Election Reaction on The Huffington Post

Jennifer Merolla Ph.D.: Cracks in Obama's Coalition or Conventional Wisdom?

2009-11-09T17:38:03Z

There have been countless articles this week interpreting the electoral tea leaves. One common interpretation of the results is that there may be some cracks in the coalition that ushered Obama into office. The stories generally then conclude that these cracks may serve as a warning sign for Democrats in the future.

An example of this type of article appeared the day after the election in the Washington Post in an article by Dan Balz. In assessing the results of the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, he argued: "Neither gubernatorial election amounted to a referendum on the president, but the changing shape of the electorate in both states and the shifts among key constituencies revealed cracks in the Obama 2008 faction."

In particular, McDonnell's win over Democratic challenger Deeds ended eight years of Democratic control of the governorship in Virginia, while Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic governor Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

As evidence of a fracturing coalition, Balz pointed to the fact that Independents, who overwhelmingly broke for Barack Obama in the 2008 election were key to the Republican wins in Virginia and New Jersey. Exit polls in Virginia showed that McDonnell led Deeds by a 2 to 1 ratio among Independents. Poll results leading up to the election also revealed that Independents were becoming disaffected with some of Obama's policies.

The conventional wisdom among political scientists is that voters punish incumbents during poor economic times, and this is especially the case among those who are not strongly committed to a political party. Balz's account of Independents could be correct or at least correct for some Independents. Some may have punished the Democratic candidates for discontent with Obama's handling of the national economy. This would be an indicator of cracks in Obama's coalition, at least among Independents in these two states.

There is another way to interpret the behavior of Independents. Some independents may have only been focused on state economic conditions and the race in that state. In an article in Politico, Jonathan Martin revealed information that Creigh Deeds' pollster, David Petts, was actually advising Deeds to keep a distance from Obama, which would have separated national politics from the state level race. If some Independents were only looking at who the incumbent party happened to be in their state, then they would punish the incumbent party, which happened to be the Democratic Party in each state. If the incumbent party was instead Republican, then they may have supported the Democratic candidates. According to this interpretation, Independents have not necessarily shifted their behavior from 2008 to now since they are consistently voting against incumbent parties in the face of poor economic performance.

It is likely that both types of interpretations were present among Independents voting in Virginia and New Jersey, especially since these are state level races. If we look ahead to the 2010 congressional elections, it is probable that Balz's interpretation may end up carrying more weight since congressional races are national level affairs.

As another indicator of cracks in Obama's coalition, Balz discussed the fact that turnout was much lower among voters under 30 compared to their presence in the 2008 race. In Virginia, they only accounted for 10 percent of the electorate compared to the 20 percent they represented in the presidential election. If the youth continue to stay home, then it may pose a problem for Democrats in the future.

Conventional wisdom would have predicted that turnout among the youth would be lower than it was in the 2008 race. Turnout is typically much lower when there is not a presidential race on the ballot and the voters who show up at the polls in these contexts tend to be older, more partisan, and higher in socio-economic status. It is likely that voters under 30 will again show lower turnout in 2010 compared to 2008, but that does not mean that they will necessarily stay home in 2012. If they were mobilized into politics in part by Obama's presence in the race, then they may turnout just as strong in 2012. In short, Obama's coalition may not necessarily translate into the Democratic coalition.

While some have made a fairly convincing case that there may be warning signals for the Democratic Party, I would caution against reading too deeply into the electoral tea leaves. First, there are not really enough cases to make broad generalizations. Second, there are several alternative explanations we can use to explain some of the outcomes.

Max Fraad Wolff: Lessons of November

2009-11-05T10:36:45Z

All over America, pundits are spinning the wisdoms and trends revealed by the New Jersey, Virginia, mayoral, and Maine votes. No doubt, much is simple spin, and many fine observations lurk. This short article will try to bend the debate in a very different direction. I believe that hordes of voters went yesterday and voted for Republican candidates and discriminatory marriage platforms even though they voted for and like Obama. I also believe they are expressing an anger that liberal and conservative pundits alike do not understand. Our political and intellectual establishments are wed to notions of liberal and conservative rooted in aging debates and policies of dwindling relevance to today's challenges.

American liberals have tended to believe in greater government involvement, particularly in equality increasing redistribution and social welfare provision. America's conservatives have tended to favor greater scope for deregulated private enterprise and spending on police, military and enterprise friendly public goods. We still talk as if these are our alternatives. Cable news, the web, and papers are full of screaming arguments and accusations along these lines. The problem now is that no one really believes or acts on these priorities anymore. We have seen the state be used to redistribute wealth upward more than downward for 30 years. We have watched the welfare provision of the state starved, reduced, and often directed toward those of means. Likewise, we have seen conservatives embark on radical public subsidy of private enterprise, micromanagement of personal morality and massive expansion of the role of the state. All of this is to say that the broad battle lines of conservative and liberal are little more than tired old rhetorical lines.

No matter how hotly and regularly we watch various folks attack each other from these ideological corners, these debates seem a million miles away from lived experience. This is the message from Tuesday 03 November 2009. The lower income 80% of Americans are watching their incomes, place in the world, job security and sense of self collapse. The markets have not offered them the riches and rewards they sought. Stock markets, mutual funds, pensions, labor markets, jobs, benefits have failed to deliver on high hopes. Likewise, they have stood back as government interventions fail to solve their problems. Many schools are underfunded and underperforming. State aid has flowed more generously to transnational firms than households in trouble. National healthcare proposals have languished and been watered down. State and local governments are firing employees and cutting back services. The state has not functioned according to the liberal agenda in decades. The private market has not functioned according to the conservative edicts of efficiency and fairness.

Our politics are out of touch with the challenges and recent events of American life. The public is angry and scared. We have watched Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, the tech bubble, the housing bubble, and the health care debates with growing skepticism about liberal and conservative claims alike. We desperately need to restructure our economy to pay middle class wages and produce world class goods and services for foreign and domestic purchase. It is every bit as important that our political parties, rhetoric, and debate be firmly rooted in the realities of contemporary America. Until this happens, we will continue to see unpredictable crowds rush toward and away from whomever they like personally, or feel less betrayed by lately. This might just be a valuable lesson to take from the most recent voter actions.

Erik Ose: The Secret Superdelegate War Revealed

2009-06-04T16:24:30Z

Now that President Obama has settled into the job enough to give Brian Williams a backstage pass to the West Wing, the heat of last year's campaign has faded. Especially with Secretary of State Clinton at his side as they tour Egypt to help repair U.S.-Arab relations, the significance of June 4th to Obama's rise may have diminished.

But it was one year ago today that Hillary Clinton announced plans to suspend her campaign for the Democratic nomination, and urged her supporters to unite behind Barack Obama. It was an overdue end to a seemingly endless primary campaign. And a surprising one, considering that until actual primary voters weighed in, the nomination had appeared to be Clinton's for the taking.

Bill and Hillary at New York rally, June 3, 2008

She had money, momentum, and crucial to the Democratic nominating process, Clinton had a big lead in superdelegate support. The rules said these Democratic elected officials and other party leaders could choose to back whomever they wanted, regardless of how their states or districts voted.

One of the unanswered questions from the primary campaign was why more superdelegates didn't endorse Clinton over Obama, even though they were party insiders, and she was the insider candidate. Plus, the conventional wisdom was that Hillary might be a stronger general election pick.

After Obama battled Clinton to a standstill on Super Tuesday, parts of the Democratic establishment were open-mouthed in disbelief. For the next three months, the Clinton campaign did its best to fan doubts about Obama's electability. They were helped as controversies involving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama's "bitter" comments swirled around his candidacy. Clinton won crucial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, largely by rebranding herself as a "fighter" and tailoring her message to older, white, working class Democrats.

(In hindsight of Obama's resounding victory over John McCain in the fall, the conventional wisdom was dead wrong. If Hillary had ended up as the nominee, many disillusioned Obama voters would have stayed home. McCain would never have picked Sarah Palin as his VP, instead going with his gut instinct to choose someone far less politically radioactive, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.)

Yet Obama kept getting a steady trickle of superdelegate endorsements. In mid-February, Clinton was backed by 100 more supers than Obama, but her advantage gradually shrank. On May 9, various news organizations reported Obama had overtaken Clinton in the superdelegate chase. The final tally as of June 4 was 389 superdelegates for Obama versus 282 for Clinton.

Interviewed for the New York Times' official post-mortem on Hillary's campaign, Pennsylvania superdelegate Jason Altmire explained the "frustration" within Hillaryland, since "they kept winning state after state and they expected others [superdelegates] to start turning their way and it just didn't happen."

So what happened? Harold Ickes would surely like to know. In addition to being a divisive presence in Hillary's inner circle, the legendarily hot-tempered Democratic operative was in charge of the Clinton superdelegate operation.

Certainly, some superdelegates saw the writing on the wall. They recognized Barack Obama was both the Democratic Party's future and the strongest candidate against McCain, and endorsed accordingly. Some were reluctant to fight past battles and ready for the party to embrace new leadership. All had personal reasons for their choices.

As a blogger and activist who campaigned for superdelegates to support Obama over Clinton, I had a window on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering going on largely out of view of the press and the campaigns themselves. There was a secret war being waged by both Obama and Clinton supporters to convince individual superdelegates to endorse their preferred candidates.

The Clinton campaign, in an all-out struggle to prevent the nomination from slipping away, was very public about its strategy. They openly encouraged their supporters, particularly big money donors, to pester and cajole superdelegates on Clinton's behalf, unconcerned that heavy-handed lobbying might turn off the very superdelegates they were trying to influence.

But they were beaten to the punch by Obama supporters, who organized spontaneously, and used the power of the internet to shine light on who the superdelegates were and how ordinary citizens could contact them. None of this was encouraged by the Obama campaign, who had their own, internal strategy to woo the supers. Barack and Michelle began personally calling superdelegates as early as March 2007, something Hillary agreed to do only after the Texas and Ohio contests on March 4. Although Team Obama eventually decided a little citizen lobbying might not be such a bad thing. Yet throughout the primaries, lobbying was happening fast and furiously at the grassroots and netroots levels.

While careful to remain neutral, Democratic Convention Watch was essential for anyone tracking superdelegates. A no frills, Blogger-hosted site run by two Denver political junkies, DemConWatch became the most trusted source for news about superdelegate endorsements, more accurate and up-to-date than any brand name media outlet.

The Superdelegate Transparency Project was another independent, neutral resource. A joint project of LiteraryOutpost, OpenLeft, DemConWatch, and HuffPo's Off the Bus, organizer Jennifer Nix described the effort as a "collaborative project among all interested parties to bring transparency and accountability to the Democratic National Convention." They posted state-by-state breakdowns of which superdelegates had endorsed which candidates, what popular vote totals each had received, and whether the supers' endorsements lined up with the votes in their respective districts.

Obama supporters on MyBarackObama.com and sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground were constantly circulating lists of uncommitted superdelegates. In mid-February, MoveOn.org jumped into the fray when it began an online petition drive that 400,000 signed, calling for superdelegates to "let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama, then support the people's choice." The San Francisco-based group Color Of Change delivered 25,000 e-mails urging Congressional Black Caucus members to follow their districts' votes.

In North Carolina, our congressional superdelegates originally backed former Sen. John Edwards. When Edwards exited the race in late January, most had yet to endorse another candidate.

So a few Obama supporters in N.C. decided to lobby them and organized Voters for Obama. Our website, votersforobama.org, launched on President's Day (Feb. 19). Using info gathered by DemConWatch and STP, we posted state-by-state lists of supers, their endorsements, and going a crucial step further, included contact info (work mailing addresses, e-mails, and phone numbers) for selected superdelegates. We provided simple instructions on how to make polite, respectful phone calls or send e-mails asking superdelegates to support Obama.

Over the next few months, 15,000 people visited our site, and we helped voters from around the country generate an estimated several thousand e-mails and phone calls to superdelegates. Volunteers gathered thousands more signatures on petitions in seven states including North Carolina.

