Internet's oldest and most successful news-and-commentary newsletter. It appeared on True's FB page.
"None of the Above 2016" and the pie chart are my own creations. © 2016 Ray Depew. Go ahead and spread them around, free of charge. Just remember where you got 'em.

Everything else I found on Google. 
And the United States Pirate Party is a real thing. Arrr, matey.

Barack Obama is a Classy Guy

Like him or not, you have to admit that Barack Obama is a classy guy.

You may not like his politics, you may disagree with his philosophy, and you can even question his integrity if you want to. But you cannot deny that this president has class. I give you three undeniable examples.

Example #1: At the end of the inauguration ceremonies in 2009, the new president and his wife escorted the former president and his wife from the dais (where Mr. and Mrs. Bush had been honored guests), all the way through the capitol building, out the front door, down the front staircase, and to the steps of Marine One, the (new) president's own helicopter. Marine One would deliver the Bushes to Andrews AFB for their flight home aboard Air Force One, the (new) president's own airplane. Obama didn't have to do any of that. What is more, the Obamas escorted the Bushes alone, without any personal assistants, TV cameras or other hangers-on. Cameras were kept at a great distance - we wouldn't even know these details if it weren't for huge telephoto lenses on distant TV cameras. The four of them engaged in friendly (and private) conversation all along the way. The Obamas treated the Bushes with courtesy, kindness and the greatest respect. They parted at the steps of Marine One with smiles, sincere embraces and words of farewell. Then the president and his wife turned around, held hands, and walked back into the Capitol.

Example #2: In the midst of a bitter and hard-fought election campaign, the two contenders, Obama and Mitt Romney, took time out to attend and speak at the Albert E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a black-tie affair held on Thursday, October 18, 2012 in Washington, D.C. Laying the campaign aside for a while, both men poked fun at themselves and at each other. The jokes were in good taste and bore not even a hint of mean-spiritedness. At the end of their remarks, each candidate praised the other and made special mention of the other man's family and of his role as husband and father, which (to paraphrase their words) was more important than being president.

Example #3: Obama likes having lunch, or tipping a beer, with different people of varying degrees of fame. These lunches are always great publicity opportunities and are exploited as such by the president's handlers - except for last Wednesday, November 29th. After having won re-election, Obama invited Romney to lunch, and they dined at the White House on Wednesday. It was a VERY private affair. Besides Obama and Romney, the only other people in the room were the waiters - no photographers, no staff, no members of the press. The conversation was cordial, even friendly, and strictly confidential. The only details that we got on the lunch were part of the menu (turkey chili, chicken salad). Romney arrived and left as a friend, or at least as an esteemed colleague.

Class doesn't depend on intellectual or political superiority, or on wealth or heritage. Class is something that comes from inside of you, no matter what your station in life. For example, you know that story about the NYPD beat cop who, on the frigid night of November 14, went into a store and spent $100 on socks and boots for a homeless man, then knelt down on the sidewalk to help him put them on? That cop had class.

President Obama has class, too. Cynics will add their own details to these three stories, or put their own spin on them, but these are just three examples of an indisputable fact: President Obama is a classy guy.

I didn't vote for Grover Norquist

Here's a great illustration of why we should despise, and even get rid of, the unelected powermongers who prowl the streets of Washington, New York City, London, and other seats of power in the world.

Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.

After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.

You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.

At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.

Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.

Enter Grover Norquist.

In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.

Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.

Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.

Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"

UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.

POSTSCRIPT:

While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:

• Donald Trump
• Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
• Bank presidents, bank lawyers, banking organizations, and lobbyists acting  on behalf of banks
• Uh, the same thing, this time substituting "auto company" for "bank" and "banking"
• The same thing again, this time substituting "insurance company"
• The same thing again, this time substituting "investment firm" or "finance company"
• Any special-interest group representing a privileged minority of Americans
• Actors, musicians, sports superstars and anyone else trying to parlay their fame into power - unless they run for office and get elected

And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.

• Warren Buffett
• Mitt Romney, the private citizen
• Meg Whitman
• Wow, this is a frightfully short list!

POST-POSTSCRIPT:

Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.

