HOW TO MAKE AN IMPACT

 

What does a homegrown citizen movement look like?

Jefferson County, West Virginia is a rural county located 60 miles northwest of Washington, DC.  It is known for being the location of John Brown’s Raid and other significant events in American history.  Tourists flock to enjoy breathtaking scenery. 

Jefferson’s neighbor, Loudoun County, Virginia, is America’s fastest growing county.  In the late 1980s, land speculators swarmed into Jefferson County viewing its untouched farmland as a developer gold mine.

The speculators were welcomed into Jefferson County by “Court House” insiders.  This web of family and business elites had run Jefferson since the Civil War. Elected and appointed officials had grown arrogant, unaccountable, and out of touch with the citizens they were supposed to serve.  By the late 1990s, they were about to leverage their unchallenged power to reap the riches of urban sprawl.

In 1998, the developers briefly exposed their agenda by presenting a master plan to run water and sewer lines throughout the Jefferson County, literally laying the groundwork for explosive growth.  Local officials embraced the plan.  More importantly, they shut down public comment and held countless meetings without involving, or even informing, the public. 

The water and sewer master plan, and the blatant abuse of power by the Court House elite, were the sparks that ignited one of the most successful local reform movements in America.

A dozen concerned citizens mapped out a strategy to create a “level playing field”.  This meant opening-up public meetings to the public; making public documents readily available to the public; making sure elected and appointed officials served public, not private, agendas, and making sure the rule of law prevailed. 

The first step was creating an information network so the diverse and geographically dispersed concerned citizens could communicate and share knowledge.  The “Listener” website and forum quickly grew to 1,000 participants.  It spawned home-based gatherings to discuss what to do.  One group, the “Sewer Underground” met bi-weekly and focused on stopping the water/sewer lines.

As local officials flaunted their conflicts of interest, it became clear that only by electing “reform minded” candidates would things change.  Reformers ran classified ads in the local newspapers to recruit candidates.  In 2000, one answered the call.

This first candidate had never run for office, in fact she broke out in sweats when speaking publicly.  She ran for County Commissioner against a well-financed and well-connected member of the Court House elite.  She lost, but inspired others.

In 2002, “Citizens for Jefferson’s Future” ran another set of ads for candidates.  This time they fielded a complete slate for the School Board and for two County Commission seats.  They won them all.  Their 2000 losing candidate was one of the landslide winners for the School Board, ending years of nepotism and sole source contracting.

In 2004, Jennifer Maghan, a recently returned veteran, answered the ad for County Clerk.  She was interviewed by reform leaders at the local Dairy Queen.  It was a critical moment.  The longest serving clerk in West Virginia was retiring and the Court House elites wanted complete control of voting and public records.  The local media consistently supported the Court House candidates and denigrated the reformers.

Jennifer was outspent 10-1, but her charismatic personality and the 2002 momentum won the day.  The reformers also won another County Commission seat achieving a 3-2 majority.  Jennifer became the first Republican to become Jefferson County Clerk since the county was formed in 1803.  She also became the first Korean-American to be elected to public office in West Virginia’s history.

Emboldened by two series of victories that shocked the Court House elite, the reformers moved swiftly to revolutionize the County’s government, digitalizing documents, creating websites, and ushering in the most open and transparent government in the state.

Battles were won, but the war continued.  The developers created their own Political Action Committee (PAC) and hired consultants.  They fought their way back into a County Commission majority in 2008. 

Thankfully in 2010, Jennifer was re-elected by the largest margin in the county’s history.  She was catapulted to national prominence by turning her opponents attack, “stop stirring the pot”, into her campaign symbol.  Her ads went viral and were merchandized as t-shirts. They became iconic in the battle to topple the Court House elite.  It bolstered the election of a reform-minded judge, who won by a landslide.

In 2014, a veteran was recruited to run for County Commission.  He was the first candidate to exclusively use Facebook to achieve victory.  That same year, the reformers recruited two faith-based House of Delegate candidates.  Both became the “gold standard” for door-to-door campaigning. One won and one lost.  The one who lost ran for State Senate in 2016 and won, having been outspent 21-1!

2016 was the landslide year for the reformers.  They won everything.  Two Commissioners, a new Clerk (as Jennifer retired), all state legislative seats in the County, and for the first time since the County was formed in 1803, a Republican County Prosecutor.

Today, Jefferson County remains a model for open accountable government and citizen activism. 

The lessons are numerous:

•      Have a strategy.
•          Have a committed core of leaders who will remain involved for years.
•      Realize that it will take years to sustainably prevail.
•      Actively recruit candidates. Do not depend on party functionaries.
•      Always look for new candidates as elected ones will retire or run for other offices.  Never let the other side’s candidates run unopposed.

·        One way to recruit and credential candidates is appoint them to local boards and commissions (planning, emergency service, parks & recreations, etc.).  Serving on these panels is a great way to learn about government processes, running meetings, public speaking, and messaging.

•         Losses are inevitable.  Learn and regroup.
•         Good candidates and good issues will live to win another day.
•      The opposition will not give up and will fight back.
•      Combine technology (social media) with traditional actions (door-to-door).
•      Money matters but mobilizing volunteers and igniting “fervor” among your supporters matter more.

MOST IMPORTANT:

Deliver on your promises.  Voters want change – give it to them.

 

 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM

“CONSTITUTING AMERICA” SERIES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Every year elections are held in the United States.

Federal and state elections every other year (except a few states who are truly “off-year” outside of the two-year cycle).  Local elections, county and municipal, are held somewhere every year.

There are approximately 88,000 local governments, districts, and commissions containing over 500,000 elected officials.

Many local offices are nonpartisan, meaning not party affiliation.  School Boards and small cities and towns assume local functions are not truly partisan.  Is there a Republican or Democrat way of collecting trash or plowing snow?

Local government is designed to be more intimately related to the people it serves. Ironically, few Americans understand its functions, and fewer know their local officials. 

This is unfortunate, as local government is, in many ways, far more important than national and statewide offices.  Local laws and their enforcement can affect property values, quality of education, quality of water, and determine life or death when managing first responders.

This dichotomy of importance and ignorance creates numerous challenges and opportunities.

On the one hand there is less interest in running for these offices.  In smaller towns and cities, of importance and as many as 79 percent of local elections are uncontested.  There is also less interest in voting for these offices.  Stand alone local races, held in off-years, may experience voter turnouts of less than 20 percent.  Local elections held during regular cycles, usually county and school boards, may garner 30-40 percent less votes than for the high-profile state and federal offices.

On the other hand, smaller voter turnout means a dedicated group of activists can elect a candidate as change agent.  It also means a low thresh hold for a first-time candidate entering a local race.

21^st Century campaigns have become extremely expensive. 

In 2014, the average winning campaign for the U.S. Senate campaign spent $10.6 million.  In 2018, incumbent U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) spent $33.5 million in her losing re-election campaign.  In 2018, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) spent $25 million to lose his re-election, while Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) spent $68 million to defeat him.

Campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives can also be very expensive. Congressman Alex Mooney (R-WV) spent $1.8 million for winning his 2018 re-election.

