Kick Off Time

This week featured the nationally televised kickoff events for two major fall sports – NFL football and the Presidential campaign.  The similarity between the two sports is striking.

Both require a successful mix of a punishing ground game with a targeted aerial assault to win.  Both demand creative offensive attacks and coordinated defensive strategies.  Misdirection works on the gridiron and it works during debates.  If you want to be on the last team standing at the end of the season, you’d better have some star players who perform at their best under the bright lights.  Finally, both activities are thought to cause massive head injuries if you play them too long.  If you want to play professionally, prepare to get hurt. 

The NFL is using replacement referees; politics today uses Facebook friends to adjudicate policy differences and serve as amateur fact checkers.  Big plays often determine the outcome.  Both sports are dominated by men, and both sports have been slow to add blacks in key leadership positions.

There is one key difference between politics and football.  In football, talent and execution decide winners and losers.  You can’t buy a championship in football.  I cannot say the same for politics. 

 

This particular campaign season and this particular election season run parallel for me in more specific ways.  The two major party tickets have much in common with two NFL teams hoping for a big season in 2012.  Who will win this season?:

Romney/Ryan = New York Jets

The on the field leadership teams for the GOP and the Jets are made up of 2 good looking white guys, either of whom could run the team.  In fact, many fans of both the Republicans and the Jets think that the back-up player should be the starter this year.  The most obvious similarity is that both organizations are filled with overrated camera hungry clowns.  Waiting on “Hard Knocks: GOP Primaries” to be released on DVD. 

 

If the top player for either team fumbles once or twice, team boosters will be quick to call for Paul Ryan and Tim Tebow to get more playing time.  Neither second stringer should be the “face of the franchise”, but this is a rare year when the understudy could be more exciting than the star.  I expect the calls for Tebow and Ryan off the bench will be loud by late October.

Sanchez, like Romney, has been tagged as someone who plays not to lose, but in order to go all the way in both pursuits, it will require more risk-taking.  Is either one up to that challenge?  The rabid fan bases better hope that Sanchez and Romney don’t freeze like statues in the pocket when the heat comes.

In Tampa this week and in New York this summer, the Number 2 was a darling of the religious Right.    

By the way, in this comparison, Jets owner Woodie Johnson is Sheldon Adelson, and Rex Ryan is Karl Rove, calling the plays from the sidelines.

Obama/Biden = Denver Broncos

The cool tactician on the playing field, Obama has taken some major hits over the last few years, and like Payton Manning, there are questions as to how many more he can absorb before he is forced into retirement.  The Broncos and the Democrats have media-friendly faces at the top of the franchise to promote, Elway and Clinton.  Both players have won the Big One.  They know what it takes. 

 Both teams have been associated with Mile High in the past, that’s for sure.  Both teams have at their core identity a man that has played the role before – Elway in Denver and Clinton in Washington.

Conventional wisdom says that Manning and Obama do not have a chance without the team playing smothering defense, picking up some fumbles by their opponents (winning the turnover battle), and featuring a ground game that takes the pressure off the QB to do it all by himself.

Can they surround themselves with enough capable players to win it all?  The Democratic team and the Denver Broncos team had better all bring their A games this fall.  If the plan is to stand around while the guy with the football does all the work, the season will end badly.

Both Bronco fans and Democratic voters hope that the back-up never has to play a down the entire season.  Neither Caleb Hanie in Denver or Joe Biden in Washington, DC appears ready to take the reins at a moment’s notice.  Actually, Biden as back up is more like signing Vinne Testaverde out of retirement to hold Manning’s clipboard, but I digress.

I am looking forward to an entire fall watching what George Will once described as the worst of America – endless committee meetings punctuated by violence.  Not sure if he was talking about football or politics at the time.

Campaign Couplets

Back in January this year, I was trying to explain the political history of the prior 8 months of campaigning to my youngest child.  I felt it best to couch things in a language and cadence that she could relate to, so I wrote a rhyme.  At the time of publication, there were 4 candidates remaining in the GOP primary, and I vowed to eventually finish the poem once the field was settled.  With Obama’s nomination last night, here we are.  Time to finish what I started.

Here it is from start to (almost) finish:

The historic opportunity to unseat the Obama

Took a grave hit when he took out the Osama.