The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win

One of my friends (a real one, not a FB one) saw an article on Reason.com and suggested that I read it. In today's political climate, which is at turns divisive, extremist, absolute and contrarian, the author of this article channels Jonathan Swift to warn us about something really important. The article is called The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win . I'm not going to post the text of the entire article here, because I'm hoping that after November 2, nobody will need to read it again. But it's really important, right now.

A government that really works: is that too much to ask for?

Today I'm reprinting an article from ABC News. I was going to write a blog entry like this anyway, but I found this article by Amy Walter while I was doing research for my entry, and she says it so much better than I would have. Excerpting it wouldn't have done it justice.

If ABC or Ms. Walter asks me to take it down, I will, but I wanted to post a copy of it here because I've noticed that articles like this on the mainstream news outlets have a tendency to expire. They disappear after some length of time. This one deserves an extended life. It's something that all politicians need to keep in mind, both before and especially after an election. And as Ms. Walter points out, the rebuke applies to all political parties.

An Ideological Battle that Voters Don't Want

In picking Rep. Paul Ryan, whose eponymous budget plan has become synonymous with political polarization, Mitt Romney assured an ideological campaign where a debate over the role of government will be front and center. It is a debate the Obama campaign and partisans on both sides are also eager to have. But it’s not a debate that swing voters want.

They aren’t as interested in choosing whether government should be more active or less. They are more interested in simply having it work.

BLAME IT ON THE WAVE

This debate is the culmination of four consecutive wave elections — elections where each side (wrongly) assumed a mandate from the American public.

It started in 2006 when, fed up with one party control, voters tossed Congressional Republicans out of power. Once, the party of “outsider” Republicans had turned into creatures of Washington. Voters saw them as gluttonous, self-absorbed and more interested in retaining power than using their power to help the little guy.

Two years later, voters elected a president who promised to break the partisan gridlock and to focus on an agenda that transcended party and special interest groups.

Yet, elected as a counter-weight to previous GOP rule, Democrats turned out to act much like them. They passed legislation on party-line only votes. They pushed a health care law through Congress, but failed to make the case for how it was going to help people survive a flailing economy.

Fueled by this frustration, voters put Republicans back in control of the House in 2010. But like the Democrats before them, Republicans mistook the election as a mandate for their own ideology — an ideology that saw compromise as a dirty word. And, less than two years after providing the energy for the 2010 sweep of Congress, the tea party is an unpopular than ever.

Six years after voters sent a message to Republicans that they were sick and tired of a government that was polarized and self-absorbed, they find a political system that is as polarized and ineffective as ever.

Each wave election has ultimately produced a class of politicians who are convinced that their victory was about them rather than a repudiation of the tactics and behavior of the other party. They were convinced that voters were choosing an ideology, when in reality they were simply trying to punish the folks who put ideology over accomplishment and compromise.

PHILOSOPHY FOLLOWS FUNCTION

Which brings us to today. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney argue that this election provides voters with a very stark choice between two competing ideologies. One that says that government can be part of the solution (Obama) and one that says that government is getting in the way of the solution (Romney).

But there are plenty of voters out there who are more concerned about function than ideology. They aren’t spending their evenings debating the benefits of Hayek or Keynesian economic models. They are just trying to figure out which candidate is capable of getting something done. They will reward the politician who succeeds in getting things moving again. But that shouldn’t be taken as proof that voters are endorsing the philosophical underpinnings of that success.

In other words, voters are looking less at ideology and more at competency. And that’s not something that either side has been able to show that can deliver.

On Polls, Politicking, and Super PACs

About super PACs:

They're not fooling anybody, you know. They're a blatant move by the classic men-behind-the-scenes to control the political landscape and the political discourse like they used to do. They're not about free speech. They're about money and power. We all know that.

But they're frighteningly effective, and so are their tactics. Most voters in a given election will vote based on emotion, not logic or facts, and the super PACs' tactics are focused on manipulating voters' emotions.

About politicking:


You know, since we stopped subscribing to cable TV and watching network TV, we have missed all of the political ads. And when I say "missed," I mean "not seen" or "not been subject to."

