Bob Dole : Get Well Soon

Word was received yesterday that Bob Dole was at Walter Reed hospital. Varying accounts reported him as having " a routine procedure" to being "infirm and not well."

There might well be a generation of people that do not even know the Bob Dole story. Bob Dole born in 1923, a son of the prairie, raised during the depression, witness to the dust bowl, war hero, seriously injured, Congressman, Senator, Vice Presidential Candidate, three time Presidential candidate, the party's nominee in 1996, and later in retirement Viagra spokesman.

That certainly sounds like a full life. It is a full life. A life to be honored and yet the description above only gives one a few brief highlights of this amazing life. A coincidence of fate had me currently reading the book What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer. Some people are born with a drive, a spark, Bob Dole growing up in Russell, Kansas was one of those people. Good. Dole was just good.

We all hope that he recovers from this sickness. We all know however that soon, in a few years. Dole, along with his longtime rival George H W Bush will no longer be with us in except in spirit and memories of incredible lives lived to the fullest.

The World War II generation is fast leaving us, in another ten years our ability to hear firsthand memories from these men and women will be all but gone. The loss of Bush and Dole will be a symbol of that. It will be a sad day and you would be hard pressed to find two better men to be a symbol of that greatest generation.

A statement well used, overused, " The Greatest Generation." However for any generation of people that includes Bob Dole and the former President no other word can apply.

Egypt On the Edge Again

It is hard to believe that almost two years later Egypt is again having large scale protests in the street. As we all know last summer the " free " elections took place in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate was declared the winner. This was not something that the military was pleased with.

It even, once he was declared President, an uneasy peace. Much of the judiciary that is still in place are judges that were placed by the Mubarek regime. The military certainly is used to being in control. The government on all levels has been run as a corrupt enterprise and the Islamists taking over certainly should not alleviate that in any way.

If one wants to look at Egypt and try to find a correlation you probably need to go back to Iran at the end of the regime of The Shah. You have a Muslim nation with a strong secular portion of the population, if anything Iran had a larger group of secularists, and a recently deposed dictator who had been supported by the West as a placeholder for Western interests. It has become apparent that as we learn more and more about the rule of Mubarak that his corruption and treatment of dissenters was equal to or close to that of the famed Shah.

Egypt being the largest country in the Middle East and the country that controls the Suez Canal has to be a country that concerns the West. Last week the new President made a power grab that would give him powers over the judiciary, thereby eliminating one of the checks and balances that the democracy movement had desired.

The result. For the last few days protests have been building in Tahir square in Cairo. What will happen. No one really knows. It all, as in all things in Egypt, depends on which side the military comes down. At this point no one knows.

One thing is for sure. There is nothing, Nothing, that matters more to the long term security of the Middle East than what happens here. Stay tuned.

Once The Nobel Prize Meant Something

There was a time when the Nobel Prize meant something. Certainly we appear to be fast moving beyond a time when it does. For some reason the committee has decided that the United States is to be disdained and disregarded. Even the awarding of the award recently to Barack Obama seemed as much a provocation to America as a genuine acknowledgement of anything worthwhile. I am certainly not saying awards should come to America each year or even very often. Not at all. However you will have to go to some extreme explaining to tell me how the European Union qualifies for this years Nobel Prize.

This the same European Union who has struggled all year under German hegemony, watching Prime Minister Merkel dictate terms to Greece and threaten other countries in Europe with economic ruin should they not put into place budgets of extreme austerity so that they might be able to pay back their loans to their creditors.

This the same union who promotes peace by standing aside for French neo nationalism policies that disallow women from wearing a burka. This is not a big issue on my plate but certainly has to be a factor on a peace prize.

A peace prize? When has Europe ever done anything to deserve a peace prize. Do not get me wrong. I love Europe. Strong safety net, nationalized healthcare, strong unions, I am on board saying that in many ways America could do much worse than to copy Europe. However a peace prize for the European Union has no basis in fact or believability.

While we are on the subject of Nobel Prizes lets take a detour and talk about the prize for literature. I try to read as much as I can and certainly feel like I keep up pretty well. This year the prize went to a Chinese author who I had not yet heard of. This was no great surprise, it certainly did not mean that it should not be awarded as such. However I, in the interim, have read a few stories and while entertaining I, perhaps I am too provincial, found nothing exceptional in it. Year after year one hears that Americans Phillip Roth and, my favorite choice, Cormac McCarthy will be the winner for literature and at least compared to recent winners certainly that day needs to be now.

The Nobel Prize does not need to be American based, even Western based, it does however need to be something that does not recognize a Chinese author in the interests of nothing but balance.

Everyday of the Year: Walmart Wins

Our crazy friend Keith Olberman used to have a feature on his show called The Worst Person of the World. The typical winners would be Conservative politicians, with multuple awards going to the Limbaugh, O'Reilly set.

I occasionally will note a business that I believe deserves negative scrutiny. The truth is however that despite whatever some silly pizza maker might say on any given day, what union is being broken by Caterpillar for example, the winner of the worst business in the world is always Walmart.

The list goes on an on. I always tell my wife do not shop at Walmart. I am the worst kind of consumer however, I pretend to have morals yet my wife goes to Walmart to save money and I just go along with it. I guess I am going to have to tell her that it is ok to spend more and stay away.

To write what Walmart does wrong would take longer than my hands can hold out. Here are a few highlights.

- By paying there workers a wage that one cannot live on they do more to contribute to the lower standard of living in this company for folks who actually work than any other company.