These campaign finance numbers do not include the millions spent by “independent” organizations to promote or oppose candidates through direct mail and professionally produced radio and television advertisements.

Compare this with county-level campaigns where $5,000-$20,000 may be all that is required for victory.  Winning small town and School Board campaigns may only require a just few hundred dollars.

“Down Ballot” offices are ideal for average citizens to run for office for the most idealistic of reasons – to help their community.  Many who run for these positions do not desire political careers.  They are motivated by seeing something that needs to be done and answer the call to do it. 

Another aspect of local “down ballot” campaigns is that they usually transcend partisanship.  This is certainly the case for officially nonpartisan offices.  Even partisan local campaigns will see bipartisan cooperation when community values, honesty in government, and civic reform is at stake.  There are countless examples of activists who may be deeply divided on national issues joining forces to “drain the swamp” of county courthouse insiders.

Successful “Down Ballot” campaigns may include a few yard signs, but rarely include major advertising.  Social media, especially Facebook pages and groups, have been the winning edge for many of these first timers.  Some create their own Facebook and Youtube videos to introduce themselves or highlight issues.

The intimacy of local campaigns also allows for neighbors to help neighbors.  “Meet and Greets” in private homes and door-to-door face-to-face interactions are the purest form of grassroots campaigning.  Money is not as important.  One local candidate, who was revered for her charity work, won by a landslide despite being outspent 21-1.

This lack of interest in running and voting has, by design or chance, levelled the field for average citizens to make a difference.  Either as a candidate or as a supporter/voter of that candidate, “down ballot” offices provide a way for caring members of the local community to get involved and contribute to the greater good.

What could be more American than that?

Political Hysteresis: Part Deux

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr.]

In a previous blog titled “The Great Republican Hope: Political Hysteresis” (citizenoversight.blogspot.org, February 11, 2013), I presented the possibility that by just looking at the statistical relationships between Republican and Democratic presidencies over the years produced the possibility that a Republican would win the presidency in 2016. I began thinking about possible relationships between Democratic and Republican control of the Senate over the years. I decided to go back and analyze the data from 1861 to present regarding which party controlled the Senate. I once again have good news to report to the Republican Party: it may be their turn recapture control of the Senate in 2014 – at least statistically.

I previously decided to call this behavior Political Hysteresis: the tendency of an electoral outcome to vary about the central tendency of moderation based upon past and current candidates for the office of President. I am extending this definition now to include candidates for the Senate as a cohort analyzed by party (i.e., the Democrats and the Republicans). Granted, it is the candidate’s position and the Party's platform that drive the election. However, I would like to reiterate a simpler reason: hysteresis. “Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not only on its current environment but also on its past environment….To predict its future development, either its internal state or its history must be known.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hystersis]

Consider the following summary detailing which party was actually in control:

 
The matrix shows that Republicans have an average of 9 years of continuous term control; Democrats average 8 years (black is a correct prediction; red is an incorrect prediction). If you start in 1861 and add the average of 9 years to the ending year of control, you can correctly predict the Republicans in control subsequently 5 times, or 56%; using 8 years, you can correctly predict the Democrats in control subsequently 6 times, or 67%. (Note: I used ending years to predict the beginning year of control.)

However, if you start in 1861 and come forward in nine year increments, as a statistical projection, the Republicans will win in 2014 (i.e., 1861, 1870, 1879…2014). Unfortunately, the prediction accuracy is only slightly over 50%. The good news is that the Democratic prediction accuracy is 67%; it correctly predicted that the Democrats would win in 2013 (i.e., in 8 year increments 1869, 1877, 1885…2013) – but not in 2014! (Note: The years are slightly overlapping which produces 2013 vs. 2012.)

Now, to the interesting part; consider the following statistics. When there is a Democratic President and a Republican Senate, the Republicans controlled 52 seats and the Democrats controlled 47 seats (vacancies cause the unequal numbers). When there is a Republican President and a Democratic Senate, the Democrats controlled 55 seats and the Republicans controlled 43 seats. In the 113th Congress (2013- 2015), with a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate, the Republicans control 45 seats and the Democrats control 55 seats (the two independents are considered Democrats for this analysis). But this brings up an interesting question: since the Republicans are statistically projected to win in 2014, how will this occur since they will need to keep the existing numbers and win at least six more seats?

To answer this question, I did some research and found the following discussion of extreme interest: Twenty-one of the 35 seats up for election are now held by Democrats. Moreover, most [sic] the states that will be casting ballots for the Senate in 2014 are Republican leaning: 7 of the 21 Democratic-held seats are in states carried by the former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, while just one of the Republican seats is in a state won by President Obama.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/can-republicans-win-the-senate-in-2014/#more-38683

I would encourage everyone to read the complete analysis by Nate Silver. It is excellent! He continues:

Are the conditions favorable enough to make Republicans odds-on favorites to gain six seats and win the Senate majority? Not quite. Six seats are a lot to gain, and Republicans are at risk of nominating subpar candidates in a number of races. But it would not take all that much to tip the balance toward them….

Summing up the possibilities across all 35 Senate races yields a net gain of four to five seats for Republicans, just short of the six they would need to win back the majority.

However, the margin of error on the calculation is very high at this early stage…. If Republicans swept all the “lean” and “tossup” races, they would gain a net of eight seats from Democrats, giving them a 53-to-47 majority in the 114th Congress. If Democrats swept instead, they would lose just one seat and would hold a 54-to-46 majority. Considering the uncertainty in the landscape, estimates from betting markets that Democrats have about a 63 percent chance of holding their majority appear to be roughly reasonable.

It is more than just a little bit exciting to see Political Hysteresis at work projecting a 53 to 47 Republican majority when one of the greatest American statisticians and psephologists, Nate Silver, opens the door to the possibility of a Republican win in 2014 – by the same numbers!

The Great Republican Hope: Political Hysteresis

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr.]

I am writing this blog to offer optimistic thinking to the Republican Party: maybe there is a chance of winning the 2016 presidential election – but not necessarily because of anything that the Republicans may do. It has occurred to me that over the years the baton for the office of President has been passed back and forth between the Republican and Democratic parties. I was curious as to what the relationship was between the years. The more studious historians will, of course, have many explanations of why elections are won and lost: employment or unemployment; interest rates; tax policies; disposable income and voting one's “wallet”; monetary policies; balance of trade; deficit reduction; quantitative easing; wars; the list goes on and on. And I agree with them: there have got to be logical, motivating factors that drive people to the polls to vote for one candidate or the other. But I also thought about the cyclical swings: today a Republican, tomorrow a Democrat. This mood of the country – the zeitgeist – manifests itself in the actual electoral outcome.