Still it looked worth the long days and the hard work

Since he was unquestionably a Socialist jerk.

How many crazies would jump into the fray?

Only time would tell how many and who may.

Trump, Daniels, Barbour and Huck

Decline to enter the primary muck.

Palin hovered on a One Nation bus nearby

But she leaves it to others to saddle up and try.

Ten egomaniacs visit Iowa towns

Romney is the preference when choosing among the clowns.

But voters prefer someone who could have more clout

Too bad – Chris Christie confirms he is out.

Nine pols tight on money, chasing frontrunning Mitt

Fighting one another to be the next Big Hit.

Tim Pawlenty had a chance, but attacks Mitt too late,

A bungled opportunity, and we’re now left with eight.

Eight folks debating every single day

None making sense with anything they say.

More Cain accusers (I think you get the gist)

Consults with his wife, then seven on the list.

Seven desperately vying for the nation’s top job

Newt steals some votes with a well-timed diner sob.

Iowa caucuses and Bachmann takes her licks

Goes home to her district – and then there were six.

Six GOP contenders slogging through the snow,

“After New Hampshire votes, then we’ll really know.”

Huntsman hopes the final votes will keep his candidacy alive,

New Hampshirites feel differently – and then there were five.

Five remaining candidates fighting on the stump

Rick Perry running last, looking like a chump;

While in Carolina, he sees an exit door,

Decides to endorse Newt, and then there were four.

Four lonely Republicans leaning too far to the right

Bashing the incumbent President with all of their verbal might.

All that’s left are Mitt, Paul, Newt and Rick,

So now the competition is who’s the biggest….

Could someone save us from political despair?

Someone with humor and perfectly coiffed hair?

Someone who would run on a whim and a dare?

I give you President Stephen Colbert!

Four tired candidates running after the Prez

Twisting the meaning of everything he says

Newt proclaims “To the moon with me!”

Mitt launches attack ads and then there were three.

Santorum now elevates to the top of the heap

Prays that evangelicals his candidacy to keep

Rick bets the farm he’ll win in Kalamazoo

But Mitt wins his home state and then there were two.

Romney and Paul are the two left standing

Only two left to continue glad-handing

Ron Paul vows to take his cause to the ends

His supporters won’t quit but the campaign suspends.

Mitt’s delegate count gets higher and higher

The more he calls out “Obama’s a liar!”

Paul can’t expand his Libertarian base

He fades to obscurity and that closes his case.

Romney’s the nominee of the GOP

He hopes to keep us the Land of the Free

He wasn’t their first choice but he is their last

Determined to bring us back to the past.

Ten likely candidates gave it a shot

It was an extreme and crazy lot.

All the time we knew it was Mitt’s turn

Although his positions you could hardly discern.

Now it’s general election time

Time to wade in political slime.

Each candidate will take their verbal whacks

And play it fast and loose with the facts.

The ads will fly

And the candidate will lie

(sigh)

Mitt or Barack? Barack or Mitt?

Regardless the winner, we’re in a world of…..

Exceptionalism!

In Sickness and In Health

On Saturday morning, everyone slept in.  It was the final weekend before school began anew, and the extra rest was welcomed.  It was close to 9:15 AM and Lucy had yet to wander into my room to wake me with her favorite question, “Are you awake?”  Cherie was out of town representing the family at her great aunt’s funeral so I had the bed to myself.  I had expanded my territory comfortably without risking an elbow, a knee or an involuntarily rap across the head (at least I have been told that those are involuntarily).

Rested and relaxed, I headed downstairs for some coffee and some light Internet surfing.  My first order of business was a quick review of personal emails.  Most of these emails are hockey equipment sales announcements for “Today Only”, political panhandling based on yesterday’s perceived affront inside the Beltway, and various headlines questioning my manhood and my mortgage rate.  I like to start my weekend mornings cleaning house, and my Outlook in box seemed as good a place to start as any.

As I pounded the delete key and sipped my inaugural coffee, one email caught my eye.  It was from my mother-in-law who was in Pennsylvania with Cherie at the funeral.  Her email must have been hacked, I thought.  The message made no sense on this Saturday morning.  The header read, Cherie:

we are in ER..severe pain in side of back, urgency and pain at urination, vomiting.  Getting seen quickly in ER, IV fluid and pain med, then test urine and get pictures.  This happened to be about 5 yrs ago..expect she will be fine..

