Who votes for what and why

I read a very informative book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by historian Colin Woodard.  It's observation is that each part of our country was founded by different people with different ideas and valules, and that over time those ideas and values have remained pretty much intact and have created their own cultures that have endured.  His point is that there is not one United States, but rather there are nine distinct cultural nations in the U.S., all of which vie for political power each election.


The heart of liberalism is the cultural nation of "Yankeedom", started in New England and spread across the land in its particular way; and the heart of conservatism is the Deep South, started in South Carolina and spread in its particular way.  The other nations align to greater or lesser degrees with these polar opposites as the times change.  


I am posting my summary of this book, so this is a longer than normal post, but I think it is an interesting summary of our cultural and political landscape.  One final note about these cultures.  I don't believe that any of our cultures are written in stone, and that they can evolve and change as the times change.  But, here is a pretty interesting fingerprint of the America:

AMERICAN NATIONS:  Colin Woodard – 11 rival cultural centers of North America 2011

LEFT LEANING TOWARD DEMOCRATS, LIBERALISM:

YANKEEDOM

• Founded in Massachusetts 1620
• Calvinists, Puritans
• Reform minded public protestants
• To found a religious utopia on earth
• Came as families, community oriented
• Salvation of society, not individuals
• Believe freedom is more for the community than for the individual
• Drive to improve the world
• Social engineering, social justice emphasized
• Mission to impose their ways on everyone else
• Turn everyone into a Yankee
• Faith in government
• Government is an extension of citizenry
• Local political control
• Common good, government to improve people’s lives
• Intolerant of corruption
• Protestant work ethic
• Men judged by hard work and righteousness
• Frugality, thrift, cleanliness, punctuality
• Individual self denial
• Common people, with an aristocracy of the educated
• Education, literacy valued
• Rebel against arbitrary authority
• Environmentally concerned
• Opposed to military expansionism
• Lead the Democratic Party

THE LEFT COAST

• Colonized by merchants, missionaries, and woodsmen from New England who arrived by sea and controlled the towns, and by farmers, prospectors, and fur traders from Appalachia who dominate the countryside
• Yankee faith in good government in the cities
• Common good
• Social reform
• Peace movement
• Cultural revolution
• Environmental movement
• Gay rights movement
• Reform minded
• Individual self-exploration
• Discovery is valued
• Believe the world can frequently be reinvented
• Salvation of society not individuals
• Global information revolution
• Battles libertarian-corporate agenda of the Far West
• Oppose military expansionism
• Lean toward Democratic Party

NEW NETHERLAND

• Dutch colony, 1624
• Global commercial  trading society
• Private enterprise
• Free trading
• Self made men are the elite
• Materialistic
• Profitability ethos
• Speculative ethos
• Invented modern banking
• Invented modern corporation
• Men judged by material achievements
• Upward mobility
• Open to immigrants
• Raucous
• Multi-cultural, multi-ethnic
• Haven for heretics, freethinkers, cultural avant guarde
• Intellectual freedom
• Internal bickering and negotiation
• Great universities
• Freedom of the press
• Reform minded public protestants
• Salvation of society, not individuals
• Opposed to military expansionism
• Freedom of inquiry
• Lean toward Democratic Party

RIGHT LEANING TOWARD REPUBLICANS, CONSERVATISM:

DEEP SOUTH

• Founded by Barbados slave lords 1670
• Modeled on slave states of ancient Greece and Rome
• Saw enslavement as the natural state of the many
• Politically polarized on racial grounds today
• Oligarchy, Radical disparities of wealth and power
• Desire one party oligarchy with colonial style economy
• Aristocratic privilege
• Leisurely pace of life for the aristocracy to develop refinement, culture
• Subsidize oligarch’s businesses
• Cut taxes for the wealthy
• Least democratic of the nations
• States’ rights
• Fights federal power
• Fights taxes on capitalism
• Fights organized labor
• Fights environmentalism
• Fights consumer protectionism
• Authoritarian society
• Wants a compliant, low wage workforce
• Order and obedience are valued
• The poor existed to support the oligarchs
• White supremacy, contempt for all “inferior races”
• Contempt for the middle class
• Religion important
• Salvation minded private protestants
• Support wars
• Lead Republican Party