When we listen to the radio, we change stations every time we hear a political ad. (In fact, we frequently change stations for any kind of advertisement.) In radio parlance, political ads are an automatic tune-out.

When we read the newspaper, we read the political ads for local issues or candidates, and then go to the Internet to find detailed, impartial facts and to read both sides of the issue.

We get most of our news today from the Internet. We read from a variety of news outlets, analysts, and opinion leaders. We assume that everybody has a bias, and so we make sure to take our news from across the political spectrum. Some of the most detached, unbiased reporting comes from overseas, from outside looking in, but even then we are careful to watch for hidden biases.

We've noticed a lot more political advertising on the Internet. We ignore all of it. (However, we are intrigued by which political ads AdSense chooses to serve up on places like Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.)

We listen to speeches, or read transcripts of speeches, on the Internet. Sometimes we will find multiple versions of the speech. Sometimes it takes a little work to find an accurate video of the speech, unedited and uncut. We listen to some of the after-speech commentary, but not much. After 5 or 10 minutes, the commentators go into talking-head mode, and then it's time to move on.

About polls:


I used to participate in telephone polls and surveys, thinking that I was fulfilling my civic duty in making my voice heard. Boy, was I mistaken. It took me a while, but I finally caught on to the fact that a "poll" is not really a "poll": the pollster is pushing a specific agenda, and is politicking (or selling, if it's a consumer poll and not a voter poll) just like everybody else.

Caller ID is a wonderful thing. During election season (like, right now), we ignore incoming calls if we don't recognize the calling number, or if no number is shown. There's no law that requires you to answer a ringing telephone.

That short pause before the human starts talking is also a wonderful thing. One day autodialers will be fast enough to eliminate the pause, but for 2012, that brief time while the autodialer processes our "Hello?" and routes us to a human or to a recorded message, is just enough time to alert us to the fact that it's a call we can safely hang up on.

This year I'm going to try something new. If I answer a ringing telephone and I don't realize it's a political call until the caller starts talking, I'm going to abruptly and wordlessly hang up. It may be rude, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to them, any more than I have the time or inclination to listen to a door-to-door salesman.

To wrap up:

Politicians must hate voters like us. We think about the candidates, and the issues. We do our research. We look at all sides of the story. We judge the credibility of everything we hear or read, and we ignore  emotional appeals. And we hate buzzwords, slogans, and cute catchphrases, with a hatred that surpasses all understanding. We don't vote a strict party or ideological line, although we prefer moderates over radicals because we know they will get things done and not just crow like a rooster all day long. We vote for what we think will be best in the long run for our community, our state and our country.

Who's Flip-Flopping Now?

A long time ago, I wrote about a politician's prerogative to change his mind about a position, based on new knowledge the politician may have acquired. I never mentioned Mitt Romney by name, because I think that all politicians (and all people) should have that right: the right to think new thoughts, to keep an open mind, and to adopt new ideas.

Many Republicans wouldn't give Romney that right. They insisted that once he stated his position on an issue, he must stick with that opinion forever, unchanging. When he did change his mind on an issue, they said he was doing so for purely political reasons, and they called it "flip-flopping." Mitt has been accused of being a flip-flopper since he first aspired to the presidency in 2007.

This has been a particularly bitter and divisive campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Attacks and negativity ruled the airwaves and the Internet. Now that Mitt Romney has the nomination all but sewn up, party leaders are suddenly aware of the need for unity. A divided Republican party has no chance of winning the presidential election this November.

So let's see what one former presidential candidate and one prominent Republican are saying about Romney.

First, Newt Gingrich, just four days ago:  "I think it's a very substantial mistake for Governor Romney to be pretending these primaries aren't occurring and for him to be having quote a general election speech tonight in New Hampshire. He's the frontrunner but he's not the nominee."

Now, Newt Gingrich, shortly after he announced he's giving up: "I do think it's pretty clear that Governor Romney is ultimately going to be the nominee and we're gonna do everything we can make sure that he is in fact effective. And we as a team will be effective in winning this fall."

