Bring It On! Election 2008

From my email today:

John McCain may try to claim that the past careers of his advisers are irrelevant, but look at this passage from today’s Washington Post article about Charlie Black, McCain adviser and chairman of lobbying firm BKSH and Associates…
But even as Black provide a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, McCain’s Commerce Committee.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.

John McCain literally has a lobbyist for “corporate interests and foreign governments” working from the “Straight Talk Express.”

Where will they work from if he wins the White House?  — Howard Dean

Same corrupt crap, different package.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less if John McCain is a womanizer. If so, that puts him on par with most of his colleagues and many of his fellow citizens. Frankly, if he is, it’s not a predictor of competence and it shouldn’t automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration. Nonetheless, it may make sense to seek an understanding of the behaviors that might accompany an individual’s propensity to engage in such escapades.

I’ve known men that are virtually unable to function without the prospect of a budding relationship…whether married or not. Men of this ilk are prisoners of their prurient pursuits. They are apt to make compromising decisions that jeopardize their existing relationships as well as their own well-being. Money is often no object and they will frequently take unwise and unwarranted risks. Hence, when these individuals are in the throes of their latest interlude, their judgment is not only suspect; it may well be incorrigible.

As I read the accounts of Senator McCain’s involvement with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, I immediately recalled watching an episode of Headliners and Legends chronicling his life. The pursuit of women was a persistent theme of the biography…a pattern not only confirmed by friends of McCain; but also by McCain himself.

In one particular segment of the program, McCain basically states that he and his fellow servicemen were preoccupied with seeking female companionship. While understandable given the circumstances, the manner in which the Senator recounted the story immediately reminded me of my discomfort with his habit of winking at people on the campaign trail. Instinctually, both instances strike me as part and parcel of a persona I might be inclined to suspect is focused on the pursuit of the opposite sex…a behavior set I would equate with a tendency towards objectification.

As the biography progresses, the narrator notes that McCain’s first wife Carol waited patiently for his release from his captors only to see their marriage fall apart as a result of the Senator’s many extramarital dalliances. When asked about that period of time, McCain’s former wife, a victim of a disabling car accident, apparently told others that once her husband turned forty, he decided he wanted to be twenty five again. Hence, he divorced his first wife and soon married his much younger (and wealthy) current wife Cindy.

In the biography, McCain speaks about his affairs and while he accepts blame and acknowledges his actions were inappropriate, he also posits that he was motivated by “selfishness and immaturity”. In my way of thinking, I could entertain giving him the benefit of the doubt had he suggested that his actions may have been a reaction to his years of confinement and the denial it certainly included. To his credit, he refuses to offer that rationale, though it’s possible he did so because it wouldn’t square with his history of womanizing prior to his stint in Vietnam.

Returning to the New York Times report, I was particularly struck by the following excerpt:

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

What troubles me about this revelation is the sense, by his advisors, that the Senator was capable of sabotaging his own campaign. Presumably, the advisors had a good sense of their candidates idiosyncrasies…a fact that seems to have led them to conclude the Senator lacked the proper judgment with regard to romantic involvements. Whether this caution resulted from prior experiences wasn’t revealed…but it isn’t much of a stretch to draw that conclusion given the Senator’s self-confessed track record.

So where does that leave us? Well, as is so often the case with such stories, we’re forced to rely upon the speculations of others. Clearly, the Senator’s history has contained instances of a similar nature and he freely admits as much. Whether he does so to help him arrive at the current straight talking maverick war hero image may never be known…though he wouldn’t be the first public figure to craft a message that masks the actual man. Lastly, he can ill-afford to acknowledge an infidelity or an influence peddling impropriety at this critical juncture in his political life. Such is the nature of the political beast.

Rather than focus on this current assertion, I decided to have a little fun developing my own theory of McCain-ometrics. First, some background facts are needed. In 1965, at the age of 29, McCain married his first wife. In 1979, 14 years later, at the age of 43, McCain began courting his future second wife. In 1980 he left his first wife, who was 2 years his junior, for his new 27 year old wife…17 years younger. Nearly 20 years later, in 1999, at the age of 62, McCain is reported to have become “involved” with a 31 year old woman who was also roughly 31 years younger than he.

So here’s the formula and a riddle. John McCain spends 14 years with his first wife (Carol)…and then finds a new love interest (Cindy in 1979 - 1980)…and then, down the road, in approximately half again more years…minus one…(14 + 7 - 1 = +20 = 1999), he finds Vicki. Simultaneously, he doubles the net age difference between himself and each subsequent (love) interest…going from a baseline of a woman 2 years younger (Carol) to one 17 years younger (Cindy) for a net of 15 additional years younger…which means we must double the 15 year age gap to predict that the subsequent (love) interest would be approximately 30 years younger (Vicki 31, John 62 in 1999). Let’s also assume that John McCain doubles the years he stays married to each wife…plus one…thus 14 years with Carol x 2 + 1 = 29 years with Cindy. As such, he should be due for both a new (love) interest and wife in 2009 (14 + 7 - 1 = +20 plus half again more (minus one) = 20 + 10 - 1 = +29 years…or 2009).

