The Audacity of Change

I’ve seen this show before.

A person is anointed and crowned. The Leader of the Free World is Chosen. It always happens this way. No matter what. New Hampshire did not make Bill Clinton the “Comeback Kid.” George W. Bush was never The Outsider. John Kerry was never going to be the President.

No matter the parlor games that are played inside the Beltway or in a studio or newsroom in Midtown Manhattan, people always know who is going to win, who will be president. Without a doubt, in 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush was not going to be re-elected to the presidency. Bill Clinton saw his meteoritic rise from the 1988 Democratic Convention where he was the keynote speaker to the 1992 Democratic Convention where he accepted his party’s nomination for president. He was unstoppable. He was never down and out. No scandal would stick. He was Teflon. He was Bulletproof. And he was going to dispose of Bob Dole in 1996 without breaking a sweat and speaking about building the bridge towards the 21st century. But people wanted others to believe that we had a real honest to God race out there. We didn’t.

In 2000, after eight years in exile, the Republicans crowned the heir apparent, the Governor of Texas, the son of the defeated ex-president. And no matter the insurgency that McCain would mount in New Hampshire, everyone knew that George W. Bush was going to be his party’s nominee. And going into election night, everyone knew that he was going to win, no matter how close the polls said the race was. During the post-election meltdown, everyone knew that no matter what the courts deliberated, they would always rule in his favor. Brokaw said on election night “George W. Bush is the president-elect.” And nothing was going to change that.

The same thing happens to those who don’t win the big prize. In September 2003, Time Magazine ran an article exulting Gov. Dean’s lead in Iowa. The Republicans kept on spinning knowing full well that there was no way in Hell that he was going to win this one. John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts was dying a merciless death in the wheat fields. The Democrats were waiting for Gore to come back and challenge the presidential pretender. In January Dean howled and Kerry triumphed. And that was it, the end of the primary. The Bush camp dumped an immediate Ad War against Kerry framing him in the eyes of the voters: flip-flopping Liberal New England elite who married into money. And there was no doubt that no matter what, George W. Bush would accomplish the one thing that had eluded his father: re-election.

I’ve seen this show before.

***

The good old days never were.

The floor fights at the conventions never transpired. Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek nor would accept his party’s nomination for president. A month before the sitting president was defeated in New Hampshire by Sen. McCarthy who was running on an anti-war campaign. With Johnson out the establishment gave it to Humphrey, the sitting vice-president. Humphrey battled McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. History of course has a way of being cyclical. With Kennedy’s assassination in June, the stage was set for Humphrey’s coronation amidst the police riot in Chicago, in one of the most nauseating episodes in American political history. There was no doubt that Humphrey was going to win even though we didn’t wish for that. We wanted Bobby. We wanted what was taken away from us. He would bring us together. He would give us the audacity of change. Ted White and Kennedy myth-creator Arthur Schlesinger Jr., always argued that Bobby would’ve won it in Chicago and that the protests and Daly-terrorism would never have happened. The politics though would’ve given it to the establishment. Humphrey had the delegates and McCarthy was never going to quit. Kennedy would never have won a majority to break the stalemate, and the delegates would propel Humphrey to the top. When Bobby died in Los Angeles, Humphrey already had 150 more delegate votes than Bobby, and 300 more than McCarthy. Bobby wasn’t going to be president, assassins’ bullet or not.

In Miami Beach the Republican Party was coming around to the idea that the Southern Strategy would guarantee victory—Bill Clinton remains the only Democratic president re-elected since the implementation of the Southern Strategy. And there was a faux split that was being presented but was never actually there. The Liberal wing of the Republican Party headed by a Governor of New York and a Mayor of New York City—both running for president—battled California’s favorite sons, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, for the direction of the party. This was a victory for the conscience of the Conservative. And no matter what happened Nixon was going to win. And he was going to win the presidency.

There’s no point anymore in thinking about counter-factuals. Even when we try to romanticize the what-ifs, the possibility of changes in history, we come back to the facts. Nothing was going to change it.

The good old days never were.

***

We now have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

And that’s the real reason why this presidential race is so fluid. Take me for example, by this time in every presidential election cycle I already know who the winner is going to be. At this time during the 1992 campaign I wasn’t yet interested in politics, but by this time in 1996, I knew that Clinton was going to win re-election. Even though there have only been three presidential elections that I have followed and have correctly prognosticated who has won—this track record of mine is going strong now for a dozen years. And I’m at a loss right now. I just don’t know. Something tells me that Giuliani is going to emerge past Huckabee and Romney and confront the Clinton war-machine and win. Something tells me that this is what is supposed to happen and that it indeed will. The re-run in my head tells me that this is it, that it is indeed, déjà vu all over again.

This same show tells me that no matter how many Stadiums Oprah and Barack fill, the HRC Campaign will take it all and take it big. Don’t pay attention to the polls in Iowa, Hillary will win there. She’ll take New Hampshire strong and South Carolina and it’s on to Super Tuesday and she’ll win there. No matter what. Obama would make a good veep, but she’ll give it to Richardson. And it’ll be Clinton-Richardson (who were the not-ready-for-primetime players in the 90’s) against Giuliani-Huckabee.

