Sunday, October 26, 2014

Remembering Ronnie

Ronnie Dowdy
Durham, North Carolina in the summer of 1968 was a hotbed of racial disturbance and unrest.

Martin Luther King had been assassinated in April of that year. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June after the California primary of that year.

Durham experienced riots and curfews as a result of that turmoil. You think race relations are not great in 2014; then you weren't alive in 1968 or before.

Heading into the summer of 1968, Durham elected leaders chose to close the black public schools and merge them into the white public schools.

No court orders. Just did it. Made the decision and made it happen.

It could have been a real mess at Jordan High School and Githens Junior High School that fall.

It wasn't.  It wasn't because of guys like Ronnie Dowdy.

Ronnie was a great athlete in high school and college. But he was a lot more than that.

Ronnie Dowdy came to Githens as a 6'2", 200 lbs+...7th grader. He had just moved to Durham from Whiteville, North Carolina so no one knew much about him before he came to Githens for the first summer practice. He was the same age as the rest of us. He was just a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier.

He could run a 4.6 40 and keep up with the best running backs we ever had. He was chiseled in a natural sort of way; lifting weights and working out just accentuated the natural gifts he already had.

Ronnie Dowdy #99. In the 9th Grade.
He seemed twice as big in the 7th.
Remember the scene from 'Remember The Titans' where the white bus unloads their white players and the black bus unloads their black players? That is what it looked like when we went to that first summer football practice in 1968.

Lots of tall and big black players got off the Merrick-Moore bus in front of Jordan HS; lots of tall and big white players also got off the Bethesda and Lowes Grove buses in front of Jordan HS.

To a 5'1 (maybe) and 110-pound (maybe) quarterback, all of these players looked like the New York Giants getting off of both buses. Any plans my father may have had about sending me off to prep school and away from the possible turmoil ahead were put to rest that morning.

'Dad', I said upon returning home, 'I want to play quarterback in junior high and high school. I just saw about 8 huge guys coming to Githens who are so big, no one on the other team will even see me lining up behind them!'

One other thing everyone remembers from that day was this slightly shy, handsome, tall, big and trim young man with a bright smile when he wanted to flash it, Ronnie Dowdy.

Everyone remembers the first time they met Ronnie.

Jordan HS and Githens Junior HS could have been like so many other high schools and junior highs around the South at the time where full integration was just starting to occur in the South. We heard about lots of fights and disturbances at other schools, and we had a few at the beginning as well.

We were lucky.

Over that 6-year period, from 1968-1974, the black and white students at Jordan and Githens somehow 'made it work' as Sheryl Yoast recounts in the closing scene in 'Remember the Titans'. A lot of it had to do with the administration, the teachers, the coaches and the support staff.

But a lot of it had to do with guys like Ronnie.

Ronnie was a tremendous athlete.

If you think Ole Miss and Mississippi State's rise to the top of the college football world is astounding, consider this: In our junior and senior years, Ronnie led Jordan HS to rankings as high as 4th in the entire state of North Carolina in 3-A football.

Just to put that into perspective, that would be like Duke, Carolina, NC State and Wake Forest all being in the top 5 in the NCAA college football poll at the same time all rolled into one. Jordan never was, or for the most part of their history since then, been a football factory.

Ronnie received letters from over 200 colleges and universities expressing interest in him coming to their campus to help them win tons of football games and possibly the national championship.

Lou Holtz wanted him to come to NC State in 1974 when he was building a powerful program for the Wolfpack.  Ara Parseghian invited him to snowy Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana to watch Adrian Dantley and the Irish snap UCLA's 88-game winning streak after offering him a full scholarship to join the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish. Every kid's dream.

Coach Paterno of Penn State came to Durham to visit him. Ohio State and Woody Hayes wanted Ronnie. So did Southern Cal and John McKay. Every ACC and SEC team came to call on Ronnie Dowdy during the fall of 1973 and winter and spring of 1974 to ask him, and in some cases, 'beg' him to come play for their team.

He was the 'real deal' as a football player and athlete.

He wanted to go to Duke University (sorry Duke fans) but he wound up going to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he played for the Tar Heels for 4 years. He got his degree and worked in the trucking industry before he passed away in 2004, way too young and still way too hard to believe.

I had the honor and privilege to speak at his induction into the Jordan High Hall of Fame last weekend. His athletic achievements were obvious and reason enough to have him in the first class of inductees.