And together with similar efforts by other Obama supporters, it made a difference. Most superdelegates are politicians, and they pay attention to the voters who elect them. Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory announced his support for Obama on Feb. 25 as a superdelegate from Ohio. Following a news story about his previous indecision, Mallory said he heard from many community members. "[I] got lots of calls and e-mails, mostly telling me to support Obama," he said. "I got three or four calls in support of Clinton, but it was very lopsided."

In mid-Feburary, approximately 400 superdelegates remained uncommitted. We targeted half of them, mostly elected officials and state Democratic party leaders, who we thought would be the most responsive to their constituents and rank-and-file Democrats in each state. Of the 205 superdelegates we posted contact info for, 130 of them (63%) endorsed Obama during the three and a half months leading up to June 4, when Hillary announced her intention to suspend campaigning. 56 superdelegates that we lobbied (27%) remained neutral, while only 19 (or 9%) came out for Hillary. Our target superdelegates delivered an 111-delegate net gain for Obama.

Superdelegate endorsement graph courtesy of DemConWatch

Belatedly, the Clinton campaign set up their own online lobbying operation, including slick, interactive websites. But whoever was running the show was decidedly not slick enough to realize the dangers of providing contact info for all the supers, including those who had already endorsed Hillary. Ditto for posting personal cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

NObama Democrats backing Hillary were late to the game, but they made up for it with frenzied enthusiasm once they got going. Taylor Marsh harangued her listeners to lobby superdelegates for Hillary, and sites like JustSayNoDeal.com and PUMAPAC.org (Party Unity My Ass) were hot on the bandwagon.

A project called LobbyDelegates.com also launched, and although officially neutral, became the go-to site for disgruntled Clintonistas. Three of the top five URLs directing traffic to LobbyDelegates.com were official Clinton websites, and a fourth was a site affiliated with PUMA PAC.

By late May, Obama's high profile supporters were anxious to get the nomination fight settled. Perhaps fed up with the efforts of Hillary dead-enders to keep dividing the party, on May 22 Arianna Huffington called for superdelegates to endorse Obama, and encouraged her readers to contact and lobby them.

In the end, enough superdelegates swung behind Obama to allow pledged delegates from the final primaries to put him over the top. Obama reached a majority of 2,118 delegates on the night of June 3, after voters in Montana cast their ballots in the 54th nominating contest of the season. The next day, Democratic members of Congress who had remained Clinton supporters up until that point urged her to withdraw, and she announced she would. Hillary delivered her concession speech three days later on June 7th, at a final event packed with her supporters.

A year later, I would like to thank all our Voters for Obama coalition members, volunteers, and supporters. Special thanks go out to co-organizers Mani Dexter, who did most of the superdelegate research necessary to first set up our site, and Dana Lumsden, for his enthusiasm and unwavering support; SuperVoters Susan Baylies and Scott Priz, for being willing to put on capes for Obama and help deliver 2,000 signed petitions to N.C. Gov. Mike Easley; and local organizer Cristobal Palmer, whose tireless efforts helped make our N.C. petition drive a success.

And a big thanks to everyone who visited votersforobama.org and used its tools to call, e-mail, or sign a petition to superdelegates for Obama. We let our party leaders know their constituents wanted Obama to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008, and they listened.

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Erik Ose: An Entirely Different Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T14:48:04Z

Earlier today, as President Obama was sworn in, everything about the event heralded change. From Aretha Franklin singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," to the Rev. Joseph Lowery using his benediction to invoke a coming day when "black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

Instead of the Supreme Court selecting the President, Chief Justice John Roberts was reduced to mischief-making as he tried to trip Obama up with a bungled, mis-worded oath of office. Or perhaps Roberts was simply displaying his arrogance by attempting to administer the oath sans notes.

President Obama used his inaugural address to draw a line separating the past eight years and what the nation should expect to come next. In an obvious rebuke to George W. Bush's decision to institutionalize torture of U.S. detainees, he made it clear "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." He renounced Bush's orgy of deregulation and giveaways to the rich by reminding us that "without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

Eight years ago, the country was experiencing an entirely different sort of Inauguration Day. On January 20, 2001, people were outraged that George W. Bush had stolen the 2000 election. The largest number of protesters since the Nixon era came to Washington, D.C. and staged a counter-Inaugural, vowing to resist the fraudulent Bush Administration.

My friends and I were among them. The three of us were too worked up over Bush's electoral shenanigans to let the day pass without raising a ruckus. It was a bitterly cold morning, and we got up early to walk a few miles from where we were staying to the Capitol. Our plan was a simple one - get as close as we could to the swearing-in ceremony and make as much noise as possible denouncing it.

To these ends, I borrowed a bullhorn for the occasion, the biggest, most powerful one I could find. I was carrying it in a large black messenger's bag. Security seemed tight, with cops and security personnel everywhere, although nowhere near post-9/11 levels.

It was 11:45 am as we walked down Independence Avenue, past the Capitol steps where the reviewing stands were set up. The first entrance we came to for VIP ticketholders was on the corner of 1st Street S.W. and Independence, next to the U.S. Botanic Garden. I walked right through the security line, blending in with the stream of well-heeled GOP donors and activists, despite toting a bulky black bag nearly capable of holding a suitcase nuclear bomb.

My friends weren't as lucky. What made them stand out in the otherwise lily-white crowd was their skin color - both were black. Somehow, even to the incompetent Republican party functionaries doubling as ticket takers, they didn't look like George W. Bush supporters.

So we retreated across the street, and made our stand at the entrance to Bartholdi Park. At the stroke of 12 noon, we whipped out the bullhorn and began delivering our own counter-Inaugural address. Enraged GOP attendees rushed over, trying to intimidate us into shutting up. But just as quickly, other protesters carrying banners and signs swarmed to our streetcorner, yelling their own slogans, and swelling our numbers to more than 100.

The three of us took turns leading chants of anti-Bush, pro-democracy slogans for the next half-hour, like WHAT IF THEY HELD AN ELECTION...AND NOBODY COUNTED THE VOTES?, BUSH WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTED, and YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS...IF YOUR CANDIDATE'S DADDY ALREADY PACKED THE SUPREME COURT.

That bullhorn was loud, and it's safe to say audible to most of the VIP guests gathered to watch their illegitimate hero take the oath of office. FBI agents hovered around us, videotaping our activities. But we didn't stop until we felt we'd made our point. Then we packed up and moved on down the street to the Justice Department to protest John Ashcroft's impending confirmation as Attorney General.

What a difference eight years made. Today, on January 20, 2009, a sea of Americans of all colors stretched for two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Far from being out of place, revelers who look like my friends were well represented among the 240,000 who received tickets to view the ceremonies from designated viewing areas near the front of the Mall.

Only the weather remained the same. It was a frigid, cold day, but millions braved the elements to be there, their hearts warm and full of joy, witness to a proud day in our nation's history. And there was nary a protester in sight.

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Kevin Grandia: The Unequivocal Faith of the Climate Change Quibblers

2009-01-08T19:03:34Z

An article on the Heritage Foundation's blog today shows just how little it takes for some people to put their head back in the sand when it comes to dealing with global warming.

Heritage staffer Conn Carroll declares Study Shows Global Warming Will Not Hurt U.S. Economy.

Carroll pretty much leaves it at that. Other than including a single self-fulfilling quote cherry-picked from the study and another from US News correspondent James Pethokoukis who comes to this strange conclusion:

"So if you do buy into the theory of man-made climate change, the next logical move would surely be to do nothing that would slow growth and technologcal [sic] advancement in rich countries -- such as a cap-and-trade regulatory system or onerous carbon taxes -- and do more to accelerate growth in poor ones through free trade and the exporting of democratic capitalism."

The paper titled "Climate Shocks and Economic Growth" (pdf) by Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken is actually very good. It certainly doesn't draw any ridiculous conclusions like the one by Pethokoukis, nor does it present the evidence to make the claims that Heritage Foundation wants to make.

Dell et al. do find that the impacts of global warming on developing nations could be potentially devastating. They conclude that:

"... our contribution in this paper is to reject views that climate does not matter, show that climate's effects are substantial, and identify a group of countries where climate appears to have large effects."

And that,

"... Extrapolated over 100 years, this implies that the median poor country's income will be about 50% lower than it would be had there been no climate change. Moreover, because the effects are large for poor countries - and we estimate no impact on rich countries - the estimates in Table 9 suggest that climate change could substantially widen world income inequality." [my emphasis]

It's mind boggling how little evidence it takes for a free market think tank like the Heritage Foundation to be convinced that we should do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With one paper issued at an annual general meeting and Heritage concludes unequivocally that "Global Warming Will Not Hurt U.S. Economy." At the same time Heritage continues to ignore the massive amounts of evidence complied over decades by top scientists of the major negative impacts climate change will have on our way of life and the very nature of our planet.

Of course, it's easy to take such a blind leap of faith for Heritage considering they've been attacking and spreading misinformation about the realities of climate science for years and have reaped the rewards from financially motivated fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil.

Francesca Biller-Safran: 12 Top News Year's Resolutions for the Republican Party

2008-12-17T17:17:43Z

1. I will never, ever, ever again pick a running mate just because she or he is "hot" and makes me want to say "You Betcha" even though my Viagra prescription has expired.

2. I will remember that just because someone named Joe says he is a licensed plumber, a baker, or a candlestick maker, doesn't necessarily mean it is true, or that they should become my campaign advisor and take questions from the press.

3. I will take courses at my local community college in grammar, anger management, charm, etiquette, yoga and World Geography.

4. I will read Supreme Court decisions, The Declaration of Independence, The New York Times, a little Kafka and James Joyce for levity, as often as I watch TV evangelists, QVC and Dr. Phil on television.

5. I will begin to understand that there's something really weird about being anti-Choice and want to protect unborn babies, while I plan to drastically cut healthcare benefits for expectant mothers and newborn babies.

6. I will meet at least three gay couples who have been in a committed relationship for ten years and compare them to three straight couples who have been married for ten years, and ask myself the question, "Self ...what is truly the difference between the two?" as well as, "Which couple's throw the best dinner parties?"

7. I will remember not to take part in grimacing facial gymnastics during presidential debates, even though I clearly excel in this sport .

8. I will remember my P's and Q's when being interviewed by Katie Couric, and the rest of the English alphabet as well.

9. I will learn how to be more diplomatic and bi-partisan, even though it is against everything that I intellectually and morally believe in.

10. I will remember that while "that one" is president, I will listen to what "that one" has to say and take notes as to what it looks and sounds like to be eloquent, intelligent, educated, thoughtful and strong; all with humility and grace.

11. In the next presidential election, I will take a cue from Monty Python's John Cleese and hopefully, strategically start my campaign off with, "And now for something completely different..."

12. And finally, I will never again allow a female Vice presidential candidate to pump her fists while wearing boots and a tight skirt while yelling "Drill, Baby, Drill" to a bunch of Confederates.

Just not the best image for us.

Peter Mehlman: Apres le Qvelling

2008-12-17T15:17:56Z

As their euphoria over the November election levels off, American Jews -- nearly 90 percent of whom voted Barack Obama -- are slowly coming around to one major question: "How did a black guy get in the White House before a Jew?"

Many leaders of the Jewish Community, wherever that is, tried to be philosophical when questioned for this article. Chaim Pendergast, chairman of the San Diego chapter of Surfin' UJA, said, "Look, no one ever said it was a race to see who would win the presidency first. I never heard anyone say to the Jews and the African American Blacks, 'Ready, set, go!' Did you?" However, Pendergast then added, "Can I be frank? Thank-you. The fact is, I figured if the economy went bad in an election year, Middle America would hold its anti-semitism in abeyyance and put someone in the White House who knows his way around a deposit slip. But it wasn't to be. What can you do? Nothing. There's nothing you can do. And now with this Madoff business... Can I go now?"

Quietly, there are hints that some finger-pointing among Jews began two weeks after the election although some insist the finger-pointing started five thousand years ago and this is just finger-pointing-as-usual. If there's any consensus on a target for blame, it points squarely at Sen. Joe Lieberman who is widely seen as single-handedly reviving the phrase "Shanda to the goyim." Dawn McKatz, a new age reformed rabbi who believes that Moses got the Ten Commandments from Aspen Mountain, said, "Don't get started on Lieberman. And I can do without his wife too."