- By being such a large retailer and by paying bottom tier wages they reduce the wages for certainly other retail workers but in reality for all unskilled labor in a community.

- Anti Union Activities

- Consistent Discrimination of Women in Advancement Opportunities

- By having such a disproportionate share of the market Walmart has the ability to make or break any business that supplies them or does not supply them. Entertainers cannot have a successful recording without selling at Walmart. Other companies are forced to sell to Walmart at such incredibly low margins that they are in a Catch 22. Either sell to Walmart and then be in such financial straits you then have to lower your costs, labor costs primarily, or do not sell to Walmart and go broke for lack of sales. For an example look up the Vlassic pickle story. It is one of thousands.

` Everytime you hear someone speak of the Chinese trade deficit or imbalance remember that the biggest reason is Walmart. Walmart buys more from China than most countries an certainly more than any other company in America. This might save you fifteen cents on a shirt but it also means that an American worker is not making the product and God forbid you consider the conditions of the workers whose products you are buying.

One could go on an on and statistics can be presented to make one see how much wealth has been amassed.

Here are just a couple.

The Walton family, Sam's descendants, have an accumulated wealth that is equal to the wealth of the bottom forty one percent of households in America. Think about that number while you eat your lunch today. It should also be noted of course that great preponderance of those people in that forty one percent do much of their primary shopping at Walmart.

It is the modern day equivalent of a sharecroppers or company store in a coal town.

What does it mean. On the way to our families Thanksgiving party my son, I must have been doing my Wlamrt spiel, said why are they so bad. Two hours later, actually five minutes, after hearing my brief highlights of the evil they do he said " But they are winning, they are getting all the money they want, so they do not care what people like you think." He was no being rude he was just stating it from his understanding, that is, money is good, they are making lots of money, and most people seem to think what they do is a good thing. "

It was a depressing day for me. When I was seventeen I was an idealist, Now in my forties I also am an idealist. My son, however, he only sees the winners and losers and wonders in an unvarnished answer why being a winner is bad. My Dad used to tell me that he hoped " I would be rich enough to be a Republican." For me watching my son grow up with, what I think, is an unhealthy desire for material things, I hope someday he is rich enough to be a liberal. Perhaps that is where we are for the most part in this country. It is only the very well off, not a group I am part of, who can truly afford to be liberal.

That in itself might be the saddest statement of all.

Final Thoughts on Mitt Romney and the Forty Seven Percent

Mitt Romney made some appearances in public last week. In this age of cell phones and social media when Mitt Romney pumps his own gas it is news. A trip to Disneyland is an even bigger occurrence. I do not know who was with Mitt at Disneyland but the pictures of him on a couple of the rides all by himself struck me as a little sad. Maybe Ann does not like rides but if a picture could show how irrelevant losing candidates can be just two weeks later Mitt Romney sitting alone on the Matterhorn might be the one.

Romney should be given a pass on some of the comments he made right after the election. Disappointment and frustration make losing athletes, losers of all types, and certainly losing Presidential candidates say things they would like to take back.

Does Mitt Romney understand how the average middle class family lives? No it would seem not. When Mitt Romney spoke infamously of the 47 percent did he mean veterans, retirees and the like. No it seems likely he did not. Romney speaking before and after the election spoke clumsily and ungracefully about those that might vote for Obama because of gifts or handouts. He was not wrong. For example I am disabled and certainly without those checks we would be in a tough position. I have not written in a week as my hands have not been working. Being disabled is not fun. Most do not see you at your worst, they see you on your best days and then make false assumptions. Mitt Romney simply does not understand the daily struggles of people.

Does it make him a bad person. Of course not. My guess is that on a single person to person level he is probably one of the most generous people you would meet. It is for him, like many of us, easy to make generalities about people in faceless statistics. In the end I give Romney a pass, I do not think he would have been as terrible a President as we feared but I do think he was the wrong choice. There has to be a bit of karma or whatever you choose to call it in the fact that this weekend it became finally confirmed that Romney's vote total will sink into the 47 percent number. It does not make him a bad man, it makes him a not strong candidate, but it is hard to see that number and not think that it is some kind of higher power postulation on his divisive comments.

In Other Maine News

In other news around the state of Maine the city of Bangor continues it's slide into the drug capital of the state. An area now extending from lower Ohio Street across to Walter street up to Hammond street and recently the convenience stores of Union street has become a crime zone. Further out in Capehart the area of Bolling Drive has become a hotbed of not just petty crime but serious violent crime.

This has citizens concerned, talking about crime has not been a pastime folks in Bangor often spent much time with. It is increasingly becoming a concern. With the methadone clinic, Shaw house, being a service center for a large geographic area and providing shelter for a large homeless population there is little Bangor is doing to reduce the strain on it's police force. The question could be asked as well if the police force is equipped to deal with what is becoming a constant quandary. When one sees the panhandlers on every street corner in the area it is our responsibility as Christians to feel bad for them but we also have to be realistic enough to know that this is a symptom of some very big concerns for citizens of the area.

Down the highway a bit in Newport the school district has got itself into serious financial trouble. Evidently some kind of bookkeeping error occurred over a few years and some of the towns in the district were not billed correctly. This led to a large shortfall upon discovery. An emergency loan was proposed and voted down on election day. This led the Superintendent to make drastic cuts the next day, all extra curricular activities were cut except Varsity teams, several teachers were cut, and much of what makes a school more than just classes was gutted. He had no choice.