On Sunday night when I attended the Univision debate held at UM I thought that for sure I was going to come out of there knowing who had won. I don’t know if anyone did. Ron Paul’s honesty and apathy towards pandering is refreshing. Huckabee spoke well. Giuliani and Romney didn’t do anything to take it out of the ballpark and McCain spoke truthfully and with his hand on his heart, but no one listened and no one will ever let him in.

A War Election? A Change Election?

I guess we’re coming to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter who the president is. That no matter what they’ll follow the same long-term strategic goals and conduct business as usual. We placed our faith in the Bush Administration as being the first MBA Presidency. We placed our faith in this team as the self-anointed “Dream Team” of American Foreign Policy: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice. They were the grown-ups compared to Clinton’s kids who were running around the White House without knowing what to do next. And the Grown-Ups let us down. Those kids from the Clinton White House have come of age and are now the self-anointed Dream Team of politicos and policy-wonks. But I don’t think they’ve learned much since their first tour of duty during the 1990’s. At the end no one has the experience. No one has the courage to be a leader. It’s business as usual in America, and we lose sight of our dreams and aspirations in return for economic and social comfort. And no matter which party controls the White House after next year’s election, we may be a little better off than we are now…or we may not…this is the future status-quo.

But it needn’t be a fait accompli. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Barack Hussein Obama became president of the United States? People from all over the world would see that the United States of America is not represented by another Old White Man. So what if he’s not experienced? So what if he hasn’t fulfilled his sentence in Washington? This man is our Bobby:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. (Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention.)


He’s young, he’s charismatic. And we project what we want to see in us onto him. He is our tabula rasa. He’s Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in one. He’s change. He’s unlike anything we’ve ever had before. He’s presidential. He’s ready.


As a Republican, I support Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.

As a Republican, I will most probably support Rudy Giuliani, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.



“All life is a preparation for something that probably will never happen.”

Unless we have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

Past Thoughts on September 11th

In a previous online life, I kept a Live Journal (handle: livefrom). Commemorating today's sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001, I post entries I wrote to commemorate the second, fourth, and fifth anniversaries of that day. They are in reverse chronological order.

***

"9/12" Written: September 12, 2006

Five years ago we all woke up to a different world. A world reshaped by unspeakable horror and death, a world sickened with the cruel manifestation of terror.

We hugged and cried and came together. And we thought about what we had witnessed the previous day. There were no words. The World Trade Center, symbols of American economic might, were no more. The Pentagon, headquarters of the most powerful military to ever walk the face of this earth, was attacked, and part of it destroyed.

Thousands of innocents were ruthlessly murdered.

The streets of Heaven were too crowded with Angels that night.

And a terrorist organization engaged in an Act of War with the United States.

Always remember that: They attacked us first.

What is the aim of terrorism? It is not to murder, to kill. Even though they will willingly accept if not welcome collateral deaths. The aim of terrorism is to strike terror. It's as simple as that. The aim of terrorism is to develop psychological terror and a state of continued fear in citizens. It is at the end a political tool. Terror and fear in the citizenry will lead to questioning the strengths of government institutions. These institutions are the components of a democratic government. Sans institutions, we see the devolution of the state into one of anarchy and chaos. Once again, institutions are the backbone. Losing faith—questioning the ability of government to keep you safe, questioning the ability of government to function—will give terrorism a victory.

Terrorism lives off of terror. In order to defeat terrorism, you need to defeat terror and fear.

Many commentators accuse the Administration of not asking Americans to sacrifice for this war. We got tax cuts and told to live life as if nothing had happened. Indeed there was a subtle sacrifice asked: returning to normal to show terrorism that we will not live in terror, that we will not live in fear. Of course, that was impossible. But we had to show strength, if not, at least the perception of it. Yes, we can't carry our hair gels on airplanes anymore, but you know what, we still fly. Yes, we're warned about visiting corners of the earth where being an American can cause personal harm, but you know what, we still go. We do these things because we are not afraid. And we watch our American Idol, and we take note of what Paris Hilton is doing, and we worry about Natalie Holloway. And we return to a degree of normality.

We live in what Gore Vidal calls, the United States of Amnesia. And while many consider it a bad thing I don't. It is in the very essence of America, in our very composition, the fact that we have the ability to move on. Move on and look towards the future.

In the United States of Amnesia, we engrain whatever popular culture is prevalent and run with it. In the United States of Amnesia we follow trends and fads and stick to them until black is the new white. In the United States of Amnesia we bicker and fight between groups—be them your friends, or political parties—but we know that all is well, that at the end, we're still civil and we still talk to each other. A disagreement among friends is nothing bad. In the United States of Amnesia we worry about making end's meet and about the latest feud at our jobs, and about whether or not our kids are receiving the best education possible and the best health care possible. Citizens of the United States of Amnesia have enough personal problems and worries, and it's difficult to look beyond the micro-anxieties to focus on the macro-anxieties.