TIDEWATER

• Founded by the younger sons of southern English gentry
• Jamestown, John Smith 1607
• Desire to reproduce the life of the semi-feudal English manors
• Tobacco plantations, indentured servants, then slave - haves & have-nots
• Values authority and tradition
• Personal honor, duels
• Leisurely pace of life
• Salvation minded private protestants
• No towns, schools, local governments
• Little respect for public participation in politics
• Little respect for equality
• Nation in decline, losing power to Midlands neighbors
• Support wars
• Lean toward Republican Party

GREATER APALACHIA

• Founded in early 18^th century by rough, bellicose war ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, Northern England, Scottish Lowlands
• Came from a condition of near constant war and upheaval
• Warrior ethic, combative, will fight anyone who tries to lord it over them
• Extreme individualism
• Men judged by their toughness and ferocity
• Aggressive military, support wars
• Lampooned as rednecks, hillbillies, crackers, white trash
• Backcountry people, beyond rule of law
• Opposed to strong, central government controlled by elites
• Egalitarian
• Taxes low, schools sparse, government slight
• Suspicious of aristocrats
• Suspicious of reformers
• Opposed to strong labor unions
• Maximize freedom rather than increase wealth as top priority
• Clan based
• Honor based
• Salvation minded private protestants
• Lean toward Republican Party

IN THE MIDDLE, AMBIVALENT, SWING NATIONS:

MIDLANDS

• Founded by Dutch Quakers
• Utopian colonies
• See humans as essentially good
• Welcome many nations and creeds, immigrants
• Tolerant
• Multicultural, multilingual
• Organized around the middle class
• Society should be organized to help ordinary people
• Middle class ethos
• Thrift, sobriety
• Neighborliness
• Skeptical of top down government intervention because they escaped tyrannies in Europe
• Distrust of big government
• Reject hierarchical authority
• Government is an unwelcome intrusion
• Moderate politics
• Practical politics
• The key swing vote in every election
• Timid and ambivalent
• Not militaristic, expansionist
• Moderating force in politics

EL NORTE

• The oldest nation, founded by Spanish missionaries and soldiers, 1560
• Catholic opponents of Protestantism
• Overwhelmingly Hispanic
• Mexicans are the progeny of Spanish and Indian unions
• Hybrid between Anglo- and Spanish- American
• Independent
• Self-sufficient
• Work centered
• Adaptable
• Ruled by oligarchy over the peons
• Obedient, respectful
• Self sufficient, independent ranch hands, cowboys
• Lean toward Democratic Party

FAR WEST

• Environmental barrenness more important than ethnicity
• Treated as an internal colony to be exploited for natural resources
• Reviles federal government interference, but demands federal government largesse
• Run by the corporations exploiting the natural resources
• Libertarian-corporate agenda
• Want the federal government to get out, leave us alone, give us money
• Rarely defies their corporate masters
• Industrial base grew as a result of WWII and Cold War
• Hostility to Federal Government
• Independence of the cowboy ethos
• Extreme individualism
• Allies with deep south sometimes
• Lean toward Republican Party

MOSTLY IN CANADA

NEW FRANCE

• Founded in 1604
• Mixed society, embraced Indians
• Cross cultural marriages
• Tolerant open society
• Down to earth
• Egalitarian
• Consensus driven
• The most liberal on the continent
• Multicultural

FIRST NATION

• Far northern Canada
• Environmentalism
• Limited sense of ownership
• Sharing society

It is a fascinating book and worth the read if you are interested.

"The Other Guy" is winning for the Republicans

Mitt Romney is winning the Republican nomination.  He is trying to become "The Other Guy."  


If the election is about Obama, The Other Guy will either win or lose depending on how things are going for Obama in November.  Romney's biggest strength is that he is a generic Republican, the kind that often beats Obama in polls.  When they ask about Obama vs. specific Republicans, Obama wins because most specific Republicans are disliked for particular reasons.  But when asked about Obama vs a generic Republican, Obama often loses depending on how the country is feeling about the country, the economy, Obama's leadership, etc.  Since most of what Romney says is not believed anyhow, he morphs into the generic Republican, becomes The Other Guy, and has the best chance to defeat Obama in November.


All that the Republican primary elections are showing the country so far, as far as I can tell, is that the Republicans have only unpalatable offerings to make for the presidency, and the one winning is the one where people dismiss what he says as things that he doesn't really believe.


Romney might be a competent manager of the country, but he is certainly no visionary.  If you think he doesn't believe what he says, then he becomes an inkblot test - he becomes whatever you wish him to be.  In a way, that is how Obama ran four years ago, undefined and believed to be a multitude of things to a multitude of voters, many of whom became disappointed because he wasn't who they projected him to be.