When I started to write this blog, my intuitive feeling was that there has to be a political cycle that causes these swings; the questions are what is this cycle and is it predictable? I have decided to call this behavior Political Hysteresis: the tendency of an electoral outcome to vary about the central tendency of moderation based upon past and current candidates for the office of President. Granted, it is the candidate’s position and the Party's platform that drive the election. However, I would like to propose a simpler reason: hysteresis. “Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not only on its current environment but also on its past environment….To predict its future development, either its internal state or its history must be known.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hystersis]

What if we look at the history of Presidential elections to try to determine if there is a central tendency throughout time? I found the perfect analogy under the Control System definition of hysteresis to explain how this might apply to the election cycles; think like a thermostat and a heating system. The analogy is the following. The election is the thermostat. The unit “on” is the Republican Party (conservative) candidate; the unit “off” is the Democratic Party (liberal) candidate. The actual temperature is the electorate. And the value the thermostat is set at is the mood of the country. The temperature rises (conservative), the unit shuts down; the temperature cools (liberal), the unit turns on. But the question – which is really food for thought since this is not a scientific presentation – is: using political hysteresis, who's going to win the election in 2016?

I would like to share some of the results of my analysis. Using the 156 years from 1861 (the beginning of the Republican Party) to 2017, the average years between officeholders is 5.8 for Republicans and 8.7 for Democrats. Allowing for terms with the assassinations that occurred during this time, the total number of terms is 45: 27 were Republican and 18 were Democrat. Republicans were in control 60% of the time, and Democrats were in control 40% time.

If you start in 1861 and add the average of 5.8 years to the beginning year of office, you can correctly predict the Republican in office subsequently 25 times, or 56%; using 8.7 years, you can correctly predict the Democrat in office subsequently 16 times, or 36%. If you add the average of 5.8 years to the ending year of office, you can correctly predict the Republican in office subsequently 24 times, or 53%; using 8.7 years, you can correctly predict the Democrat in office subsequently 16 times, or 36%. (Note: these tables are not shown.).
But consider the following:

Republicans have an average of 12 years of continuous term control; Democrats average 8 years (black is a correct prediction; red is an incorrect prediction).

However, if you start in 1861 and use these averages (i.e., 12 and 8) president by president, then a Republican will win the White House in 2017 (predicted terms): 1873, 1897, 1909, 1921, 1945, 1957, 1993, 2005, 2017. By adding 12 years to the beginning date of 1861, this methodology has correctly predicted (over the years) a Republican win 77% of the time; the Democratic prediction has been less accurate at 47% (data not shown).

The lessons to be learned: 1) Barring voter registration fraud, stuffing the ballot box, and the Republicans managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, political hysteresis smiles favorably upon a Republican Party win in 2017. 2) It appears that voters generally prefer a Republican as President; they just need a Democrat once in a while to remind them why….

The Republican Party Needs a Paradigm Shift

[Guest Contributor - Donald Mutersbaugh]

The Republican Party needs a paradigm shift. The Party has become fossilized by preferring the familiar to the unfamiliar, the proven to the unproven, and not shifting its election strategy to the changing times and culture. It's as if the Republican Party exists within a bubble that totally ignores the storm outside. I do not believe that tweaking and in-flight modifications are going to work; a major overhaul needs to be done.

One of the first things that has to be decided is whether the Republican Party is to continue to be a Party of set principles and attitudes or whether it should become a living party that adapts to the changing circumstances and the culture of the times. Inherent in this decision is whether the Republican Party wants to have a firm stand on a plethora of issues that will define it as a Party of unbending conservative, rich, white, males [perception]; or, whether it wants to stand a chance of winning any future elections. A complete rethinking of many issues is necessary, including how to attract people of color – African-Americans and Latinos. A new attitude needs to be developed concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters. The other major block of voters, the female population, needs to be invited back into the Party with a more realistic outlook on the issues that are of primary concern to them – and not the Republican establishment.

Out of this will come another set of hurdles that will need to be addressed; these are all centered on perception versus reality. Allowing the mainstream media and others to define what the Republican candidate and agenda are of course presents a problem from day one. Very little progress will be made winning the electorate as long as the message is not getting through the way the Party and candidate wish it to. The voter perception of what the candidate and Party platform stand for when the lever is pulled will be based on that frame of reference – and not necessarily the reality of what is really being presented. A paradigm change is inevitable.

The Republican Party needs to establish an alternative to the mainstream media. It is of primary importance that a communications plan be developed which bypasses the mainstream media and goes directly to the public. The Party has to make a decision that the mainstream media will attack conservatives regardless and that they should basically ignore them and work around them anyway possible to get the message directly to the people. The Republican Party also needs to get into a more sophisticated electronics game communicating a soft message about the Party and what it's doing to make for a better America (e-mails, blogging and tweeting, Facebook). Mental inertia has to be overcome when trying to convince voters that there is a new platform in place so that the word “Republican” doesn't evoke the negative image that the word apparently has today.

Another major decision that might need to be made: delegate more activities and finances to the state and local parties. The Republican Party needs to strengthen its grass roots organizational structure. This is especially important to a strategy of bypassing the mainstream media. One way to help in this effort at the national level might be to form several rapid response teams which could be deployed quickly to key states. These units, consisting of 10 to 15 people who are trained in a variety of political activities, should be specialists and professional organizers. These rapid response teams could be deployed to assist each of the statewide organized Republican committees.

Currently, it is estimated that the United States has approximately 47% of the people on some form of government entitlement. I personally believe that the number is greater, maybe even more than 50%. This becomes a very large problem because we are moving into a world in which there are more takers than givers. It appears that we have a government of: “Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy): a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” [http://www.urbandictionary.com]. On first blush this may seem to be humorous; but in reality, it is quite scary.

The revolution and the paradigm change are necessary; the question is how to resolve the crisis and facilitate a paradigm change without completely destroying the Republican Party. There will have to be some deep soul-searching and negotiation to assimilate all ideologies while differentiating what the Republican Party really stands for within the context of the current culture. Unfortunately, it might take a generation to implement the changes necessary to bring the Republican Party back into parity with the majority of the voters. Something has to be done or the Republican Party needs to resign itself to continual losses in the political arena. While there might be parochial gains within state legislatures, governorships, and occasionally a U. S. House of Representatives or U. S. Senate seat, competing at the national level for the position of President of the United States will be difficult at best, and perhaps, futile in the long run.

________________________________________________________

Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives.

Conservatives at a crossroads: Harold Hill vs. William F. Buckley

Published in Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84101.html
By: Scot Faulkner and Jonathan Riehl


The GOP’s trouncing has triggered a wave of “soul searching” typical in its post-election timing, but more significant in its impact for our politics and for the conservative movement — if there is one. We think not. The conservative crisis of 2012 is not just a crisis of messaging; it is a crisis of conscience.


The cast of characters now presenting themselves as conservative leaders bear nothing in common with the intellectual cadre that brought the movement to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. For months we watched in horror as a parade of Harold Hill hucksters mouthed empty tea party phraseology, followed the advice of Dick Morris and Karl Rove, and parroted Frank Luntz’s magic words — all the while selling a boy’s band that simply does not exist. Their polls, their news, their understanding of America, are a façade. The people of River City — the conservative base — were willingly sold a bill of goods. They got their reality check on Nov. 6.

Like the traveling salesman from “The Music Man,” the right’s media echo chamber has captivated the townsfolk. It is full of rapid-fire talkers, fearless pugilists and moralistic re-enforcers. To be clear, media access and its persuasive power have always been central to the conservative cause. But how far we have come from the days when William F. Buckley, Jr. hosted a PBS program called “Firing Line,” where conservatives of all stripes, liberal intellectuals and policymakers debated issues in depth. Today the conservative base prefers the endless recitation of things it already believes.

