aintsobad

Imposition 2012-Mr. Romney Wins the Nomination

   A couple of months ago I mentioned in this space I thought Mr. Romney would secure the nomination in the Texas GOP primary. Today, May 29, 2012, barring an upset of Old Testament proportions (think David v. Goliath), Mr. Romney will secure the nominaton in the Texas GOP primary. 

   At the time we envisioned this triumph, Mr. Romney was under siege by a triumphant Rick Santorum. Mr. Santorum's departure from the race because of his child's illness is both understandable and regrettable. Mr. Gingrich was a minor factor at the time but his self destructive tendencies are too well known to be surprising.

   So, Mr. Romney is inevitable. Now, the GOP has to decide how to run him against Mr. Obama. It will not do to run away from Romney care, from his Mormonism or from his career as a successful capitalist. To run away from those factors would mark him as a bit artificial. This will be the campaign run against him by the Obama forces, anyway, and he must not work for them. 

   So, what can Mr. Romney do? He can point out that various presidential administrations have tried to do what he successfully did in Massachusetts as governor. Historical fact tells us Harry Truman thought he had universal health care worked out in the early 1950's but Robert Taft would not let him push it through the Congress. Historical fact demonstrates Richard Nixon thought he had universal health care worked out in the 1970's, only to have Tip O'Neil stop him. If one goes back as far as Teddy Roosevelt, universal health coverage was a key plank for the Progressives (aka BullMoose party) but personal animus against Roosevelt sealed the deal against health coverage.

   Mr. Romney might also point out how American it is to take care of Americans. The Indiana governor who made the GOP response to the 2012 State of the Union address did this  very thing and, in so doing, turned the world upside down. He praised Franklin Roosevelt and lauded many New Deal programs, while suggesting they exclude the very rich and leaving the door open for privatization, of course.

   In the matter of his religion, Mr. Romney must not try to have it both ways. He is a Mormon from a long line of Mormons. When he refers to his Mormon background, Mr. Romney often seems to  be saying, "I am a Mormon but I am not a very good Mormon."

   Baptist voters can certainly relate to people who are baptists but not very good ones. I suppose most religious groups can understand people who inherit a religion and hold to it, but barely. Mr. Romney will carry the Western states where Mormonism is heaviest. He need not worry about those states. He will have to convince evangelical Christians, whose rolls Mormons have tried to pillage for decades, that he is a good person, but a bad Mormon.

   He might just as well stump for freedom of religion. He can try to do what John Kennedy did in Houston during the 1960 election. Mr. Kennedy went before a hostile ministerial group and thoroughy charmed them with his personality, while assuring them he would not obey the Pope, if the Pope ever tried to interfere in American politics. 

   I do not think Mr. Romney will suddenly overwhelm the Right with his effervescent personality. He will have to work on religion from some other directon. He would not do well to mention Mr. Obama's volatile Chicago pastor, the ineffable Jeremiah Wright.

   Mr. Romney might choose a running mate who could reassure the Evangelical center of Republican politics. The Undecideds may not rally to Mr. Romney. In fact, they may just stay home.

   If he survives the Romney-care debate and the Religious issue, Mr. Romney will still have to overcome his mega-millions and how he made them. In so doing, Mr. Romney may just appeal to the American dream, wherein we all think we can work hard, be smart and finally overcome. He might point out Mr. Obama is a millionaire as well, and call into question how he got all that money.

   There is a way to win in a race that is still too close to call.

   Although I still see Mr. Obama winning in November.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Imposition 2012-Beware of the Politics of the Possible

   Beware of the politician who tells you he/she is a "politician of the possible." He may mean he thinks whatever he wants is possible, while what you want is not as likely. How do politicians develop their characteristics as humans and, since we are all in politics of some kind, how can we see what is in our leaders?

   Some politicians are just not very good. That is, they do not spend enough time, energy or resources learning their craft. When a man like that talks to you he means it is possible he would like to hold office. Any good he might do would be ancillary.

