This year's presidential election is likely to be decided in about eight states, mostly in the Midwest. I've spent the last year and a half teaching American government in one of them.
I've taught at Missouri Southern State University, a small college in Joplin. I tell my students that while I am from New York, I am from the southwest Missouri part of New York. Politically and demographically, the culture of rural upstate new York is not unlike southwest Missouri. My students are from the same place as Harry Truman.
The Midwest is  a place where tribal-type loyalties persist and where churches abound. It is not quite Norman Rockwell anymore, but there are a lot of Andy Griffith and Aunt Bee types still around. The culture is not unlike the rural parts of New York.
There is also the same kind of resilience that is evident after tornadoes and other disasters. The community barn-raising mentality is still very much alive and well in places like Missouri.
Look at how quickly Joplin, Mo., has been and is being rebuilt after last year's devastating F-5 tornado. Its rise from the ashes has been remarkable and its progress much faster than the more sluggish pace of resurrection of post-Katrina New Orleans. Maybe it's the spirit of self-reliance that is really on display here. Midwesterners are more apt to rescue themselves than they are to wait for their rescuers.
There is a pervasive feeling of community consciousness and pride that is on display in the Friday night high school football games, and the Saturday morning pancake breakfasts. In the Midwest, the culture of small-town America still exists.
A guy like Bill Clinton from small-town Arkansas, or Harry Truman from small-town Missouri, understood that culture well, and could tap into it. A guy like Barack Obama, born in Hawaii and trained as a Chicago community organizer, has a little tougher time relating to it.
Harry Truman played well in the heartland because he was from the heartland. He understood it. He was genuine. They don't much cotton to phonies in places like Missouri.
No amount of dressing up and puffing up will ever change who a candidate essentially is. The slickness and slipperiness of Mitt Romney will ultimately cause him to self-deport, I think.
But if President Obama persists in being true to his values, true to his tribe, and true to himself, he will regain his footing and ultimately triumph. It doesn't matter if your tribe is from Oahu, South Chicago or Southwest Missouri. Your tribe is your tribe. Your loyalty is your loyalty. Being real always trumps being disingenuous.
The problem with President Obama is Professor Obama. He must learn to avoid equivocation and professorial diatribes examining all sides of every issue. As smart as he is, the Midwestern electorate is not happy to be lectured to, nor pandered to. They will listen, however, if you say what you mean and mean what you say.
Obama must stop channelling his inner Adlai Stevenson, and start channelling his inner Harry Truman. He has to, as Harry would say, not "Give 'em hell." but "Tell the truth, and they'll think it's hell."
He has to call his opponents out on their obstructionist strategy. Instead of criticizing Congress generically as an institution, he must pin the tail on the non-donkeys who are doing all the braying but none of the real work. He needs to call out the real obstructionists for who they are, the Do-Nothing Republican Congress, because it is only the Republicans who are blocking his every effort to revive the economy, to their own political advantage, and to the disadvantage of the country. Harry Truman had no problem doing that and it enabled him to come back from the politically dead and win the 1948 election.
When then-Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles was being written off for re-election in 1994, and the odds favored upstart Jeb Bush, he walked out of a Miami television studio on a Sunday morning, saying "The He Coon walks by the light of day!"
The Miami political punditry pronounced him bizarre, but the down-home Floridians from the Panhandle knew exactly what he meant. Enough is enough, Chiles was saying, "I am the governor of this state and I am not putting up with this anymore! I'm outta here!"
Chiles carried the Panhandle and the rest of Florida to win re-election.
The lesson? Be who you are. Don't play footsie with your implacable foes and then think that your tribe will still adore you. Stay true to yourself and your core philosophy.
When you do, you can appeal to people from the Midwestern swing states, and live to see a second term. If not, it could be hello, President Romney, welcome to Missouri!
The choice is Obama's — President, or professor.
Personally, I kind of like President Obama, especially when he really knows who he is, and what he stands for. So will Missourians and other Midwesterners who need to not only like him, but vote for him.
Show me, Mr. President. That is a winning strategy.