If people actually listen to Romney and vote based on the silly things he is saying, he will no longer be just The Other Guy, but will be someone who represents actual policy possibilities, and he too will be rejected.  But, for now, he is just The Other Guy.

I'm OK, you're to blame

Bill Moyers has a new PBS show that examines the financial crash.  It is well done and persuasive.  Moyers and the Left have concluded that the financial collapse was caused by greedy capitalists in the financial industry.  And they are right, as far as they go with the question.  


Someone named Charlie Campbell (I was unaware of him) writes in an article labeled "The thrill of blaming others" in Salon.com:


In 2007, the world entered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It had been caused by the bursting of the American housing bubble, leading to the spectacular collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The fallout was global, and saw plenty of scapegoats targeted – from rich bankers and their bonuses, to short-selling hedge fund managers thought to have profited from the downturn, and chief executives whose self-interested, rash decisions led to this calamity.


A lot of what the financial industry did should have been illegal, it certainly was unethical.  But it is no surprise that Moyers and the Left blames Capitalism and Big Business for the Great Recession.  


Blaming the financial institutions is easy to do, and there is a lot of behavior that was disgusting.  But do we do it to let ourselves off the hook?  Campbell continues:


How much easier it is to attribute responsibility to them, rather than face the truth of our own involvement. The notion of collective responsibility is one that we prefer not to engage with. Only those who were financially very prudent can exempt themselves from blame. The rest of us were happy to run up more debt than could be sustained for long by a banking system that depends, like so much of institutional life and commerce, on public confidence. 


You know, what caused the financial catastrophe was us, the common folks, the vast millions of the masses, so many of whom went on a debt binge - credit cards and mortgages, any way possible to live beyond our means.  The bubble was us.  The Government mandated lower mortgage standards in order to get more people into homes; the mortgage companies eventually lowered the standards to ludicrous lows in order to make millions for themselves; the financial companies created super-complex financial instruments out of them in order to make billions for themselves.  But, it was us, the people, who lost our bearings and decided that so many of us had to live beyond our means, on credit, on the bubble, until it collapsed.


The real solution isn't just stronger banking regulations or breaking up the too big to fail financial institutions (although I support that).  Or to put a leash on the exuberance of the government trying to use government powers for social engineering purposes which always ends up with unintended consequences (although I support that too).  


The real solution is for us, the people, to find ourselves anew, and find that our value is not in our money or possessions or expensive adventures, or outside of ourselves in any way.  To find out that the true wealth of life is in discovering the eternal virtues within ourselves that give life meaning and can never be found in the bottom of our wallets.  This is not something that the government can mandate, it is a cultural and spiritual shift that I think we are in the process making.


Mr Campbell is actually writing about the psychological urge to blame and scapegoat others to avoid looking at our own culpabilities and failings.  It is bad enough that we duck our own responsibilities when we scapegoat others. But, more disturbing yet, is what happens to ourselves when we do so:


Ultimately, we make scapegoats out of those we have come to believe are incapable of suffering – we dehumanize them, making them easier to hate. We create the idea that these other people are inferior to us. That develops into the idea that they therefore deserve their treatment. We deny them the same capacities for thought, emotion and values as us, and treat them accordingly. We can do this consciously or unconsciously, but the results are the same.


We stop seeing them as human beings so that we can blame them and find a way to think of ourselves as good and right and blameless and not really responsible for ... whatever we need to avoid thinking about and being responsible for.  


And so we arrive, once again, at our political system, where those on the extremes of the political spectrum see the world in very comforting terms:  each side see themselves as human, and see the ones they scapegoat and blame as less human, incapable of suffering, and deserving of attack and destruction.  If only THOSE people would all disappear, no... would all be destroyed!!! then life would be soooooo goooooood.  Say amen! And click the "contribution" button to the candidate of your choice.  Isn't it funny, but THOSE people just never seem to go away, no matter how often we have elections.  


I think real change in our world comes through individual growth and change which spreads through example rather than the ballot box.

The Fall of Communism made the West overconfident in unfettered Capitalism

Reading an interview of novelist Robert Harris, who wrote a novel about the forces that crashed the financial markets, "The Fear Index", provided one of the most succinct summaries of what happened that I have come across:


“As the years go by, we begin to see the shape of the last 30 years or so. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a terrific boost to belief in the free market—a lot of regulations were lifted, and there was a kind of hubris about what the markets could do…This era collided with the digitalization revolution, and it does seem to me that the financial markets slipped out of control—of government control and, to some degree, almost of human control.” 