There was something a bit 'odd' about his induction ceremony, however. As great as Ronnie was as an athlete, it was amazing to see how many people grew up seeing Ronnie Dowdy not as being solely a great football player at Jordan but as being a real positive force for race relations in Durham, North Carolina from 1968-1974.

And the 'really weird thing' about that was that no one I have talked to ever thought Ronnie set out to be a symbol or an advocate for better race relations in Durham, North Carolina from 1968-1974.

He was 'just Ronnie'. People young and old recognized him for the natural leader he was and everyone seemed to fall in line behind him.

He went to church; he studied hard, he played hard on the field or court...and he was never a jerk about his talent. He was so good and so talented that he could have lorded it over the rest of us. Or he could have been really nasty and confronted people in the hallway or on the football field to make a statement or push some agenda.

Ronnie did not grow up in perfect circumstances. He didn't grow up in a stylized Cosby Family Made for TV home. He had some gifts but he worked hard to develop them and took advantage of opportunities such as the scholarship to Carolina.

Ronnie was admired for his integrity, his work ethic, his pleasant and calming demeanor and the fact that he was a natural-born leader whether he wanted to be one or not. All quintessential American qualities we should all honor and hope to replicate.

Ronnie Dowdy reminds us that there really is 'no black America or white America but the United States of America' as some recently elected President said in 2004.

We are 'all Americans'...but it really helps if we all can see and be around guys such as Ronnie Dowdy. All of us: black and white and Latino and Asian. We all do better when we have positive people working together rather than have some wing-nut on either end of the political spectrum trying to tear us apart.

Wish Ronnie was still around to help show us all how.

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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Hyperbole Alert..In Reverse

'Professor Patrick Henry' of the UNC School of Law
It is always entertaining when Gene Nichol of the UNC Law School unleashes an incendiary heat-seeking missile at the GOP-led General Assembly in Raleigh.

He writes with such passion you have to believe he believes what he is writing.

Either that, or he was really, really good at creative writing in undergrad English classes.

The one thing that is interesting is how hyperbolic he can be when he unleashes such venom at the very people who help fund the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through appropriations bills passed every year at the General Assembly.

It is like the proverbial dog biting the hand that feeds him. To the tune of close to $620,000 in household income his spouse and he draw from the University system each year.

As a citizen, he is certainly entitled to those freedom of speech and thoughts rights. Just as you and I and everyone else has those same rights.

We thought it might be fun to take Mr. Nichol's very same editorial and turn it on its head to see how it would read if, say, some brave conservative professor, assuming there are any brave enough to admit it, in the same UNC School of Law at Chapel Hill wrote in the same incendiary language about President Barack Obama and the Democrats in the US Senate.

Would he/she be allowed to 'not speak for the University' in the same strain of freedom of speech Mr. Nichol...and still keep his/her job? Even if they were tenured?

It is an interesting question to contemplate. There are so few data points to evaluate.

The first selection is the edited version. Mr. Nichol's original text follows below.
________________________________________________________________________________
'It is impossible to miss the fact that an election approaches. Commercials launch from every corner and platform.

You couldn’t avoid them if you tried. I’ve tried.

But despite all the money, outside influence, debates, consultants, phone calls and ads, this election, and its accompanying politics, is oddly removed from our challenges. It’s no match for our urgencies.

America faces a fight for its decency. Our politicians, somehow, have largely missed the bout.

We’re in the struggle of our lives. Our leaders proceed with a whimper.

President Barack Obama and the Democrat Senate, led by the misguided and small-minded Harry Reid, have brutally denied even producing an annual budget and added $7 trillion more in national debt on our nation's young.

(Many will die as a result?) (sic..we just can't compete with such a miasma of hyperbole from Mr. Nichol's original text)

They have required businessmen to undergo coerced, financially unnecessary banking reviews under Dodd-Frank legislation and a Soviet-style propaganda spiel to shame them from making any sort of productive investments and loans to our beleaguered small business sector.

They have enacted the largest tax hikes to our already explosively expensive health care system in American history. They have taken great chunks of our defense budget – already among the lowest in our nation's history – to subsidize unaccountable, discriminatory, and often absurd welfare programs. They have launched a regime of energy exploration degradation and acted to assure the presence of marijuana in every venue.