   I worked for one such fellow. He thought he could wait until the last moment, then get everyone in a room and just persuade them to his way. He thought he could argue other determined men and women away from their own stated positions, away from their own best interests, away from their own constituencies. He seemed genuinely suprised when others would not budge.

   "People just need to feel consulted," he would often say. "They need to hear your heart."

   Some of the people he consulted pulled his beating heart out of his chest and showed it to him. Others just nodded wisely and went on what their own hearts said.

   He was not very good. In fact, he was not the first or even second choice for his position, which should have told me something about working for him. If a fellow gets his position by other than merit, he is a danger. If he cannot grow into his position, he is a menace.  

   Then, there are those politicians who just do not know what is possible. The old-time politicians often said, about votes, "you have to count them and then vote them." That is, you have to know who is with you, who is not and you have to mobilize them to vote with you at the needed moment.

   There are those who want to be recognized as leaders. They see other office holders who seem to be tough, pragmatic politicians. They want the same recognition real leaders get.

   Woodrow Wilson, a man of his age, once said "...leaders of men (his phrase) are like fire. When you come into their presence you know them immediately and you know not to touch them. They burn."

   The leader who is not hot to the touch gets pushed a lot. He shows his stripes when he pushes back against people who might be his friends or, at worst, neutral, and so persuadable. If he leaves his antagonists alone while he savages his friends, he  is just not a leader. Do not listen to him talk about what is possible.

   A politician who repeats the same phrases and goes the same failed route is leading you to the impossible, not the possible. He will not take you home. He will take you wandering. When you get home, someone else will be in your house.

   Learn to ask the follow-up question to the fellow who tells you he is a pragmatic politician, a vote counter who will do what he can but is only going to be able to do what is possible. He is smiling you out the door. Learn to ask him the follow-up question. Try to help him see you know the answer to your question, which is not asked out of ignorance, but in hopes of helping him see what might really be possible.

   What should a politican actually do? He should do the same things you do every day of your life.

   That is, he should see and do what is necessary to do each day. Every day brings its challenges but it is the drudgery that really must be done. People have to eat, things have to get cleaned, a roof has to be over your head at night. Days become weeks and weeks months and month years and years become a life-time, some short, some long, but a life that is a success is something you build on the work day necessities.

   You succeed this year only if you work hard today. And you must plan to work just as hard tomorrow. 

   Your politician will have to see and do what is noble, along with what is necessary. Nobility does not win elections or help a fellow keep office once he owns it. Nothing of substance ever gets done without some semblance of a noble bent, however. 

   No one will vote for meanness, indecency, unkindness. The worst bigots of the past always have had to viel their hateful impulses in a representative republic. Remember the follow-up question to the fellow who pushes out what is "possible" in his politics but look at the nobility of his purpose, regardless of his words.

   After all, you do what is noble every day. You raise a family, give an honest day's work or an honest day's pay, you strengthen your nation and help  your neighbors. You are noble. Insist those who lead you tell you their own noble story. If there is none (no nobility), cast them aside. If there is a noble purpose, question it. If there is nobility after your question, vote for it.

 

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Joan and Abry Jo

   Joan graduates from Texas A & M in Commerce, Texas. She will now be Dr. Joan Shehane Davis, B.S., M.Ed., M.A., LPC (Specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy), Ph.D. Almost our entire family will attend the graduation fete, although our oldest son will be at work.

   On Sunday, youngest grandchild, Abry Jo Davis, will be dedicated to God, along with her parents, Jonathan and Stephanie Davis. We will all be able to attend the worship hour with Abry. 

   So, lots of family stuff this weekend. We are delighted.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Imposition 2012-Mr. Romney, the Bully

   Less than forty eight hours after Mr. Obama announced his new found acceptance of Same Sex marriage with full spousal rights, to be decided by state legislatures, a report comes linking Mr. Romney to personal involvement with a hate crime committed against a supposedly gay fellow student. The alleged incident took place over fifty years ago.