Some Talmudic scholars suggest that the lack of a Jewish president merely comes down to timing because timing in life is everything and if your timing is off, it doesn't matter what the hell you do, you can bend over backwards and talk yourself blue in the face but without good timing, you're pretty much screwed.

That was essentially the viewpoint of one Talmudic/Phrenology scholar who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he thinks his theory may have some serious holes.

"Look, it's important to try to look past Obama's superior charisma, intelligence, compassion, poise, judgment, energy, strength, eloquence, character, vision, thoughtfulness, education, commitment, oratory, patience, intuition, leadership, insight, inclusiveness, inspiration, determination, enlightenment, decency, comprehension, lucidity, tasteful suits, beautiful family and... what was your question again?"

Finally, a small minority of interview subjects simply feel that a Jewish president is not in the cards unless everyone starts using a pinochle deck. Ben Feldman, who describes himself as a "culturally-assimilated-hemi-powered-sub-orthodox-Jew-who-observes- the-high-holidays-from-a-distance-but-kind-of-lost-it-for-Purim-and-Shavuout," exhales, sits down, rubs his eyes, massages his scalp, cranes his neck and says, "The fact is, if you want to be elected President, you have to believe in Jesus Christ. Look, don't get me wrong: Jesus invented shiksas, so I'm totally okay with him. But dating and running for president are two different things. You can't even compare the two. It's apples and oranges."

Read more: Election Reaction, Politics News

Yuna Shin: Mike Duncan's Silence and The Republican Party of Exclusion

2008-12-12T14:32:06Z

This morning, NPR's Steve Inskeep interviewed the chairman of the Republican party, Mike Duncan, who is trying to hold on to his chairmanship despite the massive GOP loss in November. The most interesting part of the interview wasn't anything Duncan said.

Rather, it was Duncan's long silence when asked about the perception of the GOP as the party of exclusion. His silence spoke louder than anything that he had said in terms of how incapable the Republican Party still is of recognizing what it did wrong and what it needs to do in order to gain Americans' trust.

Listen to the interview here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98116257

The comment that stumped Duncan came from Jerry of Sister, OR, toward the end of the 5-minute interview. Jerry's comment was simply that "The Republican party needs to distance itself from the religious right." Duncan had a quick, formulaic response: "We embrace lots of different people. . . We think that our values resonate better with the American people." No explanation of how it can be that they were voted out of office when their values "resonate" better was given.

Inskeep kept asking. He asked as anyone listening to Duncan would: "Is there then an assumption that this person has that is mistaken?" Silence. Inskeep was forced to pose the question again: "Is there an assumption that this person has that is wrong about the way the Republican party is set up?" Silence. Finally, Duncan responded, "The Republican party is a party of big tent. We welcome people of different ideas and different philosophies in the Republican party."

Now these statements run contrary to the strategy employed by McCain/Palin ticket during the general election. Presidential tickets typically are representatives of the party, so I am sure that I am not wrong in thinking the McCain/Palin ticket's election strategy also reflected the Republican Party's beliefs. Then how can we forget the infamous statement by Palin: "[Obama] is a man who sees America not like you and I see America."

She went even further. She was happy to be in the "pro-America" part of the country, well, as opposed to the not so pro-America parts of the country. The theme of "us" vs. "them" was used again and again at their campaign rallies.

And who exactly was "us"? One obvious place to look for this "us" would be the Republican Party Convention. And who did we see there? Who was this "us"? I saw mostly old white folks in stiff suits swooning at every crack of the whip that Sarah Palin so skillfully employed. And how about the rabid crowd in a rabid frenzy at Palin rallies who shouted "kill him!" and "off with his head"?

Now, it boggles my mind how the Republican Party can still be wondering how it lost the Hispanic vote. Isn't that obvious? It is obvious to me, and I am sure it is obvious to many others, especially Hispanic voters. Most Hispanics count themselves as members of a minority group, so then is it any wonder that they voted for Barack Obama?

Given the venom and frenzy, given the anti-immigrant, anti-"them" sentiments at the McCain/Palin rallies, is it a wonder that Hispanic voters simply could not see themselves voting for McCain/Palin? How would they in their self-interest vote for the ticket that tells them they are not "us"?

Perhaps Duncan really is ignorant. He really does not know that the Republican Party has become a party of exclusion. However, why would he fall "silent" when asked if this particular perception was somehow a "mistaken" one? But it was also obvious, even on the radio waves, that he was searching for the right words because, as Duncan himself said during the interview, the Republicans just "need to articulate ideas better" and "to stimulate new ways of thinking, new words."

But this reveals only one thing: they are incapable of recognizing mistakes. It is not that they are ignorant, they are in total denial.

That is why Bobby Jindal and Anh Cao are being heralded as the saviors of the Republicans. Because they see nothing fundamentally wrong with their party, only with its packaging. Hence the false belief: repackage the same old ideas with new, different faces, and the Party will be revived. It refuses to see their loss as a defeat of their ideas. Duncan's silence was only an indication of this refusal to see, this deep-seeded denial.

The November election made it clear. In the perception of many voters, the Republican Party is no longer a party that "embrace[s] lot of different people" or whose "values resonate better with the American people." If it were, Republicans would have won easily. Their values didn't resonate. And saying so does not make it true.

So between the long, painful silence from Duncan today during the NPR interview and what he did actually say, I really don't see how the Republican Party will re-establish itself any time soon. It may be a long, long time.

Larry Gellman: The Day the Music Died

2008-12-12T12:07:38Z

Everyone knew that the election would change the way we view our country, its leadership, and the way we relate to each other and the rest of the world. But it's now clear that we are talking about a paradigm shift of monumental proportions. Sort of like the feeling we had when we learned the truth about the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

As a result, points of view that as recently as a month ago were viewed as mainstream and credible now seem so out of touch and ridiculous that we are left scratching our heads wondering how anyone could have believed that garbage.

We were told by the pundits and water carriers of both parties that we are a very divided country with about half of our voters Democrat and the other half Republican. Half on the Left and half on the Right. Half Liberal and half Conservative.

Each side has its base issues and talking points and we were told people would vote one way or the other based on how they felt on those important matters. The Right wing was anti-surrender in Iraq, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, and in favor of free market capitalism. The Left wing wanted us out of Iraq yesterday, was pro-choice, in favor of same sex marriage, and wanted America to be a more socialist place where the wealth was spread around.

What has now become clear is that those weren't the issues that divided us at all. Many voters certainly have strong feelings on those topics, but they voted based on their passions and gut feelings about the candidates. What is even more clear is that most voters are as complex and nuanced as are the issues we face.

There were some common themes that showed up in the election results--themes that are very bad news for the Republican Party.

For all the posturing, McCain and the Republicans did well only in those states that spend the lowest amount per capita on education--states in the Deep South and those wilderness states which have no major cities and where each citizen has hundreds of acres to call his or her own. Every other state was carried by Obama and the Democrats.

At the end of the day, Obama's convincing win was a rebellion against stupidity and ignorance. None of the other issues had any real traction. More revealing was that groups of people did not fit into tidy little ideological boxes as the pundits had hoped.

Polls showed that virtually every African-American voter went for Obama. Yet more than two-thirds of Blacks now say they do not believe it is moral or acceptable for people to be gay. Does that make them Liberal or Conservative? They are clearly Democrats, but their values don't fit the pattern created by those who view life as a battle between the forces of the Left and Right. Which team do these Blacks play for?

And what about the 20 percent of Republicans voted for Obama? What uniform do they wear? How about the fact that 80 percent of Americans--many of whom supposedly felt that Obama was a socialist who palled around with terrorists--now give the president-elect high marks for his appointments and the way he has handled himself during the last month?

An entire radio talk show and blogging industry has been built on the premise that there is a massive group of Liberals out there who want to destroy the fabric of American life and undermine everything our country has ever stood for. They painted Barack Obama as a combination of Fidel Castro and Osama Bin Laden--the patron saint of the forces of evil.

Now it turns out that he's none of those things--he's just the smart and honest president-elect of a country that is tired of deceptive and stupid.

So who is now the audience for Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and their dozens of colleagues who have pledged to continue the Conservative Underground and fight the Liberal forces of evil? Sarah Palin is now considered a star of the Republican base but can the party ever grow beyond the Deep South and the mountain wilderness with her as a leader? As much as she is loved by Bubba and June Cleaver, she is viewed as a sad joke by everyone else.

Meanwhile, the qualities that Bush supporters used to spin as reflecting his loyalty and stubborn devotion to principles are now being revealed as simply the result of stupidity and laziness. Obama is actually putting partisanship aside to put together the best qualified and most competent team he can assemble.

In his recent round of farewell TV interviews, Bush has put a devastating exclamation point on his pathetic track record and persistent cluelessness. He talked about the economic crisis as something that "happened" as opposed to pointing out decisions he could have made differently or things that could have been handled better.

He said he regrets that we never found WMDs in Iraq--not that he took us to war based on flawed information and then deceived the country for years after he learned that all his initial assumptions were dead wrong. To this day, he seems to be more of a spectator who watched his administration create or fail to effectively address disaster after disaster rather than the commander in chief who actually was calling the shots.

Bush's comments stand in stark contrast to Obama's tone and actions that are making the entire country feel more hopeful. We have huge challenges facing us but for the first time in many years, it seems like the man in charge really knows what he is doing.

Americans are tired of stupid empty gestures. I felt it on a very personal level when I flew home from St. Louis after Thanksgiving.

This was days after the bloodbath and terrorism in Mumbai. As I stood in the airport and listened to the recordings blare about us being under Security Code Orange and watching people take off their shoes and throw away their bottles of water and their toothpaste, I felt the anger I always feel when I travel. I am angry that we are being manipulated by stupid ineffective policies designed not to make us safer but rather just to make us feel that our government is doing something to make us safer. I was praying that this recent act of terrorism wouldn't lead to more rules and foolishness imposed on us in the name of security.

I have an artificial hip and wear an insulin pump. I set off all the alarms when I go through security and get the Full Monty every time I fly. I have no problem with that. It's the foolishness I see going on around me and all the color coding that drives me crazy. Message to Obama--get rid of the colors. Just tell everyone that we live in a dangerous world and we should always be alert and report suspicious behavior.

My friend Jeffrey Goldberg has an outstanding article in The Atlantic where he talks about the "security theater" we are forced to act out in airports. I encourage you to read Goldberg's recent piece and watch his recent appearance on the Colbert show:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/211993/december-02-2008/jeffrey-goldberg

For eight years, our president, his team, and his vocal fan club on Fox and the radio have been singing the same sick and dissonant song. They tried to divide the country by spreading fear and hatred of those who dared to question the Bush agenda. November 4th was the day that music died, hopefully once and for all. Most of us are ready to dance to a much different tune going forward.

Anne Hill: An American Tune

2008-12-09T11:38:58Z

When I was in grade school we learned all the old patriotic songs. The "Star Spangled Banner" of course (which came in handy during the 1970s Oakland A's winning streak). But we also learned "America the Beautiful," the Irving Berlin tune "God Bless America," Woody Guthrie's great "This Land Is Your Land," and a whole raft of other stuff.

It's one of those weird things, the hymns of your youth still live in your heart somewhere, despite all the things you learn in the meantime. Or rather, the feelings those anthems evoke live on. Of course, as my friend Deborah pointed out recently there were really two Americas all along, and we only learned about the melodious one in those early years. When I became an adolescent and started to get cynical, I found a whole new crew of friends who shared my basic condition: being a shattered idealist in search of a new ideal to latch onto. But that's another story.

I still sing the national anthem at baseball games, and when my kids were young I made sure they could sing it, too. Most of the other songs have faded into comfortable obscurity in my memory, getting hauled out occasionally for trivia games and ironic renditions. Yet there is one patriotic song that chokes me up still, every time I hear it.