President Obama will be delivering the valedictory speech today at Joplin High School. If I were writing his speech for him, here's what I would have him say....

 One year ago, here in Joplin, Mo., you folks felt a fury of nature that unleashed unwarranted and wanton destruction and death . It all happened in the blink of an eye, and then it was over, and you were left to face the consequences of nature's fury. You buried your dead. You grieved their loss, and you determined to rise and rebuild in the memory of those who had fallen, and you have done, and are continuing to do just that. It is amazing to see how life can change on a dime, and secure worlds can be turned into chaos with barely a moments notice. As we travel forward on life's pathways, these are often the challenges we face. Disaster, grief, despair, momentary hopelessness..are all a part of life's lessons. The important thing to do is to learn those lessons, as you have, and then, to move forward. Life's greatest lesson is perhaps to never ever quit, no matter what adversity comes your way. We must rise to the challenge that confronts us. You here in Joplin understand that.     And you are not alone, because you see, Joplin has become   a metaphor for America. It is being rebuilt, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. The storm that decimated Joplin , and ripped the heart of the community asunder was the kind of storm that comes along every fifty years. Our financial storm of 2009 and 2010 was not unlike the Joplin tornado, our financial markets were collapsing, our housing market took its deepest plunge in history, and our auto industry nearly folded. We didn't take it lying down, we responded.      In government , you essentially have two choices . Don't just stand there, do something, or don't just do something stand there. We chose to act ..to act to save the auto industry when a free market approach would have meant its certain demise, and today, I can report to you that the American Auto industry is back, and thriving! That comeback is nothing less than miraculous.  Kind of like the Walgreen pharmacy on Rangeline. It was virtually in ruins, but it stayed open, and was rebuilt brick by brick, and is today thriving again .      When I assumed office three years ago , an economic disaster of major proportion was happening and decisive action was needed to bring us back from the brink of the financial abyss. Together, we took those steps, and it has made all the difference, just as together, you took steps to bring back Joplin, and your efforts are abundantly evident today.      Make no mistake, Joplin is not quite there yet, and neither is America, but there is no turning back from what , together we have learned. We can't move forward by moving backward. We can't resurrect a community or a nation by sitting idly by, and waiting for market forces to correct the situation as some have advocated.  Recovery, as you understand here in Joplin,  Missouri , recovery.... happens when you boldly face your challenges, and move determinedly forward, not cower and retreat. You don't get out of a hole until you stop digging. And you don't get out of a hole   by retreating to the policies that put you in the hole to begin with. You folks in Joplin understand that.     We need to harness the spirit of Joplin to refit America, and with your help, and with your can do spirit and never never quit mentality as our model, we will do just that!      So, thank you Joplin, you have shown us the way! As Joplin rises from the ashes of a natural calamity, so too will America rise from the ashes of a self induced and man made calamity which has shaken the very foundations of our free enterprise system.  As you graduate today, and walk out of these high school halls with confidence and optimism, you will find an America that needs your strength, your hope, and your vision for a better tomorrow.  Let's move forward Joplin. And let's move forward America!

Marriage or Smarriage?