This makes a lot of sense to me - that it was an overconfidence in the power of unfettered free markets that led to the cognitive capture of politicians, regulators, ratings agencies, the financial industry itself, and last but certainly not least, homeowners and wannabe homeowners.  That overconfidence led to reckless and risky behavior that ended catastrophically.  And that overconfidence was a function of the triumph of Capitalism over Communism.


There was certainly a crisis of greed, but it was a greed that was the madness fueled by the kind of irrational enthusiasm first exposed in the great tulip mania in 1600s.  Wikipedia notes:


"At the peak of tulip mania, in February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman."


This, of course, was a bubble that burst, to the detriment of many.


I believe that what happened is that the financial industry figured out the same thing that the government figured out long ago - where the money is.  And where the money is is in the middle classes. 


When government needs money it raises taxes.  Some seem to think that taxing the two or three hundred thousand people who make a million dollars or more raises a lot of money, and it does, but not nearly as much as taxing the vast scores of millions of people in the middle classes.  


In the same way, the financial industry discovered that they could transfer billions of dollars to themselves from middle class homeowners and those who could be convinced that they must become homeowners or they would be left behind.  So, the financial industry fed the housing bubble with ever riskier and unsound mortgages.  But, more importantly, they spread the belief that the markets would make us all a lot of money.  Many of them certainly did make themselves unbelievably wealthy.  


I am mindful of what Warren Buffet said in 2008 when on a discussion panel about how the financial industry could clean up the mess that it caused.  He said that we had to remember who these people were:  they weren't in their industry to benefit the world, they were in their industry to make money, and that is all.  Making money is important to most people, but having and making money be the only goal leads to things like the near collapse of the financial markets and the world economy by people, many of whom to this day feel no guilt nor regret about what they did and who they are.  Their measuring sticks for their value is their how much money they make and have, and how they contribute to society is simply not on their screens.  Strange indeed.


However, millions in the middle classes lost their livelihoods and lost their homes.  Unfortunately, the story is still playing itself out.  False beliefs are terrifying things, they can lead very large percentages of people down false paths following destructive hopes, and they can cause a great deal of pain and destruction.


The fall of the Soviet Union and the exposure of the failure of Communism really didn't mean that Capitalism was some kind of infallible wealth creating system.  Some of the faithful, true believers in unfettered capitalism have yet to learn that lesson, and that is unfortunate.  


Perhaps this election can help clarify the distinction between the fatal flaws of unfettered capitalism which quickly devolves into exploitive distortions of the markets, and the power of a well regulated economic market that creates the space for the power of capitalism to do its magic and create wealth and benefit society - especially the middle classes.

Obama shines

I watched State of the Union speech last night.  I thought Obama sounded confident, purposeful, inspired and inspiring, practical, reasonable, and presidential.  I thought he sounded like a good man to have as president.  I think his campaign is to be one of being a sane, common sense person who would like people to listen to reason and work with him to find ways to govern the country.  I thought it was a good speech.  I think, and hope, that he may be finding his voice, understanding his job, and ready to take on the hard core right wing in such a way that he can bring the country along with him enough to be able to put together a workable government next year.  Maybe I'm just under his spell - charmed? - by him and his speech, but I am feeling hopeful that things have a chance to get better in government.  That, and of course, the fact that he is running against either a human lizard, Gingrich, or a charisma-less management consultant incapable of inspiration, Romney.  


As for the Republicans, even the National Review Online had an editorial against Gingrich, on the grounds of his personal cruelty.


"Any Republican nominee will draw criticism for being too biased toward the rich. Not every Republican nominee will be attacked for cruelty in his personal life."


I have been rooting for Romney among the Republicans because I want to see the Republican voters reject the Tea Party and Social Conservative extremists.  I believe that if the Republicans end up with an extremist candidate not only will they lose, but they may destroy the party itself.  And I don't believe that is good for the country.


I still have hopes that the new political entity, Americans Elect, will end up nominating a legitimate centrist that would be interesting to me.  I intend to participate in that process in hopes of creating real support for candidates that are not captive to the extremist wings of either party.  I think that a strong showing by a self proclaimed moderate political movement would be very beneficial to the country, and should move both parties back away from their ideological extremes.


