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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN
Mountain Views News Saturday, November 10, 2012
HOWARD Hays As I See It
ELECTION 2012: THE BATTLE CONTINUES
First and foremost, congratulations are due to Governor Romney for the
high ethical standard and practiced discipline he maintained in his campaign.
The campaign was one of great potential consequence for the country we love,
and he fought fair and hard for the principles he holds dear. He is a great and
generous man, imbued with a decency and honesty that would have made
him a great leader and perhaps one of our best Presidents. He overcame many
hurdles and encountered all the powers of the incumbency, mother nature and
the not-too subtle part-truths, misstatements and outright falsehoods that too
many in the opposition camp were willing to hurl simply to win. But win they
did, and it is further testimony to the character of Mitt Romney that he did
not leave the campaign stage bitter or angry, nor was he disillusioned with an
electorate that essentially decided to kick the can down the road, for you see
the election results have not settled a single one of the tremendous issues that face our country today.
We started the election with the Democrats in control of the Presidency and the Senate, and
the Republicans in control of the House. We finished the election in exactly the same place. The
bare knuckle political battles of the last 4 years will undoubtedly continue for Obama’s second term.
Nothing in the election process or the vote has tempered or interceded. We had a 50-50 election
where the campaign was focused on the micro issues of one small constituency or the other. We had
a demonstrably more negative campaign than has been our experience in the last quarter century.
That’s not just my opinion, it is Pat Cadell’s as well, and he’s been a partisan Democrat campaigner
from the Jimmy Carter years onward. He had even predicted that Obama’s only route to success was
through the muddied fields of innuendo and outright slander.
In the middle of all that, though, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan put forth valiant effort to raise
the bigger issues, to inform the electorate that this election would matter, that the country is at a
crossroads and cannot simply continue as it has. But the country decided – that’s what an election
is – that is was not yet ready to restructure and reform the growing welfare state, nor was it ready to
pay its costs.
Neither side in this great debate won last Tuesday. Those who want to enshrine the new spending
levels, bureaucracies and regulatory hurdles enacted under this administration will not be able to do
so. Those who want to return power to the states and the people and shrink the size of the government
will not be able to do so. Meanwhile, the government we have costs more than the revenue the people
are willing to pay. There is no mandate to decrease spending, but there certainly is not mandate to
increase taxes.
Each side will be able to say, as Obama did to Republican leaders immediately after his first victory,
“elections matter”. But Obama will not be able to continue, as he did four years ago in his lecture to
the Republicans, and say “I won”. Obama has won the Presidency but clearly lost the nation. The
margin of victory in the Electoral College masks the narrow margin of victory in the popular vote
and masks the historical significance of winning by less than he did in his first election. That hasn’t
happened in the modern era. Every other two-term President in the modern era has won re-election
by more than his margin of victory in his first election. That is not an insignificant footnote.
So where do we go from here? We can hope that our President will honor his first election promise
– repeated in his re-election campaign as well – that he wants to be a unifier and to seek a grand
bargain that will balance the scales. Doug Shoen was a political strategist for President Bill Clinton.
In his reading of the 2012 exit polls, “election night showed that fiscally conservative free market
policies along with a social safety net that protects the less fortunate of us is an approach that garners
majority support.” I think he’s right. President Obama says he wants to be transformational, well he
again has that opportunity.
But that opportunity is not to transform the U.S. into something that only a diehard lefty would
admire. There is no mandate or appetite for a more socialist or even European-like social contract.
Doug Shoen has hit the nail on the head. There is a balance to be struck, but an ideologue will not
be able to do that.
We need a leader. We need a President who will truly seek to represent us all. We need someone
with the skills, patience and heart to unite Americans behind a common purpose whereby the truly
weak are protected, but the truly industrious are not punished. Let us pray that Obama 2.0 is of better
skill and character than Obama 1.0. Four more years of what we’ve had is going to feel pretty ugly.
About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several civic and religious
organizations on cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Pasadena area with his wife and 3 children and is
active in the community. He can be reached at gregwelborn2@gmail.com
“Exact quote: ‘We can’t play.’ What they said right from the get-go was, it
doesn’t matter what the hell you do, we ain’t going to help you. We’re going
to stand on the sidelines and bitch.”