Marriage or Smarriage?     Words matter. And,  in the debate over marriage equality, words really, really matter.  I grew up Catholic. So, I am used to hearing the  phrase, "In the eyes of the church....".        And truthfully, in the eyes of the church, same sex couples will never be sanctioned let alone sanctified. Marriage is a sacrament, in the eyes of the Church, and that's ok! Some couples I know were first married by a Justice of the Peace, and later re-married “in the eyes of the church” by a clergyman.  So there are really two kinds of marriage already..religious marriage, and civil marriage.  We can have both, and they are not mutually exclusive.  Religious marriage  carries with it a civil status recognized by the state which alters the rights of the individuals who partake in it.  Civil marriage does not confer any sacramental benefits or status on the participants in the eyes of the church. But, while one may be a blessing, the other is not a curse.  Maybe it is all in how we describe it.       Are words the problem? Because if the problem lies simply in the words we use to describe it.... maybe we just need to give it a different name.      How about “Marriage”  (Heterosexual marriage) and “Smarriage “( same sex marriage) .  I use that example, tongue in cheek,  in discussing the issue with my college aged students.  If it is all about what we call it..why not just call it something different?  Same sex couples who are “smarried” could call their spouses “smusbands” or “swives”... If that is all we are arguing about, maybe that would solve the problem.         You don't have to celebrate someone else's marital status.  You don’t have to throw confetti, or go to the reception.  You need only respect it,  just as you would respect the rights all other citizens have under law.  Gay people are not seeking sacramental solace, or  religious approbation.  They are simply seeking tolerance, respect for their rights, and respect for how they choose to conduct their civil relationships.  Nothing more..nothing less.  This is not an assault on traditional marriage, and anyone who characterizes it as that is truly either misinformed or attempting to mislead.         It would be foolish to argue that someone supporting the sport of Soccer is advocating an end to the game of Football. The fight is over civil marriage, not religious marriage. You can't legislate a change in religious ideology. That would be wrong. Mandating contraceptive coverage by religious employers whose ideology rejects it is wrong.The critics of the Obama administration who said that regulation went too far were right.  As a result, Obama’s administration retreated, and reached a compromise.  So too is compromise possible on the issue of Marriage equality.  But unlike ardent ideologues, we must be wiling to compromise.      Religiosity simply has no place in the legislative world, and legislative mandates have no place in the world of religion. You have the right in this country to be religiously intolerant. You do not have the right to be civilly intolerant of rights which are guaranteed all Americans by the United States Constitution. It's as simple as that!                We just need to realize and respect the fact that in the eyes of the law, same sex couples should be treated no differently than interracial couples currently are when it comes to being accorded basic constitutional rights. ( Interracial couples were banned from marrying before 1967 - In Loving v. Virginia,  the USSC changed that) Current laws banning same sex marriage will no doubt eventually meet the same fate as laws banning interracial marriage.  It is an issue on which many Americans, like the President, are “evolving”.  History is not on the side of reversing the current sociological trend.  The more people get to know the human side of the issue, the less intolerant they become.  Former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s view on the subject is but a  example.  Because he has been affected personally, he sees it differently.  So will many more Americans as time progresses.      And, as for the President’s recent statement about the right of same sex individuals to marry...What did Obama really say? He said he supports equal rights. What's wrong with that?  When is the last time a President of the United States was criticized for advocating equality....  other than Barack Obama?  Come to think of it... the answer would be Abraham Lincoln...and we all know how that turned out.      Here’s hoping for a less drastic resolution of this current controversy.  If using different words will do it...it is at least worth a try. -- 

We're not in Kansas anymore!

We’re not in Kansas anymore!

    Kansas , it would appear, is becoming the poster child for "electile dysfunction" when it comes to redrawing political district boundaries. It's not, as one might first suspect,  a good old fashioned donnybrook between  Democrats and  Republicans.  It is a fight to the death between the Regular Republicans and the Destructionist Republicans.  It’s GOP vs. GDP (Grand Old Party versus Grand Destructionist Party).

    What has brought about a  state of political impasse is a fight between two kinds of Republicans . It is the right versus the far right. The tension is between the traditional  conservative 'Just say no" (politely) Republicans, and the "Just say hell no" and tear down the building while we're at it "Destructionist" wing of the Republican party.  I say” Destructionist” because, among other goals, they want to repeal the Kansas Personal Income tax, and create a new system which they tout as fairer, but which will result in more money flowing to the top one percent.  They also want to radically re-alter Kansas’ Social safety net.  To do so, they must remove the more recalcitrant of their Republican brethren, who are more main stream than destructionist. .  Woe unto those Republicans who stand for fairness and just distribution of the tax burden amongst the citizenry.  So , war it is!