(As an aside, I think it's kind of funny that Gingrich is offering his services to "do everything we can [to] make sure that he is in fact effective." Yeah. He spent months torpedoing his own campaign, and now he wants to help Romney. I think that a "Thanks but no thanks; go back to your professorship now" would me more likely. Gingrich's help on the general campaign, like Donald Trump's public endorsement, is more a liability than an asset.)

Second, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and a one-time presidential candidate in his own right. A few months ago, stumping for one of the other GOP hopefuls, Giuliani had this to say about Romney: "I have never seen a guy - and I've run in a lot of elections, supported a lot of people, opposed them - never seen a guy change his positions on so many things, so fast, on a dime. Everything."

Did you catch that? "Everything." And "never seen a guy." Rudy Giuliani really didn't like Mitt Romney. There was no room in his mind for any candidate to be worse than Romney. Now, contrast that with what he said this week: "I'm proud to support Mitt Romney and encourage all those who worry about our country's future to do the same."

(Another aside: Doesn't it seem to you that Giuliani changed his position rather fast - on a dime, even? He went from "never" to bootlicking in the blink of an eye.)

Who's flip-flopping now, boys?

We know why Newt and Rudy did it. It's called "business as usual." Or "politics," if you prefer.

(I got these quotations from Samara Mackareth's Politically Foul column.)


UPDATE, MAY 3: Today we can add Michele Bachman to the list of flip-floppers. She was one of his loudest opponents, even after she dropped out of the primaries in January. I think it was in January that she said there was "no way" Mitt Romney could beat Barack Obama in a general election. It took months of behind-the-scenes negotiating (in her words, "working behind the scenes, bringing together all factions of our party"), but today she publicly endorsed Romney's nomination.

Hilary Rosen versus Ann Romney

Hilary Rosen (left), Ann Romney (right). Picture swiped from abcnews.com.

You have, no doubt, heard about the hornet's nest that "Democratic strategist and political commentator" (that's what the newspapers call her) Hilary Rosen stirred up, when she had this to say about Ann Romney on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees show:

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately, women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But there's -- but he doesn't connect on that issue either.

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, "Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing."

Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and how do we -- why we worry about their future. 

Yes, she really did say that:  Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life." And I provided the context in the quotation above, so you would know that she meant exactly what she said.

Wow. Hilary Rosen just disenfranchised every single stay-at-home mom in America. Now, I will grant that stay-at-home moms now constitute less than half of the female electorate in this country.  (Let's define a "stay-at-home mom" as a woman who chooses to be a full-time mother and homemaker instead of being a part-time or full-time member of the paid workforce.) But stay-at-home moms haven't been this marginalized since the other famous Democratic Hil(l)ary said, on March 15, 1992, "I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies."

Well, as the son of one stay-at-home mom and the husband of another one, I've been truly pleased to see the reaction Rosen's comment has gotten. High-value Democrats are running over each other in their haste to get away from her. The  president and the first lady have distanced themselves from her, as have national leaders of the Democratic Party and Democratic leaders in Congress. Some of them have even said, "She's not part of the Democratic leadership" - even though she has been called a "Democratic strategist" and, I might add, acted the part in other venues.

Republicans have taken her comment for the free gift it is, and still haven't stopped capitalizing on it.

Perhaps the most interesting thing so far has been Wolf Blitzer scolding her, on the air,  demanding that she apologize to Ann Romney, and scolding her again for her lame non-apology.

(Her apology? She said to Wolf, "Oh, well I sent out an apology this afternoon." First, she insulted this high-profile lady in a high-profile way, and then she either emailed or Tweeted her an apology, twenty-four hours after she made the insult,and now she expects that to be good enough. In this way, Hilary Rosen demonstrates her total lack of class. A handwritten apology, with an original, handwritten signature, in a hand-addressed envelope, either delivered by hand or by express mail: that's what this situation calls for. Maybe even a bouquet of balloons or flowers. But not an email message. That shows no class at all.)

(Update: It turns out she did issue a statement to the press, apologizing to the world in general for her "poor choice of words." In other words, she meant what she said, but she wished she had said it differently. Um, that doesn't count. What we were all waiting for was something like this: "Dear Ms. Romney. I was wrong. I'm truly sorry. To prove it, I'm going to stop talking in public for a while.")