One can dream...

The Deep South votes for The Lizard

South Carolina started the Civil War, and it looks like it is still pretty angry.  The Republicans gave Newt a victory in their primary election yesterday.  As best as I can tell, they voted for him because he expresses their anger at the rest of America.  


That's fine by me.  I still think Newt will destroy himself long before he gets the nomination, and that Romney is a disciplined, organized, determined man who will win the nomination.  


If, indeed, Republican primary voters decide that they want a candidate who will be nasty and punishing to Obama during the campaign, then I say let them go for it.  Newt Gingrich cannot possibly be elected president.  He is an unappetizing, mean, bullying lizard and the American people will not want to have to look at his venomous little eyes lecturing them on what is wrong with them for the next four years.  


It is actually possible, I believe, that if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich that not only will they lose the presidency, but they may end up destroying the Republican Party itself.  After eight years of W's presidency that ended up creating the Great Recession and making a bumbling botch of the war against terrorism, I am not sure that the Republican Party will be able to survive the kind of vicious, opportunistic, grandiose, deluded attacks on Obama, the media, and much of the American populace that Gingrich would wage.  


If you are filled with hate, I guess you want someone who is filled with hate to represent you.  But, hate is not much of an attractor, it is a repellent, and not only Newt, but the entire Republican Party may well crash and burn in the process.

Why vote for Obama?

Now that the Republican nomination is essentially over except the shouting (getting cable TV ratings, getting publicity for failing candidates for future TV and book gigs, getting revenge, getting a few more moments in the spotlight before fading from view) it's time to be grateful that the Republicans are offering a relatively moderate candidate who is offering a standard conservative agenda, but who is not a livid culture warrior, an avid ideologue, a lizard, or an extremist nut-case.

That being said, what about Obama?  The center-right blogger, Andrew Sullivan, offers reasons why he supports Obama now.  He supported Reagan in 1980 and Obama now, just as I did and do, because the times, they are a changing, and different times require different politics.

Why vote for Obama per Andrew Sullivan, as he writes in Newsweek?  Because of his record (rather than the ideological spin from either the Right or Left):

• ECONOMY:
• He gets a 12 month pass in office after the economic meltdown because economies take time to shift course
• Banks - he focused on stabilization of the financial system rather than the exacting of revenge
• Since the job collapse bottomed out in the beginning of 2010, the economy has added 2.4 millions jobs (more than the net jobs created by Bush)
• Overall government employment has declined 2.6% over the past 3 years (compared with 2.2% decline in the early years of Reagan)
• The stimulus put a bottom under the free fall of the economy and prevented a second Great Depression
• Cut taxes, a third of the stimulus was tax cuts
• Cut the payroll tax (social security tax)
• Grew non-defense discretionary spending only half as much as Bush

• OBAMACARE is actually a moderate center-left program, not socialist:
• Based on the individual mandate, which was pioneered by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation
• Does not have a public option desired by the Left Wing
• Has health insurance exchanges similar to a proposal by Nixon in ‘74
• Sets standards and grants incentives for states to experiment,
• Provides universal health care that is controlled rather than the old law which mandated that all hospitals accept emergency-room patients anyway

• FOREIGN POLICY
• Seeks long term strategic advantage rather than bellicose headlines
• Sought and killed Osama bin Laden
• Decimated al Qaeda
• Is winning the propaganda war, plummeting al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world
• “Leading from behind” has made other countries actively seek America’s help and reappreciate our role

• DOMESTIC POLICY - Practices a show-don’t-tell, long-game form of domestic politics
• Extends a hand to his opponents, is rejected, moves to a moderate liberal position without being tarred as an ideologue, except by the extremists, of course
• Refuses to wage a culture war
• Offered to cut entitlements, but was answered with a refusal to raise any taxes at all

There is much that I am disappointed in about Obama.  Especially, for me, his refusal to take the Simpson-Bowles reform and try to turn it into law.  Many on the Left are disappointed that he is not the liberal crusader that they are.  Many on the right fear him as the liberal crusader that the Left wishes that he were.

I think the real fear the Right Wing has is that Obama is transforming the country and moving it away from the politics and culture that dominated for thirty years since Reagan's inauguration.  What they don't see, or don't want others to see, is that he is doing it as a moderate, center-left president rather than a fire-breathing left wing ideologue.  The Right Wing knows how to fight their ideological mirrors on the Left Wing.  So that is how they see and represent Obama, as one of them, but Lefties rather than Righties.