I read and reread the email several times.  I must not be as rested as I thought.  If this were a legitimate email, someone would have called me by now.  I am a sound sleeper, but we have dozens of phones in the house.  Someone would have heard it.  This has to be a mistake or a trick to get me to send money to a Nigerian prince who needs my help.  This cannot be real.  I was in denial and opted for a second cup of coffee to sharpen my thinking.

In my relaxed state, I could not understand the message, so I called Cherie’s cell phone.  It was not an Internet scam.  Cherie was in fact in the ER somewhere in the mountains of Pennsylvania slowly recovering from a rogue kidney stone.  Her pain medication was clearly working, so our conversation was brief.  She was going to be fine, and she was with her brother and her mother, arguably in better hands than if she had been at home for this emergency.

After the call, I must confess to having some uncomfortable thoughts about her entire experience, and I am somewhat ashamed.  Like the raps across my head while I sleep, these too were involuntarily. 

I wondered if the ER in Pennsylvania was considered in-network by our insurance company.  I wondered what the co-pay was and what treatments would be considered covered expenses.  I wondered whether the 2 hours of hospital care would mean a $50 ER co-pay or a $3,648 out-of-pocket cost.  I didn’t want to think about it, but it crossed my mind, and I wish it hadn’t. 

Why couldn’t she have shopped around central Pennsylvania for the best available pricing first?  The marketplace of emergency care providers can only be cleansed of inefficiency and high costs when an educated consumer makes health care decisions based on price and value.  Competition must be encouraged because without competition and a profit motive in health care, we all lose...or so I am told.   

Alas, she went to the closest hospital, and that was her “choice”.  My insurer may not like her decision and my insurer may fleece me because of her choice of hospitals, but she made not only the right decision, but the only possible decision available given her level of pain. 

The health care marketplace is not the same as other consumer marketplaces.  Our life doesn’t usually depend on what brand of vacuum we purchase or on what grocery store we frequent.  Pain and fear tend to drive our health care purchases more than most other market purchases.  We can’t afford to wait for a “20% off your next angioplasty” coupon to arrive in the mail before seeking treatment.

I hear cries that with Obamacare or any national health care program, freedom would be lost in this country.  I am not so sure.  Today, if I were to consider a job change, the first consideration would be the transition of my family health care coverage.  My mobility is currently restricted because of today’s employer based health care system.  I hear the cries that with Obamacare, we are all victims of a complex set of regulations that reduce health care choices.  Today, I am a victim of a complex set of insurance company rules designed to reduce my discretionary dollars.  The idea that today’s system provides me choice is silly when you consider the reasons we most often visit doctors or hospitals – unplanned emergencies.  Closest provider wins. 

Thankfully in America, we no longer have to worry about denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.  Kids starting their careers or trying to be entrepreneurial job creators can remain on their parents’ health care plans until age 26.  Lifetime maximum benefits are eliminated and emergency health consumers (free loaders) are being forced into the risk pool.  It is not a perfect solution, but it’s a start.

Cherie’s emergency has passed, so to speak, and that’s the good news.  In the back of my mind, however, I wonder if her choice of emergency rooms will cost me.  It’s a worry I could do without.

First Monday in September

The platform for the Republican Party this election year declares that “the greatest asset of the American economy is the hard-working American.”  In an effort to demonstrate that hard work is exclusively a Republican value, all Republican voters were urged to go to work on Labor Day and forgo the national celebration of beer and barbecue. 

“It’s called Labor Day, not Lazy Day,” shouted Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan at a campaign stop in Las Vegas.  “Labor Day is another liberal invention designed to give workers something for nothing, just like Obama’s welfare plan.  We Republicans are different.  We built it!”

Republican leaning voters across the nation were urged by their job creating employers to show up voluntarily Monday, September 3^rd to catch up on emails, make some sales calls, or clean the public areas at their office.  The work would be uncompensated, but a spokesperson for the RNC assured workers that their efforts would not go unnoticed.

“The Founding Fathers worked on Labor Day, and their only reward was building a great nation in God’s image,” said John Galt, Romney field leader.  “That should be compensation enough for those people.”