In a larger sense, the problem extends far beyond the “dumbing down” of a noble policy movement into cartoonish diatribes mouthed by one-dimensional personalities. It’s not about bad messaging. It’s the lack of any coherent framework or foundation for that message.

The movement, once a coalition of cold warriors, traditionalists and free marketeers, no longer exists. Buckley did not preach an ideology; he helped maintain a fusion of different factions. The key players, and candidates, came from very different camps but were united in a fundamental understanding of the limited role of government and the power of the individual. These groups often disagreed. But their differences were worked out through reasoned debate and exchange, guided by a 300-year provenance dating to John Locke and earlier.

What we see today, in contrast, is a dialogue of empty sets of talking points with no intellectual content or critical thinking to back them up — epitomized by Mitt Romney’s foundationless candidacy that pandered to a shrinking and ideologically extreme base. But conservatism, as it was understood by those who built the movement in the postwar years, was never an ideology. The great conservative philosopher Russell Kirk wrote in the early days that properly understood conservatism is not an ideology, but rather “a mood.”

Ideology and ideologues were imported into the party in recent years, especially by extreme theocratic types whose embrace of an intrusive Big Government is in fact antithetical to Republicanism and conservatism. Others, including the neoconservatives, embrace expanding government for their adventurist war agenda abroad and anti-libertarian activism at home.

A different conservative intellectual legacy extends back to Edmund Burke and beyond, a legacy emphasizing the long view over the short one, which thrived not on political marching orders but on debate and diversity. It is a tradition that dates to the dawn of Western civilization and the invention of democracy grounded in the practice of rhetoric. The modern conservative media machine, in its vapid self-congratulation, is a total negation of this tradition. While a few survivors still try nobly to maintain the real conservative tradition, their voices are drowned out by those who want to blame the media, demographics, Obama flimflams, and anything else — except themselves.

The two authors here come from different generations and our own politics are not in line with each other all of the time. Still, we have both studied conservatism, and share an admiration for the movement built over the past 60 years. We are saddened to observe what has become of its legacy — and its cast of pretenders to the throne. If you are a Republican, it is a sad day for your party and the movement that built it. If you are a believer in American democracy, it is a sad day for the country.

Scot Faulkner was Director of Personnel for Reagan-Bush 1980 and Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives under Speaker Newt Gingrich. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations.

What were they thinking?

Elephants supposed to “never forget”, but do they ever learn? They didn’t learn much from being defeated in 2008 [see http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/2008/11/perdition.html  ]


The 2012 elections provide a new cornucopia of lessons learned. Only time will tell if any of them sink in. Here are just a few of them…

Getting out the Vote
Project ORCA was a dismal failure. It was supposed to either supplement or supplant local Republican GOTV efforts. It did neither. Poorly trained and clueless ORCA workers siphoned resources away from real voter efforts. Worse – ORCA was an ill-conceived band-aid for the decades-long decline of Republican precinct capabilities.

Democrats figured out years ago that early voting would be a boon to their cause. Republican leaders hung onto getting out their vote on Election Day – ceding up to thirty days of voting opportunities to the Democrats. Worse – if Republican rhetoric is to be believed – that their supporters work for a living and are family focused – then why assume that these busy working people will either get up early to stand in long voter lines before going to work, or delay being with their families after work to stand in long voter lines? OCRA not only shrunk GOP voting efforts to one day – it shrunk it to the first and last hours of the voting day. No wonder 3 million less Republicans voted in 2012 than 2008.

Voter Fraud
There is always some voter fraud. This happens in the original voter registration or in counting the votes. Republicans chose to ignore these facts to focus on possible irregularities during actual voting. Countless days and weeks of activism, along with mountains of political capital, was spent on solving the one part of the process that worked. Imagine if all this Republican effort was spent on early voting. It also gave the Main Stream Media (MSM) an easy and ongoing target to pummel the GOP.

War on Women/Gays/Science/Privacy
No matter how much conservative talk radio and Fox News denies it, there are large swaths of Republican activists and elected officials, especially at the state level, who yearn for the 10th Century over the 21st. It is a fundamental contradiction to real conservatism and Republicanism to selectively promote unwarranted and aggressive government intervention into personal lives. You cannot assert there is either no or only a limited role for government in society and then create a huge “BUT” flashing in neon lights for imposing narrow theocratic-based dogma.

Originally, faith-based activists within the conservative and Republican movements stood for getting liberal dogma out of schools, homes, and churches. Sometime in the late 1980s things flipped around to replacing left-wing onerous government interventions with right wing ones. Outbursts by Republican Senate candidates were not isolated incidents. They were a mere sampling of a tragically obtuse thread of anti-intellectual totalitarianism that undermines both the movement and the party.

It is long overdue for Republican and conservative leaders to have their own “Sister Souljah” moment with fanatical theocrats. This moment is named for the pivotal Bill Clinton speech where he sealed-off racial hatred in rap music from mainstream public discourse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment

Bush Legacy
The Bush dynasty diverted the conservative movement and the Republican Party into an agnostic pandering abyss. [See my earlier post http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/2012/06/wrong-track.html  ]

Bush 41 purged conservatives from the Executive branch, raised taxes, expanded government, bungled the end of the Cold War, bungled Iraq, and undermined everything Reagan stood for. Why revere him?

Bush 43 turned conservativism and Republicanism into micro-targeted pandering mush. He bungled Afghanistan, launched a totally unnecessary and dilatory war in Iraq, reduced America’s influence in the rest of the world to fixate on Iraq, undermined civil liberties, and expanded government. Why revere him?

Conservatives and Republicans can and should revere true the leaders of our movement as timeless role models – Presidents Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Reagan; intellectual leaders Buckley, Goldwater, and countless other thinkers ranging back to the Enlightenment. None were perfect, and true independent thought requires critically assessing their legacies, but their writings, speeches, and actions will always remain the touch stones from which 21st Century conservatives and Republicans get their bearings.

A few words about Romney

Romney could have won. His flawed campaign was no where near the fool’s errand of McCain 2008. However, there were numerous opportunities lost and self-inflicted wounds that sank him.

No theme – the conventional wisdom was that 2012 had to be about Obama or Romney would lose. How many think 1980 was only about Carter? Americans in 2012 felt powerless. They were being harmed by an out of control economy. They feared a world spinning out of control. They no longer trusted an unaccountable government. Romney could have spoken to these issues, but didn’t.

Bain – What the federal government needs most are Bain-like teams tearing apart, rethinking, and restructuring every agency and program. Romney could have proudly asserted his value proposition of committing to this long overdue weeding of the federal garden. Instead, he ran from Bain and its positive impacts, ceding the field for his opponents to demonize his strongest credential. When pressed on cutting federal programs Romney opted for going after Big Bird instead of using the question to discuss $650 billion in annually documented waste and how his management background could do something real.