I haven't decided who I am voting for yet.  I still am very interested in what the process created by Americans Elect will produce as an alternative to both parties.  But, for now, Obama looks better than Romney, and much better than any of the hard core conservatives trying to beat him.

I am not sure how he governs in the next four years though.  He hasn't been able to reach across the isle, and he hasn't shown the stomach for confronting and beating a bellicose opposition.

Perhaps the Republicans will so sour the nation that they will give a victory to Obama and give him a more accommodating House and Senate.

One can dream...

The Romney Miracle

Michael Gerson, a center right editorialist on the Washington Post, pointed out yesterday that it is something of a miracle that the candidate who is decisively winning the Republican nomination is the relatively moderate candidate rather than one of the extremists.  


This is the Republican Party that has become the most conservative I have seen it in my lifetime.  They have been completely uncooperative and obstructionist when dealing with Obama and the Democrats over the last three years.  They give every indication that they would look at both Bushes and even Reagan as too moderate to suit them.  The Republicans in congress have been fanatically right wing with no give or compromise to them at all.


Beyond Washington, the conservative commentariat are loudly and passionately extreme.  Rush Limbaugh rails against the liberal media for promoting the non-conservative candidacies of Romney and Huntsman.  Who knows what extremes Glenn Beck is spouting? but one certainly imagines that he has no regard for RINOs like Romney.


So, what is going on?  I think the Tea Party's moment has come and gone.  I think that the Republican primary voters are revealing that they are not as extreme as they are portrayed to be.  Certainly, the loud ones are on the extreme in the Republican Party, same as the loud ones are on the other extreme in the Democratic Party.  But, to borrow an old phrase, it may well be that there is a "silent majority" in the Republican Party that is tired of the extremist polarization and paralysis wrought by the Tea Party, the Social Conservatives, and those in the Republican Party that see demonization of liberals as some kind of morally justifiable strategy.


I think that another symbol of this shift from extremism to moderation is the fate of the inventor of demonization by the Republicans as a way to take over the government from the Democrats - Newt Gingrich.  The nastiness that Newt pioneered when he led the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994 has come back to bite him.  Demonization became the acceptable strategy.  But, of course, it became acceptable on both sides of the isle as a result, and our politics have become so polarized that it is sometimes painful even to witness.  In a lovely bit of irony, Newt himself was hoist on his own petard, as PACs supporting Romney demonized Newt and knocked him off the lead in Iowa.  It looks like Newt is done, but he is nasty and vindictive enough that he is going to continue to campaign, and I presume he will be ever escalating his venomous attacks on Romney out of revenge.  


I still wish that the overt moderate, Huntsman, could win the nomination, and he is apparently going to continue his campaign.  I like that, just in case the vengeful Newt and the hard core conservatives manage to destroy Romney, Huntsman would still be alive to receive the moderate and independent Republican votes.  


But I really want to celebrate that the leader of the presidential candidates for the Republicans is relatively moderate, not a hard core conservative.

Hoping for Huntsman

I know it's a very "moderate" thing to do, but I really do hope that Huntsman surprises everyone and gets a very big vote in New Hampshire tomorrow in the Republican primary.  That could bring him lots of money to campaign on, and I think he would make a good president.  I especially like that he is the only candidate, including Obama, who has a plan to break up the too big to fail financial institutions.


Huntsman is the overtly moderate Republican, and Romney is the covertly moderate Republican.  I can live with a Romney win, especially if he wraps up the nomination and puts the more hard line conservatives away.  


If the Republicans run an extremist right winger they don't have a chance, but I would hate for the country to risk being run by the nasty and unstable Gingrich, the dim bulb Perry, or the theocratic social conservative Santorum.  (Paul is too loony to even worry about)


It is time for a little magic to drop into this campaign season, and a big Huntsman showing would be just that.

Romney wins Iowa, and probably the nomination

The big news in Iowa is not who won, Romney and Santorum, but rather it is who lost, Perry and Gingrich.  Only Perry and Gingrich had any chance of beating Romney to the nomination, I believe.  The rest are niche candidates that get their moments in the sun and fade quickly.  Perry proved himself to be inadequate to the task, and Gingrich proved himself to be too burdened with his toxic and unreliable personality to be able to take it all the way to the nomination.  Both will probably try to recover and will continue their doomed efforts, but I think it is over for them.