In Frankfort the citizens have completed their two stage voting to leave their school district and join Hampden's. This makes geographic sense but will not be a cure all. The rest of the towns in that RSU, including the largest of Belfast, is said to have groups pondering their retreating from the district as well.

Closer to home the debacle in the Orono, Veazie, Glenburn school district shows no sign of abating. Money concerns are the primary problem there.

What does this mean. Simply put that the consistent failure of the state to meet it;s constitutional obligation to pay a certain percentage of the cost of education. Towns are at a point where they can do little but cut services or raise taxes. Raising taxes is not usually an option.

Down in Sullivan an eighth grader found some brownies in the kitchen and took them to school to share with his friends. Unbeknownst to him they were pot brownies his Mom had made. Mom claims she has a health issue which the pot helps, she has not had the funds to get the medical marijuana use certificate. Look it is not something we want to have happen, that is a kid taking pot brownies to school, but the state has gone overboard by taking the child from his Mother and even after an initial hearing continuing to do so. If we are going to start taking kids from parents who use a little herb now and again we better improve our foster care system by a great deal. That will cost money.

The real point in this discussion is Maine needs, all states need, to just grow up on this issue. Like gay marriage, the citizens of the country are ahead of the government on the issue of marijuana. Legalize it, Tax it, and get on to stopping real crime. I would like to be able to send my daughter to the local Rite Aid without worrying.

Thanksgiving will soon be upon us. It might not seem like it but we should all remember we have much to be thankful for. More on that later.

The Sad Mind of Charlie Webster

As election season winds down Maine things have gotten quieter but there is still news hear and there to be commented on.

State Republican Chairman Charlie Webster of Farmington seems determined to go slithering out of office with everyone thinking he is a crackpot. Two years ago Mr. Webster was concerned about college students committing voter fraud in large numbers. After his subsequent investigation, costing who knows how much, we saw no proof to justify his worries.

It should then have been no shock to see him yesterday claim an investigation was needed to look into " large numbers of unrecognizable black people who appeared to vote on election day"

When pressed as to where this took place Webster stated " in rural areas." I suppose it is possible that there was a concerted effort by out of state groups to ship in large numbers of black folks to vote in Maine, presumably to alter the state senate races and such. Anyone worth his salt knew far in advance that Obama's victory was not in doubt. Still it seems unlikely. A look at the Maine Senate races shows that for the most part Republicans win up north, were these the Republican races these black folks were tampering with.

The Maine Republican party has some fine folks in it. My guess is that several of the folks, such as Nichi Farnham who were voted out, will rue their strict allegiance to Governor LePage and hopefully make efforts to gain reelection at a different time. Maine needs a strong, rational, Republican party. Maine politics have never been in the extreme on the right or the left. Paul LePage's thirty nine percent election changed all that. We can hope for that to change.

One capable person the party has put in a position of power for the upcoming legislature is Ken Fredette of Newport. He is a fine, decent, man who is, while naturally conservative, fair minded and pragmatic. I expect that he will be a key delegate to this coming legislature accomplishing anything and having known him for twenty years I believe this is a name that we will be hearing and seeing for the next twenty years or more.

Certainly he would not be one to call incoming presumed Maine State Senate Leader Justin Alfond a socialist. Charlie Webster " we are NOT going to miss you. " It is clowns like you that give all politicians a bad name.

The Middle East Again, Still, Always

This morning we are made aware that the continual state of low grade war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas has heated up again. Yesterday Israel killed the Hamas military leader and today rockets fired into Northern Israel have killed three civilians.

In protest Egypt has recalled their ambassador to Israel. When one considers that Egypt and Israel has been the bond that kept the Middle East together this is very problematic. Egypt makes up almost 40 percent of the arab population of the world and the United States has no real idea in what direction the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take the country.

In Jordan street protests and street fighting is gaining everyday. Is it possible to foresee a future in Jordan without the royal family.

Syria's Civil War has not slowed at all, a recent cease fire was not honored, and while things have been a little quieter the last weeks one senses that is more a reflection of a reduced Western coverage than an actual reduction in violence. We are told that Syria has a unique ability as a Civil War to spread throughout the region. With Sunni and Shia fighting each other, with President Assad's government part of a small Alewite minority. This country is on edge but the damage it's trouble could do to is even more significant. Already trouble has spilled into Turkey and Lebanon.

Iran continues to be a problem no one really knows how to deal with. Afghanistan is a disaster that we cannot get out of soon enough. Pakistan has nuclear bombs and no real government and Iraq continues to have daily bombings and violence.

Added to this we have Libya who recently killed our ambassador and our United States Congress wants to get bogged down in an investigation. From some recent in depth articles I have looked into it appears that it is quite possible the CIA was running a gun running operation in Benghazi to get weapons to the the Syrian rebels. Who we do not claim to be arming, but of course we are.

And who are we giving those guns in Libya too? Al Queda. Here is the other news we do not like to think about. The elements who drove Quadaffi out were widespread in Libya. Still the main group of fighters were based around Benghazi and much of those high level fighters were Al Queada. Who are the leaders of the groups trying to take out Assad in Syria. Al Queada.

This is the problem. It is easy and right to criticize the United States for working with or backing despots. However what we must understand is that if you take out a despot American style democracy, at least in the Middle East, does not replace it. What does? Whoever has the most power and in most cases is the most ruthless. And who are those people. Look at Egypt. Look at Libya and imagine who it might be soon in Syria. Al Queada led groups.