“How can we credibly say “We Built That” at our convention if on the following Monday we stay home and eat hot dogs and drink beer?  If we didn’t go to work without compensation, it would be un-American.  We’d be Democrats.”

The Romney campaign pointed to studies that show GOP voters to be more generous than Democratic voters, and they are counting on this spirit of philanthropy to discourage any Department of Labor claims against employers stemming from the unpaid work. 

 

 Some Republican voters who were interviewed seemed supportive of the concept.  Junior insurance claims analyst Ben Dover was going to work Monday with no expectation of being paid for his efforts.  When reached at the office on Friday afternoon, he said, “My boss is a job creator, and he said he might show up during the day to check on us.  If he does, I’d better be there.  I’ll never reach the American Dream of owning my own business if I don’t show up on holidays, like he says he used to before he hired us to do it for him.”

“I have to hang up.  I think someone else is listening on this line.”

Organizers of the Take Your Lazy Ass to Work Day saw this campaign as a natural extension of the We Built It campaign, highlighted during the GOP convention last week held at a taxpayer financed arena in downtown Tampa.  The hope was to demonstrate a true contrast to Democratic voters who were content to take the whole day off, watch football, get drunk, beat their spouses and expect a full day’s pay.

Mitt Romney sold his support to the TYLATW Day campaign by releasing this statement:  “You people should all be at work on Monday, helping fix the Obama economy with your sacrificial labor.  This is exactly the kind of hard truth I’ve been talking about the entire campaign.  We built it!”

 

Sheldon Adelson, a prospective Attorney General in a Romney administration, also loved the idea.  “Everyone should show up and work on Labor Day.  Of course, it is voluntary so there’ll be no pay or bathroom breaks.  It’s all for a greater cause.  We built this!”

Not all groups were behind the Take Your Lazy Ass to Work Day.  Hard working illegal immigrants, who Romney referred to as “Obama’s base”, stayed home in protest.

Multi-national banks, Wall Street firms, and swing state manufacturing companies were exempted from the call for unpaid work.

Heartbreak Ridge

Clint Eastwood may have created a model for future political convention speakers when he tragically ad-libbed some comedy prior to Mitt Romney's acceptance speech last night.  My jaw was on the floor for the entire performance.  I was in shock and awe.  I love his movies, and care about his legacy.  I wish that whoever put him on that stage last night without a script had cared as much about his legacy as I did.  Seeing him fumble did not make my day. 

However, it does have people talking and all publicity is good publicity, right?   The Democrats have taken notice of all the publicity, and Joe Biden is ready to capitalize on this new approach to convention addresses.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, MSRP has obtained the following transcript from a conversation at the White House last night about convention strategy.

(Joe Biden rushes into the Oval Office.  Obama reading a book)

Biden:  Barry – did you watch Clint Eastwood’s tour de force tonight?

Obama:  It’s Mr. President, Joe.  Stop calling me Barry.  Yes, I saw him.  I think he really bombed.

Biden:  Bombed?  He was the bomb you mean.  Word.

Obama:  Joe, I have asked you stop talking like that.

Biden:  Oops, sorry, yo.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  Titter-verse is going crazy.  Hey, we’ve got to do something at our convention to make voters forget about Dirty Harry and focus on our campaign.

Obama: (finally looking up from his book, Fifty Shades of Gray) It’s Twitter-verse, Joe, not Titter-verse.  Alright, I might regret this, but what did you have in mind?

Biden:  We need an even bigger superstar to come out on stage to support you at the convention, but this star has to better reflect the diversity of the country and our party. 

Obama:  You might be on to something, Joe.

Biden:  Oh, I am on something alright.  I was thinking - Charo.

Obama:  You mean Charo, the actress, comedienne, and flamenco guitarist from the 1970s who used to say “cuchie-cuchie” while shaking her hips in a sexually explicit manner?

Biden:  I know. Hot, right?  And she helps expand our gender advantage with Latinos and women, and brings in male viewers.

Obama:  Male viewers over 70 perhaps.  You are right, though.  We need star power and diversity.  Too bad Oprah isn’t a one-legged Hispanic lesbian Iraq War veteran who has had an abortion.  Otherwise, she’d be perfect for the gig.

Biden:  That is so weird, Barry.  I was thinking the exact same thing.