Another way of saying that is that the Tea Party is losing its death grip on the  Republican Party.


More to the point, the Republican nominating process is pretty much over.


Of course, the world will step in and have something to say about who is our next president.  Things will happen, and Obama and Romney will have to respond to those things.  In 2008, Lehman Brothers went down and the country had to try desperately to keep our financial system and economy from collapsing.  McCain and Obama each responded differently, with Obama looking like a calm head in the midst of a crisis, and McCain looked like a man who would panic and make things worse rather than better.  I think that was a big factor in McCain's loss in 2008.


I still hope that Huntsman gets legs in New Hampshire and can overtake Romney, but that seems to be a very remote possibility.  Huntsman is the only candidate talking about breaking up the too-big-to-fail, too-big-to-manage, too-big-to-regulate, too-big-to-rate financial institutions.  And I think that is one of the biggest issues that faces us.


Another hope I have is that Americans Elect will succeed in their nominating process and produce a moderate, centrist candidate who can change the way we nominate our presidents by taking the process away from the extremists of both parties and creating a process that appeals to the independents, moderates, and centrists.  It is more than time for pragmatic, problem solving leadership rather than presidents who are ideologues or captive to the ideological extremes of their parties.

To create jobs, break up the too big to fail banks

It could well be that the most meaningful way to create jobs in America is to break up the too big to fail banks.


When even the conservative leaning New York Post's Charlie Gasparino calls for the too big to fail banks to be broken up, you know the time has come for a good idea to be implemented.


The monster banks are against this, of course.  They want to return to the good old days where they make scores of millions of dollars for themselves individually if their over-leveraged, hyper risky activities succeed, but stick the taxpayers with the losses if they fail.  


The regulators and rating agencies were unable to see inside the labyrinthine risky business models prior to the financial meltdown, and I have no doubt that they have the same problems today.


It seems to me that businesses that are too big to fail are also too big to manage and too big to regulate and too big to rate accurately.  


Gasparino offers the obvious recommendation: 


The obvious way to force the banks to get small and fast is to again split commercial from investment banking — that is, making it so that no bank can roll the dice in the securities markets if it wants its deposits backed up by federal insurance.

His analysis is that this would finally free up capital for making loans to small and medium sized businesses - which is where job creation comes from.


So, what can the Federal government do to create job?  Stimulus spending has only limited results, and reducing taxes adds to an out of control deficit, but breaking up the too big to fail banks might actually be very helpful.

Is Gingrich already fading?

It could be that the Gingrich surge is already over.  I hope so.  He is a very smart, articulate, persuasive, reasonable sounding (until you actually think about the consequences of some of what he says), inspiring ... lizard (who thinks he is a T-Rex).  


I think it was Bill Clinton (who has his own integrity issues) who said that people vote for whom they want to invite into their living rooms for the next four years.  I can't imagine having to watch this slimy reptile for the next four years on my living room TV.  Ultimately, it is not just issues and the glibness that elects a president.  Character counts - a lot.  And way too many people, conservative people as a matter of fact, are warning against the integrity and trustworthiness of this man.


I think the Republican primary voters are in the process of figuring that out.  


I expect that the Gingrich alternative to Romney is petering out.  I suppose we have to have a Ron Paul run up in the polls next.  


It will still probably come down to Romney, although I continue to hope that New Hampshire pushes Huntsman into the lead.

S.E.C. Charges Fannie and Freddie with Fraud

Finally, the S.E.C. is charging top Fannie and Freddie executives with fraud.  It seems pretty straightforward to me.  In 2007 Fannie told investigators that it had just 0.2 % of its portfolio in subprime loans, but it actually had 11% at the time.  Freddie told investigators in 2006 it had only $2 - $6 billion, but the S.E.C. says it was more like $141 billion, or 10% of its portfolio.


These lies were a big part of the story that led to the financial meltdown, and of course, the government had to seize control of them later to keep them from collapsing.  


I would like to see prosecutions and real consequences for these people as well as for the executives of the giant, too big to fail financial institutions.  Mainstreet has certainly paid the price for their mistakes in taking out loans they couldn't afford.  Many more in mainstreet paid even bigger prices in unemployment, lower wages, lost opportunities and the other punishments of the Great Recession.  It is time for the super powerful and politically connected in Wall Street and government to be held accountable for their creating this entire mess in the first place.