Countries, much like people, undergo existential anxieties of meaninglessness at times. What is our purpose? Why are we doing what we do? And in a healthy democracy we elect people to worry and to have anxieties for the country itself. We rely on institutions to function as they should. We rely on people who man those institutions to do the best they can for the country and its citizens. So not all is lost. Citizens of the U.S.A. may have a lot of personal problems, but the problems facing the nation are always accounted for, and taken care of.

We elect our Presidents on the grounds that they'll take care of everything. That foreign policy is under wraps. We elect them because we would like to almost hear them say, "Hey, you know that situation in the Middle East, you know about what's going on in that country that you can't find on a map? Don't worry about it; I'm taking care of business." And we want to believe them, because we want to continue living the lives that we live. There's too many things that are going on in the world, and in our democracy, we can't expect everyone to have an informed opinion on say, favored trade nation status with China, or on arms disarmament accords. It just won't happen. And that's not a bad thing. An informed citizenry is the backbone of a vibrant democracy. But that's the ideal never the reality.

So what do we get from all of this. That by believing that we have returned to a state of normality, that by acting it, and showing it to friend and foe alike, we start believing that we have returned to normal. Perception is more powerful than reality. Irreality is more important than reality. At the end, what we have to do is feign faith. We feign faith in our government and our institutions. We know it's not the best, we know it's plagued with problems, but we continue to believe in it. Believing is key.

And that's a way to defeat terror.

We feign faith. That doesn't mean that we lose the ability to question our government. Discourse is essential in democracy. But we need to have confidence in our government. At the end, Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, while we all have our disagreements, we all have the same goal, making this country better. And we inch towards that goal everyday, little by little. That's America.

***

We lost faith in Iraq. Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of intervention in Iraq. We have lost close to 2,000 American soldiers, and yes, thousands of innocent Iraqis have died—not only at the hands of the insurgency, but also at the hands of American soldiers. And we have to live with it.

Many don't know why we're in Iraq. It is a fact that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. No one disputes that.

But it's a war on Terrorism. And Saddam Hussein was an advocate of terror.

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 but Saddam Hussein did have ties with Al-Qaeda.

Please follow this. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 but Saddam Hussein did have ties with Al-Qaeda. They're not the same things. They're two distinct components, two different matters.

And while there was an intelligence failure, everyone from CIA on up to Saddam Hussein believed that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, the casus belli that the Administration gave was that Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the United States. Indeed given the chance, Hussein would've jumped on developing weapons program and endanger the U.S. and our interests in the region. Make no mistake about it: the world is a much safer place without Saddam Hussein in power.

And make no mistake about it. Saddam Hussein was a backer of terrorism. For years he gave sanctuary to terrorists, such as Abu Nidal, who was the mastermind of over 100 operations between the 1970's into the 90's. Such operations included wounding the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain, triggering the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, three airline hijackings, one airline bombing, attacking a tourist cruise ship, and numerous car bombs. And Saddam Hussein gave Abu Nidal sanctuary from 1999 when he was kicked out of Libya to 2002, when Saddam Hussein feared his growing prominence and ordered him killed. Before that, he lived in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood, in a villa owned by the Mukhabarat—the Iraqi Secret Police.

American Intelligence can't confirm nor deny the report picked up by Czech intelligence that Mohammed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, met with Abu Amin, an Iraqi intelligence agent.

Some will also say that Saddam Hussein hated Al-Qaeda. That too is true. But remember, relations between these people are always love-hate. At the end they all need each other. And that doesn't negate the fact that Hussein would support Al-Qaeda in its attacks on America.

Hussein was a danger. And now he's no more because he's imprisoned in an Iraqi jail, awaiting judgment from the very same people from which he pillaged basic human rights.

But the conduct of the war. The Powell doctrine of overwhelming force wasn't followed, but rather the strategy was of deploying a relatively light 130,000-strong expeditionary force. There was something that occurred in the conduct of the war which turned the public against it. The public could not accept American soldiers dying in a desert.

The political atmosphere was such that it became popular to call for a complete withdrawal of American soldiers. No one likes war. FDR, before launching World War II, in one of his fireside chats uttered with strong force, words that should always resonate in the mind of an American president before he deploys American soldiers into battle: "I hate War." I think at the very end we all do. This president has said so himself.

But they're necessary. And like President Bush said last night, we are in a state of war. A war against terror, a war, like Bush said, for the very survival of civilization.

Almost one hundred years ago, the pragmatist thinker, Randolph Bourne wrote an influential essay entitled, The Experimental Life. In it he stressed that while many have their lives somewhat pre-ordained, and that there's this template, this roadmap that these people follow, it is not pragmatic to live this way. Rather he calls for living the experimental life. In short, it's adapting to the changing circumstances, to the changing environments, and learning from mistakes. That nothing's set in stone, and that you have to be able to quickly adapt and change. As an example, he wrote of a General who has his armies lined up in a certain closed formation, and sending them marching directly head-on to the enemy. The enemy knowing that this specific General is fond of this formation launches a guerilla campaign to attack the formation by the sides. Therefore if the General doesn't adapt to the new guerilla-style war, he will surely lose the war—even if his army is stronger and superior.