Obama:  I’m just spitballing here, but are any of The Expendables registered Democrats?  That movie tough guy image could work for us.  It would remind voters that I killed bin Laden without being too in your face about it.  You know, “Hasta la vista, Mitt Romney.”  That sort of thing.

Biden:  Arnold could be a possibility.  He’d do just about anything to patch things up with Maria and the Kennedys.  He’s half Socialist being from California so he'd fit in on "Freedom Means It's Free" Day during the convention.  Too bad he’s not gay.  That could really help our numbers.

Obama:  How about Kirk Douglas?  He's an aging movie tough guy.  No one would be able to understand him, but the crowd couldn’t understand Eastwood, and they loved it.  Kirk talking to an empty chair would be completely believable.

Biden:  Wait, we’ve overlooking the obvious choice.  I could do it!  It would be a huge surprise.  I’ll approach the podium before your speech and there’ll be an empty chair next to me, and I’ll kinda look at it and say, “What, Mitt?  What did you say?  Oh, well then go f**k yourself.”  It will bring down the house.  Worked for Dirty Harry.

Obama:  (mulling it over) Hmmm.  People will feel sorry for you.  They’ll say “That’s Joe being Joe”, and the lasting image in the swing voters’ minds will be our campaign telling the GOP nominee to forcibly violate himself.  I like it, Joe.  What could go wrong?

Biden:  Oh well, in that case, then go f**k yourself.

Obama:  Pardon?

Biden:  Oops, I was just practicing.  But speaking of pardons, I might need one if this conversation ever becomes public.

Obama:  Word, Joe.  Now, go find yourself an empty chair and start talking to it.  I have to finish reading these briefing reports.

In case you didn't see it last night:

Eddie Haskell for Veep

The Republican Party has gone to great lengths to inspire a longing for “the good ol’ days” with their rhetoric about small towns and their imagery filled with 1950s nostalgia, a time of perfection (unless you were a minority or paying the top individual rate of 90%).  Now they have completed the dreamscape for Americans.  The GOP has nominated Eddie Haskell for the Vice Presidency of the United States.

Paul Ryan’s hair style may inspire more comparisons to Eddie Munster, but his antics are all Eddie Haskell.  For the uninformed, Eddie Haskell was Wally Cleaver’s weasel of a best friend on the iconic Leave It To Beaver show.  Eddie was a polite and obedient young man when speaking to an audience, particularly Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver.  There was a dark side to Eddie, however.  Eddie could be relied upon to connive and instigate schemes with his friends — schemes for which his ‘friends’ would be in the position to shoulder the blame.  Parents loved Eddie, but his friends knew his real motives, and so did we if we watched and listened.

Substitute Father Episode (1961):

Wally Cleaver:  [at the bottom of the staircase, calling out to his mother upstairs] Hey, Mom!

 
June Cleaver: Yes, Wally.

Wally Cleaver: Could Eddie spend the night here?

June Cleaver: Not while your father's away.

Eddie Haskell: [dejected] Boy.  Everybody around here is wise to me.  I might just have to move to a new town and start all over.

After the Wizard of Wisconsin’s rousing speech last night, I can only hope that some people will start to get “wise to him”.  I cannot argue that it was not a political tour de force, or that Biden shouldn’t be worried.  The guy is a gifted politician.  Once you peel back Eddie’s please and thank you’s, however, we find a bit more truth, and the truth (not a Romney-Ryan administration) will set us free.  Cleaver family, pay attention:

“Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it.”

Ryan neglected to mention his solution on Medicare – privatize the program with vouchers that would not, by design, keep up with health care inflation, effectively ending the guarantee of Medicare.  The guarantee would remain in place…if you could afford it, old man.  Haskell forgot to add that his budget numbers for Medicare include the same $716 billion cut, but the money doesn’t go to insure more folks.  It goes for tax cuts for the wealthy and deficit reduction.  Obama’s program cuts payments to doctors and hospitals, and the industry was at the table when those plans were written.  Ryan cuts benefits by making the program unaffordable for people.

As for Obama being the threat to Medicare, it was only a year ago that the Ryan Plan proposed the end of traditional Medicare for beneficiaries after the year 2022.  He was pressured to add a public option back into his plans.  Who is the threat, Eddie? 

 

“They’ve run out of ideas.  Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left.”