They have expanded the Medicare payroll tax universe, indiscriminately taxing even the capital gains on the sale of your house, to finance 'risk corridors' for the health insurance companies who went along with their misguided Obamacare scheme. They have betrayed our national promise by boldly encouraging people who are not legally registered to vote. They will now spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to join a lawsuit that’s already over, to remind its base how much they detest legal elections.

Of all this, Barack Obama and the Senate Democrats brag incessantly – declaring they’ve made “tough choices” to right the ship. In fact, they could not have done more to sink this ship called America had they been the iceberg that ripped a hole in the side of the Titanic.

Apparently it takes manly gusto to step on the necks of common sense. A clueless president conceived this progressive agenda and then waved it all through. This is the worst, most destructive, record in modern American history. And we now lead the world in a stunning effort to inter our defining aspiration to be the world's superpower....by never leading but always following from behind.

If that’s not enough to stir revolt, I’m not sure what would.

Still, most of our legislative races are low key – timid cobbling and patching. Democrats offer tepid support for education or environmental moderation or, on occasion, a woman’s right to choose. They announce that Republicans overplayed their hands, so an eventual return to power is assured. As if they care little for the destruction visited in the meantime.

The fight of the century looks like a croquet match at the country club.

It is true, of course, that we’re undergoing an astonishingly expensive and pervasive U.S. Senate race.

But Sen. Kay Hagan is a singularly unlikely figure to carry the banner of the marginalized and dispossessed to the top of the hill.

She’s the bankers’ best friend. Her constant refrain that she’s “the most moderate member of the Senate” is a reminder, to many, that she stands for little. Saying, in effect “I’m the Democratic senator most like the Republicans” is hardly a call to arms. “If this is a fight for the soul of North Carolina, I’m with you – 51 percent of the time.” Where do I enlist?

But America, itself, is on fire. People who work for a living and parents of, and believers in, their students are intensely mobilized. Americans for Prosperity successfully presses the free enterprise community and all those who believe in their full humanity. CrossRoads fights like the future of our freedom is in the balance, since it is. The Chamber of Commerce organizes tirelessly. The NFIB is an energized and engaged activist force in every corner of the state. It makes our partisan groupings seem bloodless and lukewarm.

And, of course, the Tea Party movement has emboldened the nation. The numbers who have taken to our streets to reclaim a humane mission for their homeland astonish. They know what’s at stake. And they act like it. Cause it is true.

But despite the claims of its adversaries, the Tea Party is not a partisan, electoral enterprise. It doesn’t proffer and propose candidates. No politicians comprise its leadership. It is inspired by a collective agreement that America has been seriously run off the tracks by this President and this Democrat Senate and hundreds of thousands have answered the call. It moves and ignites a people. It doesn’t run candidate campaigns.

The American woods are ablaze. But the North Carolina Democratic Party is, at present, largely unsuited to capitalize on the fury. It has some great figures. It’s not, though, a potent state force. It barely recognizes what blows in the wind.

Come Election Day, Carolina’s boldest hearts and brotherhoods will have to do the heaviest lifting. Come election day, common sense will prevail and send adults to take over the US Senate and return it to the World's Greatest Deliberative Body that it has always been before the last 6 years.


Dr. Patrick Henry is the Hinton James tenured distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law. He doesn’t speak for UNC. He also is about to become the first tenured professor ever fired from a university because, while speaking his mind, he crossed the boundaries because he disagrees with the rest of us'
_______________________________________________________________________________

Original op-ed piece by Gene Nichol 10/16/14

It is impossible to miss the fact that an election approaches. Commercials launch from every corner and platform. You couldn’t avoid them if you tried. I’ve tried.

But despite all the money, outside influence, debates, consultants, phone calls and ads, this election, and its accompanying politics, is oddly removed from our challenges. It’s no match for our urgencies. North Carolina faces a fight for its decency. Our politicians, somehow, have largely missed the bout. We’re in the struggle of our lives. Our leaders proceed with a whimper.

The General Assembly has brutally denied health care to half a million of our most vulnerable citizens. Many will die as a result. It has required women to undergo a coerced, medically unnecessary sonogram and a Soviet-style propaganda spiel to shame them from exercising reproductive freedom.

It has enacted the largest cut to an unemployment compensation program in American history. It’s taken great chunks of our education budget – already among the worst in the nation – to subsidize unaccountable, discriminatory, often absurd sectarian schools. It has launched a regime of environmental degradation and acted to assure the presence of guns in every venue.