OK, so if one applies this formula, how old would you approximate his new (love) interest and bride to be when he marries her and how many years would you anticipate he’d remain married (assuming he lives that long, of course) to this third wife?

You see, when it comes to the “evil” New York Times, I just hate to think that Republicans would conclude that its tawdry invective can’t be substantiated through a mathematical metric. I know I feel better having put pencil to paper.

P.S. Feel free to offer your answers…or your own equations in the comments. I’ll provide the answer derived from my metric in the comments at the end of the day.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

To paraphrase, I can’t define momentum, but I know it when I see it. From Brilliant at Breakfast:

 … it’s clear that there is a coalescing happening around Barack Obama, who according to CNN exit polls yesterday in Virginia won:

• 90% of black voters
  
• 75% of those under age 30
  
• 67% of those under age 45
  
• 52% of those over age 60 (so much for the oldsters keeping the nomination away from him, eh?)
  
• 50% of white voters
  
• 59% of women
  
• 61% of union households
  
• 65% of those making less than $50,000/year

Latinos aren’t on the list because CNN didn’t poll them, but damn — looks like every other demographic showed up in a big way. The media and the entrenched old guard Dems are getting handed their reality, and it does not reflect their talking points. What’s really funny, is that if they don’t deal, we’ll just leave them behind. We are bigger, mouthier and more motivated. God, what a buzz.

This is a snapshot of Americans taking America back. This is what appeal across social, economic and race boundaries looks like. Unity is more than a word, it’s a mindset. It order to have it, you have to want it. In order to want it, you get yourself up and make it happen.

We are volunteers for America.

The man who held that position was of course John Edwards. His message was clear: there are two America’s. With prices rising for almost everything and wages stagnating for years now, the time was ripe for a populist candidate within the Democratic Party and Edwards proudly filled that role.

Barack Obama would logically have a hard time filling that role. If he did attempt to put out a populist message, the MSM would most likely label him “the black candidate”. The Clinton’s already did that in South Carolina..thankfully it back-fired on them. I have been waiting to see if Obama would grab the populist mantel in spite of the pitfalls that stood in his way. As Manning Marable, a Columbia University history professor stated:

“That’s because once Obama parroted Edwards’ attacks on greed and inequality, he would “be stigmatized as a candidate mobilizing race,” David Sirota adds: That is, the media would immediately portray him as another Jesse Jackson — a figure whose progressivism has been (unfairly) depicted as racial politics anathema to white swing voters.

Sirota’s piece addresses the pitfalls that a populist message would create for Obama with the press and with the Clinton campaign:

Remember, this is always how power-challenging African-Americans are marginalized. The establishment cites a black leader’s race- and class-unifying populism as supposed proof of his or her radical, race-centric views. An extreme example of this came from the FBI, which labeled Martin Luther King Jr. “the most dangerous man in America” for talking about poverty. More typical is the attitude exemplified by Joe Klein’s 2006 Time magazine column. He called progressive Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., “an African American of a certain age and ideology, easily stereotyped” and “one of the ancient band of left-liberals who grew up in the angry hothouse of inner-city, racial-preference politics.”

Well, I am here to say that Tuesday night in Madison, WI Obama finally hit a populist note. From his speech:

It’s a game where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and our planet is put at risk. That’s what happens when lobbyists set the agenda, and that’s why they won’t drown out your voices anymore when I am President of the United States of America

It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That’s what happens when the American worker doesn’t have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that’s why we need a President who will listen to Main Street – not just Wall Street; a President who will stand with workers not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard.

Obama is now officially the front-runner. He needs to go after Hillary’s base of support; The blue-collar workers, the folks making under 50k a year, retirees, older women, immigrants and even white collar workers. Obama is also now taking aim at John “weathervane’ McCain as well he should:

John McCain is an American hero. We honor his service to our nation. But his priorities don’t address the real problems of the American people, because they are bound to the failed policies of the past.

George Bush won’t be on the ballot this November, but his war and his tax cuts for the wealthy will.

When I am the nominee, I will offer a clear choice. John McCain won’t be able to say that I ever supported this war in Iraq, because I opposed it from the beginning. Senator McCain said the other day that we might be mired for a hundred years in Iraq, which is reason enough to not give him four years in the White House.

He needs to remind people of NAFTA and its consequences, like he did tonight in Madison. He sounded confident and today he is supposed to deliver a major policy address. I will watch and listen to him and what he says and doesn’t say.

Because this time around..I want to vote for someone, not just for the lesser of two mediocre evils. If I don’t hear what I need to hear from Obama, it will just be another Presidential Election where one of my felines gets my vote, as was the case with John Kerry. For me, this Presidential election isn’t about race or gender..its about who is delivering the populist message that we can no longer tolerate ‘two America’s’ which is represented by the growing economic inequality in our nation. Obama got my attention when he returned campaign contributions from lobbyists. I hope he gets my vote by addressing the problems that affect hard-working Americans on a daily basis and ending the war in Iraq as soon as humanly possible.