It captures perfectly all the complexity of an idealism that died but still lives; the bitter disappointment and deeper hope which are intertwined in the soul of this country. When this tune comes on the radio, all activity must cease as I sing along. Paul Simon wrote it after Nixon's re-election in 1972, and performed it again last month on the Colbert Report. If you missed the show, here is his performance. See if you can watch it without getting a little misty-eyed.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Paul Simon Pt. 2

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

August J. Pollak: DeMintamania

2008-12-08T07:45:59Z

Why, oh why, did this clear voice of the majority electorate go no further in the election?

To see more of August J. Pollak's cartoon "Some Guy With a Website," check out the archive.

Dave Maass: Debriefing the New Mexico Dem Chair

2008-12-02T14:43:17Z

Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman Brian Colon is on record telling SFR that he treats the party fairly...that is until I grilled him on the election cycle, the primary caucus comedy-of-errors, his political ambitions and whether he taunted his Republican counterpart with text messages after New Mexico's Congressional delegation went true blue.

DM: Are you the most popular state chairman in the country right now?

BC: Well, I don't know about that. I know that my colleagues are all very excited for us out here in New Mexico.

Do we still count as a swing state?

You bet. I think we are as blue as they get right now, but I think New Mexicans are always going to be paying very close attention to how hard their public officials work.

Let's look back at the last year. There was obviously some problem with the Caucus. Weren't we supposed to have some sort of big meeting to talk about the caucus and what can be done better?

No, no.

I thought there was going to be a big public meeting.

We talked about doing lots of different things but then we decided that we would focus on the victory in November and that's exactly what we got.

Will there be anything in the future regarding that or are we just hoping it will sort itself out by the time the next caucus comes around.

The question will be whether we have another caucus.

You think we'll make the move to an actual primary?

I think that's up for discussion. I, for one, think the idea of an early primary is the feeling.

Still in February?

It kind of depends. New Mexico really needs to make sure we're relevant and at the table in terms of who the nominee is going to be. I think there's a national movement to reevaluate the whole primary process. It'll be interesting to see where we go from here in the next four years.

Looking at the sheer awesomeness of the Democratic Party's success this year: How does it balance out between strong candidates and having weak Republican opponents?

Look, I think this starts from two years ago when we all agreed that we had to have 33 county strategy in place. When Barack Obama became the nominee he bolstered that by agreeing that he was going to have a 50-state strategy and we had a fantastic slate of candidates and we had tens of thousands of volunteers all over the state. I think our ground game was something the Republicans didn't even get close to matching. I think all that plays into the quality of our success.

If you were a Republican, what would was the one thing that you would definitely have had to differently this time around.

I couldn't even imagine being Republican, I'm sorry.

They're just that different, huh?

[Laughing] Exactly.

What happens if Sen. Jeff Bingaman is tapped for Obama's cabinet?

I'm not going to speculate on what's going to happen there. I know that Sen. Bingaman has said he's not interested in serving as Secretary of Energy. And I know he knows how he is best suited to serve the state of New Mexico and the county and he'll do what's right for that.

We would lose all seniority in Congress and the Senate if he went. I imagine that would be a mixed bag.

He is a jewel no matter where he is, whether it's in the administration or whether he continues to serve in the Senate, which is what I expect him to do, he's going to be serving New Mexicans and our country well.

Let me ask you: Would you make a good Lieutenant Governor?

[chuckle] First of all, you've got to get to the first step which is our governor accepting a position in the cabinet, which he'd be another asset to the Obama administration. My focus is making sure that we close the deal on the Democrats we elected a few days ago. We've got a couple close races that we've got to watch the canvass and the recount and that's what I'm focused on right now.

But, in the event, do you think you'd make a good Lieutenant Governor?

There are a lots of great Democrats out there that would serve the state well. I think the people of New Mexico will be well served by the Democratic party.

Well, I think I would be a horrible Lieutenant Governor.

You're taking your name out of it!

I'm hearing that so many people who've worked really hard this election season are looking at new jobs, talking about moving to DC--what are you looking at now that you've delivered New Mexico? What are your future ambitions.

First of all, there are a lot of things to be credit for us being able to deliver New Mexico. We had a great slate of candidate, we had thousands of volunteers all over the state. I couldn't be more grateful both to our candidates and our volunteers for working together in unprecedented ways. There is some great statistical observations that one can make that are just so night and day from four years ago. We had 40 offices open in all 33 counties, we had tens of thousands of volunteers, the presidential nominee came and put his resources on the ground a hundred days before the election. There's just so many things that were really starkly different. Me being chair was just one of those very small things, but it was very much a collective effort. I'm grateful for all the volunteers, the staff and the candidates for doing a great job. What was your question?

I was just asking what you were looking forward to in the future?

It's unclear. I really have been focused on the election and I've got to focus on these canvasses. I'm focused on making sure that we continue to move in the direction that the people have asked for, which is far different than what he had the last four years.

So, that's an 'I'm not ruling out public office?' Is that what that is?

Yeah, I would adopt the statement that I'm not ruling out public office, but I really am focused on making sure we put everything in place so that the Democrats can lead.

I was watching Countdown's election wrap-up the other day and I saw you up on the screen again. That was one of the images they pulled from the convention: you, with Brad Hyau behind you, passing to New York. What was your favorite moment of this election?

Golly... There were a lot of great moments. I guess one of my favorite moments was when I was in Invesco Field and I was there with my wife and son as we listened to Sen. Obama accept the nomination to be president of the United States. I think that was a big deal for me. 85,000 people is a lot of people. For me to be able to be there with my wife and my 10-year-old son, that was probably the best.

I guess all the cigars you bought, those were worth it?

[Laughing] It was all worth it. The sacrifices I made, the sacrifies my family made, frankly the sacrifices my law firm has made was all worth it.

Anything you wish you could do differently?

The only thing is, it's difficult to express appropriate gratitude when you have literally tens of thousands of people volunteering. Just to give you some perspective that I'm not just making this stuff up: we had literally 10,000 volunteers in Bernalillo County. That's unbelievable. I don't know even know what the final number was. I know for early and absentee voting we had 200,000 people vote, so then probably another 150,000 voted on election day. 10,000 people in Bernalillo County and I got 33 counties, so it's hard to make sure that you give credit where credit's due and express appropriate gratitude for the people who put their blood, sweat and tears into this eleciton.

That sounds kinda like the, "Yeah, if I had one flaw, I might just be a little too awesome."

[Laugh] I have never been on the record saying that.

No, that was Barack Obama during the roast a few weeks back.

That's right, the one for the Catholic Church. I remember that. You know, look, my term as chair has provided me an opportunity to be humbled, proud and it's had its high and lows. Really, it's been very rewarding.

Well, thanks. This will probably be a slightly more uncomfortable conversation when I speak to Republican chair Weh.

Let me say this, since you're going to call Chairman Weh. Chairman Weh, from the day I was elected chair of Democratic Party, has always been a gentleman with me. I've always appreciated that.

So, I can't quote you as saying 'In yo' face!'?

No! You know what, it's funny. Let me tell you his first overture to me. The day I got elected chair, he literally picked up the phone, congratulated me, gave me his cell number and said, 'Look, if you ever hear of anything that I'm doing that you feel is inappropriate and not forthright, here's my cell number, pick up the phone and call me on it.' OUr relationship has been a very good one. We've had some fun during the election process, texting one another back and forth--

With 'In yo' face!" text messages?

'Are we having fun, yet?' Those kind of text messages. He's an interesting guy. He's served our country in the military and should be commended for serving our country now.

One thing that you couldn't help but notice is that New Mexico made the national news several times with some seriously offensive remarks made by Republicans. Do you think the Republican Party handled this stuff appropriately?

You know, I tried to let the Republican do their politics in terms of their statements. I certainly made my statements to the press about what I thought about it. Chairman Weh wasted no time expressing his shock and displeasure with those statements and I thought that was appropriate. Had I been in his shoes, I'm sure I would have done pretty much the same thing.

Interview cross-posted at SFR's Swing State of Mind

Kate Beale: IMDb Ratings Reveal Attitudes Towards The Election, Race

2008-12-01T17:05:19Z

In the wake of the historic election of Barack Obama, Americans are preparing for and adjusting to the idea of black president in a distinctly American way.

IMDb's MOVIEmeter ratings, based on the consumer behavior of millions of IMDb users, reveal that directly following the election, viewers flocked to films and television programs depicting interracial interactions of all kinds. In a peculiar art/life nexus, a portion of the electorate is evidently grappling with race relations by watching movies and television programs on the topic, with some of these viewers going on to rate, comment, and discuss online.

Apparently, Comcast's decision to offer Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in the Free Movies On Demand section from Oct. 10th -Nov. 13th was neither hilarious coincidence, nor bizarre oversight.

According to IMDb, the popularity of the original Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), increased by 205% 'since last week' for the week of Sunday, Nov. 16th. That version is considered a classic on its cinematic merits and was included in the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movies of the Past 100 years.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is ostensibly about interracial marriage -- a liberal couple finds their principles challenged when their daughter brings home a black fiancé. But the subtext of the movie is the gap between advocating values such as 'diversity' and acting on that the conviction in practice -- the same principal behind the 'Bradley Effect' voters heard so much about this campaign season.

That theme may have had particular resonance for Americans unsure whether the US electorate would actually vote for a black candidate, despite his apparent advantage in the polls leading up to the elections. And following the election, to those marveling that we did so in the end, and digesting the implications of Obama's victory.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, of course, is widely considered the iconic movie about dormant racial anxiety in America. Some, during the campaign season, took to using the film's title in adjective form ('it all just seems very guess-who's-coming-to dinner'), often as shorthand for the embarrassing undercurrent of racial tension that seemed to color the political debate at times. Three days before the election, New York Times Op-ed columnist Frank Rich wrote a piece drawing explicit parallels between Senator Obama and Sydney Poitier's character in the film.

Tellingly, however, interest in other more obscure versions of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner increased over the same time period as well. The popularity ratings of a 1975 ABC TV movie, a 1998 TV Series released in New Zealand, and a short-lived 2003 UK series of the same name increased by 103%, 58%, and 49% respectively.

IMDb users also sought out less obviously relevant movies and TV programs -- a wide array of racially themed fare gained popularity around the election.

The popularity of Carbon Copy (1981) -- "An Upper-Class WASP businessman's life goes into a comedic tailspin when he learns he has an African American son from a previous relationship" rose 21% since last week (for the week of Sunday, Nov. 16th) according to MOVIEmeter.

Jungle Fever -- "Friends and family of a married black architect react in different ways to his affair with an Italian secretary" -- also saw an increase in IMDb popularity over the same period, gaining 15 percentage points.

Even Diff'rent Strokes -- "The misadventures of a rich Manhattan family who adopt the children of their late African American maid" -- received a modest boost, gaining four percentage points.

As of Sunday, November 23rd the weekly popularity rating of all versions of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are in decline. Carbon Copy, Jungle Fever, and Diff'rent Strokes have shed percentage points too, suggesting a distinct peak in interest levels surrounding the election.

Unlike polls, IMDb ratings are based not on self-reported data or extrapolation from small statistical samplings, but on the actual behavior of millions of users, most accessing the site from the comfort of their homes.

The rising interest in movies and programming dealing with interracial relations, particularly after the election, presents an unusually candid peek into how Americans negotiate and renegotiate identity through the prism of popular (and even not so popular) entertainment.

What effect, if any, rising interest in film and television productions about race will have on actual race relations remains to be seen. Still, a closer look at the ratings around the election provide an intriguing window into the fluid, nuanced, and sometimes hilarious ways Americans are seeking to understand race in America, the approaching presidency of Barack Obama, and perhaps, themselves.

Roxana Badin: Merit is Not a Dirty Word

2008-12-01T10:16:57Z

This Thanksgiving weekend, as I watched events unfold abroad, I was most grateful that the foolishness of election time is over. I don't miss the comedy, the verbs gouged and adjectives gutted, the nouns torn at the seams and fashioned into slogans. Before November 5, the assumption was that the electorate preferred relating to the candidates to making sure they possessed the right qualities to lead. Drop the final 'g' from your gerunds, my friend, and you too can prove just how much you understand the needs of the country and belong in the White House! Substance was traded in for populist appeal. That was before November 5 and I give thanks.