It has eliminated the earned income tax credit, raising the rates of low-income workers, to finance tax cuts for the rich. It has betrayed our national promise by boldly attacking the right to vote. It will now spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to join a lawsuit that’s already over, to remind its base how much it detests lesbians and gay men.

Of all this, Republicans brag incessantly – declaring they’ve made “tough choices” to right the ship. Apparently it takes manly gusto to step on the necks of the marginalized. A clueless governor waved it all through. This is the worst, most destructive, record in modern North Carolina history. And we now lead the nation in a stunning effort to inter our defining aspiration to equality.

If that’s not enough to stir revolt, I’m not sure what would.

Still, most of our legislative races are low key – timid cobbling and patching. Democrats offer tepid support for education or environmental moderation or, on occasion, a woman’s right to choose. They announce that Republicans overplayed their hands, so an eventual return to power is assured. As if they care little for the destruction visited in the meantime. The fight of the century looks like a croquet match at the country club.

It is true, of course, that we’re undergoing an astonishingly expensive and pervasive U.S. Senate race. And the Republican nominee is the central architect of our path-breaking record of outrages. But Sen. Kay Hagan is a singularly unlikely figure to carry the banner of the marginalized and dispossessed to the top of the hill.

She’s the bankers’ best friend. Her constant refrain that she’s “the most moderate member of the Senate” is a reminder, to many, that she stands for little. Saying, in effect “I’m the Democratic senator most like the Republicans” is hardly a call to arms. “If this is a fight for the soul of North Carolina, I’m with you – 51 percent of the time.” Where do I enlist?

But North Carolina, itself, is on fire. Teachers and the parents of, and believers in, their students are intensely mobilized. Equality NC successfully presses the gay community and all those who believe in their full humanity. Planned Parenthood fights like the future of our freedom is in the balance, since it is. The AFL-CIO organizes tirelessly. The NC-NAACP is an energized and engaged activist force in every corner of the state. It makes our partisan groupings seem bloodless and lukewarm.

And, of course, the Moral Monday movement has emboldened the nation. The numbers who have taken to our streets to reclaim a humane mission for their homeland astonish. They know what’s at stake. And they act like it.

But despite the claims of its adversaries, Moral Monday is not a partisan, electoral enterprise. It doesn’t proffer and propose candidates. No politicians comprise its leadership. It is inspired by a brilliant and charismatic preacher and the hundreds of thousands who answer his call. It moves and ignites a people. It doesn’t run candidate campaigns.

The woods are ablaze. But the North Carolina Democratic Party is, at present, largely unsuited to capitalize on the fury. It has some great figures. It’s not, though, a potent state force. It barely recognizes what blows in the wind. Come Election Day, Carolina’s boldest hearts and brotherhoods will have to do the heaviest lifting.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law. He doesn’t speak for UNC.'

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/16/4239151_wheres-the-fight-in-north-carolinas.html?rh=1

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Friday, October 17, 2014

'The Good News Is: Everything We Have Tried So Far Has Failed'

(Not) Said by Winston Churchill
An oft-quoted but mis-attributed quote always seems to have merit when it comes to the basic general wisdom of the American people:
'Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities'
This generally has been attributed to British Prime Minister and statesman Winston Churchill, mainly because it sounds like something he would have said way back when.

But the general sentiment was actually first uttered by Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban, not by Sir Winston. Mr. Eban was more general in his comment which was: “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”

Daniel Henninger of the WSJ has written a very good piece, 'A Year of Living On The Brink' about the recently concluded IMF meetings in Washington where world finance leaders met to discuss the pressing issues of the world today....and came away after having concluded to do absolutely nothing of any consequence.

He concludes by saying in essence: 'We have tried everything that traditional Keynesians and monetarists have said would work in the past...and still, the American economy is acting like a big tank stuck in molasses'.

'It is essentially the prescriptive promise of this 2009 to 2014 policy mix that was repudiated by officials at the IMF meetings in Washington the past week' Mr. Henninger wrote somewhat calmly but with the ominous presence of a threatening thundercloud.

What is 'so good' about finding out that everything President Obama and other world leaders have done over the past 6 years has not gotten the American and world economy out of the economic doldrums?

Everything.

