McCain, the new Nixon

Losing an election you think you should have won or deserved to have won can leave a bad taste in your mouth.  In 1960, Richard Nixon was an accomplished politician who had immense exposure to the political process.  He had made large contributions to the national welfare when he served as acting President during Eisenhower’s convalesce from his heart surgery.  Then, Nixon  exercised the presidential power in a judicious and thoughtful manner.  So when Nixon soon afterwards lost to a rich playboy, John F. Kennedy, whose track record in the House and Senate was flimsy and unsubstantial – well, it must have hurt.

The hurt did not go away.  And when Nixon was elected president in 1968, the American people got a battle-tested politician, but they also got one with an enormous chip on his shoulder.  Winning didn’t rid him of that chip.  That chip, which historians are still trying to figure out in terms of size and dimension, was needless to say… huge.  And it only got bigger.  

The presidency is a terrible outlet for one’s anger, as the oval office was never intended to be a therapist’s couch.  Nixon could not diffuse his anger over the past or his fear of the past repeating itself – all of which prevented him from being an effective and uplifting leader.

When I look at McCain, I sometimes think he too is quite bitter about the past – bitter about losing to George Bush in the 2000 primaries.  Because of that year’s drawn out cliffhanger of the presidential election – Gore v. Bush  - it is easy to forget the moment when McCain had won the GOP Republican New Hampshire primary and appeared well-positioned for the presidential bid until he was put away in South Carolina by Bush.  

What a bitter pill to swallow over the next eight years… It must have been difficult for McCain to watch George Bush run the country into the ground, and to his current dismay, McCain felt obliged to help him in the effort so he could be perceived as a loyal GOP.   McCain, unlike Nixon, did not get the luxury of being a leader in exile.  No, my friends, McCain was a leader, being lead by his conqueror, no doubt somewhat against his will, and certainly against his better judgment.  

So now he wants to be president, again!?  Critics say the McCain in 2000 would have been the perfect candidate for 2008.  I couldn’t agree more.  Not because the times have changed, but rather because it appears that McCain, himself, has changed.  No longer the maverick positioning himself to change the world but now only a maverick in the sense of distancing himself from George Bush and, unfortunately, the last eight years of, well, John McCain.  Policy issues aside, I don’t think I want a president who is under the surface is pissed off, or should be pissed off, at himself.  It may not be apparent to everyone including to McCain.  But he should be pissed off, pissed off at George Bush and his policies, and pissed off at himself for going along with them. 

You have to ask why McCain is doing this to himself.  The whole act of campaigning would just seem to relive his loss to George Bush and his dutiful acquiescence to the Bush White House.  If McCain wins it would be less joyful  and more of a relief and sense of payback, the type that Nixon no doubt felt in 1968 and 1972.  But if McCain loses to Obama, he’ll have lost to someone even more inexperienced than George Bush.  How’s that going to feel?  

Well pretty good for the rest of the country.

Star Maps

A friend of mine from California said if these Wall Street types think they are stars, finance stars, maybe there should be a star map that shows where they live.  

I am sure that a few disgruntled americans, workers, investors, farmers you name it would love to buy one.  check out where these people call home.  maybe even catch a moment and have a conversation.

If they had one of these maps, it would make the paparazzi look like a society club well mannered and reserved.  I am sure that these new star gazers might shoot more than photographs.

Regulating Regulations

According to many on Wall Street, the proposed financial bail out couldn’t be instituted too soon.   They say it is necessary to save the Economy.  Yet, these same financial professionals – investment bakers and hedge fund managers – bristle at the regulations the government will impose to safeguard against future financial crises.  At the mere mention of market regulations, these professionals respond with the age-old notion of the “Free Market.”   “But we need a free market.”  A free market is the only way to create wealth (at least their wealth).”  “A free market is the only way to keep this country great.”  Free Market?!  This term is bandied about more than patriotism, love and honor.  Let’s be honest, what really is a free market. 