This is from the campaign that continues to run a series of welfare ads against Obama that even their own campaign staff and surrogates admit is untrue.

“A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.”  That’s what he said in 2008.  Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.  It is locked up and empty to this day.”

Paul Ryan is a lawyer, and this line of attack has a whiff of truth.  The plant is in fact closed.  Obama is in fact President.  Ryan doesn’t say that the plant closed during the Obama regime, he merely implies it (it closed during Bush’s reign).  Not a lie, but pretty crafty, and worthy of the new Eddie Haskell.

“It began with a housing crisis they alone didn’t cause; it ends with a housing crisis they didn’t correct.”

Haskell’s running mate originally responded to the housing crisis with, “Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom.”  Then, his ‘leadership skills’ must have kicked in, and his position became “The idea that somehow this is going to cure itself by itself is probably not real. There’s going to have to be a much more concerted effort to work with the lending institutions and help them take action, which is in their best interest and the best interest of the homeowners.”  So now Romney favors government intervention.  Apparently, so does Haskell.  Don’t tell the Cleavers!

“It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.”

Standard & Poors downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating in 2011 because congressional Republicans, of which Ryan is a key leader, threatened not to increase the country’s borrowing authority — risking a default on the debt — unless Democrats agreed to slash trillions of dollars from domestic social programs and investments and igore any attempts to raise taxes on the wealthy.  Ryan even suggested that the country’s creditors would forgive default for “a day or two or three or four” as long as Democrats ultimately agreed to GOP demands.

“He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report.  He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” 

Ryan sat on that commission. He voted against it. Following his lead, so did the panel’s other House Republicans.  There was no Google search back in the original Eddie Haskell’s day, but now we can quick see how disingenuous this charge against Obama really is with a few mouse clicks.

“They have no answer to this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don’t have.”

Dick Cheney said “Deficits don’t matter.”  Ryan voted for a prescription drug benefit without a mechanism to pay for it; 2 wars without the means to pay for them; TARP without a means to pay for it; the Bush tax cuts that continue to drag on the economy.  His credibility has to be questioned here. 

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Good zinger, worthy of Sarah Palin’s address in 2008.  Why didn’t Ryan suggest that these kids do what Mitt Romney suggested, borrow money from their parents to start a business?  That worked for Mitt, so it should work for them, too.

“And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.”

In order to better protect the weak, two-thirds of the spending cuts in Ryan’s budget impact low income earners.  His plan counts on the captains of industry voluntarily helping the poor, or hoping all of the poor become rich, healthy and white as soon as possible.  Otherwise, his theory must be that what won’t kill the poor will make them stronger.

“And I’m going to level with you…”

Doesn’t really matter what comes after that sentence beginning, does it? (and that’s bipartisan, by the way)

Ward Cleaver once remarked that "[Eddie] is so polite, it's almost un-American".   That might be a bit extreme for Paul Ryan, but the nominee’s politeness should make you suspicious about his real motives.

Good luck tonight, Mitt.  Eddie Haskell has raised the likability bar, so you’ve got quite a jump to make.

As Steve Benen reported, “CNN's Wolf Blitzer said he counted "seven or eight" claims that "fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute," but concluded the lies didn't matter because it was "a powerful speech" that gave Republicans what they "were hoping for." 

Guess they were hoping to be fooled by Eddie Haskell.

The Money Ball

Even political junkie can reach a saturation point.  I’m getting closer to mine.  I could not watch the Republican National Convention coverage last night, and not (solely) because I am blindly partisan.  I probably won’t watch all of the Dems convention next week either.  Some days I need a break.  I know you understand particularly if you live in one of the top 10 media battleground states that are being flooded with deceptive ads already.

I need a break and a diversion.  So Thomas and I watched part of the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt during Ann Romney and Chris Christie’s scheduled appearances.  It’s a movie about how smart, passionate people who use facts, science and statistics can overcome a conventional wisdom based on tired, empty platitudes matched with overwhelming financial resources.  In that way, it is much like the Money Ball gala in Tampa this week.  Facts take a Florida vacation, but facts can be remarkably resilient.  Facts might even win.

I can’t help myself. 