No matter what politicians try to do to sell themselves to the American people to get their votes, there is only one thing that really matters: 'Does it work to help people find jobs and enjoy economic prosperity for themselves and their families'?

If a politician running for office 'promised' the American people that eating 1 government-paid for peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich everyday would return us to full employment, higher wages and a happier life, and he/she got into office and made it happen through legislation, and it worked somehow, that person would be elected for life by that state or district.

Maybe even President.

That is the 'probable cause and effect' of politics. It has almost nothing to do with actual economics in the minds of the voting electorate. They don't want to be bothered with the inner workings of quantitative easing or Keynesian economics or what Milton Friedman thinks about monetarism.

They just want to know one thing and one thing only: 'Did it work for ME!?'

If it didn't, vote for someone else who will promise something different.

What is the 'good news' about the failure of the IMF meeting to take any further steps down the road to perdition we have embarked on with massive government stimulus programs and 'expanding the balance sheet' of the Federal Reserve (read: 'Make up more currency out of thin air') under the entire 6 years of President Obama?

It means US policy-makers have no choice but to 'try something else'.

That 'something else' is what has worked over the entire history of America and in free societies the world over: Let people make their own decisions with their own money with a minimum of taxation and interference from government sources.

Throw in a few years of less government interference and more mature adult federal budgeting such as:

  1. Gutting the entire Dodd-Frank legislation that is the banking equivalent of Obamacare in the medical world;
  2. Repealing the most onerous sections of Obamacare and allowing people to actually 'keep their doctors if they like them' and drive out the cost factors in health care that are making it simply unaffordable in the first place;
  3. Freeze overall federal government spending for just the next 4 years at FY 2014 levels which will 'magically' balance the budget without any tax hikes or complete elimination of any government service (although some agencies should be eliminated completely);
  4. Come up with a truly 'Grand Bargain' on reforming and reducing the cost and the taxation of entitlements coupled with a pure simplification of our tax code (we favor moving to a consumption tax..see other posts)
And we will all quite possibly see the greatest economic explosion America has ever seen.

The markets and the world will know that the adults have returned to run the US government after years of childish and almost infantile leadership on many levels. The mere mention of adult leadership will send such shock waves of confidence through the world markets that we may not really know what hit us until years later.

We are on the verge of becoming self-sufficient in oil and gas production which will reduce our reliance on oil coming from the Middle East where the truly crazy people such as ISIS and Al Qaeda roam.

There may be technological breakthroughs on new energy sources such as cold fusion (Lockheed Martin and Tom Darden of Raleigh both recently announced investments in that space) which could completely and radically transform our energy industry in America.

Young people we meet everyday in the sciences and technology fields tell us about the exciting new technologies they are learning about in the classroom and in the laboratories. The only thing government needs to do in most instances is to 'get out of the way' and let these young inventors and entrepreneurs take the risks to grow these new industries much as Henry Ford established Detroit as the world's mecca for the automobile industry...until labor unions, excessive onerous government regulations, local government corruption and corporate mismanagement destroyed the Detroit automobile industry, that is.

Everything in life has an action and a reaction. It is a basic law of physics.

So it is in economics. If we allow it to happen, that is.

Politics is the only way to unleash the economic power in America that can soak up almost all of the un- and under-employed people who want to work but can't find a job. Government can never do that nor can it provide a living wage for everyone who can't find meaningful work today. We just can't afford it given that we have maxed out our credit card of national debt and created more money at the Fed which runs the risk of igniting the inflation demons down the road.

As Mr. Eban or Mr. Churchill or whoever said: 'Americans will do the right thing when they have run out of all other options'.

Now is that time in our history. Let's get it right for a change we can all really believe in.


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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

'My Advice To You Incumbent Democratic Senators....Is To Start Drinking Heavily'

'My Advice To You...Is To Start Drinking Heavily!'
Just took a look at some of the historic losses in the US Senate by incumbent Presidents in their off-presidential year elections.

  • 1918 Wilson -7 D seats; 
  • 1922 Harding -7 R seats; 
  • 1926 Coolidge -7 R; 
  • 1930 Hoover -8 R; 
  • 1938 FDR -7 D; 
  • 1942 FDR -8 D; 
  • 1946 Truman -12 D; 
  • 1950 Truman -5 D; 
  • 1958 Ike -13 R; 
  • 1986 Reagan -8 R; 
  • 1994 Clinton -8 D; 
  • 2006 Bush 43 -6 R; 
  • 2010 Obama -6 D seats; 
  • 2014 Obama -4?-5?-9? D seats. . .