Rope a dope – Why did Romney allow Obama to carpet bomb him from April through August? This period of negative ads created a deficit that was almost insurmountable. Why didn’t Romney run ads about his saving the Olympic movement during the Olympics? Why did he make this historic accomplishment a pre-primetime throw-away at the National Convention? Why did it take a pre-convention Fox news interview at his home to finally show he was a normal human? It is sad that highly intelligent and successful Republican business people (Steve Forbes, Pete DuPont, and now Mitt Romney) cannot connect with the party of business. They should all go back and read about how successful utility tycoon Wendell Willkie became a folk hero during his presidential run in 1940.

Class warfare – Republicans chided Obama and the Democrats for fermenting class warfare. Why oh why then did Romney spew his own version of class warfare? “47%” was a gift that kept on giving to the MSM and the Democrats. First, who in their right mind today, thinks that in this world of smart phones anything they do or say outside of their own home will not be documented and shared if it is deemed stupid enough? The “47%” comment is the antithesis of the type of empowering and inclusive conservatism espoused by the late Rep. Jack Kemp. His world view was that everyone can and will become a conservative once they realize how the free market is in their best interest. This positive message has been drowned out by vapid negativity among the so-called conservative and Republican leaders.

2016 & Beyond
There remains a small hope that (1) Obama and the Democrats will overplay their hand, creating backlashes and opportunities, and (2) that the next generation of Republican leaders – Jindal, Christie, Martinez, Fallin, Haley, Rubio, and others at all levels of government, learn from the past while shaping the future.

Creating the Will for the Way

It is clearly time for Americans to stage an intervention to save our nation. The signs of addictive destructive behavior are everywhere. Denial and avoidance are wide spread. The evidence of dysfunction and its consequences are overwhelming.

Both Romney and Obama have asserted that Washington, DC cannot be changed from the inside. They are both right. Washington, DC is filled with a maze of revolving doors that link all branches of government to special interests, contractors, think tanks, lobbyists, academia, and the media. The inhabitants of this crony culture display hyper-partisanship to those outside the Capital Beltway, but work together, like lymph nodes, to isolate and eradicate common sense, accountability, and rational solutions.

The way forward has been known for decades. The will to move forward is simply not there.

Americans have a chance to stage an intervention in the remaining weeks of the 2012. They can demand real answers to real questions during the candidate debates that will occur at the Presidential, Congressional, state, and local levels over the coming weeks. Americans should make it clear that they will not vote for candidates, from either party, who dodge these questions or offer only pandering pablum.

Question One – Will you admit that there is a huge amount of waste in government? Will you admit that this waste is far more than the amounts required for balancing the budget?

Countless Inspector General and Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports have documented, in detail, that over $650 billion a year is wasted at the federal level. That is $6.5 trillion in savings over ten years – almost six times more than the feared sequestration and sixteen times more than was to be cut in the original 2011 budget/debt deal. Voters should scream the next time a government official or media pundit wrings their hands over how hard it is to cut spending or how the world will come to an end if one penny is removed.

Intervention is about forcing the subject to move past denial to confronting their problem. Everyone, across the political spectrum, needs to admit that there are numerous opportunities to substantially cut even their most favored government programs. Waste is waste. The political elite need to stop “blame-storming” about who is at fault and work together to immediately implement Inspector General and GAO recommendations. These $650+ billion in annual savings would make major strides in paying down our national debt.

Question Two – Will you develop tangible ways for normal citizens to have direct input into the running of their government?

Representative democracy ceased being representative years ago. That is the one common thread that spawned the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements. Pundits and politicians did everything they could to demonize both movements, making sure they did not join forces. A convergence of these protest movements could have changed America.

Direct input into our government, at all levels, can start with “crowd sourcing”. Corporate America embraced this early on in the social media revolution. New flavors, products, and Super Bowl ads are now being developed from structured “crowd sourcing”. Wikipedia and other websites realize that open input distills and organizes information far better and faster than waiting on individual scholars.

Why not have Congress and federal agencies establish crowd source websites where concerned citizens can identify and shape issues? This could move policy dialogue along far more efficiently than having tens of millions of disparate emails flood Congressional offices.

“Crowd sourcing” could also be used for budget cutting. In 1989, and four times since, Congress realized that it could not rise above the parochial interests of individual Members and turned to an outside process to close and consolidate obsolete military bases. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) has closed over 350 installations, saving tens of billions of dollars.

Why not create a “Budget BRAC”? The parochial interests of Members, and their collective hyper-partisan posturing, have rendered them incapable of stewarding public resources. Citizens could either identify what to cut or what to fund. A limited version of this was initiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Why not expand this good first step to the entire federal budget? It could either be an ongoing “crowd sourcing” exercise or an annual referendum tied to tax returns, like the Presidential Campaign fund check-off.

These basic questions, if asked, may result in enough elected officials “seeing the light”. Unless something changes, Americans will lose no matter who wins in November.

Leadership Crisis 2012

Well. It seems we're to have a British waterworks with an Arab flag on it. Do you think it was worth it?
- Dryden, “Lawrence of Arabia”

The Pre-Christmas deal to maintain payroll tax relief is only the latest in a string of cobbled together arrangements that have kept the federal government stumbling along. This cycle of confrontation, brinksmanship, and last minute deal-cutting will only intensify as the November, 6, 2012 election day draws closer.

What is to be done about governing the federal government? It is one thing to offer a clear choice to voters during a campaign. It is quite another to never leave campaign mode. The resulting battle of soundbites has created chaos in Washington, DC and disgust among most voters. Trust and faith in Congress and the White House have both sunk to historic lows.

Some insights can be drawn from my favorite movie of all time – “Lawrence of Arabia”. The movie provides breathtaking cinematography, a majestic soundtrack, and exhilarating action sequences. It also provides a cautionary tale on the difference between warfare and governing. In the movie, T.E. Lawrence and his Bedouin army become experts at blowing-up trains, but they fall into chaos when they try to govern Damascus.

Our current political leaders have all become experts at blowing-up trains. Both sides display skill at stopping things and delivering pithy rejoinders about who is to blame. However, both sides have lost the ability to govern. The only way both sides think they can gain or retain power is to ignite passions on fringe issues and demonize opponents on all issues. Common ground has vanished. Worse, it is viewed as the domain of the weak.

Wreaking havoc with your opponents is necessary when you are preparing the way for political victory and a fundamental “regime change”. However, what if there is no plan after battlefield victory? That is the current problem. Both sides want perpetual warfare because both sides have no interest in peace. There is no need for governing skills, as there are only lulls in the fighting.

The gold standard for modern political leadership is Ronald Reagan. Conservatives, like myself, devoted years to preparing for his revolution. This included Members and staff in Congress “wrecking trains” and “tearing-up rail lines” on a daily basis to prevent President Carter and the Democrats from doing more damage to America. Our parliamentary warfare was designed for a purpose – every bill defeated was one less law we would have to reverse once Reagan was President. Every bill delayed was fewer days Carter would have to implement the new law and thus making it easier for Reagan to dismantle.