Al Queda in this case means Western hating, terrorist or terrorist sympathizing groups, that in most cases believe in a fundamentalist violent Islam.

It is a situation with no easy answers. None. Whatsoever. There is nobody in the Middle East that is our natural ally except Israel. Anyone else who works with us does so because we are buying their loyalty. Nothing more, nothing less.

Think about Israel. Should they be giving up some of the territories. Yes. However in the next year they are faced with Islamists in control in Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and of course Hamas in Lebanon.

Being President? Not an easy job.

My first suggestion to Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain. Please shut sit down and shut up. This is not the time to score cheap points.

Where Was That Cliff Again?

So it took about three days after the election before something shiny appeared to distract us from the task at hand. The scandal involving David Patreaus, another general, his biographer, and evidently many others only deepens and frankly gets weirder and weirder. Shirtless and suspended FBI Agents, protocols of Congressional notification not being followed and on and on it goes.

Frankly I could care less. The General could not be as good as he was made out to be and it has been proven. When I look at the pictures of his wife, all grandmotherly looking and you know she just loved to make cookies and one gets the sense that the General deserves just a bit of the discomfort he is feeling. Do I think all of the resources of the government and the media should be looking at this with all the important things going on? No I do not.

We have all been told about the fiscal cliff that will hit on Jan 1 without some sort of agreement. What happens in this instance will show much of how the next four years, or at least the next twelve months are going to go. Frankly it will show if the President plans to govern with a little more force than he has before.

The first thing to understand about this cliff is that Obama, at this time, holds all the cards. He does not need to be reelected, the debt ceiling fight is not going to take place until spring and if he does nothing at all the Bush tax cuts expire.

It would seem to this naive observer that the smart thing is to let the cuts expire and then to bring legislation to reinstate them for incomes of less than 250,000. Even should the Republicans play ball on this we again will know what kind of President Obama plans to be. He should press for more. He should press for the Buffet rule. When you have power you must use power and if he accepts a small tribute from the right than he will never get as much done as he should.

A grand bargain is talked about and I personally hope that entitlements, taxes, and all the other issues that have been kicked down the road are dealt with. The President must understand that first and foremost, the best way to start is to increase revenue by losing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. This must not be made part of any deal, any time buying exercise of even a couple of months will allow the President's power to slip away. He will never be as strong as he is right now.

He must hold the Republicans feet to the fire. I am sad to say that I am not sure he has it in him. The truth is that if he thinks he will lose power to the right if he messes up here he need consider this. There is nothing more ineffective than a Democrat that loses the respect of his own party. If the President does not stand up to the Republicans in the first six months of his second term and use his power he will become a lame duck before the year is out, but because of his own party. Too many promises and too many dreams are tied up in his two election victories. He has the power to make the right angry but he has the power to disappoint the left just one more time. If he does, he will be effectively done.

I sincerely want this country to succeed and make progress on all of these issues that are holding us back. Compromise is not a dirty word. For either side. Elections however do matter, as divided as the country is, the people have spoken, they agree with the President's tax plan and he must enact it and his grand bargain very soon.

John Boehner's Olive Branch

Much credit has to be given to the Speaker of the House John Boehner who has made clear that he is ready to work with the President on solving the problems of this country, with " the fiscal cliff" fast approaching.

Mr. Boehner has been conciliatory on the issue of Obamacare and stating that " the election has shown that it is the law of the land." He also has stated that he can work with the President. It should also be noted that the President and the Speaker were microscopically close to a grand bargain 15 months ago before Mr. Boehner's tea party caucus revolted on him.

There is a great deal of distance to cover and Mr. Boehner's position is not a strong one, not with the extremes of his party willing to toss him overboard at the first sign of concession, but it is seems to be a sure thing that Boehner understands the moment he is in and is prepared to act as necessary to move this country forward.

Mr. Boehner, just as much as President Obama, deserves our credit and our good wishes.

Nate Silver is Smarter Than Ever

The Republican war on math ended with a huge thump on Tuesday. After complaining about the books being cooked and Nate Silver having an agenda it should be noted that Nate Silver was right about the winner of 50, that is right, fifty states. It should be noted that there are fifty states.

This means that Mr. Silver got Florida, Virginia, and all the other swing states correct.

There is really nothing more to say on this subject. I would like to see just a few of those that criticized his analysis as flawed and skewed be man, or woman, enough to apologize.

A stunning result and a clear vindication of his methods and ethics.

The Rebuke of Paul LePage

The hard realities of Presidential politics came home to Governor Paul LePage. After sneaking into office with just 39 percent of the vote and having the good fortune to come into office in an off year election and thus to be greeted with Republican majorities in both houses life just got a bit more difficult for our Governor.

As President Obama won a large majority of the ballots cast last night to earn Maine's four electoral votes Maine Democrats also had a night of stunning success. As of this morning with a few battles yet to be called it is clear that LePage in January will find himself facing both a House and Senate controlled by the opposition power.

The days of bullying his way through are done. The days of having a rubber stamp Senate are long gone.

This does not bode well for Maine necessarily. Unless of course LePage can change course. He has thus far shown himself to be a big blustering buffoon of an executive who most often when he cannot have his way would just as soon not play the game at all. That said one must suppose that realities can change a persons outlook. The vision that LePage had for his second term is dead. In the water. It cannot be resuscitated. He can however if he is willing to work with the Democrats accomplish much. Realistically his chances of reelection are non existent unless he does something dramatic to make himself more attractive to independents and moderates. The question is does LePage want to be reelected or will he be living in his " wife's " Florida home comfortably in four years. We do not know.