That is what is occurring today in Iraq. We need to adapt and change. This army wasn't ready for the insurgency campaign, for the urban desert warfare that is transpiring in Iraq. They weren't ready for IED's, and weren't ready to battle the enemy unseen.

That doesn't mean that we can't change. We still have time. We need to adapt. But we can't give up.

Iraq is the central front on the war on Terrorism. Terrorists have gone to Iraq to do battle with the United States and we must fight back. If we lose Iraq, we lose everything.

Why do we fight? That question was asked to Sen. John McCain. His response: "Because it's the right thing to do."

History does indeed repeat itself. And the Domino theory is back. We let Iraq fall, what does that say to Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan who is building up the country after years of ruthless rule from the Taliban? Women can now walk freely through Afghanistan and attend schools. That was never possible under Taliban rule. But if we lose Iraq, it'll embolden the Taliban to come back. If we lose Iraq, what does that say to Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan who gets death threats everyday for supporting us, and has his own intelligence apparatus undermining him? If we lose Iraq, what does that say to the Al-Saud house in Saudi Arabia, who, for better or worse, are our allies in the War on Terror? The coalition against terror crumbles.

Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization. And yes, they did cause unspeakable mayhem on September 11th. But also remember, at its most basic, they're the gang that can't shoot straight. It took them years to finally succeed, albeit when they did in fact succeed, they did so with gusto. But they're a third-rate organization. And we can not allow them to win. And they win every time we are in fear of them. Yes they pose a threat, but don't let them scare you. Let them instill in you determination. One needs to be determined to fight them and finish them off.

Osama Bin Laden has said that, "All that we have to do, is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al-Qaeda, in order to make the Generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses."

Now he's not a nuisance, like John Kerry said, and he's certainly not irrelevant. But we shouldn't allow him to make us live in terror, in fear. That's when they win.

***

Thomas Friedman has written of the juxtaposition between 11/9 and 9/11. On 11/9/1989, the Berlin Wall came down. On 9/11/2001, the World Trade Center came down. One brought about a renewed sense of hope. The other brought about a renewed sense of horror.

We need to return to the world of 11/9 and we do this by being hopeful again.

President Clinton: "I still believe in a place called Hope."

We need to export Hope again. The United States has always done a great job at exporting Hope. Without Hope, life wouldn't be worth living.

We export Hope by negating fear. We export Hope by helping others around the world.

The U.S. today remains the shining City on a Hill as President Reagan called it. We need the United States to return to be the Beacon of Light in a world full of shadows.

And that's how you win this war. It's ideological. And it's hope over fear. Liberty over repression. Freedom over tyranny.

And when we're able to get to this point, we'll make sure that the deaths of all who died on 9/11, and in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, wouldn't have been in vain.


Without hope there is no freedom.

Joy cometh in the morning, scripture tells us.


I'm Yasser Navarrete

"On September 11" Written: September 11, 2005

September 11, 2001. A date unlike any other in the long course of American history.

In the midst of a Tragedy in America we remember another American Tragedy.

The events were surreal. We were watching it on television and we couldn't believe it. The World Trade Center attacked and fell and then it was no more. The Pentagon—the headquarters of the most powerful military ever to walk the face of this earth—attacked. US military personnel dead. Another high jacked airplane still in the air. The White House evacuated. The Vice-President taken to a secure bunker. The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate both taken to secured locations outside Washington D.C., with the sole purpose of maintaining continuity of government. The President of the United States aboard Air Force One, Air Force One under an F-16 Fighter Jet Military Escort. And thousands of people walking across the bridge trying to get out of Lower Manhattan with soot on their faces and tears in their eyes.

And then, on that same day, someone took the picture above. Three firefighters propping up the American flag. The famous scene harkens to that military victory in Iwo Jima. Endurance provided that victory on September 11th.

Four years down the road a lot has changed. You know I just took a few seconds to think about the previous sentence: Four years down the road a lot has changed. I'm not sure that that's entirely true. While life does go on, and while we once again have a sense of normalcy, in most of our mind's we still fear the day when we turn on the television and we witness another devastating attack on America. It's not a question of If, but rather of When? But nothing has changed. The MTV Generation continues to watch the VMA's and the who-shot-who soap opera surrounding it; they continue to watch Cribs and Room Raiders and continue to take their cultural cues from convicted felons. There's an unreal reality that my generation has succumbed to.

But then it's not just my generation. It's everyone. Civics has become a subject that no one cares about. History has become a subject that no one learned about. Politics has become a subject that no one thinks about. And that has created an ignorant people, oblivious to their surroundings.