The difference between what we did from 1978-1980 and the current warfare is that we had a core understanding of what was to come. Reagan and the conservative movement had a clear vision of what was needed to save America, defeat communism, and rein-in big government. We knew that November 1980 would be a shift from fighting on the outside to fighting on the inside. We would be required to rebuild some of the “rail lines” using conservative principles, while using our new inside resources to destroy communism. Therefore, governing became a mix of settlement and disruption.

The current political landscape is total disruption and the only vision is further disruption. This would be somewhat tolerable if permanent gridlock was the desired outcome. But, it is the antithesis of what is needed with America’s economy needing to be rebuilt and America’s role in the world needing to be rethought.

Could Reagan do in 2013-2016 do what he did in 1981-1989? Unfortunately - and sadly - no. The current political atmosphere is too toxic. Inspirational words and deeds would be torn apart by all involved. Politicians and pundits, with a few exceptions, are all so self-absorbed, that no one is willing to rally around anyone. It is like a bunch of ancient warlords – factions within factions with blood feuds barring rational dialogue, let alone compromise, from occurring.

A better leader for our times is George Washington. His fundamental belief in a viable nation allowed him to remain above the fray. More importantly, from presiding over the Constitutional Convention to his final days as President, Washington was able to select the best of both factions for the overall good of the country. Pure Hamiltonianism and Jeffersonianism would have been led to either autocracy or mob rule. Only Washington could see the brilliance in both men and steer them and their supporters toward a workable and governable mix.

No matter who prevails during the coming brutally hyper-partisan months that lie ahead, they should look to our first President as their leadership model. They should focus on the 80% on which most people agree, tread lightly on the 2% on which many people emotionally disagree, and confront rational differences on the remaining 18%. Only then can we move away from this current governing crisis and return to the path of achieving a “more perfect union”.

New Newt is Old Newt

The following is an excerpt from my 2008 book, "Naked Emperors". This is the opening scene of Gingrich's inner circle critiquing his management style.

One of the issues about "New Newt" is that Gingrich is "new" every time he wakes up. He lives in a world that is the opposite of "Ground Hog Day". Gingrich resets his personality, his perception of reality, and his priorities as if nothing occurred before. It exhausted his staff and destroyed his own revolution.

The book excerpt follows:


PROLOGUEJune 17, 1991

"Newtworld is in trouble"; deadpanned Dan Meyer followed by a round of laughter.

The Quality Management Awareness Session was going well. The four-hour session, tailored for Gingrich's three major organizations (“Newtworld” was referred to by Gingrich’s staff as a large amusement park with various theme areas: GOPAC, the Minority Whip's Staff, and the Personal Office), included several workshops that always netted results. This was the power of a Philip Crosby Associates (PCA) course; it mixed fun with brutal insight. From the fun came a comfort among attendees to identify and deal with their "awkward realities". From dealing with these realities came commitment to do something about them.

Thirty minutes into the session with the Minority Whip's staff the room was energized. "We've got work to do," noted Tony Blankley. Everyone nodded in emphatic agreement. Linda Nave and Hardy Lott quietly made notes based on the flip chart at the front of the room.

The list, generated through a structured brainstorming approach, was indeed stark. It had been developed first from individual worksheets, leading to a brief discussion among groups of twos and threes, then on to the entire group of eleven identifying and explaining their "biggest problems" facing the Whip's organization.

"The good news", I began, "is that your list is similar to the problems facing every type of organization and corporation, worldwide. Remember the fire fighting cycle we started with":

"We find ourselves in this vicious cycle of being surprised by the unexpected and the unplanned. We cease to manage. We only react. We don’t have time to management because we are always firefighting. Because we are firefighting we don’t have time to solve the underlying problems that may help us prevent future fires. Guess what? By not taking the time to prevent problems, even more fires break out! The circle then begins again, with even less time to do what we want. This constant firefighting costs us time and money, it lowers morale, and it ultimately impacts our organization's ability to meet our goals and the needs of our customers."

“Only by using prevention methods can we ever stop this cycle. We are going to learn how prevention is one of the main principles of Quality Management. These principles have given others the ability to break free of this firefighting cycle. You can do the same thing here.”

“What happens when the boss is a pyromaniac?" Dan Meyer queried. The room resounded in applause and laughter.

Think Globally - Vote Locally

Voters are already streaming to the polls taking advantage of early voting. The airwaves are filled with wall-to-wall election coverage. There have been more polling in the last four weeks than during the entire 2004 election cycle.

This is an important election. Eight years of President Bush’s warped version of Republicanism has left a nation ready for something different. Even if that difference may turn out to be mostly rhetorical. The economic downturn has extinguished McCain’s last hopes for an upset by further undermining the damaged Republican brand. However, the high undecided percentage means there large numbers of voters either not willing to vote for a black man to be President or are uncomfortable voting for someone with so little experience. The mainstream media’s obsessive Obama boosterism has deprived Americans of a serious review of Obama’s leadership skills and his true agenda once in office.

The desire for change, the hope for economic salvation, and the emotions surrounding Obama (pro and con) are generating a huge early vote and will probably drive voter turnout up to pre-Watergate levels. One thing all voters need to remember is that the Presidency is only one selection on their long general election ballots.

A President is our national symbol. Their tenure defines an era in our nation’s history. But, on a daily basis, their actions and inaction do not directly impact our daily lives as fundamentally as the obscure officials populating the “bottom” of the ballot. Unfortunately, many voters do not even bother to vote for these local candidates. There is as much as a forty-percent voter fall-off or “under vote” for these races.

In many ways local elections are more important than national elections. State and local government tax you the most (income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and user charges). Local government controls who teaches your children and what they are taught, it responds to police, fire, and emergency calls, it picks up your trash, maintains your roads, and in many locales provides sewer and water services. These are far more fundamental to our daily lives than most national legislation.

Since local races are decided with far less votes, your vote can be decisive. Local officials are also far more accessible as elected officials because they remain in your community - you can bump into them at the store and still call them at home.

So, before Election Day, take the time to learn about your local candidates. There will usually be a neighbor or friend who is a local activist closely following these races and will gladly provide insight as to who will best serve the community. On Election Day, take the time to complete the entire ballot. Please do more than vote straight ticket. At the local level partisan affiliation is mostly irrelevant. As a life-long Republican, I have voted for as many Democratic as Republican candidates at the state and local level. Our democracy will be stronger and our communities better if we all follow the old adage "think globally - act locally".

How to Lose an Election

Does John McCain really want to be President? I ask this because he and his campaign are doing things that are hurting their cause.

Example #1
Friday night’s debate was hijacked by Jim Lehrer and Barack Obama. It was supposed to be about foreign policy, but the first 35+ minutes was about the economy.

A case can be made that the economy was important enough for McCain to consider canceling his debate appearance. That said, McCain should have steered the debate back to discussing America’s becoming a debtor nation. He could have also been more assertive regarding his doubts about the $700 billion bailout. He could have observed that most Americans are against such sweeping government intervention to basically bailout the financial elites without any strings attached. McCain needed to put more distance between Bush and himself. It is really okay to say you do not trust Paulson – most Americans don’t.

The debate’s detour threw McCain off his “game” while giving Obama traction. McCain did make up lost ground in the final portion of the debate, but the damage was done – Obama and his media allies could declare a tie. This was to be McCain strongest showing, not a draw that leaves Obama ahead by 4-6 points in most polls.