That is an average of a 6.69 seat loss in the Senate for the party of the incumbent president on both sides of the aisle. That for either the Democrat or Republican side indiscriminately.

It is not a 'racial' thing or a 'class' thing; it is a 'philosophy of running our democratic republic' thing.

Depending on what happens in KY, KS and GA, President Obama could be right up there with FDR in terms of total losses of Senate seats during his terms in office as many as 15.

And he lucked out on 5 races the GOP should have picked up in 2010 and 2012 but were done in by less than stellar candidates who said things left better unsaid. Such as 'I am not a witch'; 'There is such a thing as legitimate rape' and so on. They are most definitely not on the ballot this year.

With those 5 lost pickups, the GOP would now be possibly looking at a majority of 59 GOP senators in the US Senate instead of possibly 'just' 54.
'Why's everybody always pickin' on us?'

Why do Presidents typically lose seats in the congressional election of their second term?

Why is it that a wildly popular president such as Ronald Reagan can win a still-record electoral victory in 1984 over the hapless former Veep Walter Mondale with 525 electoral votes and winning 49 states only to lose the Senate 2 short years later?

It is because it is one thing to make campaign promises in an election.

It is entirely another thing to get legislation passed to reflect those priorities in the very messy and discombobulating US Congress, especially on the Senate side where 1 Senator can muck up things pretty badly if he/she really wants to do so.

The economy also weighs in heavily on any election. When people are out of work, they tend to throw the bums out who are in charge. When things are going peachy-keen, they are not so angry so they let them stay.

President Reagan had the Iran-Contra issue come up in the summer of 1985 which tinged and tarnished his glowing reputation. Iran-Contra hurt the Republicans in 1986, along with a very nasty short recession and economic downturn which always gets a politician in trouble regardless of party.

President Obama has had his share of scandals scar his second Administration so far including the IRS; the NSA; Benghazi and now the nebulous response to ISIS in Iraq, the 'invisible fence' that allows illegal immigrants to continue to spill over the Texan border and the delayed response to the severity of the spread of the ebola virus.

All of these scandals at the top of the ticket, even though the president is not on the ballot during congressional elections, tend to flow down and tinge and tarnish the reputations of candidates down the ticket.

None more so than the US Senate incumbents of the same party. The implication seems to be that since you were supportive of the President's policies in the US Senate, you should be thrown out for one of 2 things: 1) Not stopping the President from doing such stupid things in the first place and 2) aiding and abetting his policies that turn out to be wrong-headed and detrimental to the country as a whole.

Remember: President Obama just said a couple of weeks ago: 'Make no mistake about it. My policies will be on the ballot this fall'

He might as well added: 'Read My Lips! More New Taxes!' and hung them like a millstone around the necks of every Democratic Senate candidate running this year around the nation.

One of the most dogged incumbents has been Kay Hagan of North Carolina. She has consistently led in most polls, that is, until about 2 weeks ago when she was forced to admit that she missed a hearing on ISIS to go to a fundraiser.

The highest percentage Senator Hagan has seen in a poll is 46%. Not good 3 weeks out for any incumbent anywhere in any election in any year, presidential or congressional. Any time any incumbent is below 50%, that is trouble since people who have already decided to support her have already done so. The others? Not so sure about her.

Elizabeth Dole and Erskine Bowles (D) were dead-tied going into Election Day 2002. We were told by her campaign manager to expect a long night, and, I think I got this correct, to 'start drinking heavily'. No one on either side thought it would be decided until the wee hours of the next morning.

CNN's Candy Crowley (or some other reporter) announced Dole's victory at 9:20 pm. She had won 56-44. Apparently, those late breakers all went to her in the last days of the campaign.

The question now is whether those people in North Carolina who have not definitely made their decision to support Kay Hagan for a second term will do so once they think about what President Obama said about his policies being on the ballot.

That is why so many incumbents of the President's party lose in mid-term elections, especially in the second term of the President.

Many of these people just say 'no' to the President and it spills on down the line on the ballot.


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Sunday, October 12, 2014

Market Opportunity in the Political Marketplace

Where are the majority of American voters today?
We saw a poll last week from PPP that somewhat shocked us.