We no longer have to witness McCain, a multi-millionaire war hero and senator, and Obama, an ivy league-educated lawyer, professor and junior senator, look solemnly at reporters and, lest they be labeled elitist, insist they are the most regular of the regular. Nor do we have to watch Sarah Palin, with her pointy finger and false dichotomies, unblinkingly accept a seat on the express train to the White House in the name of gender equality. I do not miss looking on, mouth hanging open, as her appeal seemed to grow exponentially by the day among a Republican base that felt "she's just like us!" and, it was hoped, among independents and former Hillary supporters who might overlook her diametrically opposed views because "she uses Tampax just like we do!" No, I don't miss that.

I don't miss, not even a little, the Crazy Straw logic. That if anyone dared to utter any objection to Palin, supporters would claim that she was more qualified than Obama because she'd made more "executive decisions." Using the same reasoning, the president of the Hair Club For Men would also be more qualified. When they weren't gushing over how Palin's just the kind of woman they'd like to share a diet soda with, they were waiving "executive decisions!" high and ecstatically. I'm so very grateful that's over.

I could have done without Carly Fiorina's humorless reaction to the Tina Fey impersonations in the name of women's rights. In her eagerness to cry wolf, she completely missed the reality of political satire. Worse, when she repeatedly spat out accusations of "sexism" like a village priest at an exorcism, she took for granted a word that has taken years of painstaking, hard work by thousands of women and men to make legitimate simply in order to help a woman win a position she was unfit for. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful that this is in our past.

Before November 5, we had to watch Lady Rothschild explain, without a hint of irony, that she chose to endorse McCain because Obama, brought up by a single mother with limited resources, is an elitist. I am thankful that now the word elite is used in the press with admiration to describe the Indian commandos who risked their lives in Mumbai. Sharpened up, it has been used during election campaigns to kill (just ask Michael Dukakis).

I won't miss how the word "exotic" was put to the test, which was, apparently, good for fruit, vacations, and nude dancers, but not for candidates running for president. I'm thankful that an Obama victory proved that his "exotic" attributes were not the cause for concern that Pat Buchanan and others had hoped. We no longer have to endure spurious claims of "socialism" and I note that, as Obama chooses his economic team, nobody is accusing him of being a socialist now.

In the end, there was only so much we could take. On November 5 we ran for the theater exit. We declared in a clear voice: "Hold it! We like intelligence and hard work, clear thinking and consideration!" We like it when words mean something, when the capacity to communicate is respected. Sense was restored. Demagoguery was packed up in the trunk with the rest of the costumes.

As we now watch President-elect Obama appoint his cabinet, I'm sure everyone would agree that the "Regular Guy" standard should go the way of the sub-prime mortgage. After November 5, we no longer look to some stranger who claims to be a plumber to help us assess which economic road is best. Why did we before?

Followers of Lee Atwater-view politics as a game to be won at all costs. Maybe they didn't play the best game this year. Maybe the fact that this kind of cynicism didn't win has less to do with voters who saw through the pandering and more to do with an economy in dire straits. You can manipulate an electorate only for so long. If people are losing their homes, they can no longer be played like fiddles.

Maybe there's a deeper reason. When anything goes and no one is concerned about language, a kind of word deflation occurs that is dangerous in bleak times. Perhaps we felt it in our bones. Without respect for language, there is no compass, no north and south. We need words to help guide us. There was no more accurate measurement with which to assess which candidate was better qualified in this election than how each candidate used words to communicate who he was. One candidate did so thoughtfully and honestly; the other tried to use words to create the illusion that he was no better than we are. He lost.

When my Romanian parents arrived in the United States, they knew that the best way to unlock a country was by learning its language. I still have the dictionary that they used over the years to familiarize themselves with the nuances of English. Sometimes I'll come across a check or question mark or a word underlined. I take these markings as a testament to their wonder about the place in which they chose to build a new life. Appreciation for words is an appreciation for the future.

Given the choice between feeling validated about the place into which we were born and feeling assured about the future of the country in which we live we chose the latter. Even now, looking back on the newspapers and magazines that litter my floor, there is a basic premise that has changed since November 5: merit is no longer a dirty word.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Bernard Rowan: Change?

2008-11-26T15:55:47Z

Like many, I voted for Barack Obama because I am convinced that his rhetoric and intentions indicate a desire to change America. If it is Iraq, health care, energy policy, or education, I believe his campaign policy positions are closer to meeting the needs of Americans. I also agree that the time has come for a more progressive spike to our tax policies with respect to higher income earners. He won on a platform containing these elements, among others, and it's time to see what is done about it all.

These days, I'm beginning to wonder if Obama is going to be able even to live up to part of his promises. At first I was impressed by his alacrity in naming top Cabinet officials and speaking to the public about his economic plans. I recall my undergraduate professor of presidential leadership speaking about the errors of waiting too long to organize the first 100 days of an administration. Obama certainly isn't doing that -- which is a good sign.

However, I have to say there are at least two problems with his approach thusfar. He apparently has succumbed or had to go along with appointing "centrists" -- a lot of them -- to fill out his advance people, his working groups, and his proposed economic team. They have in turn crafted what I think are standard, tried-and-true, and perhaps overly worn recommendations for fixing our economic mess. Keynesian stimuli and bailouts plus public works. Even the rhetoric seems a bit canned, recalling -- with some modifications -- the era of Roosevelt and the Depression as in "relief, recovery, and reform."

But we're not in the Great Depression, and Obama was not elected to be a centrist. He best be careful. He is a progressive politician and an artful, meticulous campaigner, but his mandate rests upon appealing to a different energy, arguably.

When speaking of a mandate to change, it would make sense to ratchet up the advance discussion of reforms. There's no need to be linear about the economic recovery, or we'll never get past it. Obama was elected to change the way things work, and to do so for the benefit of Main Street. So simply, stimulating the economy and reassuring the markets, then moving on doesn't cut it.

Where is the emphasis on major reforms and re-regulation of profligate, excessive, disgusting, and immoral financial institutions, from their operations to the way chief executives and boards are getting a pass. Where is the ability of the people to require, in return for their burgeoning investments of tax money and indebtedness, a direct oversight of what is done with the money.

If it's credit swaps, derivatives, sub-prime loans, or what have you, the era of what passes for free markets is showing itself as begging perhaps the world's biggest governmental intervention in the private sector, at least on the finance side. And now, our auto makers are lining up, too.

There will come a day, absent major changes to what an automobile amounts to and runs on, that the United States will no longer make many cars. All of this money just delays reality -- if we believe in markets and the need to adapt.

Obama and the Democratic Party understand better than most that "freedom," "democracy" and "capitalism" are not enemies of or without active government -- especially for national security, a term all too often and foolishly reduced to and equated with the military and defense. This is a national crisis, and it demands more than bailouts and fiscal stimulus. It demands reform -- and now!

I don't see anything like this in Obama's centrist proposals to fix the economy. And of course, criticisms are readily available about the dire straits we are in, and the need to do something quick, and the stakes that are so apparent. Yes, and that's not going to the core, either of the mandate, or of the problems.

Second, re-naming too many Clinton-era appointees -- including Hilary Clinton herself -- is not "change." I voted for Obama because the Clintons have tried and had their turn to determine the vector of Democratic change in this nation. It's time to bring in a new generation of leaders, not just new versions of the same. And to those who say that Obama wants to "hit the ground running," there is more than one way to run a winning team, and more than one way to launch the administration. I'm not convinced that change agency is determining the choices as much as is political debts, promises, and efforts to gather the Washington elite.

And from Obama, that would be a disappointment. Here's hoping I'm proven wrong.

Harriet Rossetto: Barack Obama and the God of Love

2008-11-24T13:07:09Z

The winner of this election was not Barack Obama; the winner, by a landslide, was the God of Love who defeated his arch-rival, the God of Fear. Barack Obama was His messenger, a man who represents our highest, Holiest Selves. He is a man of integrity, a man who has integrated polarities: he is black and white; pragmatic and visionary; courageous and humble; a man of faith and intellect. For a brief, ecstatic moment, on November 4, we wept tears of joy as our differences and division dissolved in our embrace of this integrated man. For a brief, ecstatic moment we were whole; we were one.

Unfortunately, peak ecstatic moments are over far too soon and we return to the ashes of our divided selves, struggling to integrate fear and love by acting in loving ways no matter what we feel.

The God of Fear is a God of Polarization, not Integration. Those who worship the God of Fear are either/or, not both/and thinkers: science or religion; intellect or faith; good or evil. They polarize in order to control the fear of their own impulses and appetites. By projecting their disowned desires onto those who differ from them they are assured of their own righteousness and temporarily relieved of inner conflict. They have reduced morality to the issues of abortion, homosexuality and creationism and claimed the God of Fear as the One and Only God.

The God of Love commands us to wrestle daily with our broken-ness, our "human heart at war with itself," as Faulkner described. To be human is to be imperfect, a mix of holy and profane, animal and angel, mortal and immortal. We serve the will of the God of Love every time we "feed" our highest selves by acting in loving ways despite our fears, urges and judgments. The path to an integrated self is right action... we are commanded to act ourselves into right thinking and feeling.

Barack Obama has demonstrated that he walks his talk and puts principles above personalities in the way he has conducted his campaign. He is known as "No Drama Obama" and even his enemies have acknowledged the disciplined teamwork of his campaign, which has been remarkably free of backbiting and in-fighting. Anyone who has ever been on a committee or been a boss understands the challenge of managing people's differences of opinion and hurt feelings in order to unite in pursuit of a common goal. This is a remarkable accomplishment.

If Barack Obama's vision of hope and unity is to take root, each one of us must struggle to integrate ourselves by maintaining those thoughts, attitudes and actions that connect us to ourselves, others and the God of Love. We have to sweep our souls clean of feelings of unworthiness and self-righteousness and rid our spirits of the cobwebs of acedia. We have to take responsibility for our actions, make amends when we falter, and maintain our bodies, minds and relationships in the service of the God of Love.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Rupert Russell: Why the Conservatives Won't Crack-up, But the Left Probably Will

2008-11-24T10:23:32Z

The predictions of the conservative crack-up anticipating John McCain's defeat appear to have come to fruition. We hear of the post-election GOP power grab among the Governors in Florida, contenders for the chairmanship of the RNC, or the future presidential nominees racing to Iowa. Conservative politicians, pundits and intellectuals are openly struggling to define the reasons for Republic defeat, blaming everything from incompetence to immigration to incumbency.

Each reported argument, disagreement or challenge is welcomed by the progressive media as signs that the conservative crack-up is finally upon us. It isn't. In fact, the Left is in far greater danger of cracking up than the conservative movement ever has.

Conservative infighting is nothing new. Ideological fissures have existed since the battle between the libertarians and traditionalists of National Review in the 1950s to paleoconservative revolt from (alleged) neoconservative dominance in the 1980s. Nothing came of it. Movement conservatives under Eisenhower, Nixon (twice) and G. H. W. Bush threatened to leave the Republican Party and start afresh. It never happened. Evangelicals and anti-immigration zealots said "never" to McCain. They rallied before the convention.

The "conservative crack-up" trope goes back to a 1987 edition of The American Spectator. Disillusioned with Reagan's second term, conservatives debated whether the movement had a future. It was followed by the rise of the Christian Coalition, the founding of Fox News and The Weekly Standard, the explosion of conservative talk radio, Gingrich's Contract for America victory, and the Bush era of Republican dominance. Some crack-up.

Yet, the prediction persists relentlessly. Journalists like to dramatize high-profile defections and public criticisms within conservative circles as tectonic shifts or historic re-alignments. Conservatives threaten defection to pressure their superiors to toe their ideological line. For liberals, it's an exercise in wish-fulfillment: unable to unite themselves, they project their frustrations on hoping for the conservatives to "crack-up" instead.

But what exactly is going to crack-up? Is the Heritage Foundation going to stop sending policy memos to Republican staffers? Are Weekly Standard columnists going to stop appearing on Fox News discussion panels? Is Pat Robertson going to join forces with Howard Dean? The questions are rhetorical for a reason: the conservative Counter-Establishment is the most cast-iron entanglement of alliances and dependencies known in modern American history.