McCain could have created a “game changer”. Early and often Lehrer coaxed both candidates to directly address each other. McCain should have taken that opportunity to become the interlocutor. He could have laid-out his brief against Obama – directly – and forced Obama to look him in the eye instead of Obama using Lehrer as a crutch.

Example #2
McCain’s spinmeisters and surrogates need to become aggressive. They should not allow the mainstream media to get away with saying “McCain accused Obama of being the most liberal member of the Senate”. That is not an accusation – it is a documented fact! In every possible vote ranking, and in the assessment of objective sources like the National Journal, Obama is consistently identified as America’s most liberal Senator.

Example #3
I still do not know what McCain was thinking when we pulled the plug on everything mid-week. Presidents should be able to multi-task. They will have to conduct photo-ops with winning teams, do “grip & grins” with visiting dignitaries, while pondering major policy issues during an average day. He could have gone on David Letterman’s show and talked about serious subjects as he has before. That would have allowed him to roll out Sarah Palin (who was also in New York) doing her own version of a top ten list such as “things you didn’t know about Alaska”. McCain certainly should not have lied to Letterman about his schedule – Dave holds grudges and has a huge following among McCain’s target audience.

Example #4
Sarah Palin should not be kept under wraps. She should have been fully briefed after the convention and then sent off to barnstorm talk radio. This would have (a) helped her perfect her core talking points, (b) allowed her to reach far more people than she has during the last month. Over 13 million people tune into Sean Hannity's radio show, while only 7.5 million watch Charlie Gibson on the ABC Evening News. Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham garner 5.5 million listeners and 4 million consistently hear Michael Medved, while only 3.3 million watch Katie Couric on CBS; (c) you can "appear" on talk radio while not having to be in the studio. Palin could call into these shows and still travel to rallies or prepare for her debate; and (d) Conservative talk radio would have been a much friendlier venue. When the mainstream media groused about Palin not being on their shows McCain could have played his “liberal elitist” card. It is sad to see the McCain campaign mishandling their best asset.

Example #5
The McCain campaign and conservative pundits need to defend Palin. I challenge all the anti-Palin conservatives to play out every alternative convention scenario for the night of September 3. There is not one person who could have stepped out on that stage and generated a 14-point pro-McCain swing in the national polls. The only reason the polls swung back is the financial crisis thrust Bush’s dysfunctional administration back onto the front page and reminded people why the Republican brand had imploded. Those who have “buyer’s remorse” about not having Governor Romney talking about the economy forget how many Obama commercials featuring Romney’s attacks on McCain would have run by now.

Every politician has a mixed record – that is why Americans are so cynical about their government. McCain, Obama, and Biden each has enough baggage that they only wish they were as “clean” as Palin. Palin is a breath of fresh air because she actually saw that there were corrupt and incompetent Republicans and fought the establishment to remove them. That is unheard of in this era of the “partisan prism”. McCain should have positioned Palin to speak in detail about government reform, as this will be her portfolio if she becomes Vice President. She should have been discussing reform “swat teams” and reinventing government, instead of watching Obama preempt that issue.

As to Palin being unfit to govern – a random assortment of people waiting for a Metro bus could have run the country better than President Bush and his administration. Common sense and being grounded in a small town and small state culture will always trump Washington cronyism.

Small Town Values

One of the major themes arising the Republican Convention was “small town values”. This was short hand for the fact that rural America votes mostly Republican and urban America votes mostly Democratic. This is starkly displayed in the 2004 electoral map.

Many pundits made fun of this theme. They either ignored this electoral truism or denigrated the concept as masking some nefarious issue agenda.

Small towns do represent a different culture and perspective on life. I grew-up in Lee, New Hampshire - population 500. I now live in Harpers Ferry (“greater Harpers Ferry” is a combination of Harpers Ferry – population 310, Bolivar – population 1200, and a few water district customers – population 50). I wrote about small town values in my book, “Naked Emperors”. An excerpt should enlighten the pundits as to what they are missing:

"Harpers Ferry is a true community. Everyone knows everyone else. There is a fundamental commitment by all who live there to help honor its long history and to make things better for the future. Such a mix is increasingly rare in America. My ability to escape the transitory and false nature of Washington, D.C., and to immerse in this corner of real America, provided a much needed balance and a “dose of reality” to what I had to cope with working in the nation’s capitol.

Many in Washington never have such an opportunity. The result is a kind of science fiction world that politicians, lobbyists, journalists, and bureaucrats enter, and most never to leave. The insane laws, the absurd regulations, and the excesses in spending, flow from a sensory deprivation of real world inputs. Those inside the beltway actually believe that their every word and every deed is more important than anything done by anyone living outside this tiny world. They believe they are somehow brighter, better, and, therefore, inherently more deserving of trust, tax dollars, and media coverage.

What a shock to the psyche of these Washington-centric people if they would chance upon a $5.00 a person all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at the Friendship Fire Company in Harpers Ferry. They would find the people knowledgeable about the world, but uncluttered with the minutia of “who is who” for some fleeting moment of illusionary power and influence in Washington. Harpers Ferry people talk about many things, including world affairs. But what is foremost on the minds of people at this spaghetti feed is the cycle of life. Who died, who got married, who was born, and who is graduating from school. Yes, there are always world affairs and national concerns swirling outside the boundaries of Harpers Ferry, but people focus on people. Whose personal achievement should be celebrated, whose sorrow should be comforted, and whose misfortune should be aided, become the issues of importance. People think about, care about, and do something about, people. They do this, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively, without having to pass a law or petition a bureaucrat.

This is the America that remains beyond the view of the ego-glazed eyes of Washington and the national media. It is not the America of self-absorbed talk shows or of lurid but lucrative headlines. It is an America that quietly maintains the center of gravity for our timeless civic culture. In its own simple, common sensical way it propels the nation forward and sustains its core values and traditions, regardless of fads, crises, or technological wonders."

The Gustav Factor

This Republican Convention badge is a unique symbol of our resilient democracy, not because of what it shows, but because of what it is made of – cardboard.

The Republican’s held their 1944 National Convention in Chicago from June 26-28, 1944. This was at the height of World War II. It had been only twenty days since the allied landings in Normandy. War did not curtail our democratic processes, but adjustments were made. Metal was needed for the war effort; so cardboard badges replaced the elaborate officer medals worn at previous conventions.

This story of our democracy adjusting to changing circumstances is playing out at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hurricane Gustav was predicted to be a category 4 “storm of the century” when Senator John McCain and Republican leaders scaled back their first day session. Modern conventions have become mostly infomercials, but they still serve a fundamental legal purpose of certifying the party’s nominees. This is a requirement for being on the general election ballot in most states.

McCain and the GOP did the right thing. The level 2 hurricane that plowed into the Louisiana coast is still causing billions of dollars of damage and destroying people’s homes and livelihoods. This is not the time to see party officials firing political spitballs at the opposition.

As of this writing the New Orleans levees are holding. Hurricane Katrina breached its first levees within two hours of hitting the city on August 29, 2005. The major levees were battered for nearly eight hours before they gave-way.