Former Rep. David Obey (D-WI)
In his interview with Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald, Rep. Obey was
describing a conversation he’d had with across-the-aisle colleague Rep. Jerry Lewis
(R-CA) about the strict no-honeymoon policy set by the Republican leadership at
the onset of the Obama presidency. There would be no cooperation, no compromise.
House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) made sure nobody crossed the aisle, regardless of whether it would
affect the ultimate fate of legislation. The point was to deny the President any opportunity to claim
“bipartisanship”.
In the senate, Republicans saw depleted Democratic votes caused by the passing of Sens. Edward
Kennedy (D-MA) and Robert Byrd (D-WV), along with the months-long delay in seating Sen. Al
Franken (D-MN), as an opportunity to prevent bills from coming to the floor for debate. Former
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) explained to Grunwald his party’s approach to the new President: “If
he was for it, we had to be against it.”
Preparing for the mid-terms with no accomplishments of their own, Republicans relied on the
demonization of the President. Astro-turf groups funded by the Koch Brothers and guided by Karl
Rove nurtured the tea-baggers; dedicated to overthrowing the foreign-born Marxist who would seize
their guns, impose Sharia law and establish “death panels” to “pull the plug on Grandma”.
Tea-baggers won the House, and the Democratic majority was trimmed in the Senate. Members
pledged to take the United States into default rather than reconsider Bush tax cuts for billionaires.
Those who denied evolution, dismissed global warming and maintained rape doesn’t cause
pregnancies were installed on science and education committees. Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) proclaimed: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President
Obama to be a one-term President.”
In the meantime, a stimulus package brought the country back from the edge of a Great Depression.
A healthcare bill promised that families would no longer face bankruptcy if a child got sick. Reform
measures ensured that taxpayers would never again be stuck with the bill for Wall Street recklessness.
Despite public sector jobs slashed by state and local governments, the losses were more than made
up for as employment nationwide increased with almost three years of steady growth in the private
sector. Consumer confidence in the future was restored.
A decade-long war ended and another wound down with an end date in sight. The nation remained
safe as leaders of the terrorists who attacked us were (finally) held accountable. Respect for and
admiration of our nation overseas returned to levels not seen in a dozen years.
Now we’d find out if the Republican strategy of the past four years would pay off; if having stymied
whatever the President proposed would allow them to argue he didn’t accomplish enough and wasn’t
sufficiently bipartisan to deserve a second term.
Newt Gingrich spoke of moon bases. Rick Santorum warned of contraception serving as “a
license to do things in a sexual realm”. With Ron Paul, it was turning national parks over to private
developers. Mitt Romney suggested the solution to the housing crisis was to speed up foreclosures so
families could stay where they’re at – as tenants paying rent, not as homeowners.
What they didn’t appreciate in the ensuing weeks was that Americans were paying attention.
They heard Romney position himself to the right of Rick Perry and Rick Santorum on issues like
immigration and women’s rights, leaving the candidate later with the limited options of coming off as
either far-right or a phony.
An opposition researcher named James Carter IV was paying attention as Romney, and especially
running mate Paul Ryan, repeatedly knocked the legacy of his grandfather. This researcher brought
to light the video of Romney not only writing off 47% of Americans as unworthy, but of describing
a factory he’d visited in China that employed “20,000 . . . almost all young women . . . the number of
hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned . . . living in dormitories . . . 12 girls per room .
. . and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers.” Americans
paid attention as they heard Romney describe this factory not in condemnation, but as another sound
purchase by Bain Capital.
Chrysler workers in Ohio were paying attention as Romney told them their jobs were going overseas.
Many called their supervisors to ask what Romney knew that they didn’t. Spokesmen for Chrysler
and GM assured that Romney was lying – lying about the future of these workers’ jobs hoping to score
political points. Autoworkers, steelworkers, union members throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania and the
industrial Midwest were mobilized to go door-to-door getting out the vote as never before.
When it became clear the votes might not be there, Republicans in swing states, especially
Pennsylvania and Florida, determined to make it harder for people to vote. The prospect of five and
six hour waits in line, though, rather than being discouraging, only increased the determination of
citizens to make sure their voices were heard.
One would think Republicans would be paying attention, in order to avoid a blow-out in the mid-
terms two years from now. So far, not much has changed: Sen. McConnell is already challenging the
President to come to them with a budget to their satisfaction. In the House, Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH) presents as his “compromise” a plan remarkably similar to the one Mitt Romney campaigned
on.