As a student of history, what's even more amazing is the lack of sacrifice. The American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War, all required magnificent sacrifices for the cause, from food rationing to over-production. We don't have that now. The closest we do is gas at $3.00 a gallon. But that's not really a sacrifice. Everyone thinks it is but it isn't. We once again live in Dewey's era of Conspicuous Consumption. And those that are making the sacrifices are those my age, dying. Then again it's hypocritical. I'm not making any sacrifices either. Maybe that's why I've felt so badly lately and donated a substantial amount of money. One that I never thought I ever would. And maybe my lack of sacrifice is made up for the fact of acknowledging what is taking place. Knowing what is taking place. If 90% of Life is just showing up, then I showed up. I showed up to the table of knowledge, awareness and discussion. I'm not out there reading Teen People.

There were memorial services across the nation this morning.

"You're still our hero, please keep watching over us," Elizabeth Ahearn said to her brother, fire lieutenant Brian Ahearn.

"Donald, there's not a day that goes by that we don't think about you," a sobbing Suzanne Gavagan Mascitis said to her brother, Donald Richard Gavagan, Jr., a 35-year-old bond trading firm employee.

"Kenny, your legacy of teacher, mentor, leader and coach did not die with you four years ago, but rather found new life and will live on forever," said Marie Cox, to her brother, Kenneth Phelan, a firefighter and father of four.

The Personification of Victims.

And yet I return to a topic I've written about many times on this Journal. About the Firefighters and the Police who ran into the Towers to try to save people. They ran into the Fire. Ran into the Fire. The Streets of Heaven are too crowded with Angels. And they were ordinary men and women, ordinary fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Ordinary people with extraordinary wills. Ordinary people that became American Heroes. And these are the times for American Heroes. And we do remember their sacrifice and their suffering. Along with those who have died in far-off wars. That's the least that we, who haven't sacrificed enough, must do. Remember and honor those who have sacrificed it all.

I'm Yasser Navarrete

"September 11" Written: September 11, 2003

This is Today, Thursday, September 11th, 2003...yet one will never forget Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. It's been two years since that horrendous day, but it seems as if the events occurred just yesterday.

Over the last two years, many people have died. 2,800 in the World Trade Center complex alone. 250+ American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many people have been left alone, yet found a place. The people who have died did not have to: they were someone's mother, and someone's father, someone's son and someone's daughter.

Yet, Osama Bin Laden just issued a tape calling for an increase in Jihad, and more attacks to come.

Yet, Saddam Hussein and his Weapons of Mass Destruction - which we know exist because we gave it to him in the 80's - are AWOL.

Yet, America moves ahead. Not with fear, but with courage. We are aware, and no longer oblivious. We want to go back to normal. But there is no "normal" anymore. We've been a reactive society since our founding, and for the first time we want to become proactive. We want to save lives, and end terror. We want peace, not war... and we'll have peace even if we have to go to war for it.

But regardless, two years ago, many people lost somebody when their time wasn't up. Memories are all they have now. And a future is rooted in the hope that they may see each other again.

To the Brave Firefighters of the city of New York who went inside the buildings when everyone else was going out...

To the Port Authority and NYPD officers who perished while trying to provide calm...

To the innocent men, women, and children who thought that September 11, 2001 was just going to be like any other day...

Your death was not in vain and never forgotten. Your memory lives on. You were a testament to the greatness of America.

And now we await the third anniversary of the attacks. In the last one we went through a war, now through another... What will happen next?

IN MEMORIAM

***

Soon: The Primary Election Campaign Season—The Democrats

The Primary Election Campaign Season--The Republicans

It used to be that Labor Day signified the beginning of the General Election Campaign season. Of the election year.

Now, with Presidential Politics beginning earlier, and with this president being more and more a lame-duck everyday, Labor Day 2007 launches the Primary Election Campaign Season.

And as a sign of how much of a lame-duck the president is, apparently, he doesn't plan on being in the country much next year, as his replacements are vying for his job.

But it's starting to look like a campaign...

Fred Thompson gave his anti-climactic announcement that he's in on "The Tonight Show," while his opponents were debating in New Hampshire. The Honeymoon that the media gave him just three or four months ago is over. Indeed, what the media giveth, the media taketh away. Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan opined in the Wall Street Journal that his entering the race and using Jay Leno's stage was "rude" and she begged to ask the question: "Who are you? And the reason you're running for president would be...?" Others have already characterized him as lazy and detach. On George Stephanopoulos' show George Wil, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson were piling on him non-stop. What took you so long? And why did you even show up? And then again, these allusions to him being the "Next Reagan." By the time the media's done with him he'll be the Anti-Reagan. On Saturday the Washingon Post put out a column listing Thompson's insider bona-fides. Apparently he's more of a Washington Insider than Hillary Clinton, and the plethora of senators running in both parties. And he's lazy. The pundits can't stress that enough. Thompson trying retail politics is not a nice thing to see. And there's this feeling that he doesn't really want it. Ronald Reagan, before running successfully in 1980 ran in 1976, and before that was a chief executive as Governor of California. It seems to many that Thompson is doing it just to fill in a void.