Uniting the factions is a strong cultural base. Becoming a conservative is more than signing up to a handful of policy positions or pulling the Republican leaver. It is a personal calling, a cause and crusade.

For the elites, conservatism is a privileged club with its own histories and rituals that are passed down across generations from experienced mentors to ambitious aspirants. They tell a story that runs from the fragile beginnings of the 1950s, the coming out party of the 1960s, the great advances of the 1970s, the victories of the 1980s, the struggles of the 1990s and the missed opportunity of the 2000s. They give them books to read, memorize and quote, together with the Brooks Brothers uniform to wear and Buckley poses to adopt. Soon, the young conservative has a job at a conservative organization, a new self-affirming social group of like-minded friends, from whom a spouse will the chosen to raise the next generation all over again.

Whether or not they trace their intellectual lineage to the traditionalism of Burke, neoconservatism of Strauss or libertarianism of Hayek, they share a common stigma that conservatism brings in the liberal settings they're forced to inhabit, for the most part, college or graduate school. It is their rejection from the "Liberal Establishment," and their rejection if it, that demarcates the boundaries of the big-tent of conservativism. The discomfort of ideological over-crowding never exceeds the dangers, real or imagined, of venturing out to a hostile, "Liberal" world.

For the grassroots conservatives, conservatism is a not a political game, but a moral struggle against Communists and terrorist appeasers, sex educators and abortionists, regulators and redistributors. These moral categories map onto Democrats and Republicans so perfectly that the loyalty to the GOP never requires reward as the opposing side doesn't hold a different point of view, it's in league with atheism (at best) and evil (at worst).

Newt Gingrich failed to pass a single pledge of the Christian Coalition's Contract with America, and George W. Bush did little to promote school prayer or fund faith-bases groups or ban gay marriage, despite the hot rhetoric. It was Bill Clinton who delivered them the V-Chip, school uniforms, the Defense of Marriage Act and Charitable Choice for faith-based groups. Yet Hillary Clinton was the one deemed the "Antichrist" among these campaigners, not the political secular and adulterous Gingrich .

The organizational matrix of the conservative Counter-Establishment maps perfectly onto this cultural arrangement. The genius of W. F. Buckley, Jr. was to place those with different ideological leanings within the same organization, NR. As conservatism expanded, this model was replicated. Major think-tanks and PACS embraced the diversity of the conservative movement under a single roof.

Sure, there are a few strict ideologues such as The Weekly Standard or The American Conservative, but these are small, elite outfits. They are noisy but have little impact on the grassroots activists, powerful interest groups and corporate-funded think-tanks that make up the core partnerships of the conservative coalition. And these partners are carefully catered for. Conservative entrepreneurs from Buckley to Weyrich to Norquist invest heavily in keeping them united, from banquets in Stamford, Connecticut to weekly meetings at the offices of American's for Tax Reform.

It is the Left that should be fearful of a crack-up. Its past is a history of fractures between whites and blacks, unions and feminists, moderates and radicals. The Left has never been culturally or organizationally unified but has always been and remains a balkanized mish-mash of interest and constituency groups, factions of the Democratic Party, partisan journalists and a disparate academic intelligentsia. The new progressive movement, and its rapid institution-building, represents another, albeit highly significant, Balkan state, not a new Leftist confederacy or empire.

Yet, for the first time, every stripe of the Left and center-Left has united, brought together through their mutual opposition to Bush expressed through the Obama candidacy. Now that Obama has won, the real test has begun. Once the excitement of victory passes, the interest groups will remain united so long as they get their piece of the pie and their privileges are protected. The first test will be the unions whose demands for card-check or the auto industry are already looking contentious among Democrats who they have invested in so heavily. Once Obama takes office, further conflicts will no doubt ensue. Activist journalists and bloggers will peel off as compromises are struck, half-measures are settled for, and his hawkishness towards Pakistan becomes foreign policy (we already saw the first signs of this when the Netroots revolted over Obama's support for the FISA bill last summer).

America has spoken: it is ready for change. The question for Left is: are you? Can the Left become a united front or will it remain a house divided against itself?

Lara M. Gardner: Have We Overcome?

2008-11-24T10:18:06Z

Isn't it ironic that as we're congratulating ourselves on our ability to elect a black president while we are simultaneously lamenting the passage of Proposition 8? We Americans have been quite pleased with ourselves because we were able to elect a black man to the highest office in the land. I would argue that we may have overcome something, but it is not bigotry. The day we will really know we have overcome bigotry is the day we elect a black, Atheist, lesbian -- that would be a feat.

Inherent in the post-election discussions of race and politics is the conclusion that because large segments of our population have moved away from open racism, we are beyond bigotry. Nothing could be further from the truth; we have simply traded one for another, or several others, as the case may be. And these latest forms of intolerance and discrimination are often made more palatable through religion, as open racism against blacks used to be.

Because of religion and its ever-encroaching move into the political spectrum, Americans were forced to live through an administration that would not allow medical research on single cells to help find cures for diseases in people who are alive right now. Because of religion, pro-life politicians gain support from citizens whose actual interests are ignored in favor of policies that benefit the extremely wealthy. Because of religion, all over the country laws like Proposition 8 proliferate.

In spite of Obama's election, what America has not given up and seems loathe to give up, regardless how far backward we move socially, morally, and legally, is religion. Why should it? Religion allows people to vilify those they don't understand. Simply claim that anything different from you is against your religion and you are protected by your God-given, inalienable right to believe.

It is truly a significant step in the right direction that a black man will be our president. It is evidence that progress is possible and that society is able to make changes that seemed impossible only decades earlier. Yet is seems to me that if we are ever able to really end bigotry, if we are ever able to end all forms of discrimination, we are going to have to take a cold, hard, honest look at religion and its role in the promulgation of hate and intolerance. Only then will we truly overcome.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Lee Stranahan: Hey, Ron Paul Republicans!?! It's Time For A GOP Palace Coup!

2008-11-22T15:48:19Z

With all the party and media babble about who is better equipped to take over the Republican party in the wake of the bloodbath of the '08 election, it's impressive how deeply the pundits have been able to repress the memory of the Ron Paul campaign.

After all, compare the Ron Paul 'Revolution' campaign with Barack Obama's now acknowledged electoral genius. That stuff Republicans are now realizing they have to do in the future? Paul did it months ago. Excited new voters beyond the base? Check. Raised massive amounts of money from small donations online? Ditto. Legions of creative people generating their own campaign content on YouTube and beyond? Did it. Young voters? Had those.

The biggest problem for Ron Paul and his supporters is the turd-in-the-punchbowl way they were treated by the Republicans. Remember Rudy's snide confusion over the idea that the United State's foreign policy may have somehow have been a factor in why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11? Recall the debate shunning?

But look how things have changed. McCain's psuedo-maverick-ism tore the Republicans a gaping new one after they collectively rejected Ron Paul; the only candidate with ideas for real, actual change...such as ending the Iraq War.

The beauty of the current GOP anarchy is that it may present the perfect chance for the anarachists to take over the establishment. Or the anarcho-capitalists or limited government small L libertarians and or whatever y'all can agree on. (And good luck on that -- agreement isn't what libertarians do well.)

The party is ripe for the taking. Ripe, I say!

It's weeks past the election. Everyone should have sobered up by now. The fact that there is a significant chunk of Republicans that are still crushing on Sarah Palin shows that it's time show the same mercy for the Grand Old Party that The Chief showed to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- any sense of rational thought is gone, so pull out the pillow and start smothering until the kicking stops.

Now here's a tougher question. Do you want the Republican Party? It's got high name recognition and if the two logo choices are the elephant or the donkey, I think the elephant wins. Sure, you don't want most of the people left behind after the Obama rapture devastated Karl Rove's dream of a Permanent Republican Majority and sent anyone with a bow tie, an IQ of over 100 and a dog earned copy of Atlas Shrugged floating off to conservative Valhalla. The ragtag band of people that remain in the blue hats mainly agree that gays shouldn't marry and that straights can't have abortions and that the unmarried gays shouldn't adopt the babies that the non-aborting straights have.

The appeal of Ron Paul was his ideas, not his lovable ole' funeral director looks. So it's time for someone to grab those ideas, grab the organizational skill of herding a bunch of individualists and grab control of the damn Republican party right now... before I have to listen to Mike Huckabee's jokes, Mitt Romney's dumb advice or Sarah Palin's effin' voice for the next four years.

Sean Jacobs: GOP ''... is now more like South Africa during apartheid'

2008-11-18T10:12:13Z

New York Times correspondent Frank Rich -- perhaps with the GOP's historic relationship with South Africa's Apartheid government in mind -- makes a present day comparison:

The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like "guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club," he was the first to correctly call the election.

Read the whole column here.

Shannyn Moore: The Sacrament of Democracy

2008-11-18T04:50:56Z

If democracy were a religion, voting would be the sacrament.

I grew up in what I call "The First Free-Range Organic Christian Church of Homer." Sundays brought a message, fellowship, and a line of repentant souls taking communion-a remembrance of sacrifice.

The first time I cast my vote, it struck me as similar. The blood shed for my right to stand at a flag draped table and make my choice part of the collective wasn't lost on me. I had one of those "Come to Jesus" moments and in 20 years I haven't missed an opportunity to vote. Unlike Christ, the idea of democracy has never shed a drop of blood; patriots did. The same can be said of the suffragettes. Unlike the sacrament celebrated in religious ritual, elections should not be faith-based. The framers never intended our government to be run on trust; hence the myriad of checks and balances. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Election integrity is not about restoring faith in the system. Checks and balances are. When we vote, the agreement we all make is we cast our ballots for candidates who may not be the victor. We know that. Taking the risk of voting for a loser only works if you have confidence the process is beyond reproach. It is equally vital the winning candidate have an agreement the citizenry will follow their lead. Leadership can only be ordained if the people know their votes counted.

The past eight years have shown us the result of questioned elections. After election disasters in Florida and Ohio, a good portion of the country didn't agree George W. Bush was legitimate. I know people who refused to call him President Bush because of the suspected election fraud.

Alaska has a rich history of questionable elections. 2008 has been no different. Anomalies prompt people to scratch their heads and watch just a little closer. From some reactions, you would have thought asking a question was "unpatriotic." After reporting on the 2004 Election tampering, and knowing full well it was questionable, I wondered what this year's ballots would tell us. Apparently, Alaskans have completely changed their "voting habits" to include: a mail-in preference, cross-ballot voting, and finally, registering to vote and then not showing up. Alaska headlines are screaming "record turnout!" But in truth, our percentage of voter turnout is still lower than our average historical Presidential election records show. So what? Does that mean we shouldn't ask questions and get answers about reconciliation? As Americans we pledge to hold our leaders accountable; why wouldn't we start by holding the process of elections to the highest levels of integrity.

The day after the election I was in contact with both the Begich and Berkowitz campaigns. I've been in very close contact with the Alaska Democratic Party which has filed Public Records Requests. Experts from around the country are more than happy to answer questions or to mull over possible explanations to the election anomalies. People much smarter than I are paying attention, and are asking their own questions. A reporter I've bumped into for several years called today. He wanted to know if I thought the current vote count in Alaska was still "stinky." Another local asked if I thought the process was now legitimized since Begich was now leading Stevens. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? That my questions would hinge on partisanship is insulting and indicates a complete lack of understanding. Anyone who thinks we don't need a more transparent election process because their candidate is in the lead is a pathetic partisan hack. Anyone who believes election integrity is a "fringe" issue mocks those who have died to either earn the right to vote or protect it. I became a voter registrar in February of this year. To want to count only votes cast for my party of choice is vulgar. Not watching the referee calls when your team is winning is to invalidate the game.

So do I still smell the mudflats? Yes. Do I know what the source of stench is? No. Could it be the late wafts coming off the 2004 election? Possibly. What I know most certainly is this: voting is a sacred right; a remembrance of those who fought hard and shed blood for a bulletproof idea. Guarding the integrity of elections is essential to our democracy and anything less is blasphemy.