The GOP still needs to continue its adjustments in the wake of Gustav. The convention’s communications infrastructure could be retooled for fundraising phone banks. Food from the various receptions could be donated to evacuee centers. The existing line-up of entertainers could be reconfigured for a telethon later in the week.

The Republicans need to balance conducting their official business, and communicating their election message, with caring for those in need. How well they strike that balance will tell their story better than any speaker.

Palin in Perspective

The selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for Vice President brings the first real executive experience to either national ticket.

I first raised this issue during my book tour in March. I was worried that the compressed primary schedule pushed most of the presidential campaign into 2007. This gave “home field advantage” to the Washington elites. The 2007 race for media attention and money was the domain of lobbyists and special interests. The result was three Senators becoming the front-runners – Clinton, McCain and Obama.

Senators are the ultimate Washington insiders. They are all millionaires. Their primary goal is to produce volumes of media releases and rhetoric. Their $2 million operating budgets and 20-35 staffers are managed by a chief of staff with fully delegated powers. It is rare for a Senator, from either party to have any executive experience. The last all-Senate ticket was Kennedy-Johnson, who ushered in one of the most turbulent and tragic decades in America history (only surpassed by the Civil War and Depression eras).

America now has hope. Governor Palin is a chief executive officer who leads 15,000 state employees, and oversees a $1.5 billion budget. This means she spends her days making real decisions that impact the daily lives of Alaskans. This is the real world, not the surreal one of Washington power players chronicled in my book “Naked Emperors”.

Palin is a real reformer with real results. She is all about taking tangible actions to clean-up government and make it more efficient. In every elected office, she has led successful change efforts to reduce waste, help whistle-blowers, and fight corruption.

Washington, DC is long over-do for a major overhaul. This is why “change” has become an overused slogan during this campaign cycle. In most cases, this is just empty rhetoric. Obama and Biden mouth great platitudes about change, but never did it. McCain has led legislative change, but has not been in a position to implement it. Palin is the “real deal”.

Down Memory Lane

The Democratic National Convention begins on August 25. It will be a well-packaged series of presentations designed to position Barack Obama (National Journal’s Liberal Rating 95.5) and Joe Biden (National Journal’s Liberal Rating 94.2) at the center of the political spectrum.

Americans need to look beneath the infomercial trappings to see the real face of a future Obama Administration. Monday night features tributes to Senator Ted Kennedy and former President Jimmy Carter. There will also be speeches by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a range of liberal and labor union lobbyists. Additional labor union and liberal lobbyists will be at the podium on Tuesday and Wednesday.

An Obama administration will draw inspiration and personnel from these left-of-center groups. His administration will be populated by people who either directly worked for the Kennedys or Carter, or wished they had been old enough to work for them. Congressional staffers who currently support Speaker Pelosi’s worldview will move into the Executive Branch.

Obama-Biden will be the most liberal team ever elected. They are more liberal than Carter-Mondale, and are more liberal than any other Democratic ticket since McGovern-Shriver. No amount of symbolism or rhetoric changes this basic fact.

Monday night’s Kennedy tribute will undoubtedly be nostalgic about the entire Kennedy family. I am sure many talking heads within the mainstream media will draw countless and pointless parallels between Obama-Biden and Kennedy-Johnson. These will be along the lines of young charismatic barrier breaker (Obama – race; Kennedy – Catholic) runs with Senate veteran.

There are parallels. Obama-Biden have a combined Congressional service of 38 years (Kennedy-Johnson had 37 years). They, along with Kerry-Edwards, are the only all-Senate Presidential ticket in American history. People forget how young Johnson was (age 52). Biden is 66. This means the average age of the 1960 ticket was 47, while the average age of the 2008 ticket is 56.

Americans need to remember the legacies of Kennedy-Johnson. They tampered with the planning of the Bay of Pigs, leading to America’s worst pre 9-11 intelligence failure (April 15-19, 1961). [For those who think Kennedy was blameless and duped, please read “Give Us This Day” by E. Howard Hunt].

Kennedy tried to recover from this debacle with an equally disastrous summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna (June 4, 1961). Emboldened by the Kennedy’s weakness and inexperience, Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall (August 13, 1961) and placed offensive missiles in Cuba (starting in May 1962). The subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16-28, 1962) is considered Kennedy’s greatest triumph. He is hailed as a great leader for facing down the Soviets and avoiding nuclear war. Taken in context, honoring Kennedy is like honoring a pyromaniac who saved lives after starting the fire in the first place.

In addition to this series of reversals with the Soviets, Kennedy approved the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government (November 1-2, 1963). The CIA-sanctioned killing of President Diem and his brother sent that country into a tailspin of instability that resulted in America’s longest war and its eventual communist takeover (April 30, 1975).

So when the mainstream media basks in their 1960’s nostalgic glow, Americans need to remember the facts of that era. When, Obama and Biden talk about change, Americans need to demand to know what is the Obama-Biden vision and inspiration. It may not be a pretty picture.

Saving the Senate

The Senate is back in session after its Independence Day Recess. They returned to their dismal stalemate on major issues, which has been the hallmark of this Congress.

There are just twenty-one legislative days until the August Recess. Then everyone’s attention turns to the Summer Olympics and the National Party Conventions. When the Senate reconvenes on September 8 it will meet for probably twenty more days before everyone leaves for the final weeks of campaigning.

The entrenched partisanship is unlikely to allow anything of substance to move through the Senate, except possibly a continuing resolution to keep the government operating through the election. Therefore, our tax dollars and political energies will be spent watching the Senate cloak its dysfunction with mountains of rhetoric. Neither side wants to cooperate or compromise as everyone assumes they will be in a better political position with a new President.

There is a better way.

The Senate has a unique opportunity to show political leadership. For the first time in American history the two major party nominees are both serving Senators. The only other time anything close to this has happened was when numerous people ran (or stood) for the Presidency with multiple and weak party affiliations prior to the Civil War.

The Senate could host a series of major debates between McCain and Obama. Under Senate rules the two candidates could spend hours, even days, debating each other. They could even give mock “state of the union” addresses with the other delivering a rebuttal. These could be done with each one alternating between giving a standard 45-minute address and the other giving a 15-minute rebuttal every week. The rotation could be decided by a coin toss.

The other option is to take legislation from the calendar and give McCain and Obama as many hours as they want to discuss these major issues in detail. Other Senators could also set-up forums where they could take on a major issue each day or week and discuss what they would do in the next Congress. In all of these scenarios, CSPAN and the major networks would cover such sessions gavel to gavel. The stage is already set and the rules are already in place. No games, just real debate.

In all cases voters will have an opportunity to watch the Senate do what it historically does best – discuss major national issues in an open forum. This could revolutionize the campaign process and do a great service toward informing voters of where everyone stands.

To make this happen the Senate leadership would have to agree on ways to expedite the passage of minor bills, like naming Post Offices. This could be done by grouping them into omnibus packages. Currently these bills serve as time wasters as Senators maneuver behind the scenes on major issues. As there is no hope for major action, let’s move beyond parliamentary games and bring real issues to the forefront in real ways.