Brook(s) No Evil

To the list of one-issue voters (e.g., supporters of Israel, pro-choice or anti-abortion champions, environmental advocates), David Brooks of The NY Times wants to add another—Medicare cost containers. He wants you to cast a vote for the candidate who “can slow the explosion of entitlement spending (Medicare) so we can devote more resources toward our future.” He reluctantly, it seemed to me, believes it would be Mitt Romney, unless Barack Obama can come up with a credible alternative plan (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/brooks-guide-for-the-perplexed.html?_r=1&hp).

I applaud his willingness to cross party lines in the latter case, but regret his narrow-minded argument. Though it’s true spending on Medicare (Medicaid and Social Security, as well) must be contained, Republican budgets with their no-new-taxes foundation fail to balance for at least 10 years, during which time Romney-Ryan and their acolytes will have gutted all investment in our future—investments in education, in infrastructure, in the arts, in parks and recreation, in support for the disadvantaged, in women’s health, in the environment. In short, in everything but the military (perhaps they realize they’ll need a strong armed forces not to defend us from outside attack but from a revolt from within. Just kidding, I hope.)

Simply put, a vote for Romney-Ryan is a vote into the past, a vote to solidify the polarization of our society economically, socially and educationally, though not politically, as that has already been achieved (a rather ignominious, but nevertheless accurate, descriptor). 

Obama is not the perfect candidate, but at least he plausibly addresses our needs for the future. By focusing just on Medicare, Brooks fails to see the dangers lurking in a Romney presidency. He’s like the Naderites who cast an absurd ballot for Ralph Nader in 2000, thereby condemning the country to the tragedy of George W. Bush, whose mess Obama has had to clean up, with no assistance from Bush’s Republican mates. 

The headline of Brooks’ column was “Guide for the Perplexed.” What is perplexing is how a normally astute and reasoned commentator could be so narrow-focused when Medicare is but one challenge facing the country.

Akin for More: Speaking of one challenge, it’s easy to focus on and deplore Todd Akin’s misguided and ill-informed views of rape, women and their reproductive systems. It’s easy to dismiss them as an aberration, not just by Akin but also by any other Republican who shares those ideas. 

The true measure of Akin and the problem or benefit Republicans have being associated with him, depending on one’s political point of view, is his advocacy of other extreme positions including, according to Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post, an end to federal support for the National School Lunch Program, his comparing federal student loans to stage 3 cancer, and his belief that civil rights should be re-litigated. 

Akin is a deeply religious man. That appeals to many Missouri voters. But his reactionary positions on social welfare issues, not just abortion, demonstrate he has very little compassion for his fellow man, woman or child. 

Money Votes: Campaign finance is one of the big stories this election season, what with all the “soft” money going into funds, especially conservative leaning ones, that do not have to disclose their donors. Coupled with Romney out-muscling Obama for the third month in a row in raking in millions of dollars in disclosed campaign contributions, the GOP looks like it is winning the vote among those willing to put their money on the line. 

But for those who missed an intriguing story in Tuesday’s NY Times, here’s a different read of the political winds. Under the headline, “Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent,” the article revealed how companies with a stake in the future of Obamacare have made acquisitions based on their belief the president would be re-elected 

(http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/investors-in-health-care-seem-to-bet-on-incumbent/).

Softball, Stop Signs and Blunts

Chilly start to the softball season this morning. Grey day, with a stiff breeze. More of a wind, I’d say, that kept temperatures in the 50’s. Surely not a day to unveil my standard pitching attire of shorts and high sweat socks, though I did have them on beneath my baseball pants. Started to spritz around the 4th inning, not enough to even consider being a nuisance or a reason to call the game. 

Legged out an infield hit. In my prime I might have outrun another infield chopper, but those are days I can only talk about, barely remember. Didn’t strike out anyone; only walked one batter. All in all, not a bad day on the mound, especially since I returned home without injury. Slathering up with he-man doses of Mineral Ice on my lower back, Achilles tendons and knees before heading off to the ball field surely helped. 

The team’s a work in progress. They gave maximum effort. Now all we need to work on is some fundamentals and skill improvement. We hit decently, even socked a home run. But we ran ourselves out of two rallies. It’s a good thing I’ve been in this rebuilding situation before. Much easier to take a 23-3 shellacking when you’re just out to have a good time, and not get hurt.

Dmitri Krioukov, a Russian researcher and Web data analysis professor in California, has become an Internet darling for posting a paper on how to beat a traffic ticket like the one he received for allegedly rolling through a stop sign (http://www.ksl.com/?sid=20035542&nid=1012).

Big deal. I managed the same feat more than 33 years ago, way before the Internet was widely known. Even more difficult was winning over my wife’s participation in my ultimate defense. As I wrote in January 2010, a policeman in the hamlet of Pine Bush, NY, outside Middletown, claimed I rolled through a stop sign, which Gilda and I denied to no avail. To fight the ticket we had to return six weeks later for night court. Gilda was a willing witness for the defense, but quickly changed her mind when she discovered I had miscalculated the court date. We showed up a day early. She was in no mood to leave work early the next day and trek 60 miles up north to testify in my behalf. I reeeeally had to do some major groveling to get Gilda to go back to Pine Bush with me the next night.