The truth is this country has never had a completely free market.  We have always had government regulations.  Private property itself betrays our need and desire for regulations.  The idea of private property and how we define it is a form and complex form of government regulation.  If we did not have private property regulations, theft would be a fairly common and accepted form of property conveyance. 

As any economist will state, private property is the cornerstone of capitalism and the financial markets because you cannot sell something you cannot own and you wouldn’t buy something you couldn’t own.  The markets therefore need the notion of private property and therefore, need and desire regulation.  So when the people who say that they want a free market without regulations what they really mean is that they want the market to have the kind of regulations they want and can profit from. 

Today a shareholder or mortgage holder who has been damaged by the miscues of a Wall Street professional, whose greed for fees and wanton disregard for market risk led him to make the trade that wiped out the man’s saving, is only able to seek redress through the court system. How’s that a free market?! 

If we had a real free market system in place, this aggrieved investor would be able to go to whatever posh enclave where this professional lives to talk about their previously unacknowledged business transaction.  They could discuss and if the aggrieved investor needs to pull out a sawed off shot gun, so long as it is in the spirit of free market negotiations, to impress upon the professional a need for some sort of recompense. Maybe the fifth car in the professional’s garage still has enough resale value to make the investor whole.  Some may say such action is lawlessness.  On the contrary, it is the most direct and basic of claw back provisions.

Heartless, savage, perhaps; but it is no more savage than allowing a few people in a corporation take advantage of masses of people.  It just depends on your view of savagery.  We watch the nature channel and see the beauty of the lion hunt let us not forget that the lioness will rip the intestines out of a gazelle.  Why would it be so bad if a laid off worker did it to a hedge fund manager.  Mutual of Omaha would be proud to capture that on film.  At the very least society should will capture these financial types in white-collar prisons and like Mutual of Omaha tag them for future observation.

It is important to realize that capitalism is not amoral.  Far from it, capitalism is in fact a very complicated and nuanced form of morality.  Under its umbrella of freedom of choice, Capitalism allows for almost every paradox to exist and flourish.  People can take advantage of other’s lack of knowledge yet would be condemned if they stole.  It is in fact this tension that gives capitalism its power as an economic engine.  We want comfort with novelty, bounty for all while we give rewards for individualism stability along with nimbleness.  I have nothing against accepting the contradictory morality of capitalism, but morality it is and practicing it is as much a moral choice as saying lynching hedge fund managers is bad. 

If we want to punish these people, then punish them but don’t feel remorse.  If you don’t want to punish them then don’t, but don’t obsess that got away with something.  Lynching these people would not necessarily be bad if we agree that that should be the punishment for the wrongs (and again that is an opinion) that they do against people and therefore society.  We kill people for less and these people have made a lot more.

It’s Football, Stupid

Here is the thing I am struggling with about Obama.  I don’t think he watches football.  I’d like him to like football, but I need him to at least watch football.  Oh, he may watch football, but he doesn’t watch football. He’s one of those people who goes to the game in a luxury box and socializes hoping no one asks him how the teams are going to do this year. 

Yet, he does watch Sportscenter so he likes sports enough and has that sports mentality.  But why am I not seeing it?  I think to win he’ll have to show it.  

Pretty much everyone whose has been elected has shown it, or in the case of Bush 41, has shown that his opponent watched even less sports.

Reagan, well Reagan was the Gipper and was a sports announcer.  I don’t know if he watched football though, but he could have.  

Bush 43.  He was a cheerleader.  So he knew instinctively that people love to cheer for football.

I am not sure if Clinton likes the game, but he likes games.  He probably was happy to watch the cheerleaders and always hoped there would be a cut away shot to them.  Preferably one when their skirts flew up.

Gerald Ford, he was an All-American football player, center on the University of Michigan football team.  

Nixon was a great football fan.  Penn State fans still probably hold a grudge as he called Texas in 1969 to congratulate them on winning the National Championship even though Penn State was also undefeated that year.  Nixon understood the political power of football or more appropriately that everything including football was political.  At the final season game, between Texas and Arkansas, he presented the Texas coach with a plaque that said Texas was the National champion.  And the polls followed suit.