    There is another way of looking at it.  The Kansas re-districting brouhaha is, at minimum,  a testament to the need for real reform in the way re-districting is accomplished every ten years. Many states have moved away from political gerrymandering to independent re-districting panels which perform the task the way it should be performed, without regard to preserving the hegemony of the incumbent. As long as the politicians are in charge of the decennial re-districting process, it will continue to be a game of who can best rig the system to their own advantage. It is akin to a syndicate of crime bosses dividing up their territories. When the political Cosa Nostra is in command of the process, the result is a continuing grip on the configuration of governmental districts that gives an edge to incumbency, and tips the scales heavily against change.  If allowed to persist, as it has in many states, it results ultimately in the stratification of our legislative districts which reduces competitiveness, and delivers but an illusion of democracy, not the real thing.

   In theory, we as a people have the ability to change the entire House of Representatives every two years, as all 435 seats are up for election.  The problem is that only about 100 of the 435 districts are actually competitive. Three fourths of them have been rigged...drawn so as to protect the incumbents on both sides of the aisle.

    In 335 Congressional Districts, if there is no change by way of defeat of incumbents in primary elections, there is no meaningful election. The system has been designed to avoid what the Founding Fathers viewed as the biennial opportunity of the electorate to weigh in on the state of the country. The illusion of an election is all that is left.

    Hopefully, the continued failure of Kansas' Legislature to achieve a consensus will open the door for the courts to do what the politicians failed to do...draw the lines fairly, freely, and in a way that makes sense geographically, demographically, and democratically.  Just as the excesses of the Pendergast machine in 1940 brought about the Missouri Court Plan in our neighbor state to the east (which selects Appellate judges on the basis of merit, not politics), so too can the impasse in the Kansas Legislature on re-districting lead to a reform of the way Kansas draws its political boundaries in the future. 
     The embarrassment that is the current Kansas State Legislature could give way to real reform if we seize the moment to bring about the change that is obviously greatly needed. As the old saying goes,  “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!” . If only Kansans were allowed the rights of Initiative and referendum, we could say let the petitioning for a  new way to re-district Kansas begin!   Would that it were so.  Just imagine if we could move from Destructivist Republicanism, to Constructive change.  A better, brighter,  political future for all, could be  just over the Kansas Rainbow.  Clearly, with the way the Legislature is currently being configured, we are just not in Kansas anymore. The winds we really need are tornadoes of change in our governmental structure. How about it Toto?

Obama's   " Love Child "


Obamacare is the love child of a forced marriage of ideas produced by a partisanly divided and dysfunctional Congress that no one really wants to completely defend.
It came about as a result of a strained union of Democratic principles with Republican ideology, and the end result is something that few will fully embrace. Even the godfather of this health care concept, Mitt Romney, has run away from his own prodigy. No wonder Obama is hard pressed, or at least politically reticent, to defend his "signature achievement."
It's the kind of law nobody  really wants to put a signature on. Now that it is being seriously challenged before the Supreme Court, the President seems to have gone into a full-blown defense mode. It may be too late to save it, but it is still not too late to defend it, and the principles for which it stands.
There may be no public option, but there is a public mandate to buy private insurance. That originally Republican idea seems to be what is now bothering the law's detractors the most. It would appear that they were for it before they were against it. There are some good things in it, too.
For instance, there will be a lot fewer freeloaders in the system. College kids get to stay on their parents insurance longer, which is good if they don't have a decent job. And the prohibition about excluding people with pre-existing conditions is universally applauded.
The problem with the defense of the act is, as the sometimes speechless and stuttering Solicitor General Donald Verrilli demonstrated, it is hard to defend. It is hard to explain, and it is hard to fully embrace what is essentially a bastard-like concept.
In agreeing to hear this case, the Supreme Court has created its own conundrum It is lamentable that its constitutionally challenged core is being reviewed by a conservative court that is contemptuous of compromise, and didactic in its view of the central issues of the day. The court is as divided and politicized as the country. At a time when we desperately need the sage guidance of a strong and independent judicial umpire, we are left with a bunch of biased referees whose calls are constantly being colored by their own political predilections. They all seem to have become "Scaliafied".
By most legal accounts, its constitutional roots in the Commerce Clause are firmly planted, unless you are a doubting Thomas like Clarence and the company he keeps.
The current court has exercised little, if any, judicial restraint when it comes to deciding hot button issues. To wit: Bush vs. Gore, and Citizens United, where the court deliberately weighed in on matters that hindsight may have dictated they weigh out on.
The result has been a Supreme Court that has lost its judicial lustre, and try as he may to button up the more boisterous comments of his brethren, Chief Justice John Roberts can't force the judicial genie back into its bottle. The curtain has been drawn back, and the veil of impartiality has been ripped asunder, and the justices have been disrobed by their own dogmatic doggerel.
As former Justice John Paul Stevens opined in his Bush vs. Gore dissent, "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of the presidential election (of 2000), the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in this court, as the impartial guardian of the rule of law."
It would be an understatement to say that the court's ruling will be of great interest and of national import. Whether it chooses to avoid exercising the ultimate veto of a partially flawed but much needed reform to our health care system also will speak to this country's hopes for a future of governance by law — and not just by politicians, who happen to wear black robes.
The whole country is waiting and watching.