   I will take only a line or two to mention how convenient the sudden release of this report is to the Obama campaign. Mr. Obama shows his tolerance and flexibility. Mr. Romney is revealed to be a bully against the very demographic Mr. Obama now champions. What are the odds these two incidents, independent of one another, come to the fore in the same forty eight hour period?

   Two things:

   Mr. Romney, you aren't dealing with Rick Perry any more. I will bet you ten thousand dollars you did not expect to be savaged in this way before you even win the nomination.

   If the American people are silly enough not to see through this episode, we deserve to have J. Fred Muggs in the White House leading us in November.

   Now, let's take a look back at reality. The allegation is Mr. Romney took part in hazing a fellow student whose "hair was different," and who "was new" in the school and who "was commonly thought to be a homosexual." Reportedly, Mr. Romney waited while some other students held the new boy down and then took scissors to the young man's hair.

   Mr. Romney says he "does not recall the incident."

   The incident took place forty years years ago. The sister of the clippered student (now deceased) says the characterization of her brother "totally misrepresents her brother."

   Two things:

   A certain bloc of media representatives are actually reporting this story as "bullying."

   And Mr. Romney says he cannot recall the incident but he is sorry if he hurt anyone's feelings when he was in high school.

   If the American people are foolish enough to need to know about Mitt Romney's high school extra-curriculars, we should elect Fred Flintstone president. The notion of "bullying" is super-charged in our litigious age, particulary against persons who, allegedly (or otherwise) choose alternative sexual life styles. Anyone who sudddnly discovers homosexual preferences now is characterized as "courageous." As usual, cultural changes do not allow for parity. Acceptance must give way to admiration.

   So, Mr .Obama is courageous and tolerant. Mr. Romney is a bully with hair clippers and  a bad memory. 

   Someone should tell Mr. Romney that to simply say he "does not recall the incident" will not do. If you don't remember cutting a fellow's hair while other boys held him down, what does that say about you?

   One supposes it says you are running for high office in an emotionally super-charged age where it is simply unacceptable to mitigate against anyone who might be "different." Even if you are alleged to mitigate against them forty years ago.

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

Imposition 2012-The Most Chilling Reason I Know for President Obama to Publicly Announce His New Support for Same-Sex Marriage

   President Obama announced in a televised interview last evening that he has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. He has reversed his previous stance on the matter. He now fully supports a change in American law (state by state) to allow Same-Sex marriages with full spousal rights.

   Almost immediately, Democratic fund raisers and politicians rushed to announce their pride in the President and their support for his new stance. Governor Romney, the almost certain GOP candidate, hurried to disagree with Mr. Obama.

   Various pundits have stepped forward to show how his change of mind will help Mr. Obama in the coming national elections. I disagree with them but no one can argue that Mr. Obama is anything other than a shrewd, off the charts intellient politician. He cannot possibly have thought he could make this announcement on such a volatile issue without serious electoral consequences. I think there are three possible explanations for why Mr. Obama would publicly announce his change of mind at this point, other than the sudden onset of madness.

   Mr. Obama might have decided he wishes to  be a one-term president. If so, he could scarcely have chosen a more emotion laden social issue to help him lose an election. There exist those who believe his veto of the oil pipeline from Canada to Galveston signalled his one term wish but there were solid environmental and economic reasons for putting aside the portion of the pipeline his executive order affected. I don't accept many of them but an argument could be made to delay the pipeline for some years, until America can possibly raise its own production levels.

   No such arguments can be made for Mr. Obama's sudden about face on Same-Sex marriage. The portion of the electorate committed to traditional marriage is very unlikely to change its standards tand very, very likely to vote its standards on this issue. In fact, an improving economy would have to improve markedly to overcome this seeming gaffe and no such marked improvement seems on the horizon. 

   So, Mr. Obama may have decided he does not wish a second term as president. Someone might have urged him to advance a seemingly impossible position, take his licking and go home to Illinois. I cannot think of anything the President could do to weaken his chances more with less possibility of upside.