I do not want him to be a failure. On a national and a local level I want our leaders to lead, and lead means to work together. If Mr. LePage chooses to stand firm in his ideology he will be a hero to those who elected him but he will accomplish nothing from this point forward. It will be his choice and his choice alone.

For those Republicans who were brought into office in the off year election of 2010 in the legislature and were swept out with the Obama tide there is no reason to think they will not return. The question is, and this is a question that all our representatives need to ask themselves is when you find yourself in control of all branches of government do you want to behave like a fat kid loose in a candy store or do you want to attempt to govern in such a way as to change government for longer than it takes for your constituents to throw you out in two years.

The Republicans got through their tax cut for the rich in LePage's first two years. It should be noted this was the first thing LePage did, long before he announced the budget to have a huge shortfall. Let there be no misunderstanding what the number one item on the LePage agenda was. The question is does he want this to be his only epitaph, that and of course removing a mural that will be returned the first day a Democrat takes office in two years.

Lepage's legacy will be written in the coming months. Is there any hope of him surprising us and making it anymore than a short note about the failed administration of a flawed candidate who won in a three way race and was emasculated in the mid year elections and finished out his term blustering to no effect. Time will tell.

The Way Forward

As I talk to my good friend who happens to be a Conservative to my Moderate I hear frustration, worry for the country, concern for the future of his kids. I feel the same feelings. If we two who disagree on many issues can have the same feelings of concern and worry one must realize that there is a path forward. Those who share the same worries should be able to work toward an answer.



At some point both Liberals and Conservatives have to realize that digging in and refusing to work together is not acceptable. Not all will get this message. Republicans have a real worry in this example. With the tea party in place it is likely that many Republicans that compromise will face a challenge on the right. I do not have an answer for this except to say that progress in some form of a grand bargain might well be the only remedy.

Lets look at some realities. Women make up fifty four percent of the electorate. America is not pro abortion. A great percentage of people do feel that it should be limited and concerning. Still candidates getting caught up in the abortion in the case of rape arguments are stupid. This issue is decided. If you want to stand on that principle I respect you, but you should not expect to be elected. And if you have a moralistic feeling against abortion in all cases try this for an answer. Don't talk about women's bodies and biology. Just say that I hate rape. It is awful. My spiritual beliefs however believe life is life. I simply cannot advocate abortion in any case. Period. If you do not try to justify your position in some legalese stupidity you will not lose as many votes. It is these weasel words which keeps it as an issue. Just state your opinion, do not fudge it, and move on.

The fiscal cliff. The Bush Tax Cuts need to be repealed for the wealthiest Americans. Republicans can no longer continue to stake there futures on millionaires and billionaires.

In terms of a large scale proposal for our budget we must understand that depending on who you speak to the Dems agreed to at least five dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in revenue raised. The Republicans would not agree to this. There has to be some level of sanity in this.

Defense needs to be cut. It is currently a jobs program for military hardware makers and profiteers like Haliburtion. Our soldiers are the greatest in the world. We cannot afford a military the size that we have and we do not need one.


Obamacare is the law of the land and it is not going anywhere. I am not a fan. For me thought my feeling is that every tear that you see an insurance company executive crying is a crocodile one. The mandate requiring citizens, which will be predominantly young, healthy, people to get coverage will bring them many healthy payers of premiums.

Republicans are never so hypocritical as they are on Obamacare. One can be against the plan if they wish but when they choose to make the individual mandate the main sticking point it is ridiculous. The individual mandate was the idea of Republicans for solving the health care issue as early as the nineties. The party of individual responsibility, once the President signed onto their mandate idea, an idea he originally did not favor, suddenly thought the mandate was the worst idea in the world. In terms of loss of credibility there has been nothing so diminishing to the Republican cause as their flip flop on the mandate issue. It showed them at their basest level.

Those on the right would be wise to just move on from that issue.

Social Securty can be fixed. It is not unfix-able. There are issues but any thought of privatization is not going to work and will not pass. All we really need to do is change a few numbers in the formulas such as Ronald Reagan did in the nineteen eighties and we can buy another thirty or forty years and the fact is once the baby boomers start dieing in thirty or forty years the formulas will come back into line.

Medicare is another story. It has a problem. Obamacare will not solve it. The fact is I do not know of an answer until you go to single payer. We are not there yet. Obamacare however with it's focus on preventive care could help the numbers around the edges.

Jobs. Economy. Mitt Romney was right. We need to be serious about China and their currency manipulation. We need to realize that any trade war with China will be easily won by us and we need to have it now before they get stronger. I do not expect anyone to do that. When it comes to issues of trade and the economy I am a populist and I never seem to understand why my point does not make sense.

We need to solve immigration. If the Republican party cannot find a way to control it's jingoistic, fear mongering and fear feeling wing they will become a non entity.

It will not be easy, but we should never forget that the silent majority always exists in America, and with that, we always have a chance to succeed.

The Republican Civil War

It is coming and it is obvious. For those of us as moderates we hope that they will soon determine their course so that we can all move forward but this will be a determination that only the Republicans can make.