The Etch-A-Sketch Candidate

There is something to be said about the vicissitudes of Presidential campaigns.  Even though the current one has seen obscene gobs of money spewed forth by Super Pacs to merely denigrate the opposing side, it has proved helpful in getting to the heart of the matter by showing us the true character of the current would be Republican nominees.  After umpteen debates and dozens of “misquoted, misstatements”, a pattern is clearly visible.  The American people are able to see through the smoke screens conjured up by the political consultants, and view the candidates for who they really are. It is not a pretty picture.

     Mitt Romney, a/k/a the “etch- a- sketch” flip flopper , has been done in for the general election by his own General, top campaign aide  Eric Fehrnstrom,  who compared the primary positions Romney has had to take to the positions he will need to pivot to in the general election to an “etch a sketch” process. He said “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again!” The result? The red bordered metallic erasable tablet manufacturer's stock shot up 200%, while Romney's stock as a credible candidate plummeted.  Mitt Romney has taken flip flopping and etch- a -sketchery to new heights!

     His Republican primary opponent Rick Santorum, whose own views on such issues as abortion, contraception, and gay marriage are etched instead in stone tablets handed down to him on some remote Pennsylvania mountain,  has now said that he would even prefer a continuation of the Obama Presidency to having the “Etch-a- Sketch Presidency” of Mitt Romney. 

     Wow! Did he really say that? Has it come to this? If the Romney train is finally leaving the station on the tracks of inevitably, who will be at the campaign's final destination to greet him when and if it arrives?  If not  Santorum, will it be just Jeb Bush?

     Perhaps the only crowd to greet him will  be the enthusiastic stock holders of the Etch- a- Sketch company.  There are pitifully few others to cheer him on,  excepting the most avid Obama haters. These are the folks who would conceivably back Lucifer himself, were he to chastise, cajole and challenge Obama in a red meat sort of way.  But wait, their candidate would be the cheerful Mr. Newt Gingrich.., and his train seems to have left the tracks somewhere west of Georgia.  So even they might not show up at the end of the tracks.

      Suffice it to say that Washington’s Union Station will be mostly empty  on the day Romney arrives as the eventual Republican nominee. Why?  Because he has continually traded principle for political pivoting,  consistency for chicanery and bald faced about facery for the truth. No amount of Super Pac money will ever be able to hide the two , three, or four faces of Romney that the campaign has allowed us to see.  He huffed and he puffed and he blew his own house down.  There is no putting this Humpty Dumpty back together again. The jig is up.