    Mr. Obama may think this move will help him in a close election in the fall. I cannot see how his new stance will help him but it is possible Mr. Obama knows he will not receive any Reagan Democrat resurgence to the Democratice party. If you cannot get any conservative or many moderate votes, one supposes it is possible his advisors may have told him to shore up the Liberal base of the party, many of whom have expressed displeasure with the pace of Mr. Obama's reforms and outright disgust with his Centrist leanings. 

   If so, Mr. Obama may have chosen a social issue to remind his liberal supporters they have no place else to go in the fall. They have to vote for him or stay home. Mr. Obama may have used this social issue to give liberals a reason not to stay home, while at the same time maintaining (as he did) that this is not a federal issue.

    Mr. Obama maintained in his interview that the Same-Sex marriage issue is one for the states to decide, one state at a time. In this way, Mr. Obama can appeal to States' Rights supporters, since he took Same-Sex Unions off the federal level, and  still reach to the left. Mr. Obama may actually believe (or his advisors may believe) he had to do something to show a real difference between himself and Mr. Romney.

   This is not the lunacy it would seem. After all, Mr. Romney enacted Romney-Care while governor of Massachusetts. He enacted mandatory, universal health coverage and made it the law of the state. Mr. Obama has not yet been as successful in his national health care legislation. Therefore, Mr. Obama may have decided he needed to show liberals and moderates why they should vote for him over Mr. Too-Much-Like-the-President Romney. 

   Mr. Obama may have polled likely liberal voters to see what bone he could toss them to energize them at the polls in the fall. Then, he sharply weakened the affect by promising exactly no federal action on the subject, since, as he added, Same-Sex marriage is an issue for the states to decide.

   If Mr. Obama actually believes a sudden about-face on Same-Sex marriage will help his electoral chances in the autumn, he must also have decided to abandon any hope of reaching a sizable portion of the population. There will be no dearth of polling information available in the media for the next few days. See if you can decide which portion of the electorate Mr. Obama believes will not vote for him, regardless.

   There is another, more chilling reason Mr. Obama may have announced his change of mind.

   Mr. Obama may have honestly, sincerely changed his mind on Same-Sex marriage. In addition, the President must have also decided his new stance was worthy of announcement, regardless of the cost to his re-election campaign. If so, he is demonstrating a kind of courage and transparency not recently seen in American electoral politics.

   Please understand how much I disagree with our President's new found support for Same-Sex marriage. I hate the idea. I consider his announcement an outright abomination.

   Still, if he made his announcement because he really thinks his opinion matters and because he honestly changed his mind, you have to give him his due. Then, you have to decide if where you stand on the issue, and why.

   I oppose Same-Sex marriages. The idea that all civil liberties automatically to all portions of the population, regardless of the effect their practice would have on the moral fiber of an  entire culture, is not sustainable. 

   Whatever else he did, President Obama made it clear there is a difference between his policies and those of Mr. Romney. I think he made a serious electoral error and the autumn election is now rated here as "too close to call."

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

Imposition 2012-What Bothers Me (and Maybe You) About Politics

   In democratic politics it is said, you learn to respond to two kinds of people. You respond to those who can do something for you. You respond to those who can do something to you. To no one else do you respond.

   And, it is said, you respond to each of those two types in direct proportion to how much you think one can do for you, or in direct proportion to how much you fear one can do to you. That is all. Nothing else exists.

   In such a system there is little room for honor and less for nobility. The last thing you want to do is to be accused of courage, for this is a sure sign you are outside of the acceptable system. Get outside the acceptable and you willl find you need extreme power, not only to get there, but even more power to stay in your place when you no longer fit the (acceptable) system.

   There are ways to reply to the system when once you stand on priniciple and thus find yourself on the outside looking in to the party. You can stop the flow of resources to the party; volunteers, persons to attend meetings, good will and, of course, money. When you do so, you also take yourself out of the power mix. You may convince yourself you can exist happily out there but it is hard, very hard, to watch hopeful people denied hope and helpless people remained unhelped.