The question is who does the Republican party want to be. Watching the interviews and conservative commentators over the last few hours when I hear folks talking about the fact that Mitt Romney lost because he was not Conservative enough you have a strong sense that the lesson has not been learned. It is possible that a charismatic conservative can win a national election but what is clear is that nominating a presumably " electable" moderate and then dressing him up in conservative clothes will never work. Mccain, Romney, they are all the proof you need.

Any discussion of the future of the Republican party cannot go forward without an examination of the Tea Party and the influence this group has had on the success of the party. The list of Republican Senate opportunities that have been lost due to the tea party is long. In 2010 Delaware and Nevada, Harry Reid's seat, should have gone Republican, it was expected and anticipated. However like a bolt of lightning from the Democratic Gods the Tea Party candidates won primaries and displaced the expected Republican candidates. This year as the Democrats again control the Senate the right only needs consider that Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, and whatever rational Missouri Republican was to be nominated before Todd Aikin rose to prominence, would easily have won Republican seats. Clearly the tea party is doing no favors for the Republicans in Congress. In Presidential politics that tipping to the far right that the tea party requires brings defeat to Republicans.

What is the answer. Cooperation. Realism. an understanding of the Demographic time bomb which threatens to annihilate the Republicans. Let me be clear. This country needs a viable Republican party. Richard Nixon himself said long ago that if one party became the party of liberalism and one party became the party of conservatism the country would never recover. He was, to this point, correct. Fifty years ago there were Conservative Republicans and Democrats and there were both Liberal Democrats and Republicans. This is no longer the case. It is no mystery, it is a direct result of the gerrymandering of political districts to all but allow for guaranteed party representation. There is no esy fix for this however, the establishment politicians like it this way.

It is easy to get discourgaed. However we have no option but to improve. I will address these issues soon with an eye to how this can possibly be affected.

Barack Obama: Four More Years

So, it is over. In what turned out to be no where near as close an election as it was assumed it would be President Barack Obama was reelected President last night with, once Florida goes into the President's victory column, will be over 330 electoral votes.

What does this mean. It means a few things and I will address these issues in as concise a way as possible over some upcoming posts.

The first thing we need to do though, all of us, and take a deep breath. I have great friends who are distraught this morning. It is hard for them to understand that, for one night at least, they are in a minority. I totally understand their feelings. Those on the winning side last night should take care not to gloat, they should remember that if the race last night had come out the other way they too would have felt the same way this morning.

The question we need to ask ourselves is what do we do to change the fact that so many people feel that going to Canada if the other side wins is an option, even one discussed jokingly, rather than a feeling that we will have to work together to make things better.

This is a challenge for everybody. There is no room to gloat, there is no room to dig in and be obstructive. We need to see both sides working together with an absence of malice and rancor.

If this cannot change we will have a significant problem.

Dastardly Tweets from Tim Tebow

I am a big fan of Tim Tebow. He may or may not someday be a good quarterback, the jury is out on that, but he is certainly a good human being. While we might disagree with some of his Conservative Christian political views on an individual level I do not think anyone can really denigrate the genuineness, the sincerity, the absolute caring with which this man carries himself and treats others.

This is why I was so sad to see a tweet from him last night that I saw forwarded on Facebook. The tweet was a prediction on the election stating that he ( Tebow ) expected to see President Obama lead early in the voting but that when all the people got off work and voted that Mr. Romney would take the lead. The inference is obvious and divisive.

Fortunately I follow Tim Tebow on Twitter and in checking his twitter feed soon realized that this was a fake tweet. The saddest part of that of course was that a person of a right wing persuasion had re-tweeted this as fact, as an actual statement coming from Tebow.

If I am Conservative Christian I want as many people in the public forum as I can to proselytize my faith and win converts. Tim Tebow may be the best ambassador of Christianity in the secular world. Why would you want to sabotage his validity in this role by foisting a very divisive sentiment on his part. Clearly he is a smart young man and he would never say something so divisive.

You are not doing Gods work, you are not helping Gods plan, when you take one of God's most likable disciples and diminish him in the eyes of those he could hope to set an example of behavior and conversion for.

Voting By Color

Everyone in the United States has the right to vote. Everyone should vote. When you vote you get your sticker that says you voted, just like when you were little and you got a sticker from the Doctor.

What is concerning to me, and should be concerning to you, is the fact that more and more in this country we vote in blocs. It is just not healthy for a country to be as divided not just politically, but also geographically, and increasingly demographically like the United States is.

Look at an electoral map after this evening's election. The amount of red across the bottom and up the middle of the country will far surpass the blue that you will see on the West Coast, Northeast, and West Coast. I do not want to be alarmist and I am certainly not thinking that we will have any armed battles anytime soon but it is not a stretch to see that in looking at that map it could easily be a series of borders between countries. Soon with the changing demography of the Western United States this could well be the case.

An examination of the various voting blocks is troubling. Much has been made of the fact that white men now are voting at a rate of seventy five percent for Republicans. There are many theories as to why this is but the answer with the most likelihood of having the truth behind it is the combination of general frustration and isolation that white men are feeling. As low skilled labor disappears, as women now outnumber men in college, and the wage gap between men and women continually shrinks men feel threatened. Just as damaging to white men is the ever present fact that white men are the butt of all the easy jokes in our culture. It is easy to joke at this, to say that in the collective white men have had all the advantages of the last 300 years, a fact that is true. However if you are a white man today your perception is affected by your experience and that experience is consistently diminishing unless you are of a select few who have had the advantages of a strong education in a high demand skill.