I could just see a Lloyd Bentsen moment occuring in a Republican Debate with one of the candidates turning to Thompson and telling him: "Senator, I served with Dutch Reagan. I knew Dutch Reagan. Dutch Reagan was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Dutch Reagan!" And that'll be the end of him.

Going back to what the media giveth, the media taketh away: a month ago, they were declaring McCain's candidacy on life-support. Yesterday, David Broder wrote an article in the Washington Post entitled, "McCain Finds His Footing." And he ends the column with juxtaposing how well McCain does at Retail Politics. Remember he beat Dubya in New Hampshire in 2000. And Broder advises Thompson to pick up a thing or do from McCain. This type of media mention, which of course was then regurgitated on the Sunday talkies, can propel McCain to be the anti-Thompson. And with Thompson currently in second place, McCain can quickly push ahead, especially if he ends strong in New Hampshire.

In National Polls, Romney has lost some traction and McCain and Romney are currently in a statistical dead heat for third place. If Thompson falters, which is likely, we'll see the Battle for New Hampshire play out between Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Here Romney has a 12 point lead over Giuliani, and Giuliani, a 5 point lead over McCain, but this can all change soon, and all change fast. Especially when we get back from Iowa where Romney is clearly in the lead there. I believe that Giuliani and McCain will quickly change their modus operandi and switch over to NH since Iowa is lost, and they'll probably leave Thompson to battle Romney there, since he plays better in the Mid-West than he does in the Northeast. Appearances on "Law and Order" notwithstanding...

In an interesting sidenote. The Florida GOP Primary has Giuliani leading, with Thompson ten points behind, and once again Romney and McCain tied for third.

No wonder Romney was the first to disavow any connections with the shoe-tapper...

Soon: The Democrats.

On Politics and History...Part I

It’s not that important. But it is.

A couple of weeks ago, in the wee hours of the morning, my friends and I were at a diner. The conversation turned inevitably to politics and history. One of my friends said there were fifty-two states. Her defense was that it was way too late and she wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe. She’s clearly bright but such an offense struck me to my core. Another of my friends asked, Why is knowing who the sixth president of the United States is, important? He argues it isn’t. I tend to agree. But it doesn’t hurt either.

Year after year the United States ranks below other western, industrialized nations when it comes to the quality of education that its citizens possess. The social studies field, obviously comprising History and Politics, suffers. Americans are known for not wanting to know. That’s one of the biggest qualms that Europeans and indeed the rest of the world have about us. They see us as a people happily oblivious. This is a country where only one out of four people actually have a passport. Where bilingualism, and God-forbid, multilingualism, is not ubiquitously embraced, but in some sectors, frowned upon and warily accepted. And as the Miss Teen USA pageant posited last week: a recent study concludes that only one in five Americans can located the United States of America on a map. The list continues. This is who we are, the majority of us. And this is why we’re in the state that we’re in.

It’s important to know. To accept things is dangerous; dangerous not only to us, but indeed to our world. We traverse through great peril day-in and day-out by not knowing.

Today, we begin with politics…

This is hegemony. More than any other civilization in the History of the World, more than at any other time in the march of progress, the United States of America is the most perfect example of hegemony. Some scholars write of post-hegemony (as if the sun has already set…), while others decry it and see it as nothing more than neo-Imperialism. Imperialism, for obvious reasons, always gets a bad rap. But let us not forget that the paragon of imperialism, the British Empire, through much of the last three hundred years did much more to spread liberal democracy throughout the world than any other form of government before, or even since. Hegemony is a lot more than military might. And hegemony, if used properly, is not a tool for bullish behaviour or arrogance—something that candidate Bush in 2000 warned the voters about. Hegemony exports ideas. We export our ideas of liberal democracy as much as we export a Big Mac or Titanic. Nary a place in the world exists where people do not know the symbolism inherent in the American flag, the magnificence of the Statue of Liberty. This is what America stands for and this is what we fight for. No matter how difficult a situation Iraq has become, in trying to come about to a viable, political solution, and indeed, how difficult the conduct of foreign policy has become, we’re still in a position where we can exert our influence, and indeed, our prestige.

And what is wrong with that? Francis Fukuyama at Johns Hopkins University wrote an influential piece almost fifteen years ago entitled, “The End of History.” In it, he argued that modernization, and the march of progress has inevitably led to the presence of Liberal Democracy, and that this, at its essence, is the goal of humanity. That we finally made it. In the shadow of the end of the Cold War and the dismemberment of the USSR, this thesis seemed to sum up the exhilarating, exciting time that we were in. At Harvard, Sam Huntington wrote of a “Clash of Civilizations.” The name is self-explanatory, and in our post 9/11 world, Huntington’s thesis got exulted, Fukuyama’s was sent into the dustbin of history—pun intended.

It’s time to rehabilitate Fukuyama’s thesis. Obviously, it is not the end of History, but that still does not negate the fact that the historical continuum of humanity itself is to achieve modernity, and practice Liberal Democracy. And that may still happen.