Kennedy, JFK, played football.  Actually, we don’t know if he played football but he was strategically photographed throwing a football.

Who of our recent Presidents were football people?  Carter?  The guy wore cardigans and well didn’t seem to have an interest in football.  With that said, he was a one term president.

Obama seems to be that type of guy.  He seems to be destined to join the various non-football people who ran for president.  Adali Stevenson: the man never played football.  Bob Dole, never played.  Dole, not a player, nonetheless bowed down to the importance of the game: he chose Jack Kemp to be his vice presidential candidate.  Kemp was an excellent quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the early sixties.

If America is going to align itself with Obama, Obama must show his allegiance to football.  I’m not looking for him to put on the pads or sing the National Anthem at the Michigan-Ohio State game; though both states are in play and the combination of football and patriotism while being shamefully opportunistic would no doubt play in, well, Peoria.  But he needs to do something, anything. Throw a football, wear a jersey or just appear with Terry Bradshaw.  Hell, Bradshaw should have been put on the ticket instead of Biden.  Bradshaw isn’t just able to put his finger on the pulse of America, that pulse comes to Bradshaw.

It’s now third and long for Obama.  It’s not quite time for a “Hail Mary.”  If Obama doesn’t do something, he’ll fumble away when it seemed like he was going for an easy touchdown. 

I know all this talk about football might be a little much, but I just hope Obama understands the euphemism before it is too late. 

New Nails

It has come to the attention of the electronic world that women with long nails have yet another thing to be unhappy about.  Because the Iphone’s touch screen operates on the electrical impulses of the human finger, a human nail does not register on the pad and therefore women with long elaborately manicured nails cannot operate these devices. See

 http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/29052;_ylt=AtzxjeB.i3VHUriBvpAo1XQxLpA5  

These women have used the IPhone to bemoan the fact that the world and its devices are misogynistic.  

This is what I don’t understand about these nails.  they are so elaborate and women spend so much time being manicured, why not when they are manicured, instead of just putting in the rhinestones and gems and painted pictures, they have the nail place put an electronic stylus on their nail that would allow them to operate these devices.  Far more precise than a human finger touch, these women will now actually be able to operate these devices in a far more efficient fashion than the normal unmanicured person.

But let’s not stop there.  With electronics becoming more compact and powerful, why not add all sorts of features to these wondrously long and elaborate nails.  These women could attach a blue tooth phone headset onto one of their nails.   And with some of these nails being as large as they are you could put a blackberry or GSP navigation device on them.  Why not both, a person has more than one finger, you know.  

With ten digits, there are an infinite number of devices possible, and these women could literally have the world at there finger tips. 

“Dem” bums

Now that my party, the Democratic Party, has chosen its, our, my, candidate for President, watching the beginning of the 5 month Presidential campaign unfold must be like what a Brooklyn dodger fan felt while watching their beloved Dodgers in the late 1940’s and 1950’s when the Dodgers flirted with success every year only to more often than not stumble and leave their fan base disappointed and scratching their heads for answers and muttering, “Dem bums.  Wait’ll next year.”

Though I never watched any of these teams except for an occasional documentary, I fell in love with the almost sisyphisian nature of these beloved bum who while they had assembled a great team would, except for 1955, fall short because of their opponent’s, often the New York Yankees, talent, dumb luck or poor planning

For the last forty years, my Democrats have played like these valiant Dodgers — well meaning, often seeming to have the advantage, only to stumble in the political fall classic.  These Dem(ocratic) Bums always disappointed us.  Leaving us wondering how it all went wrong, and all we could say was, “Dem Bums, wait’ll next year.”

If history can teach us anything, it is Dem bums can find away to stumble and falter away an election just like dem Bums from Brooklyn lost their way in October.  In 1968, Dem Bums floundered because of the difficult nature of advancing civil rights to a reluctant nation and the horrors of the Vietnam War.  Though they did not initially send in American troops, they did make it a truly American War.  As a result they lost to Richard Nixon a man of dubious popularity and integrity.  