While people are gnashing their teeth over this solidarity in the white vote it is interesting to note that few have anything negative to say about black citizens voting in a stronger majority for Democrats. We hear that it is natural for them to vote for President Obama, with the inference that he being black he of course deserves their votes but when you think about it this is demeaning to the very people it claims to be defending the actions of. The question is why are white men and black citizens voting in such a large bloc for one party. The answer, as it usually is, is pretty simplistic. Fear. Our political candidates have become expert on manipulating people's fear to influence there vote. These two groups are, at this time, the most easily influenced by the smallest amount of actions.

Interestingly if white men vote in a large bloc consistently and if African Americans are a vote that does not to be earned by Democrats then they will lose the ability to have legislation made for their benefit.

It is the same with swing states, that is states that swing between voting for Democrats and or Republicans. A perfect example is shown you every week when you gas up your car and see a sign that says that the gasoline you are pumping is ten percent ethanol. This is the result of one thing and one thing only. Iowa is the first state that votes in the Presidential season and Iowa where corn is king likes ethanol. Without that influence and the necessity of a candidate for President needing a good showing in Iowa this would never have happened.

Could this country become balkanized is an often asked question. For me I do not think that the answer is hard to come by. It has already happened.

Tim Whitehead in Maine

I have defended Tim Whitehead for years and will continue to do so. He is a good man, a great family man, a respected member of the community and should in no way be judged as a person for the success or failure of the hockey team under his direction.

I think these folks who criticize him and call him terrible names and disparage him in a personal way are morons and that they should be ashamed of themselves. I would ask the question would you rather have someone like John Calipari or even Jack Parker running this program. Take a look at the news articles about the Boston University hockey teams off ice exploits in recent years if you want to feel better about what is going on here at Maine. The sad answer is that for many of these fans the answer would be yes, yes we would much rather have a winning program and if there are a few assaults, players ineligible, tainted victories, misogynistic treatment of women by our players, well that is the price to pay.

That might well illustrate why more and more sports and the enjoyment of it has been clouded for me.

Still at this time I think that it is time for Tim Whitehead to go. He certainly should not be fired midseason. That is not what is done in college sports and certainly not to a man of Whitehead's character but for both sides it might be time to part. Tim needs a fresh start where he will not have the shadow of his predecessor hanging over him still, eight years later and Shawn Walsh still hangs over the program like a not always benevolent ghost, and Maine needs a coach who will have a fresh start and quiet the Hallelujah chorus that has made the Coach their whipping boy for factors that perhaps any coach will have a hard time overcoming.

I will admit it will be interesting to see a new coach. The fans want someone who will wave his arms, and put his foot up on the dasher screaming at the refs. They want someone who will motivate players who have different career paths and motivations than those that were here twenty years ago. Shawn Walsh will not be among the applicants to replace Tim Whitehead, and that will be a disappointment. Here is hoping however that a new coach will be given a couple of years to rebuild the program before the vultures suck the life out of him.

As for me I will be rooting for Maine to rebound and for Tim Whitehead to land on his feet as well. It will be sweet retribution for Tim if he in landing someplace with no shadow on his shoulder he can show what he can do and has done in the past.

For all concerned however the time for parting is this spring. Let us hope it is handled in as classy a way as is possible.

Fox News Has Jumped the Shark

There is a saying in television that a series has jumped the shark when they run out of ideas and latches onto some extreme premise in the ruse of an original, viable, idea.

I know that there is a great divide in this country and realize that MSNBC surely makes Conservatives gnash their teeth but what the folks at Fox are doing this weekend, to me, has shown that they have jumped the shark of credibility.

Rush Limbaugh yesterday called Chris Christie some version of a fat fool. Rupert Murdoch advises that Chris Christie needs to come out and reaffirm his support for Mitt Romney. Seriously? Because Chris Christie has acted in the best interests of his state, a state by the way, that consists of more Democrats than Republicans, not that that should matter, he is a traitor. One should consider that when the party castigates Charlie Crist over welcoming the President to his state as a Governor and now seems to be doing the same thing to perhaps their most popular governor they might need to take a breath.

The purity test they are asking for might be their undoing. Consider this, what if Chris Christie, realizing that the Conservatives will never, in the end, back him, were to make a run as an independent and take a moderate Democrat with him in 2016. You heard it here first, if the folks on the right castigate someone like Christie they need to take a look in the mirror.

Last night while watching the benefit concert on NBC I flipped around a bit and saw the folks on Fox talking to Rudy Giuliani under the headline " Dereliction of Duty" stating that the President was not doing a good job in handling this crisis with Hurricane Sandy. I think anyone with a sense of reason, right or left, knows this is not the truth, and of course Chris Christie would agree. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the right is so angry at Christie, by thanking and praising the President they are taking away an attack method.

The claim that the President should not be campaigning could have a bit of merit, there are some who feel he should be in Washington coordinating the reponse. Of course to a man this group would also say that they feel FEMA should be disbanded and the powers of FEMA given to the states. Why they would want the President to coordinate a response that they feel the states should be organizing is beyond me.

Hypocrisy in the extreme. Hypocrisy in the extreme. I have to say it twice. Mitt Romney, desperate to remain in the news mid week set up a fake rally to collect foodstuffs and water for the folks in New York. Of course he bought a great deal of the items collected and then handed them to people off camera as they entered the building so that they could hand them to the governor. Seriously.