The end of our war in Iraq

It is worth a moment to pause and be grateful that our war in Iraq is officially over. 


It looks like our objectives were met.  We drove al Qaeda out if Iraq.  We overthrew the dictator, Saddam Hussein.  We satisfied ourselves that they would not threaten the world with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.  And we kept the country together long enough for it to establish some form of representative government that has a chance of being able to keep relative peace in the country and stand on its own internationally.


I wish the people of Iraq the best of luck as they stumble along the path of democracy.  I hope that they present an inspiration to surrounding Muslim nations.  And, most of all, I strongly desire that they do not become the home of terrorist threats to the U.S. and the West.


I know that the Middle East has huge problems ahead, and the tangle of forces make things very complicated there, but this is a day to be grateful and hopeful.


Good luck to them and to all of us.

Can Obama be the new Teddy Roosevelt?

Over a month ago, I asked "Where is Teddy Roosevelt When We Need Him".  It looks like Obama has been thinking the same thing.  He just gave a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, the same place TDR gave a defining speech 101 years ago.  Like TDR, Obama laid out a progressive message, which is at its essence that capitalism today has been stolen by the super powerful, just as it had back in TDR's day, who have eliminated the essence of capitalism itself - competition and the growing of the economy.  


Roosevelt was famously the "Trust Buster", who restored competition to the capitalist system.  But, Teddy Roosevelt was temperamentally suited to take on the oligarchy of his time.  He wasn't called the "Bull Moose" by accident.


Obama seems to understand that the country is in the grips of a new anti-capitalist oligarchy today.  He seems to have the right ideas about what is wrong.  I'm not sure he has the right ideas about what the solutions are, and I am even less sure that he has the temperament to confront and defeat today's oligarchy.


TDR wanted to give the people of America a "Square Deal", FDR wanted to give the people of America a "New Deal", Obama just said he wants to give the American people "Fair Play, a Fair Shot, and a Fair Share".  I expect this will morph into a campaign slogan of giving the American people a "Fair Deal".


I have been wondering how Obama could run for re-election.  He certainly can't run as a post-partisan, reach-across-the-isle president because he has proven that he is incapable of pulling that off.  The only thing left is for him to run as the president who can force the Republicans to buckle under to his will and leadership.  As a result, we have this excellent kick-off speech.  


He will have to follow up with actual, strong willed, confrontational executive action opposing the Republicans in 2012 to prove to the people that he is up to that job.  And he will have to convince more than just a slim majority to re-elect him.  He will have to win a substantial victory in November and create substantial increases in the House and the Senate.  


Of course, he may have an ally in this impossible task - the Republican Party - who may accommodate the president by running an un-electable nominee like Gingrich.

Gingrich and the re-election of Obama

As the Republican right wing activists continue their search for anybody-but-Romney, they have now landed on Newt Gingrich.  The Republican campaign so far has been ideal for Gingrich since it has been an endless parade of debates, and Gingrich's main strength is his ability to speak with apparent authority and expertise.  


But, there is so much more needed from a president, and from a presidential candidate, than good communication skills.


If the Clinton presidency taught us anything, it is that character counts.  And Gingrich's character is highly suspect.


One thing the Obama/McCain campaign taught us is that managing a campaign organization matters.  It matters as to how well the campaign progresses, and it shows something about how the candidate will run the executive branch when elected.  And, by all accounts, management and organizational skills are pretty low on Gingrich's talent list.


Ultimately, though, it comes down to a question of what the campaign in 2012 will be about.  If the campaign ends up being a referendum on Obama's performance in the White House, Obama loses.  But, if it becomes about the Republican challenger, then Obama wins.  And if Gingrich runs, the vast majority of the campaign will be about Gingrich:  his character, his opportunism, his insincerity, his lack of moral substance, his inevitably exaggerated claims of importance, his predictably ideologically extreme and unrealistic proposals, etc. etc. etc.  I believe Gingrich is much like Trump in that they are both narcissistic megalomaniacs too filled with their own grandiosity to be anything but off-putting to a very large majority of voters.


So, ultimately, I think it will come down to Romney, although I really do hope that Hunstsman can do well enough in New Hampshire that he can ultimately take the nomination.  Then I think we would have a real campaign between two substantive candidates who are not extremists. 


And, beyond that, I have real hopes that Americans Elect can offer a third party centrist candidate that can take the election away from the extremist wings of each party and give the country a new way of getting good candidates on the ballots of all the states.