Even so, her demeanor was not friendly. She had the comportment of a hostile witness, but she was all I had. Without her it would be my word against the cop’s. Even though I extracted from him an admission that he was stationed 300 yards, three football fields!, away from the stop sign I allegedly “rolled through,” it was still just the two of us squaring off, and in most jurisdictions that’s bad news for a defendant. 

After Gilda testified, the judge asked if the policeman had a witness. He did. It was the chief of police, who was riding with him that night. OK, where was he?, the judge asked. On patrol, came the reply, followed swiftly by good, old-fashioned country justice—two against one, case dismissed. 

Take that, Dmitri!

Last Wednesday, Thomas L. Friedman devoted his column in the NY Times to a call for Michael Bloomberg to mount an independent run for president, not because he would win, but rather because it would influence Democrats and Republicans to soften their rigid stances and meld their positions into more centrist ones that would benefit the country. “By taking part in the televised debates,” Friedman wrote, “he could impose a dose of reality on the election that would otherwise be missing. Congress would have to take note” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/opinion/friedman-one-for-the-country.html).

Let me be blunt about this: Friedman must have been smoking something (maybe a blunt) when he wrote that. How anyone could think the GOP and its Tea Party wing will soften their radical platform clearly has not been paying attention to politics over the last three years. To expect them to change should they win the White House or both houses of Congress is delusional. One of the main criticisms of Barack Obama by his supporters has been his misguided belief he could work with the Republicans, that he failed to make use of the majorities he helped sweep into office in 2008, that he capitulated time and again to conservative demands. 

No, Mr. Friedman, a third party candidacy from a progressive thinker like Bloomberg would only hurt Obama by siphoning off votes from Independents and some Democrats. It could be argued that Ralph Nader’s Quixotic runs for the presidency gave us two terms of George W. Bush. I’m sure Michael Bloomberg has an ego at least as large as Nader’s, but I’m also of the opinion the mayor of New York City is not so enamored of himself that he would purposely tip an election to Republicans who reject almost all of his social and economic beliefs. 

GOP Dilemma: Party or Country First?

Florida Republicans will troop to the polls Tuesday (ok, maybe some of them will roll in wheelchairs or shuffle along using walkers, while others drive in pick-up trucks with gun racks) to provide the latest answer to a dilemma facing their counterparts across the country—are they more interested in choosing a presidential standard bearer who could attract a spectrum of support among independents and even some Democrats, or are they more interested in ideological conservative purity deeply tinged with personal and emotional failings?

Polls show Mitt Romney comfortably ahead of Newt Gingrich by double digit figures. The perception of electability, along with confidence he would not be as divisive as Gingrich, his business background and his stain-free past (other than, in the repetitive refrain of Gail Collins of the NY Times, driving to Canada for a vacation with his dog strapped to the roof of the family car) make Romney a formidable challenger to President Obama’s re-election. True, there’s not much passion behind his candidacy, but it’s rare to see an automaton provoke deep feelings in humans.

Gingrich, on the other hand, stirs emotions. He is the personification of the “tumulter,” a term from many languages identifying someone who thrives on “the commotion or agitation of a multitude, usually accompanied with great noise, uproar, and confusion of voices; hurly-burly; noisy confusion.”

The former House speaker says he will stay in the race all the way to the GOP convention (or, more realistically, until the Adelsons stop funding his campaign). If he continues to rile up the conservative base against Romney he’ll be doing double-barreled damage. First, he’ll be providing fodder to Obama’s campaign. There’s nothing better than using fellow Republican smears to smear your Republican opponent in the general election. Obama benefits regardless of who becomes the GOP nominee.

Second, and perhaps more troubling for Romney, will be the cumulative effect on the hard-core right wing of the Republican/Tea Party. Will arch conservatives, evangelical Christians, have enough passion (read that, hatred) in their hearts against Obama to swallow hard, hold their noses and vote for Romney if he’s the candidate, or will they stay home?

Back in 1964, moderate Republicans abandoned the party’s nominee, Barry Goldwater, and voted for President Lyndon Johnson. In 1968, lots of disaffected Democrats failed to rally in time to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, letting Richard Nixon eke out a narrow victory. In 1976, President Gerald Ford couldn’t command enough Ronald Reagan-inspired conservatives to beat back a challenge by Jimmy Carter. Vice President Al Gore couldn’t attract enough of Ralph Nader’s ardent environmental supporters nationwide in 2000 to prevent George W. Bush from eventually getting the keys to the White House handed to him by the U.S. Supreme Court after the hanging chad fiasco in Florida.

Nothing will be decided tomorrow except who gets Florida’s 50 convention votes. But the size of Gingrich’s tally might provide an indication of how strong the anti-Romney sentiment is and whether the GOP in the fall will be able to mount a full-frontal, broadly coordinated assault on the White House’s current occupant.