So I read Christie’s speech instead of watching.  Confession: I recorded it to watch at a later date.  Here are a few pieces of commentary on his remarks based on my reading of the words of my former Delaware classmate:

“You see, Mr. President, real leaders don’t follow polls. Real leaders change polls.”

This is an interesting take on leadership, given that his party’s nominee has taken every side of every position over his years in politics.  His ‘evolution’ on abortion rights has paralleled polling numbers for his targeted electorate throughout his career, and one only needs to look at how he has abandoned his signature gubernatorial achievement, health care reform, in the face of its unpopularity with his new friends. 

“Tonight, we’re gonna do what my mother taught me. Tonight, we’re gonna choose respect over love.”

I recognize that Ann Romney and Chris Christie were probably not initially scheduled to speak one after the other, except Mother Nature had other plans.  Still, to hear Ann Romney say that she was “going to talk about love” in her address, and then Christie throw in his dismissal of love immediately after, it was awkward.

“Now, I know this simple truth and I’m not afraid to say it: Our ideas are right for America and their ideas have failed America.”

The ideas of the GOP are SO right for America that the name of the last GOP President and his VP, who ruled for 8 years to open up the century, were not mentioned the entire evening.  Not once.  To quote Ann Richards, “Where was George?”

“Their plan: whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall.”

His choice of the words “fiscal cliff” reminded me of the debt ceiling debacle last summer, when the full faith and credit of the United States was deemed by Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell to be “a hostage worth taking.”  It was the Republican caucus that was whistling while S&P downgraded us.

“They believe in teachers unions. We believe in teachers.”

OK, that’s a good line.

“We believe it's possible to forge bipartisan compromise and stand up for conservative principles.”

No, your party does not.  John Boehner and Eric Cantor could not even use the word “compromise” in public for fear it would be interpreted as weakness.  It’s on YouTube, you don’t have to look far.  Richard Mourdock, GOP Senate candidate from Indiana said it best:  ”I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”  That’s not compromise – that’s capitulation, Einstein. 

“It doesn't matter how we got here.”

Yes, it does.  Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.  That’s not blaming – that’s thinking.  If your proposed policies made things worse, then it DOES matter how we got here since you are proposing that we do the same things all over again – deregulate, cut taxes for the rich, and hope things trickle down.

“Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world’s greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.”

This could be the greatest contortion of the evening.  The party that is fully committed to putting a federal bureaucrat between “an American citizen and her doctor”, be it through mandating medically unnecessary transvaginal probes designed to shame the victim, or denying a doctor the right to confidentially discuss guns as a health threat in the home with a patient, as Rick Scott wants in Florida, wants to save women from bureaucrats.  He’s kidding, right?

“We win when we make it about what needs to be done; we lose when we play along with their game of scaring and dividing.”

I grow weary of pointing out the Republican zeal for scaring and dividing Americans, but here I go again.  The rationale for the war of choice in Iraq was built on nothing but coordinated fear-mongering.  Who could forget the week long drumbeat using the phrase “a giant mushroom cloud”?  Also, who could forget the oft-repeated line that dissent with GOP war policy gave “aid and comfort to our enemies”?  Today, one need only to look at the discredited welfare attacks to know what party has division as part of its strategy.

“Our leaders today have decided it is more important to be popular, to do what is easy and say ‘yes,’ rather than to say ‘no’ when ‘no’ is what’s required.”

The exception would be the Keystone Pipeline decision, when approving it would have been politically expedient for the administration and removed the issue from the national conversation.

“We all must share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth.”

Really, Governor?  If we must all share in the sacrifice, then why can’t the Bush era tax cuts for the top earners be returned to the Clinton era rates?  Why are tax increases off the table if “we must all share in the sacrifice”?  Had Obama said the exact same words, I have little doubt that the GOP would have eviscerated him for asking for more sacrifice at this time.  By the way, the last GOP President did not ask for sacrifice.  After 9/11, he told Americans to go shopping.  When he signed the prescription drug bill, he did not ask that it be paid for.  When Christie says we must all “share in the sacrifice”, he talking about the poor paying more.

Tonight, Paul Ryan speaks at the Money Ball, and odds are I will not watch.  Anyone who believes that turning Medicare into a voucher system and shifting costs to the elderly is a good solution does not deserve my attention.

OK, I’ll record it.  I can still soak in a little bit more before complete saturation.