Maybe those chewing out Karl Rove for having blown $400 million of their money on losing
campaigns will try talking some sense into Republican leadership, as well. Grown-up governance
and compromise will not only be good for their party, but good for our country. And – Americans
will be paying attention.
JOE Gandleman An Independent Voice
NO, VIRGINIA, THE 2012 ELECTION’S
HYPERPARTISANSHIP WILL NOT LAST FOREVER
“DEAR COLUMNIST: I am 13 years old and in the 8th grade.
“Some of my friends say America will never be able to put back
together after the highly divisive Presidential election and that due to
hyperpartisanship people will never work together to solve our problems.
They say it’s getting almost impossible. Papa says if you hear people say it
on TV, in newspapers and on blogs then it must be so. Please tell me the
truth: can America truly get together after this election? Can there ever
be a change that takes place that could move our country towards real
problem-solving, or is this as “good” as it can get?
“Virginia Genericperson
“285 Quintessential Ave., Any City, USA”
Virginia, your friends are wrong. As someone who writes this column, loved political science at
Colgate, monitors political shows on radio and TV, and who spends hours surfing the internet to edit
and write my centrist blog The Moderate Voice, I know how easy it is to get swept up by the early 21st
century’s rages, passions and melodrama.
You and your friends are picking up the fact that our politics no longer resemble the kind of politics
that made America great -- where consensus and compromise were virtues and where politicians
perhaps begrudgingly acknowledged the importance of truth and could not blatantly and intentionally
ignore it. You’re picking up on the tone of our political culture where rudeness, boorishness and
aggressiveness are perceived by some as being intelligent. Our political culture has shifted, but just as
things shift, they can re-shift -- and it is in the power of you and other young people to do it.
Go back into American history and you’ll find many examples of times when compromise -- two
principled parties or politicians giving a little, then taking a little to come up with something for
the common good that’s supported by more than a power-play faction of people -- was a virtue.
Legislator and former Secretary of State Henry Clay, Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was even
called “The Great Compromiser” for his role in the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Partisans known for
compromise today face primaries and are replaced by hyperpartisans.
You see, Virginia, much of American political culture is now set up to define compromise as a “caving”
or weakness, and consensus as being in the inaccurately defined “mushy middle.” It showers those
who are the loudest, most outrageous, and most insulting with attention and riches. Some of today’s
leaders in both parties do seek compromise and cooperation (note New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
and President Barack Obama during Hurricane Sandy) and some may seek consensus, but there
are forces that eschew the notion that real political nirvana is when a policy garners the maximum
number of populace’s participants to buy into it.
American history is filled with figures that cherished the idea of consensus, even while assertively
promoting strong ideological ideals: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight
Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ and many more. Gil Troy, in his superb book, “Leading from the Center: Why
Moderates Make the Best Presidents,” classifies Ronald Reagan as a “moderate” because he successfully
used compromise and consensus.
Strong work to sandbag compromise and consensus. Ideological movements that demonize
opponents and seek to shrink once-big political tents. Corporations selling and broadcasting popular
talk shows and cable shows that rake in big bucks by harnessing, communicating, and enlarging
resentment and anger to build audience share that’s then sold to advertisers. The ideological cable
channels increasingly celebrate political incivility.
Still, there courageous politicians and media types and America has a strong center. Many young
people in their teens and 20s that I talked to and emailed these past two years make it clear they look
with revulsion on hyperpartisanship, and the verbal and written screaming and insulting associated
with it. Many wish there was a strong third party movement.
The fact you and others ask this question means you may -- and can -- make it different. Other
generations made it different in positive (the Greatest Generation) and negative (Baby Boomers)
ways. Your generation can do it in a positive way again.
Joe Gandelman is a veteran journalist who wrote for newspapers overseas and in the United States. He has appeared on cable
news show political panels and is Editor-in-Chief of The Moderate Voice, an Internet hub for independents, centrists and
moderates. CNN’s John Avlon named him as one of the top 25 Centrists Columnists and Commentators. He can be reached at
jgandelman@themoderatevoice.com and can be booked to speak at your event at www.mavenproductions.com. You can follow
him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/joegandelman
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