And we’ll achieve this with politics. Politics is all around us. Politics happens every day. It is the most basic form of human interaction. You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.

We elect leaders. We elect our representatives on the world stage. The dirty little secret is that no matter what, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, our leaders all want the same end result—make America better, stronger, more secure. But we disagree in how. We live in a country where more people vote for an American Idol than for the American President. We live in a country of political apathy, ignorance, and disassociation. Where our citizens are unimpressed with and suspicious of the system. This is not the Republic that our founders envisioned. Focus groups and the politicizing of words are now in full force to reach out to a target audience. Big government is seen as something evil, when it should be not. I guess this goes back to our legacy of Jeffersonian Democracy. But the world is too complex, too sophisticated, to still be practicing such naïve, and plain paradigms when talking about how our democratic republic should be governed. Indeed we live in the Two Americas. And in a nation of plurality, no one wins. There’s something to be said about the wisdom of crowds. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. And we need as citizens to become more politically knowledgeable, more politically sophisticated to be able to undertake, solve and answer the great questions and problems of our times.

Politics is important because the leaders we elect to carry our mission, and indeed to carry out or promise, have to measure up. And they’re not measuring up because we’re not measuring up. And we’re not measuring up because we don’t care. It’s all cyclical. Politics is important because we elect people because of how they look instead of because of what they say. We have gut feelings. And most of the time, they’re wrong. Michael Deaver, who recently passed away, gave us this legacy. No matter how dire the nightly news tried to portray America in the 80’s, the images that they would use was the president on a ranch or in the midst of a sea of flags. Deaver was fond of saying that in the battle between the sight and the sound, the sight always wins.

But the sound should win. What we’re creating is an America that’s living today in a duality. An America in Myth and History.

The myth is something that has existed in a state of secula seclorum. It’s always been the case. In practice, the America in History is something that has existed in a more ad hoc composure. We like to think of politics as something civil but it isn’t. Indeed, the good old days never were. There’s always backroom compromising, and backstabbing in American politics. It is a zero sum game. And that’s what turns many Americans off.

But they shouldn’t be turned off. Politics is neither clean nor civil. It’s ruthless. It’s all about winning. And it’s all about fighting for what you believe in. It’s always about advocating. And guess what, the people have the tools to win in the process.

The legislative process enhances responsiveness to the public because the legislative process itself is intrinsically related to elections. It’s obvious that the dominant goal for legislators is reelection. There are also well known access points which citizens utilize to influence governmental decisions, in the form of influencing the individual legislator’s decisions, the agenda, and the policy outcomes. Challengers themselves know that the way to win an election is by undermining the incumbent’s support, thereby, with the help of the media, challengers raise issues that will indeed stir inattentive publics, removing a degree of ignorance and apathy by making prominent issues salient.

There is no reason by which inattentive publics will remain so perpetually. Inattentive publics can become attentive publics, through the arrival of an instigator, many times in the form of a challenger to the incumbent. Challengers are successful when they are able to undermine the support that the incumbent has. Challengers do this by showing that the incumbent is out of touch with district sentiments, in the form of exploiting roll-call votes or the pattern of the incumbent’s voting. By bringing these votes to the fore, especially key votes—such as votes on Judicial nominees or on supporting or opposing military action—inattentive publics may at least lose a degree of ignorance and become informed of what it is exactly that their legislator is voting for. Another instigator is the media, where print and television media may release damaging exposés of a legislator’s votes and behavior. See Sen. Craig (R-Idaho). Stemming ignorance is also made possible by engaging in sub-constituency politics, where appealing to groups becomes efficient, and issue intensity manifests itself into votes, money, and volunteers. Displacing ignorance also becomes pivotal in removing apathy. Interest is then created by presenting salient issues which resonate with a once-apathetic public. Salient issues are those which affect the public greatly. For example, the high price of gasoline last year has forced congressional leadership, in the persons of former Speaker Hastert and former Leader Frist, to call for an investigation to probe gas prices. These leaders are aware that this issue has the potential to activate inattentive publics, who were once apathetic to the price of gas, and are now feeling the burden of this price on their wallets. A latent issue became salient, the ignorant and apathetic—inattentive—became informed and interested—attentive.

We can cause change but we don’t. We can make things better but we don’t. We could become more attentive but we don’t. With cynicism and naïveté aside, citizens do still control their legislators to a great degree and legislators in turn have to be responsive to their constituents, if only as much for pragmatic political gains and results. But we don’t take advantage of this.

It’s important to be politically sophisticated. Political sophistication can also lead to a greater understanding of foreign policy and international relations. And when one becomes politically sophisticated in other systems and regions of the world, then one can form a better opinion, a better understanding of what the course of action of the hegemonic power should be.

We the people, control the government. It is not business. It is not the elite. At the end of the day, political history has shown that no matter how much money is poured into elections or into candidates, without the votes of the people, no one will get elected. The old joke goes that politics is the art of getting money from the rich, and votes from the poor, and promising to protect one side from the other. Admittedly, there are a lot of smoke-and-mirrors involved. And I could see why. But the end result still exists…make America better.