(She tried it again on Blitzer's show:  "I'm sorry if that offended you."  Did you catch the weasel word? "IF." And she wasn't really sorry. What she said was: "If you're thin-skinned, then I apologize for that flaw in your personality." That's not an apology. )

She keeps trying to talk her way out of the situation, but with every word she says, she digs herself deeper and deeper into the pit she dug for herself. The best thing Hilary Rosen could do right now is give Ann Romney a sincere, public apology and then SHUT UP.


Stay tuned for part two: what two national women's organizations have to say about it.


Postscript: This is totally off-topic, but after I wrote that last sentence, I got to thinking. Maybe Rush Limbaugh should have done the same thing, in his recent situation: issue a sincere, public apology and then shut up.

Election predictions

It's too early to predict who's going to win the presidential election in November. But I can make some predictions about the movements of the voting public. Here are my predictions:

• Led by evangelicals, many (if not most) Christians will vote against Romney because he's a Mormon.
• In a similar fashion, many (if not most) Mormons will vote for Romney because he's a Mormon.

Both groups will give other lame excuses to justify their votes, but when it comes down to it, they will vote for or against Romney because he's a Mormon.

So much for religious tolerance in this country. But it gets better.

• Many people will vote against Obama because (they say) he wasn't born in the United States.
• Other people will vote against Obama because (they say) he's a Muslim.
• Many (if not most) blacks will vote for Obama because he's black.
• Many (but definitely not most) whites will vote against Obama because he's black.
• Many (way too many) Republicans will vote for Romney simply because he's a Republican.
• Many (way too many) Democrats will vote for Obama simply because he's a Democrat.

Who does that leave? Oh, the free thinkers, right? Let's look at what the free thinkers will do in November:

• Many of them will vote against Romney because the negative ads about him were so convincing.
• Many of them will vote against Obama because the negative ads about him were so convincing.
• Many of them will vote for the candidate they saw or met in person, just because of that personal contact.
• Many of them will vote for the last candidate whose ad they saw on the TV before heading to the polls.

Does that leave anybody who's actually going to think before they vote? Anybody who's going to use logic and reasoning, to figure out for themselves who will be the best president for the next four years? Please tell me you are in this final group, and not one of the other groups I've listed!

On Paying Tithes and Throwing Stones: Judgement and Morality in American Politics

Now that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has made his tax documents for 2010 and 2011 public, the press has latched on to the statements therein about his payment of tithes.

Romney is a faithful Mormon, or at least says he is. Faithful Mormons follow the Biblical commandment to tithe, that is, to donate 10% of their income to their church. Tithing, or payment of the tithe, is one of the items on the checklist that gives you access into the LDS temples.

Some pundits have done the math and determined that Romney's 2010 contributions fall short of the 10% mark. I'm not sure what kind of conclusion they intend to draw from this calculation. Let's follow a few logical trails, shall we?

First, there's the "A bad Mormon will be a bad president" line of reasoning: Mitt isn't a full tithe payer, therefore he's not a good Mormon, and therefore he's unworthy to be president. That's pretty funny, considering how many people out there say that a devout Mormon is also unworthy to be president. The poor guy is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't.

Then there's the "The Mormon church will exert undue influence on the president" line of reasoning. I tried to follow this one, but it broke down somewhere in the middle. I think it goes like this: The Mormon church exerts this degree of financial "control" over Mitt's life, and therefore (this is the part where I got lost) the church exerts control over other areas of his life, and will tell him what to do as president. Hey, this isn't Scientology, guys. Stop trying to paint it as such.

Third is the "What a waste of money" line of reasoning.  The idea that Romney pays tithes at all really bothers some people, who feel that he is deluded or misguided in his support of an institution that, in and of itself, doesn't deserve to exist. These people feel that Romney's $2 million per year, give or take a bit, would have been better used elsewhere, and that it's a real shame to see him throwing it away like he did.