I understand the frustration of the right. They dislike the President. They do not understand how things do not " stick " to him. Of course the right's great icon gave Democrats the same fits. The Teflon President in my memory was, of course, Ronald Reagan. Benghazi for example, watching Fox news trying to continually bang the drum on this story is like watching a lonely man trying to pass out some pamphlets at the post office. No one cares. It might have merit but the only ones paying attention are the ones who already hate the President.

It is understandable to be frustrated. And in all this Romney could very easily still win. What we need to be aware of though is that a group of people who have lost their sense of objectivity in this extreme, and hate this strongly, will have no problem with an ends justify the means action on election day, or in the probable recounts that could take place thereafter.

This, this is the greatest danger of any jumping of the shark. When hatred begets the abuse of reason one does not know where it will end.

If Nate Silver is Wrong

In the last few days Joe Scarborough and Nate Silver have been commenting back and forth to each other about the likelihood of Silver's forecast for the election coming true. It has been fairly quiet and not venomous. Scarborough being a politician does not doubt Silver's past success but openly wonders if it is possible to put a political race inside a formula and be sure of the forecasts.

Silver, correctly in my opinion, has held true to his models and the fact that they have him as an outlier. An outlier not necessarily in the fact that Obama will win but in the likelihood of an Obama victory. The most recent number given by Silver is that as of this moment there is a seventy eight percent chance of a victory in the electoral college by the President.

Interestingly at the same time Silver gives Governor Romney a three percent chance of winning without an Ohio victory. While Republicans have traditionally needed Ohio to win the election this might not be a great shock, however Silver has the President's victory percentage at eight percent if he does not win Ohio. This would seem to imply that statistically speaking Ohio will determine the next President. While Obama seems to be holding a steady lead in the polls I think what gets Silver into trouble, not with just the nutty right, but even to some extent with the rational right, such as Scarborough, is his apparent certainty of victory for Obama.

I believe Silver would say I am not certain, the numbers are what the numbers are, and of course in terms of a formula he is correct. For Silver however saying that the race is statistically very likely to come down to Ohio and then with the race appearing close giving Obama an almost eighty percent of chance of victory in the electoral college is going to earn him some heat. For me what seems hardest to be sure of, especially when it comes to Ohio are the factors that could well affect this race that perhaps do not show up in statistical markers. What are the chances of voting machine trouble in Cleveland which Obama needs to win and win big. What are the chances of voter suppression efforts having an effect in certain areas, what if it rains, what if the race is close enough that the Republican Secretary of State can affect the outcome in some way. In short even for someone like me who wants to believe the numbers his level of certainly reflect can be unsettling.

I saw a comment yesterday by some commentator defending Silver stating that if he is wrong his credibility will not be hurt, after all the best hitters in baseball strike out three times in a game sometime.

I could not disagree more. It would be one thing if Silver was like most pollsters and had Obama winning but claiming it was very close and that the polls showed the outcome within the margin of error. This is not what Silver has done. He has said that Obama has a better than 75, that is seventy five percent chance of winning. He has said this even though it is likely that the popular vote will likely be split by less than 2 percent of the vote.

No, if Silver is wrong, and I hope he is not, he will be harmed a great deal. He cannot get great praise by calling the race in the way he has, and then if wrong get a mulligan. Because of the level of absoluteness he called this race, a wrong outcome for Silver will diminish not just his formulas and tables but him. You cannot have it both ways.

Can Bob Kerrey Do It

Perhaps one of the most interesting races for the United States Senate this year is going on in red state Nebraska. With the retirement of Ben Nelson it was and has been widely assumed that this would be an easy pickup for the Republicans in their efforts to increase their numbers in the Senate.

Into that void has appeared Bob Kerrey. Kerrey a former Governor and Senator from Nebraska, Presidential Candidate, member of the 9/11 commission, and recently President of Columbia University would seem to have a stellar resume.

Of course in Mid America the resume of any Democrat does not matter. In the early polls Kerrey was not making much progress against whatever nameless Republican is running, I truthfully do not know her name and do not care. Romney has some issues that concern Nebraskans. Namely despite fifty years ago Republican icon Dwight Eisenhower having held the same position being President of a New York City Ivy League College does not play well in Nebraska and their is also the much more legitimate question of is Bob Kerrey a carpetbagger.

While he served Nebraska well in the nineteen eighties it is not a falsehood to suggest he has not really lived there for twenty years.

With all this in mind it is surprising to see that as we approach the election that Kerrey's position in the polls has most recently fell within the margin of error. Today Republican stalwart, and independent minded man himself, Chuck Hagel will endorse the Democrat Kerrey in a move that some think might, and I fervently hope, will be enough of change the outcome of this now close election.

Bob Kerrey will be no immediate friend of a President Obama. Or a President Romney for that matter. Kerrey is independent and one has no doubt that he could join a group of centrists such as Angus King of Maine who have full visions of what is wrong with Washington, and yes. full and large ego's who will have no trouble making any administration bow and scrape to get them on board. Kerrey is not perfect but his experience in government and self assuredness to know that he is in running for this seat for the right reason, to make a difference, not to hew to some specific political agenda should give us hope. Kerrey, King, and a few others like them could become a starting point of sanity that could be the balance of power in a rigidly divided Senate.

This is a race that we all should watch carefully and hope for the former Senator's victory over, in this case, a hopelessly partisan Republican. For Republicans they should realize that a vote for Kerrey is not all bad. One can be assured that whoever the next President is he will not be laying his head down at night being thankful for his election.