    In fact, maybe we should just  move up the date of the Presidential campaign to September,  and get the agony over with.  Why spend umpteen millions more on negative ads between now and November, when the choice will be clear by the end of August.  Maybe September would be a good time to put aside the partisan divide, and start to rebuild our national consensus.  Of course, that can’t happen, but at least we know that by the time the November election does come, we can choose to spring forward, not fall back.  It will seem good to have it all over, and have a real chance to begin to put the country back together, again.

The Silence is deafening!

Silence

The silence is deafening. The silence of the Republican Presidential candidates in the face of Rush Limbaugh's latest misanthropic diatribe about contraception and a Georgetown female law student's testimony before Congress . Rush Limbaugh labeled her a "slut' for wanting free contraceptive coverage. According to Limbaugh, " if she wants to get paid for having sex she is a prostitute", and she should videotape and share her sexcapades so Rush and his cigar chomping confreres could at least watch.

What? Did he actually say that on a nationally syndicated radio show that is on the public airwaves? That is pretty creepy, not to mention, over the top. The last time this kind of thing happened it was " Imus in the Morrning" who became a casualty of his own loose lips which sunk his broadcasting ship. Talking about "Nappy hoes" with kinky hair was considered beyond the pale, and Don Imus had to go. So does Rush.

There was a time when it was unthinkable that a radio personality could engage in such vituperative doggerel and get away with it. Pre 1987, back in the "Happy Days" of 1947-1987 when the FCC's Fairness Doctrine existed, such conduct would have been unthinkable. With all the retro like rhetoric coming from the Republican Presidential candidates about family values and the good old days, nary a one has advocated a return to the Fairness Doctrine. That was the national policy which required broadcast stations to balance their political commentary by offering responsible spokesmen for opposite points of view to be given airways access to counter and/or balance comments that could be viewed as one sided. That policy is no more. It was done in by Ronald Regan and his political minions , and it ushered in the likes of Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh's and Michael Savage and Keith Olberman. Some say the quality of our political dialogue went to hell in a hand basket with the repeal of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine. It has given license to political debate which is not fact centered or civil, but comes down to a "Your mother wears combat boots" approach.

It was the Danish political philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who said. "If you label me, then you can dismiss me". If you're not a "ditto head" or a "Great American", it is Limbaugh or Hannity who controls the kill switch on the microphone, not some dispassionate moderator. Daytime talk radio has become a cesspool of political invective, political labeling, and political demagoguery of unparalleled proportion. If ever there were an argument to be made about restoring civility in our political dialogue, and a return to the Doctrine which required fairness and balance on the public airwaves, this is it.

I am a firm believer in Free Speech and the First Amendment rights of all citizens, but as the courts have long held, there can and should be time manner and place restrictions in the exercise of that freedom. You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre, and your ought not be able to defame other citizens caustically and with impunity on the public airwaves. Such
drivel may be suitable for Internet podcasts, but not for the public airwaves.

When I was a young man, I was a disc jockey on a local radio station. One day I had to fill in as moderator of a local talk show called " Open Mike". I will never forget the owner of the station, Cliff Harris, coming into the control room flailing his arms at me and mouthing for me to " go to a commercial" while I was on air. I did, and he laid me out in lavender for giving my opinion on a subject to a caller. The hot controversy at the time was whether the city should adopt a dog leash law, and I had my opinions on the subject. So did the caller with whom I was disagreeing on the air. He said " you are the moderator...moderator.. Do you understand me? Your opinion does not matter, it is the public opinion that does!" I will never forget the fire in his eyes and his tone of voice in correcting my errant ways. Too bad Cliff Harris isn't still around to do the same thing to Rush Limbaugh today! He certainly deserves a comeuppance for his over the top remarks. Can you step up to the plate and call out the bully 'Messrs. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul? Who will be the first to say to him as Joseph Welch did to Senator Joe Mc Carthy , " Enough! At long last, have you no decency , sir?" We are all waiting and watching.