It showed a tightening race in South Dakota's Senate seat, one previously thought to be solidly in the GOP pickup camp.

But not solely because of the Democrat candidate Rick Weiland.

Because of the Independent candidate. Former GOP US Senator Larry Pressler who is running as an Independent against the front-runner and presumptive favorite former GOP Governor Mike Rounds.

The most recent poll results showed 35% support for Rounds; 28% for Weiland and 24% for Pressler.

First of all, we were surprised to see the name 'Larry Pressler' on any ballot nowadays. He served in the US Senate as a Republican Senator for 18 years from 1979 to 1997 and is now 72 years old. Good for him....still alive and kicking and participating in American representative democracy.

Second, we were surprised to see him with 24% of the poll results. As an Independent. In South Dakota.

In Kansas, the Democrat Senate candidate dropped out of the race against long-time incumbent GOP Senator Pat Roberts paving the way for 'Independent' (but decidedly a liberal Democrat) wealthy businessman Greg Orman to challenge Senator Roberts. The race has become more serious than anyone thought even 2 months ago.

What is this saying about the 'rise' of Independent candidates running for political office in America, if it is saying anything at all?

For a long time, we have been observing and writing about the incredible surge in registered Independent (Unaffiliated) voters in the state of North Carolina. Recently, an article came out that said there were counties 4 counties in the state where Unaffiliateds were now the clear majority of registered voters; 39 counties where Unaffiliateds were second to Democrats; and 26 counties where Unaffiliateds were second to Republicans.

That is 69 counties out of 100 where Unaffiliateds were either #1 or #2 in voter registration in North Carolina.

That is simply hard to believe. In 1992, when that crackpot but well-meaning Ross Perot ran for
'I am all ears!'
President ('Can't you just hear that giant sucking sound?'), Unaffiliated registration in North Carolina amounted to less than 4 %.

He got 19% of the vote nationwide but no electoral votes. Thankfully upon reflection.

North Carolina is one of the few states where legal voters can register Unaffiliated so it provides a pretty good petri dish to try to discover why there are so many Independents nowadays.

It is pretty simple: Over the past 14 years, under both Republican and Democrat complete and partial control of our government in the Congress and the White House, our big problems have not been solved.

Period.

We had a $11 trillion national debt when President George W. Bush left office in 2009.

Today, we are just under $18 trillion of national debt under President Barack Obama who had 100% Democrat control of the House and Senate from 2009-2011 and a split Congress since then.

The economy feels as stagnant in terms of job creation and wage expansion for the middle class as it has at any time since the truly desultory years under President Jimmy Carter that mercifully ended in 1980.

The costs of health care keep going up and now, under Obamacare, people are NOT paying $2500 less per family and people are NOT able to 'keep their doctor if you like them'.

Suffice it to say, if you want to look at it in market-based terms, the current suppliers of political leadership are creating a vacuum in the market for effective and real and tangible results from their political leadership.

Any time there is an opportunity in the market not currently being filled by existing companies or services, someone comes up with a new product or service to fill that gap and hopefully make millions in the process.

Same thing with political leadership.

So what is happening today in American politics?

In 1985, Lee Atwater said the majority of American voters would be 'socially libertarian (for the most part) and fiscally conservative' way back in 25 years.

Looks like he was just about right on-target. The Independents are fed up with both the 'extremes' as they see them coming from both the Democrat and Republican Party in Washington at least.

Maybe the established parties will reform themselves and start moving to accommodate these disaffected voters more in the middle.

Maybe pigs will start to fly and become drones who will shoot sausage-and-bacon bullets at ISIS terrorists in Iraq, yes?

Do you really see the Democrats becoming 'less' active on social issues and 'more' fiscally conservative over the next decade? Or the Tea Party Etc. Republicans becoming less concerned about social issues and focus like a laser beam solely on the economy, reforming entitlements and balancing the budget?

The 80% majority of Americans have fallen into the following categories over the years: Southern Democrat; moderate Republican, sentient Libertarian, JFK Democrats.

Here's what the far-left extreme of the Democrat Party calls Southern Democrats nowadays: 'Extinct'

Here's what the far-right extreme of the Republican Party calls everyone to the west of them on the political spectrum: 'RINO'

Which  means to them: 'Really. I know everything about politics. And You Don't'

But somehow, the 'wackos' on either end of the spectrum are the tail wagging the dog in both parties now. It is most likely because of the extreme gerrymandering that has taken place in both parties where the only real election takes place in the primaries to see who is the 'most pure' when it comes to 'party principles'. Whatever that is nowadays.