   You can try to start a party that mimics the thing you leave but,  no matter how crumbling it may appear, the thing you leave has a history, a reputation and reserve funds. Top people get paid, deals still get made and the machine hums along. They put on meetings in smaller halls until even those are too large. They fill up ever smaller halls with party retainers who applaud on cue.

   So, what are the outsiders to do? In some cases persons band together to regain the mission, rather than try to recapture the machine.

   Recently, for instance, a number of fellows began to meet with me, in hopes of reclaiming some of the comraderie of past years. We have no great fortune to offer one another, no positions or power. We agreed to pray for one another, to practice support of one another and participate in continuing education. Four of the fellows have been seeking placement but have found absolutely no help from the (well paid) machine persons who are to charged with helping. The uselessness of continued participation with a dead organization has become too much.

   We sought to regain the mission rather than repeat the machinations. All of us have taken great encouragement from the group meetings, which occur in two week intervals. Two of the four fellows have apparently found new places of work, after years of being told to wait, be patient, come to meetings, support the machine. The other two fellows have seen some movement in relocation, as well.

   My point is simple. We can stop hanging around haphazard, dying organizations that exist now mostly because they have been there for so long. We do not need to fear what someone can do to us or beg for someone to do something for us. The organization(s), party(s), association(s) and convention(s) matter only as they facilitate the mission. We need to find the mission and do the work. It is not impossible, no matter how great the task or how small the band of brothers.

   What bothers us about politics is how quickly it focuses on concentrated power for the use of a few. We recognize the lack of nobility in serving a few persons for their own sake.

   The work is the thing.

   Opinions here are mine alone.

Imposition 2012-The Federal Government Outlaws Professional Football

   Do not laught too loud as you read the tag line. The Federal Government of the United States has seriously considered ending high level football before. During the TR administation young men were dying at a record level of head and neck injuries incurred in college football matches. A hue and cry went up about the land.

   TR, a self made man's man who would finally die of injuries and illnesses incurred in various adventures he undertook around the world, took a keen interest in the matter. TR wanted new safety measures, rules changes and safety equipment. Failing this, he said, his administration would lead in outlawing the game entirely.

   Now, in 2012, in one week we have seen a legendary professional football player shoot himself to death in a manner that left his brain for study. One team has seen its head coach, star players and various assistants suspended from the game for up to a year because of announced bounties paid to players for injuring other players.

   Investigations await. The inevitable lawsuits have been filed. Imagine a decade of litigation resulting in the kinds of things TR demanded over a century ago.

   But we have additional problems now. The men involved are much larger and faster, for one thing. They are lethal weapons. They do crippling damage to one another.

   The financial aspect of the game is much larger as well. While the players make more money they seem to reap less benefit than most other professional athletes. Their careers are much shorter, only about four years on average. When they are through playing many of them are completely out of football money within another four years.

   Nor can we overlook the role of dangerous Performance Enhancing Substances. Men have died with their bodies riddled by tumors, perhaps resulting from the intense drug regimens they have used to grow to preposterous sizes. Internal organs, bones and joints seem unable to bear the burden of these hulks.

 

Imposition 2012-I Hope Robert Caro Lives a Long, Long Time

   In the midst of this election year, Robert Caro releases his fourth volume on the life and political career of Lyndon Baines Johnson. In this volume we find Johnson losing the 1960 Democratic Presidential nomination to John Kennedy.

   Johnson then accepts the Vice-Presidency from Kennedy, privately making his observation "more than one in four presidents over the last hundred years have died in office. He did not mention Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley or Roosevelt, or the similarly beknighted Wilson by name, but he might as well have done so.

   Some observers have used this quote as an indicator that LBJ was involved in the Kennedy Assassination. His fear of the Kennedys and hatred for them cannot be overstated but there is no meaningful evidence of involvement in the murder by LBJ. 

   What is clear from history and from Caro's writings is that LBJ was the preeminent personal politican of his time. In an earlier volume Mr. Caro probably romanticizes Mr. Johnson's victory  over Coke Stevenson in a Senate race. He expresses great respect for the rugged cowboy individualims of Mr. Stevenson but does not seem to know how that might have made Mr. Stevenson an effective working member of Congress. 