Show up. Ask questions.

Every vote counts.

Jacki Zehner: The Trouble with America Is...

2008-11-17T15:10:21Z

The trouble with America is... Don't you just hate it when a sentence or conversation begins like that? I tend to hear it a lot as I spend a good deal of time in a foreign country, namely Canada. I also spent some time in France this summer and I heard it there too. With American financial problems being seen as the origins of the world's economic problems, it is understandable why people are upset and feel the need to share.

People have said to me that the trouble with America is that we allowed our financial system to get really messed up. They've said that America runs too high a budget deficit and expects the world's savers to just keep on funding it. Americans drive cars that use too much gasoline. Americans don't recycle as they should. Americans, as rich as they are, don't give enough to the world's poor. Americans think they are the center of the Universe. The list is long indeed.

I hate those words even more when the word "you" is there in the place of the word America. The trouble with you is... The words that follow generally represent some "truth" that the messenger is being cosmically forced to deliver. Or maybe it just feels that way. So, with that in mind, what is the trouble with America that is causing me, an otherwise happy and optimistic person, to continually wake up at 4 am?

In truth, there is so much trouble in America that the trouble with me is that I cannot sleep, am fired up, and feel called to action. I am having a marginally negative impact, or so I am told, on my husband, my kids, and perhaps my friends too. They seem to want the old Jacki back, the one that does not spend so much time on a soapbox. But should they?

The last time I remember feeling this fired up was many years ago while working in the executive office at Goldman Sachs, reporting to the two co-presidents and then-CEO Hank Paulson. My role was to "help manage the careers of the firm's managing directors" and specifically the women. One such woman, a managing director who felt her 15+ year career was over, was being pushed around from one job to another. In performance reviews, the higher ups made it seem that everything was OK and yet they slowly stripped away her responsibilities, taking away her confidence, ultimately, too. At the point I got involved, she was walking the halls of Goldman exposed. When I read the story in this Sunday's New York Times, "When Citi Lost Sallie," about Sallie Krawcheck's departure from Citigroup, it sounded like a somewhat similar situation.

How damaged and defeated they allowed the MD at Goldman to become enraged my sense of justice. I will never, ever forget the answer I got from a very senior person at the firm who had the power to do something. "Jacki, he said, the trouble with you is that you care too much." If you are a leader, a manager of your organization and you want to completely demoralize a passionate person who works for you, tell them those four little words. "You care too much."

Isn't the problem at the heart of the trouble with America is that we, as Americans, do not care enough? Back in those days at Goldman I cared so much that at the point when I did not think other people cared enough about what I cared about I had to leave. For me the issue was creating a powerful culture and for Sallie, it seems, it was serving her wealth management clients well. Over and over again these past few months, I have asked myself what headline in the newspaper, what announcement on CNN, what article in what magazine, will it take to get every person in this great country of ours to really start caring?

To be sure, we are, by many accounts, a generous country. Private philanthropy here is among the highest in the world and people give generously of their time in countless ways. We are a country that believes in change, as we have just proved. Some people, many people, out of love, compassion, fear and/or worry are putting themselves out there in ways big and small. To them I say thank you, congratulations, and keep going!

I am inspired by the activism I witness all around me. Last week my son had community service day at school. Instead of having regular classes all the kids in his grade cleaned desks, planted bulbs, and put down mulch. A week ago a friend with an incredible background in investment banking told me she wrote a letter on what she would do to solve some of the big financial problems and sent the letter to a governor she knew, using all the connections she could find to try to get that letter read. Two days ago while attending a conference at Morgan Stanley, I met a woman who lived in Washington who just showed up at Obama's campaign headquarters and said put me to work. There are many who feel similarly called to duty.

But sadly, for every person who is doing something, there are a whole lot of people that are not doing much. Yesterday I called up a friend, one of the smartest people I know in the mortgage market who, for more than a decade, managed the securitization desk of a large investment bank. I called him because I had just heard Larry Fink, the President of Blackrock, tell a group of 300 plus business woman at a conference his idea for solving the problems in the mortgage market. Fink's answer did not make sense to me, and he is actually one of the guys that the government calls upon for advice. My friend agreed that Fink's solution was not realistic and went on to explain very thoughtfully what he would do. His solution made sense so I suggested, well insisted, he put it forth in a public way. He is.

If you are angry and worried about the problems this country is facing, think about what you can do to help and do it. Just do it. Go pick up garbage in your town. Give excess "stuff" you have in your home away to those who may need it. Buy food and take it to the food bank. Lead the effort to get children in your neighborhood to do more community service. Invite someone who just lost their job over for a meal. Cancel your Christmas vacation and instead give that money away. Call your local non-profit and say put me to work. Write a thoughtful op-ed on your area of expertise and get it out there. Post a comment on something you read because it has moved you. Fight for someone that is getting mistreated in your workplace, particularly if that person is from an underrepresented group. Write a letter to your congressperson. Hold gatherings in your home to talk about financial preparedness. Submit your name for one of the thousands of jobs available in Washington. Do something and then keep doing something. Small acts matter. Big acts matter. It all matters.

Here's what may happen if we fail to act: As a country we are already walking around somewhat exposed. We have trillions of dollars of government, agency, municipal, asset-backed, and corporate debt out there that we are relying on the world to continue to finance. If the world does not believe we care enough to do the right things to ensure that debt will get paid back, and not with a massively deflated currency, then we will be in even deeper trouble than we are in now.

So may these troubling headlines, any troubling headline, be your call to action. May the dire circumstances, if not your own but others, serve as a wake-up call to those of us who are simply not doing enough and are capable of doing more. Aren't almost all of us capable of doing more? With the hope of change in the air and the promise of a new administration in Washington, let us, too, on a local level, be the change we wish to see. Look for a problem in the world that you can grab hold of and that drives people to say the trouble with you is. May the trouble with you be, and the problem with American be, we care too much.

*This piece was in part inspired by Rob Bell and his video RICH.

Tom Vander Ark: Leave Bad Schools Behind

2008-11-17T14:06:31Z

As the Harry & Nancy Show contemplates, long overdue changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, called No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, by the current White House), they should consider calling the next installment the Leave Bad Schools Behind Act of 2009.

There are lots of problems with NCLB, but let me defend its basic premise:

• A commitment to measurement. We can improve what we measure and NCLB simply required states to measure academic progress in reading and math in most grades. Tests could certainly be improved to more frequently and less obtrusively measure progress (i.e., online adaptive assessment).

• Use of disaggregated data. For the first time, states were required to look at test data by race, income, special needs. Previously states and districts were able to live in Lake Wobegon where all kids were above average. NCLB made us all confront the ugly truth that low-income kids are (on average) poorly served educationally.

• Qualified teachers. While based on the flawed premise that certification equals qualified, NCLB at least supported the goal of a good teacher in every classroom

• School accountability. While far from perfect, NCLB spelled out a system of progressive intervention starting with public humiliation and ending with replacement. Prior to NCLB, few states or cities had a coherent public plan to deal with chronic failure. And NCLB set a floor with a basic intervention plan.

The first unfortunate thing about NCLB is that congress didn't revise it three of four times since passage in 2001. A little tinkering in the definition of bad schools and good teachers and reasonable goals for subgroups of kids would have gone a long way to making it workable. By postponing the fix for eight years, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act now requires major open heart surgery. I'll leave it to EduWonk.org to enumerate the detailed changes required, but I'd like to suggest a goal and a strategy that should be central to the next revision of ESEA.

The goal of ESEA should be to ensure that every family in these United States has access to at least one good school -- a school where students have a good shot at college and careers. There's obviously more to a good education, but a good school should at least help students leave college eligible (i.e., able to pass a community college placement exam and earn credit without remediation).

A 'good school' goal requires a serious accountability system, a system that differentiates between 'chronic failure' and 'room for improvement' (something NCLB doesn't do). A 'good school' guarantee would first identify, then intervene, and finally close and replace bad schools. States actually had some flexibility to make these distinctions but few did and none built the capacity (government or market) to fix or replace a large number of failing schools.

When comparing good schools and bad schools, there's only one thing that is different -- everything. The bad news is we don't know how to dramatically improve failing schools, at least secondary schools (i.e., middle, junior and high schools). It's really hard to change everything in short order especially in a poorly resourced community. The good news is that, over the last ten years, we've learned a great deal about starting good new schools. Thanks in part to a number of generous donors, there are more than one hundred new school developers that have opened thousands of good new secondary schools in the last decade. The most reliable quality comes from charter school developers (e.g., Achievement First, Aspire, High Tech High, Green Dot, KIPP, Mosaica, National Heritage, PUC, and Uplift just to name a few of the 80 such organizations).

The 'good school' goal requires a supply side strategy, in particular, a dramatic strengthening of quality school developers. As Rick Hess recently pointed out (www.AEI.org), strong accountability requires a strong supply of quality teachers and schools. For charter management organizations (CMO's) it means access to public facilities and funding parity with other public schools (they don't get facilities and they operate on about 20% less then district schools). It would be easy and relatively inexpensive for states to create funding and facilities parity for top performing CMO's.

When Congress reauthorizes ESEA, the Leave Bad Schools Behind Act of 2009 should focus like a laser on closing and replacing schools that are failing most students and should build a vibrant supply side of quality school developers full of enthusiastic well paid and unencumbered teachers. We don't need another federal bailout, we need a federal venture fund ten times the combined size of the Charter School Growth Fund and the New School Venture Fund. Loan forgiveness for teachers and school leaders would help fill the human capital pipeline. Lifting state caps on charter schools would ensure continued growth of this important sector.

While not easy for a Democratic Congress, the courage to close bad schools and support for good new schools would help ensure that every student in America had access to at least one good school.

Drew Westen: Lessons Learned from the Election of 2008: Looking Back and Looking Forward

2008-11-17T10:31:45Z

As the dust settles from the remarkable election of 2008 and the Obama transition is in full tilt, it is worth taking stock of lessons learned so they can inform not only campaigns that follow but the way Democrats and progressives pursue their legislative agendas.

From the standpoint of political scientists and their statistical models of electoral outcomes, the election was in the bag by the end of August, if not the end of June. My colleague at Emory, Alan Abramowitz, has developed one of the simplest and most powerful models, which predicted the popular vote within a percentage point or two (predicting roughly a 54 to 46 percent rout). In this model, every major factor that predicts electoral success--the popularity of the incumbent (the lowest in the history of Gallup polling), the state of the economy (measured in terms of gross domestic product), and "incumbent fatigue" (the same party had been in power for two terms) was running against John McCain. Other models from political science add the presence of an unpopular war--a fourth strike against McCain.

So perhaps we need look no further. All Democrats need to do is to wait until a corrupt, incompetent, reckless Republican President gets two chances to collaborate with an ideologically extreme Republican Congress and makes such a mess of the country and the world that even suburban white Republicans vote Democratic. But hopefully that will be a long wait.

Harnessing People and Technology

Two additional and interrelated factors not included in these models clearly stand out that reflect the particular skills of the Obama campaign and its chief architects: their extraordinary capacity to organize people and their equally extraordinary understanding of how to use cutting-edge technology.

In her speech to the Republican Convention, Sarah Palin mocked Obama's work history, suggesting that the difference between a community organizer and a small-town mayor was that a mayor has responsibilities. Today, I'm sure John McCain wished he had instead selected a community organizer for his running mate. Watching the Obama "ground game" in action--and the fact that the election was well on its way to over in many states with early voting days before November 4--reminded me of research on ant and bee colonies I had read in a college course on the evolutionary biology of social behavior. The trio of Obama, Axelrod, and Plouffe knew how to organize people in a way that makes Karl Rove's mobilization of ten million new voters (largely fundamentalist and evangelic Christians) that delivered Bush the presidency in 2004 look like a trial run.