(Personally, knowing what the LDS church does with the tithes it collects, I can't think of a better use for his money. There's good info on lds.org or mormon.org, telling about it from the official LDS point of view. For an outsider's view, you can look up that old investigative report from the Arizona Republic: "Counting Its Blessings", June 30, 1991. The thesis of the AzRep article was "Well, we set out to do a hatchet job on the LDS church, to uncover evidence of rampant fiscal irresponsibility. However, in everything we dug up, we couldn't find any sign of wrongdoing. We did find lots of do-gooding, though. We were really disappointed.")

Payment of tithing has always been voluntary, and it has always been confidential. At the end of the year, those who pay tithing get a summary statement, for use in preparing their state and federal income taxes - this is the same thing that other charitable organizations provide for their donors - it's required by law. And the leader of the local congregation meets in private with each member of the congregation, points to the bottom line on the statement - the total contribution - and asks one question: "Does that represent a complete and full tithe?" The parishioner's answer is kept confidential.

The church doesn't even care how big the number is. And the member isn't audited or fact-checked; his word is trusted. How much a member pays, and whether it represents a full tithe, is NOBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS.

I also find it funny that anyone would sit in judgement of Romney and whether he's a good Mormon or a bad Mormon because of this. The Fraser Institute reports that 1999, the average Californian gave less than 2% of their income to any charity, and in 2007 it wasn't any better. With only two or three exceptions, the rest of the country followed the same patterns as California. And the average Canadian was even stingier than the average American. Within religions themselves, according to an article online yesterday, the average Christian in the U.S. donates between 2% and 4.6% to his church or local congregation, and a large percentage of Christians donate nothing. Ever.

I find it even funnier that this may be used as ammunition by Romney's opponents or their proxies (including certain members of the press corps) to judge him as a bad candidate for president. This is where the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" thing comes in. I don't think anybody in the world is qualified to pass such a judgement. Moreover, Romney's tithe donations are handled through his charitable foundation, which also gives away millions of his dollars to other charitable causes, besides the LDS church.

I think that people are trying to find chinks in the White Knight's armor. They can't zing him for sexual harassment, like Herman Cain, or for divorce or infidelity, like Newt Gingrich. (Come to think of it, a majority of the voting public are overlooking Gingrich's divorces and infidelity. What's that all about?) They can't hit him for bigotry or intolerance, although he has been the victim thereof. They can't even call him stupid, ignorant, or uninformed, as they have done to Sarah Palin - or forgetful, like Rick Perry. He doesn't even come across as arrogant or out of touch, like Gingrich and Ron Paul.

They can't find anything illegal or unethical about the way he made his millions. They haven't found any evidence (yet) of bribery, influence peddling, or shady dealings during his terms as governor of Massachusetts, chairman of the SLC Olympics, or partner at Bain Capital.

They can't even find anything wrong with the way he calculated his taxes. (If they did, the IRS would have been all over his case, and they're completely ignoring him in public.) People seem to resent the fact that Romney is so rich, and that of all the money he made last year, he only gave 15% of it back to the government - all that he was legally required to give back, according to the IRS.

So they have to find some weakness somewhere. And this is the closest they've gotten: a private and confidential religious practice, which affects only his standing before his church and his God, and which came to light only because of the quirks of the U.S. tax code (which requires charitable contributions to be reported) and the U.S. political system (which requires - not by law, but by public acclamation - that candidates for political office make their tax records public).

Postscript: For the record, I am still not an official supporter of Mitt Romney. I keep my religious affiliation separate from my political preferences. (So does Romney - or at least he would, if people would let him.) It really bugs me to see these politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, putting their religion on their sleeves, like a secret signal to fellow believers or an endorsement from God. While other candidates tell reporters where they're going to church on Sunday, and even invite reporters to accompany them, Mitt quietly slips away for three hours to perform his devotions, away from the public eye. And it amuses me to hear so many of them (I think the count is up to four, and Romney's not one of them) claim that God told them to run for president. If I vote for Mitt Romney, it will be because I think he is the best qualified candidate for the office, regardless of his religious affiliation.

Thoughts on the South Carolina Republican primary

I think it's pretty funny that the conservative voters in South Carolina chose the practicing polygamist. Or in other words, to quote Senator Boies Penrose in 1906, they chose a monogamist who can't monog over a polygamist who won't polyg.