While you cannot fault them for losing under these circumstances, you have to wonder how and why the Democrats created the situations that lead to their demise.  They escalated the war in Vietnam and they could have managed the civil rights movement a little better.  True, you can say that the problems with the civil rights movement came from a fringe group of fanatics; however, these fanatics are democratic fanatics and are often the tail that wags the party dog.  Instead of dealing with it as a party so they could solve their problems, the Democrats aired their dirty laundry in public and lost the election and any chance to control the agenda for the next eight years, the years when the decisions that would affect these and other important issues were made.

Note to Obama, even under the weight of the Vietnam War, Hubert Humphrey almost pulled off the victory. Even though Johnson was an extremely unpopular war President, like Bush is now, Humphrey was able to distance himself enough from Johnson and when Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of Vietnam and a peace deal proposal, Humphrey shot up in the polls to a dead heat at the time of the election.  Could it happen again so all we can say is, “Dem Bums, Wait’ll next year?”

1968 was only the beginning.  While 1976 would seem to be a shining moment for our bums, it did nothing for the party in terms of either establishing a direction or identity.  Jimmy Carter was and still is a well meaning and principled man, but he did nothing to invigorate the party.  In fact, he had a golden opportunity to give the Democratic party some cohesion but failed to such a degree he almost lost his bid for re-nomination as the party’s Presidential candidate to Edward Kennedy.  Much to his credit, though little to the Democratic parties use, his stature grew after he left office in much the same way the stature of Dem Bums from Brooklyn grew after they left Ebbets Field.  Again after Carter, it was wait again till next year, well 4, no 8, no 12 years, a drought that would make even the most die hard of Dodger fans nostalgic.

Since 1976, with the exception of Bill Clinton who was more of a Republican in his thinking than either he or the party wishes to admit (he not only made sure NAFTA, a Republican initiative, was ratified but also enacted two other complementary trade agreements NAAEC and NAALC soon after), we Democrats have had among others Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry.  Oh Dem Bums.  Also, Al Gore, the man who had the election won only to have it take away from him.  That makes Al Gore the crowning achievement of our party because we can at the same time claim victory as well as wallow in luxurious defeat.  Oh that’s what we love to do; otherwise we wouldn’t have to wait till next year.

But is this “next year?”   The Democrats or should I say their nominating process has delivered up a man who is for change above all planning.  Can he be the shining ideological light of Carter with the flinty pragmatism of Clinton?  He seems like a very good man, yet the democrats and the media has shielded him from scrutiny so I just don’t know who he is.  What are his tendencies?  Has he ever made important decisions?  What evidence is there that he can wisely make important decisions?  Those tough and often agonizing decisions a President has to make.  I don’t think I could send people into war or deny benefit packages to certain groups of our citizens without being distracted by feelings of remorse and guilt.  I don’t know if Obama has it in him, yet.  He may develop it on the job though that would be an expensive lesson our country would have to suffer through.  

While I want my party to produce a qualified candidate, that candidate needs to be electable.  I hope he is, since that was the only thing most of the higher echelon of the Democratic party talked about and I have to assume, therefore, worried about.  (Why would you entertain the idea of a man who has only served 20 odd months in a real government job before announcing his candidacy?)  Can Obama be our 1955 World Series victory?  This outcome, while given the problems with the Republican brand should be a slam-dunk, is not a foregone conclusion.  For the same reasons that I don’t know who he is and how he might handle the job of the President of the United States, I don’t know if he can be elected.  Hilary Clinton showed his weaknesses in key states, but that doesn’t seem to bother our party leaders.  I hope they are right, because picking Obama is like playing poker and going all in when you have three of a kind and McCain is drawing to an inside straight.  It is unlikely he will get the card he needs, but there is still an outside chance, a chance I don’t think the democrats needed to take.  Come November 5, 2008, I don’t want to shake my head and think, “Wait’ll next year.”  

Oh, Dem Bums.