'Party Purity' is a dangerous thing in most cases. In any form of government. In any nation over the span of hundreds of years.

That is why there is such an opening for Independents nowadays. All you have to do is run in the general election, not in any vicious primary. And all you have to do is win 34% of the general election vote (in most normal states outside of Louisiana) and see the other 2 candidates split the vote 33%/33% and you win.

There are hurdles to any Independent winning such as having to get 4% of the registered voters in your race to sign a petition allowing you to be on the ballot (as they do in NC). Another hurdle is the lack of institutional history as a party plus no real organization or list of donors to call on for help.

However, in these days where 527s and powerful technology advances have basically made parties more marginal and the personality and organizational skills of the candidate more important, don't be surprised to see more Independents running soon.

When you see trends such as in North Carolina where both Democrat and Republican voter registration drop 3-5%/year and Independent registration rise by 5%+/year, that is called 'market disruption' in any business we know.

Maybe the 'Lost Republicans' and 'Lost Democrats' in the Independent camp will keep coming home to vote for the Democrat or Republican candidate each election.

But what they are 'coming home to' nowadays...burnt-down smoldering buildings on both sides where nothing gets accomplished for the good of the nation as a whole when all is said and done?

'Going out' with the Independent in each race might become easier and easier to do each election cycle to come. As long as the Independent candidate can think deeply and act like a real leader, that is.


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Friday, October 3, 2014

'Make No Mistake About It: My Policies Are On The Ballot This Fall'- President Obama

Truer words were never spoken.



The problem for the President and the Democrats this fall is that he is so unpopular now with the American people because of his policies that he threatens to bring them down this fall and allow the Republicans to regain control of the US Senate and possibly expand their majorities in Congress.

President Obama's policies both domestic and foreign have now been on full display for over 5 years and the American people are telling him they don't like what he has been doing in either arena.

They are saying back to him: 'Make No Mistake About It: We Don't Like Your Policies And We Are Going To Do Something About It!'

Republicans used to say that Bill Clinton did something no other person could have done for them in 1994: He brought them all together to defeat his policies, which included HillaryCare in 1993.

That was the first time in 40 years that the GOP had controlled the US Congress. Not since President Harry Truman brought all the rebellious Republicans together after World War II.

That is as long as Moses led the Hebrews on their long, lost march about the desert looking for the Promised Land, isn't it?

One of the main reasons why people are 'not happy' with President Obama is that his policies have failed to allow a boom in employment among people who want to and are able to work.

Miserably so.

More unemployed people stopped looking for work in every single month since President Obama was sworn in than the number of unemployed who have actually found a job! (see below from the BLS and as reported in FiveThirtyEight.

'Stopped Looking' For a Job Doesn't Mean The Same
Thing as That Person 'Found a Job!'
That is simply an astounding fact. You can't make that sort of thing up, now can you?

At this rate, we may one day have the 'official' unemployment rate hit zero....and have 60% of the American people officially say they have 'quit looking for work' and are now 'out of the job market'.

Are we supposed to be happy then?

Elise Hilton points out 5 reasons why people can't find work in her article in the Acton Institute Powerblog (worth the read):
  1. The U.S. has poorly-enforced trade agreements. 
  2. We are suffering from misguided energy policies. 
  3. Our government burdens us with both regulations and taxes. 
  4. Corruption and monopolies are costly, not just abroad, but right here in the U.S. 
  5. We struggle with disincentives to work, poorly-administered higher education and immigration issues. 
And all of this is leading up to a scenario where President Obama's unpopularity is probably leading to the loss of the Senate by the Democrats and a return to control by the Republicans who will replace Majority Leader Harry Reid just as soon as they can gavel in the next session of Congress in January, 2015 (WashPost article by Chris Cillizza):



























So there you have it in one fell swoop: the connection between a President's policies that are on the ballot; the lack of job creation and a sluggish job market and a political party's prospects at the election polls.

It is not rocket science. But when you are on the downside of the rocket engines thrusting the other way, it sure feels like some sort of rocket engine burning you apart.

It is not fun. Unless you are on the winning side.


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