Equally important was the fact that Obama was the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt (who used radio to reassure the American people and maintain a personal connection with them) to command a substantial technological advantage over his opponents. Ever since Eisenhower spent over a million dollars advertising on the newly emerging medium of television, Republicans have consistently had the edge on technology, including voter databases that were as essential to Bush's victory in 2004 as to Obama's in 2008. John McCain never learned to use that large system of tubes youngsters in their 50s and 60s know as the Internet, whereas the Obama campaign used new media to stay in constant contact with their supporters, to spread the word to potential supporters, and to amass huge sums of money that gave them the edge in voter mobilization and every form of campaign advertising.

Mobilizing Emotion: The Message and the Messenger

Yet none of these factors--the Bush legacy that bedeviled McCain, which he had to embrace to win his party's nomination but ultimately tightened like a noose around his political neck as November approached, or the Obama team's ability to mobilize people and technology--can explain what happened between mid August, when McCain had caught up to Obama in most polls (and early September, when McCain took his first clear lead) and November 4, when Obama achieved a decisive victory. Nor can these factors explain why Obama, who was steadily losing ground to Hillary Clinton from the summer of 2007 through early November of that year (when she broke 50% in the national polls among Democratic voters and seemed, according to many commentators, "inevitable"), suddenly took off after his speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa, which many observers described as a turning point in the Democratic nomination process.

To understand what happened in November and December of 2007 and again in September and October of 2008 requires an understanding of what ultimately moves voters: the emotions that motivate virtually all human behavior. In October of 2007, the Obama who had tried to win the traditional Democratic way--by focusing on the relative merits of his 10-point plans, using language that was often more nuanced than moving--was running neck-in-neck with John Edwards for second place. The reality is that there wasn't much difference between his 10-point plans and those of his rivals. But there was an enormous difference between him and his rivals when he chose to use it: a capacity to inspire that we see only four or five times a century in American history. In November of 2007, the Obama who had captured the imagination of the nation with his 2004 address to the Democratic Convention (and rekindled that imagination on a blustery day in Springfield in early 2007 with an awe-inspiring address announcing his candidacy for the Presidency) re-emerged at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa and never looked back. Obama found hope, and he began to inspire it again.

Although for months pundits continued to frame the race as a battle between Obama and "the Clintons," the reality was that it more like a contest between Bill Clinton (or JFK, or FDR) and Hillary Clinton--a candidate with an extraordinary capacity to inspire versus a candidate with many gifts except that one. No doubt, the capacity to organize and mobilize people was one of the decisive factors in the election of 2008. But that capacity itself was dependent upon not only the skills of the Obama team but upon the rare personal qualities of Obama himself. For the next several months, many political commentators called for Obama to move beyond his message of "change" and toward the approach to campaigning that has been the downfall of Democratic politicians for generations: peppering voters with facts, figures, and policy positions and assuming they will make a rational choice between bundles of plans. But we don't choose any of the important people in our lives that way, whether our spouses or our Presidents. Obama beat Hillary Clinton the same way he beat John McCain: by out-inspiring them, boxing them into the role of the candidate against hope, and defining himself as the candidate of change in a year in which Americans wanted nothing more desperately than to put our nation on a different track.

But hope and inspiration, by themselves, are not enough to win the White House. No one has ever won the presidency without making a case against his opponent, and no one has ever won who failed to address attacks from the other side (as Michael Dukakis and John Kerry would now be the first to acknowledge). As I argued in The Political Brain, Democrats' ambivalence about aggression has been as much their downfall in prior elections as their irrational commitment to rationality--their belief that good ideas sell themselves, irrespective of the way they are presented and by whom. If the Obama of November and December of 2007 began to channel voters' hopes, the Obama of September and October 2008 began to channel and address not only their hopes but their fears--about the economy, about John McCain, and ultimately about himself.

As an article in the New York Times put it in early September,

A new character is making a debut at Senator Barack Obama's campaign rallies: His name is John McCain. It began quietly on Monday in Michigan, but grew in volume as Mr. Obama made his way from Flint to Farmington Hills, carrying over to a speech on Tuesday morning in Ohio. By the time he arrived for an evening stop in the southwestern tip of Virginia, Mr. Obama's sales pitch contained nearly as many references to Senator McCain as to himself, suggesting how the McCain campaign has been driving the recent dialogue of the presidential race. "John McCain says he's about change, too--except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics," Mr. Obama told his supporters here.

By early September, the Obama campaign had discovered that hope--and even substance, of which he had provided plenty over the course of twenty-plus debates and hundreds of stump speeches--was not enough. The constant body shots from his opponent--that he was elitist, outside the mainstream, too full of himself (read: uppity), not really "one of us," the kind of guy who eats arugula and "pals around with terrorists" (whichever is worse)--had taken their toll, and although Obama had given Americans plenty of reasons to vote for him, he hadn't offered them any clear narrative about what would happen if they voted instead for McCain.

But in the closing eight weeks of the campaign, Obama controlled the four stories that matter most in an election: the story you tell about your yourself (that he was the candidate of change, fleshing out what he meant by change in his address at the Democratic Convention and in every major speech thereafter), the story you tell about your opponent (that he was four more years of Bush), the story the other candidate is telling about himself (McCain the maverick, which Obama countered by citing McCain's proclamation that he had voted with Bush over 90% of the time and parrying, "That's not a maverick, that's a sidekick"), and the stories McCain was telling about Obama (that he lacked the experience and judgment to lead, which events transpired to allow Obama to counter with the entire nation watching). Obama did it his way, not resorting to the kind of gutter politics he clearly abhorred, but laying out a coherent narrative about what a McCain presidency would mean to a nation that had endured eight years of George W. Bush.

No doubt, the financial meltdown that began in the middle of September helped seal John McCain's fate. But in electoral politics, stories don't write themselves. One of the major mistakes Democratic candidates have often made is to assume that voters will connect the dots for themselves (e.g., about the draft-dodging W attacking the war hero Kerry) or that the media will do it for them. In this case, Obama wisely chose not to let facts speak for themselves (as they clearly had not done two months earlier when McCain succeeded in spinning a stunningly successful Obama tour of Europe and the Middle East into a beauty pageant allegedly bespeaking Obama's narcissism, empty celebrity, and appeal to foreigners). In a speech in Colorado on September 16, Obama began to tell a story about the financial crisis and John McCain's place in it that would have made it difficult for McCain to take a coherent position on the economic crisis even if he had one to offer:

Now I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for all of the problems we're facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. Because the truth is, what Senator McCain said yesterday fits with the same economic philosophy that he's had for 26 years. It's the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down. It's the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It's a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people.

We've had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples' life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up.

This passage is effective in both its narrative coherence--it tells the story of how we got to this point, who was responsible, and why McCain could not possibly be the one to lead us out of it--and in its emotional resonance. It begins with magnanimity and a sense of fairness, not attempting to blame the entire crisis on McCain but making clear his complicity in it and his ideological commitment to the causes of it. It uses language like "common-sense regulation" that appealed to a populist public that knew it had been swindled and was no longer buying Republican lines about government as the problem. It took the abstractions of a Wall Street meltdown and a credit crisis and turned them into the experience of everyday people: "You feel it in your own lives," he told his listeners, and described how the hope of a "dignified retirement for our seniors" was slipping away. You can picture the people he is describing, and they could picture themselves, their parents, and their grandparents.

At the same time, the nation watched as the two candidates showed what they were made of in confronting the economic meltdown, and the Obama campaign lightly reinforced what voters were observing in McCain with their own eyes with words like "erratic" and "out of touch." McCain had tried to make Obama's judgment and experience a voting issue. It had not worked for Hillary Clinton, and it wasn't likely to work for McCain, but the contrast between McCain and Obama's response to the unfolding economic crisis completely undercut the attempt to make voters anxious about Obama's judgment. Instead, what voters accurately perceived, using what the political scientist Samuel Popkin described as "low-information rationality," was one candidate who careened from one posture to another in a desperate attempt to appear presidential and another candidate who seemed calm and steady in the most stressful circumstances--precisely what voters mean by presidential. Nearly a week after Election Day, six out of ten voters reported that they had no idea what Obama would do to get the country out of its financial mess, but they had the confidence he could do it. McCain had succeeded in making voters anxious about a McCain presidency on the issue that worried them most, whereas Obama had allayed their fears.

At the end of the campaign, Obama returned to a positive message that emphasized his values and his personal biography in just the way that empirically wins elections but that Democrats have been slow to embrace. His 30-minute message to the nation on the eve of the election was a model of how to win hearts and minds. It was not a discourse on the fine points of policy, but it was hardy devoid of substance. It was an emotional argument for his presidency--a message that embeds reasons within an emotionally compelling narrative. He wove together his own life story with the stories of four Americans and their families who were facing precisely the kinds of problems the rest of the nation was facing. His narration was moving, personal, and laden with the values he shares with his fellow Americans (personal responsibility, hard work, compassion, fairness), yet woven into its fabric were bulleted plans that described his vision for the future and what he would do as president that emerged in brief text overlays on top of the emotional message.

Moving Voters, Moving Forward

Voters are neither rational nor irrational (although at times they can be both). They vote with their values as well as their interests, and a good candidate and a good message appeals to both.

Candidates and campaigns needn't choose between reason and emotion. A good message is one that draws people's attention, gives them pause to reflect on what has happened and what we need to do, and moves them to act.

Candidates can incite and channel both the hopes and concerns of the electorate without wallowing in the gutter of demagoguery. Barack Obama would have been derelict in his duty as a candidate if he had not made clear that John McCain's answer to the collapse of the economy--radical deregulation--was also the cause of it. Like other mammals, we evolved both positive and negative emotions for a reason, and the reasons are not redundant. In recent history, bad candidates have won elections by demagoguing fear and hate, but good candidates have lost elections by failing to elicit negative emotions about candidates who should have made the electorate anxious or angry. Just as reason versus emotion represents a false antinomy that has hamstrung Democratic and progressive thinking, strategy, and messaging for decades, so does positive versus negative campaigning. You can lie by offering false hope (e.g., promising to lower taxes dramatically while balancing the budget) just as you can lie by offering false fears.

Messages matter. Compelling narratives, carefully crafted one-liners, and pithy phrases are no substitute for carefully thought-out policy positions if you want to govern well. But carefully thought-out policy positions are no substitute for compelling narratives, carefully crafted one-liners, and pithy phrases that capture the essence of your values or vision if you want to govern at all.

And there is nothing as powerful in politics as a powerful messenger. This time, this moment, the American people found that messenger.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation."

Sarah van Gelder: Pranksters Hack the New York Times

2008-11-16T21:25:14Z

The YES Men have done it again -- only this time with a new level of smarts and pizazz.

Last week, they printed over a million copies of a spoof issue of The New York Times and distributed them around the country. What made the prank remarkable is that the content is truly visionary. The great news from July 4, 2009, is that the Iraq War is over. The U.S. Congress has adopted universal health care. Thomas Friedman has admitted how wrong he has consistently been on the war, and other matters, and thrown in the pen, and there is a new S.A.N.E. economic policy.

The YES men started out as two small-time pranksters. One was involved in the "Barbie Liberation Front," which swapped out the voice boxes of GI Joes and Barbie dolls (so GI Joe was talking about shopping while Barbie was looking to blow people up). The other inserted into an action video game avatars of guys in swim suits blowing kisses.

They joined forces and graduated to a website that mimicked the WTO site, but with their own special slant. The website resulted, to their surprise, in speaking invitations from around the world. So, dressed in thrift store suits and ties, they showed up at conferences and conventions as WTO representatives, where they proclaimed the organization -- having contributed to global poverty and environmental decline -- would be closing down. Among other pranks. You can read their story in their own words here.

They pulled the same scam on Dow Chemical, when they announced to global fanfare that the company would take full responsibility for the casualties resulting from the Bhopal chemical spill -- a claim the real Dow Chemical than would find itself vigorously denying.

These pranks, while showing increasing sophistication and pointed commentary, focused on the deep flaws of major global players. This latest prank, which clearly was produced by a larger team, shows instead what could go very right in the world. How about a Safeguards for a New Economy (S.A.N.E.) economic policy that caps CEO pay and places a tax on stock transactions? Or a bike path running the length of Manhatten? Or free tuition at public universities.

Here's the pranksters' video release. As one of the women interviewed says, "What if? What if?"

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.