   Mr. Caro does make it plain that LBJ earned the sobriquet "Landslide Lyndon" by taking votes however and wherever he could manufacture them. One can have little doubt that JFK's slight electoral victory over Richard Nixon in 1960 was created by a few hundred thousand votes purchased for Mr. Kennedy in Cook County, Illinois. Mr. Caro demonstrates how this theft of just enough votes to swing the electoral math of the 1960 vote to Mr. Kennedy probably enacted an electoral paranoia in Mr. Nixon that later brought about the Plumber's, the Enemies List, Watergate and, finally, Mr. Nixon's resignation. One should remember Mr. Nixon used all the dirty tricks he could find in a campaign against a thorougly unelectable opponent in a campaign he could not possibily have lost.

   Such was the rough and tumble of American presidential politics, circa 1960 to 1972. LBJ was involved in all the earlier races. Only the 1972 race was absent his hand, though, as we have seen, his previous penchant for creating just enough votes to win may have pushed Nixon over the edge.

   Mr. Caro recounts the years 1959 to 1964 in Washington. He shows us LBJ exercising power over the Senate as a Senator, running for president, becoming Vice President and then ascending to power at Mr. Kennedy's death. This is a good read. I recommend it.

   Mr. Caro is still working on another volume of this series. I hope he lives a long, long time.

Imposition 2012-Church and State

   A Roman Catholic Bishop in Peoria, Illinois used his homily time to compare President Obama to Hitler, Stalin and Otto Von Bismark. The Director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethic and Religious Liberty Commission accused President Obama of the using the Trayvon Martin killing for racial and political reasoons, then admitted he plagarized his comments from a little followed Washington newspaper.

   I still think the best information out there on religious liberty (and freedom of speech in general) is William Lee Miller's The First Freedom. I have recommended it more than once on this site. Dr. Miller takes his readers through the intention of our founders in the matter of freedom of religion, as well as separation of Church and state. 

   The Bishop and the Baptist preacher mentioned in my first paragraph could gain much from a careful read of Dr. Miller's thoughtful little book.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Imposition 2012-A Dead Heat

   According to the latest NYT/CBS poll, 47% of likely voters say they would vote for President Obama in the fall. The same poll shows 44% of likely voters would vote for Governor Romney.

   Since there is a plus/minus of 3% in these samplings, one could easily say the possible election results now would be "too close to call." Each candidate has some problems to overcome.

   Mr. Obama has the health-care issue to deal with and his problems are complicated by the pending actions of the US Supreme Court. If the Court issues a ruling at just the wrong moment the campaign might be altered considerably.

   Mr. Romney has the health-care issue to deal with and his memory, apparently. Mr. Romney remembers enacting mandatory health coverage in Massachusetts but he does not remember urging the federal government to take his successful program nation wide, printed evidence to the contratry.

   Mr. Obama has a nascent economic recovery with high unemployment built in to it. Granted, he inherited the mess from his predecessor but the American electorate tends to remember by-gone administations with more charity than clarity.

   Mr. Romney has a nascent economic recovery with high unemployment built into it. If Mr. Romney is going to put himself forward as the practical minded business man who is a Washington outsider, he has historical precedent on his side. Herbert Hoover was a practical business man with no Washington connections. He won the White House but is not remembered with the same charity others receive.

   Mr. Obama can point to the termination of Osama Bin Laden during his watch, the end of the incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Romney says he would have done more but is not yet specific about what he might have done.

   One hopes social issues do not overhwhelm this election, what with the vast human suffering, unrest on our Southern Border and at least two rogue nations developing nuclear capability. Bill Clinton ran on economic issues and then had his first administration virtually eaten alive by leftist social issues. Granted, his administration balanced the budget, slowed government growth and left a surplus where there had been a deficit but his personal issues will write his legacy.

  Mr. Obama has a chance to be something other. We do not yet know what Mr. Romney might be and so have nothing else to look at but his record.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.