And we can do this one voter at a time.

Soon: Why is History Important?

Son of Reagan

They mentioned his name in homage twenty times. There were ten of them. You do the math.

Ronald Wilson Reagan really did something to this country. He really did something to the Republican Party. Republicans have made him a deity. And standing there with SAM (Special Air Mission) 27000 facing them throughout the debate, one couldn't but escape that they all lived in his shadow. That they all wanted to be the son of Reagan.

SAM 27000, better known by its call-sign Air Force One, carried Richard Nixon from Washington to California when he resigned the presidency in 1974. It served Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (41). It was the plane that carried Reagan from Washington to Berlin where he implored Chairman Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" And there it was, inside the hanger where the debate took place. The ten of them knew that they were in the presence of history.

And there's no better way to succeed in the Republican Party today than to look to the past, and to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Everyone knows this. Stanley Greenberg, who used to spent his time in the 1990's serving as President Clinton's pollster wrote, The Two Americas, and in it, he clearly laid out the advantages to being the Son of Reagan. He argued--and I believe he is clearly prescient and brilliant--that Republicans must not fight the notion of "Two Americas," (in this sense taking another meaning from Edwards' worn-out stump speech) but rather embrace the Two Americas. We live in a divided nation. And all one party needs to do to win the presidency is to get the plurality. The Republican party is a party built on coalitions, but one thing that unites most all sectors, the economic conservatives and the social conservatives and the hawks, etc. is Ronald Reagan. Continuing with the metaphor that was used to death yesterday, he was the Republican Party's modern day messiah.

To be the son of Reagan means that you believe in Big Issues and a Sense of Purpose (see our current president). To be the son of Reagan means that you place an importance on the issue of faith and protecting religious practices. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in tax cuts and entrepreneurship and in business-led prosperity. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in a strong military and America's commitment to freedom.

And boy, they were all the sons of Reagan's last night.

Coverage today even took the position of who looked like Reagan the most. Alessandra Stanley bestowed that honor on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, saying he had:

...the tan, the Brylcreem hair, the straight white teeth and a voice so smooth and friendly it sounds as if he makes his living doing voice-overs for car
commercials. After the debate, Mr. Romney was the first to bolt across the stage
to shake hands with Nancy Reagan.

At the same time I found it interesting that as much as everyone was thinking about Reagan, no one was thinking about Bush being the anti-Reagan in a sense. It's a weird fate for Bush. During the 2000 campaign pundits all said that he was more the son of Reagan than the son of Bush. Today with his approval rates sinking and he's seen as more and more out of step with America, I figure Bush is Carter. And it's 1980 all over again. The big thing about 1980 of course was the sense of malaise. Nothing was going right. And from the west Reagan came promising that it would be "morning again in America." John McCain tried hitting that scene when he kept on talking about optimism. So did Gov. Romney. But while they respected President Bush last night, they did that with a grain of salt. Sen. McCain is walking a tight-rope. He's one of the president's staunchest supporter on the war in Congress. So much so that the fictional character Denny Crane on ABC's Boston Legal surmised that "McCain speaks Bush now." And that that might hurt in the election.

It was a little scary, the debate, I'll admit. All of them, when asked if Roe v. Wade being overturned would be a good thing for America were in the affirmative. Sen. Sam Brownback (who's not going anywhere) said "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." And on it went. Romney and Giuliani were a little more tepid in their responses. Giuliani's response: "I'd be OK." To which he was asked to elaborate on what he meant, and what he said he meant went along the lines of this being a Federalist government, and that it's up to the courts to decide and he'd go along with whatever decision the courts would make. This coming from the man who while mayor of New York City supported public funding for Abortions. This point illuminates how difficult it is for the social moderates and liberals in the Republican party to capture the base.

Another scary moment came when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Brownback, and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (all three not going anywhere either), raised their hands saying that they don't believe in Evolution.

Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani were the only candidates who, with Nancy Reagan sitting in the front row, said that they would support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Something which Nancy Reagan advocates for, and something that drew this president's veto for the first time in office. (The other veto came this week when he returned to congress the Democratic War Spending Bill.)

On the issue of immigration, McCain also drew fire from his fellow presidential aspirants. It's popular in some parts of the Republican Party to refer to the comprehensive immigration bill which the President and Sen. McCain support as the "Kennedy McCain" or "McCain Kennedy" bill. Standing up there with Tancredo, the staunchest anti-illegal immigrants crusader in the presidential candidate field sure drew the ire of McCain. One of my favorite parts came up when they asked McCain if he'd be comfortable if Tancredo headed the immigration service. McCain's response: "In a word, no."

It was a pretty standard debate. No fireworks. No quotes that will be repeated for a couple more news cycles. Except probably, McCain's promise to "follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." But it was a nice starter for the Republicans.

I'll leave you with this: It's been said that you'd have to be crazy to run for president. Apparently, Vanity Fair believes that Rudy Giuliani really is.