I don’t want just rhetoric..I want substance. He will need to not only address the issues, he will need to tell me how he plans to fix them and pay for them. He has the style and he is a mesmerizing speaker..but for my vote he will need much more than that.

“Sometimes when you get too close, you get too far” is one of many pearls of wisdom handed down from my Italian immigrant grandparents. They used the expression to warn their children that all relationships weren’t the same and that there are circumstances whereby getting too involved is ill advised. Fortunately, my parents passed those same words along to their children. I’ve been focused on the saying for several weeks as I’ve been seeking an understanding of my own indeterminate malaise.

Let me offer some background and then some explanation. I love politics and psychology and I often focus on their overlap when writing. I’ve done so because I’m convinced that all of our actions can be traced back to the individual’s psyche. Try as we might, I suspect we actually understand very little about the mechanics of that entity…other than the fact that it undoubtedly makes each of us uniquely flawed individuals.

If we look close enough, perhaps we can find themes or threads that connect some of us. At the same time, it seems safe to infer that the reverse is true…meaning there are also threadbare holes in this imperfect human tapestry that divide us. Politics is thus the tundra upon which these commonalities and these differences unfold.

This current election cycle is a unique moment in our American history. Never before has it been inevitable that either a woman or an African American would be the nominee of one of our political parties. Part and parcel of that eventuality is the concept of change. Confronting this change, in my estimation, involves many of the same dynamics found in my grandparent’s thoughtful insights.

There is a spoken belief that our nation long ago confronted issues of race and gender and set in motion the removal of the barriers associated with either. There is also an unspoken reality that neither has been achieved. As we approach the moment where our lip service may well be forced to acquiesce to the living of these lofty proclamations, we begin to see that the closer we get to its achievement, the further we may be from its existence.

The evidence that exists is no doubt the equivalent of a DNA match. Whether it’s a product of our capitalistic mindset that idealizes winning and posits that the opposite is losing, I don’t know for sure…but I suspect it may well be. If so, then nothing could be more divisive than to ask voters to affirm one oppressed group over another. It’s as if fate is bringing us to the precipice of progress…only to ask us to make a choice that will catapult one group to the pinnacle while seemingly pushing the other into the abyss. While this isn’t actually the choice, it may be the perception.

Worse still, those groups who lack a contestant in the competition for the quintessential prize worry that the elevation of one of their fellow second class societal equivalents may well result in the further disproportionate distribution of the spoils of success. Hence, if the perception exists that the proverbial pie isn’t large enough to nourish us all, then the thought that one’s longtime competitor (for the crumbs that fall off the table) is about to receive not only a place at the table, but a plate…and a bigger piece of the pie, is apt to create angst…and resentment. Therein lies what we must attempt to understand.

An example might be beneficial. I received a distressing call from my younger sister last week. As I picked up the phone and said hello, all I heard on the other end was my sister sobbing…telling me that she had just gotten off the phone with my mother. My heart sunk as my mind raced to guess who had died or was diagnosed with a terminal disease or fallen gravely ill. It’s amazing how many thoughts can occupy a few seconds. I immediately asked, “What’s the matter?” As I braced for the bad news, she replied, “I told mom I had caucused for Obama and she got mad and hung up on me”.

You see my mom is in her seventies…and the thought that a fellow woman would choose to support “the other candidate” (a man who happens to be black) is akin to treason. Add to that the fact that she grew up in a small Colorado community as a Catholic whose Italian immigrant parents had distinct accents and customs that were foreign to those around them and one begins to see the generational impact.

Such is the insidious nature of discrimination and prolonged periods of lost or limited opportunities. Let me be clear…my mom doesn’t have a racist bone in her body and I can’t recall a single disparaging remark about any minority (save for her angry comments at my announcement many years ago that I was gay). Nonetheless, she is a product of a society that relegated her and other women to a lesser status and in so doing served to rob her and many others of the same opportunities as their male counterparts. The fact that she saw similar limitations placed upon her foreign born parents only exacerbated her awareness of the issue.

When I subsequently spoke with my mother on the phone, the gravity of the situation was revealed when she stated, “I want to see a woman elected to the presidency before I die.” Yes, the same woman who idolized the charisma and the hope she found in JFK couldn’t envision that my sister had seen the same in Barack Obama. She could only feel her own sense of loss and sadness at the fact that time is cutting short her chances to witness the culmination of her dreams and her hopes.

2008 will be a historical election…but whether it will be a transformative one remains to be seen. Sometimes the closer we get to fulfilling the hopes and dreams of the least of us, the more difficult it can be to preserve them for the rest of us. Hence, transformation can be a double-edged sword.

My love for my mom and my sister is unlimited…and yet it can’t always bridge the gaps that come between people from disparate eras. When injustice has been administered and experienced over lengthy periods of time, it may be impossible to repair the damages or remove the regrets that accompany it.

We each see life through our own prisms. We occasionally see the same thing when looking through those prisms…yet if we see those things in our lives at differing chronological points, they will likely have different meanings. In the end, sometimes when you’ve gone too long without, you’ve gone too far within. Perhaps the lessons learned in 2008 will bring all of us closer to where we belong.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater