I Vote For "Nation Day"

So about this business of "election day" being just another day. As we all know, election is just an ordinary day of the week. People get up, get their kids off to school, go to work. Stop at the grocery store. And then try to find time to go vote, too. In years like this one, when turnout is expected to be high, it'll be even harder that usual for people to find time to stand in line for an hour or two. (Which is what many people are already doing in many states that are holding early elections.)

Some people argue that we should hold elections on the weekend. I disagree. Let's stick to Tuesday, but let's make the day different from other days. Let's ask Congress to create "Nation Day." (*1)

On Nation Day, banks and insurance companies and malls and doctor's offices and auto repair shops and everything else would close their doors. No school, either (because teachers have to vote, too.)

Just for one day, so that ALL of us would have time to stand in line. So that we have one day -- one day!; that's all I'm asking -- when we have time for a reflection; when we have time to ponder one of our most important duties as Americans.

Sound like too much? Then how about if employers give employees a two-hour break so they have time to go vote. Come to work two hours late, or leave two hours early. Something, anything, so that the average American doesn't have to race around like a maniac trying to find the time to vote. Worth thinking about

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*1: Let's just not call it a "holiday." Because god knows, if Congress created a voting-day "holiday," the entire purpose would be subverted in the time it says to say "FORTY PERCENT OFF ALL ITEMS DURING OUR ELECTION HOLIDAY SALE!" Or "SHOP EXTENDED HOURS DURING OUR SPECIAL ELECTION HOLIDAY SALE!"

Governor Palin: Not Qualified This Time Around

So ... the election is just days away and some people have still not made up their minds. So I'll throw this out there for the undecideds (my attempt, lame though it might be, to get some of them to vote for my guy).

In my opinion, such as it is, Sarah Palin isn't ready to be president. She's not a bad human being, but she's not presidential material. (She certainly may be in eight years or twelve, but she's not ready now.

Palin is definitely a smart, savvy, shrewd politician. She also makes no bones about her ambition. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. Many politicians and other ambitious people take care to mask their ambition. But many successful and ambitious people choose the opposite tack: They steamroller others with their self-confidence and sheer will to power.

Again, no problem. My problem with Palin is twofold: First, she has no grasp of the nature of the American federal system. She's apparently never read the constitution, and does not understand, or even seem aware of, that that system has three separate branches.

In my opinion, knowledge of the constitution is a bare minimum requirement for holding office in the United States. Bare minimum.

Second: I'm guessing that her ignorance about the basics of the American system of government stems from a complete lack of intellectual curiosity. I don't mean that she ought to spend her time contemplating Plato or quantum physics or the meaning of life. But I do think that people who seek power should be able to their agendas and ideas, and when questioned, be able to defend the positions and ideas they express on the campaign trail.

Palin does not appear to have any ideas, other than her own animal, instinctive will to power. When she's asked a question, what comes out of her mouth is -- mush. It's as if she's memorized a bunch of talking points, none of which contain any content or substance, and when she's questioned about one of them, she rummages through her mental file drawer, chooses the appropriate file and dumps it out of her mouth.

For example (you knew there was an example coming, right?): Palin has criticized Obama for his willingness to talk to the world's leaders. According to her, he plans to, ya know, plop down on the sofa and start chatting, without an "preconditions."

I'm pretty sure Obama meant and means that he wants to engage in substantive, formal discussions with world leaders, and those discussions that will be preceded by a series of diplomatic negotiations.

Okay. Fine. But if Palin is going to challenge Obama on this point, she needs to have some substantive alternative to her (imagined) notion that he's going to talk without preconditions. Right? If you're going to criticize someone, then you need to have something better to offer.

So this week during an interview, Brian Williams of NBC asked Palin a legitimate question.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Gov. Palin, yesterday, you tied this notion of an early test to the president with this notion of preconditions, that you both have been hammering the Obama campaign on. First of all what in your mind is a pre-condition?

PALIN: You have to have some diplomatic strategy going into a meeting with someone like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il, or one of these dictators that would seek to destroy America or our allies. It is so naive and so dangerous for a presidential candidate to just proclaim that they would be willing to sit down with a leader like Ahmadinejad, and just talk about the problems, the issues that are facing them, that's some ill-preparedness right there.

Palin concedes that Obama needs a "diplomatic strategy," a point on which Obama agrees.

But the rest of her comment? Blah blah blah blah blah. There's nothing concise, nothing specific. Palin hasn't given two seconds worth of though to what she means by "preconditions." For her, it's just a talking point for big campaign rallies.

There's no substance, no --- nothing. Again, that's fine. But if she's willing to throw the words and attacks around, seems to me that she needs to be able to explain what she means by those words and attacks, AND to offer a specific example of what she would do differently.

Another example: Palin rails against "elites," claiming that they're out to "get" her and that they don't understand "real" (presumably "pro") America. So Brian Williams asked a logical question:

WILLIAMS: Who is a member of the elite?

PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that they're better than anyone else. And-- John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard-working, middle-class Americans who are so desiring of this economy getting put back on the right track. And winning these wars. And America's starting to reach her potential. And that is opportunity and hope provided everyone equally. So anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism.

WILLIAMS: So it's not education? It's not income-based? It's--

PALIN: Anyone who thinks that they're better than someone else.

WILLIAMS: --a state of mind? It's not geography?

PALIN: 'Course not.

That's the best she can do? She uses the word "elite" in every third sentence at her rallies -- and yet, she's clearly not thought about what she MEANS by that word.

If you watch the interview (easy enough to do online) she sighed loudly when Williams asked the question, and paused for a moment, and looked irritated and flustered, probably because here was another member of the elite asking another "gotcha" question.

But if she had THOUGHT about what "elite" means; if she'd articulated a stance on this issue that she brings up so often, well, she'd have had a ready response. But she doesn't THINK about the meaning of her words. To her, as near as I can tell, words are just tools that she uses to pave her path to power. Palin's "sound and fury" do, indeed, "[signify] nothing." (*1)

Right now we Americans have a lot of problems to tackle. Lots of them. We need leaders who have thought about those problems long enough and hard enough to have thought of specific, substantive solutions to them.

Sarah Palin is not one of those leaders.

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*1: "Macbeth," Act V, Scene V.

In Praise Of Colin Powell And Common Sense

Geez, too bad Colin Powell isn't running for president. I'd vote for him faster than you can say "hanging chad."

On the other hand, maybe I'm glad he's not running for office -- because if he were, he might not be so willing to speak sense. I mean, have you noticed how often the process of campaigning turns candidates' brains to mush, so that they often end up spouting inane bullshit instead of sense?

Anyway -- three cheers for Powell for saying aloud two things that I had hoped at least one of the presidential or vice-presidential candidates would say:

First, as he noted in an interview this weekend, yes, taxes are a way to redistribute wealth. Say it's a nice sunny day and you and your family decide to visit a local park. You get in your car and pull out into the street -- which is paid for with tax dollars. You stop at a traffic light at an intersection. Yup, paid for with tax dollars. You take a walk through the park -- you guessed it, paid for by my tax dollars and yours. Do you have kids in school? The buildings, the playgrounds, the desks, the books -- all paid for by tax dollars.

Because that's what we do with taxes: we pay them to a central treasury, at the municipal, county, state, or federal level, and then we redistribute that "wealth" back to each other in the form of streets, parking lots, sewers, water, schools, and so forth.

Second: Barack Obama is a Christian, but what if he WAS Muslim? Big deal. Is there something wrong with a Muslim child believing he or she could be president? Or a senator or a CEO? Last time I checked, this was still the United States of America (all of it, not just the parts deemed "pro-America" by Governor Palin). And one of the things that defines we Americans is freedom of religion

. I notice, by the way, that no one objects when Muslims pay taxes or vote or die in battle for this country. So why should anyone object if a Muslim wants to run for president? Because, ya know, who's next? No Jews allowed? No Catholics? No atheists?

So -- thank you, Colin Powell, for the audacity of common sense.

Why I Support Barack Obama and Joe Biden

Every negative has a positive: In my previous post, I explained the negative: Why I won’t vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Now for the positive: I support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Here’s why.

I am a middle-age (55), white, middle-class woman. And there’s one thing I know for certain: The future does not belong to me. There’s no big shock there in that realization, I might add. When people land at the half-century mark, reality hits, because to turn fifty is to experience one’s mortality. The future no longer seems infinite, the way it did back when I was, say, thirty or forty. I hasten to add that I don’t feel “old" and I’ve certainly not given up on life. Far from it. I am fit and reasonably healthy and ready to tackle whatever life brings in whatever time I have left. But the future is not mine anymore.

Here’s another reality: The planet has changed in the past ten or fifteen years, and has done so with breath-taking speed. You know what I mean: Electronic media have changed the way human beings interact and communicate. Economies and cultures once separated by vast physical distance are inextricably interwoven. Long-standing political alliances have unraveled, morphing into new ones that would not have existed fifty years ago. Attitudes toward the United States have changed, and not necessarily for the better

. I could go on. You get the drift.

So what has the one -- my age -- got to do with the other -- the pace of change? And what have both got to do with Barack Obama?

This: We Americans are racing toward End Game. We’ve been rolling toward it for thirty years. We’ve had warning after warning about political turmoil in various parts of the world. Warning after warning about our dependence on oil, about climatic disruption, about our addiction to debt and affluence. In my opinion as a historian, we’ve run out of time. We can’t keep dodging our self-inflicted bullets. At the rate we’re going, in fifty years we will be a third-rate nation.

(Think I’m wrong? The Brits thought they were invincible, too. In the space of about 30 years, they slipped from Masters of the Universe to Also-Rans.) (Absolutely no offense intended to my son-in-law or my several very dear British friends.)

Okay, so mistakes were made. The question is: What are we doing to do about it? Look backward to the “good old days" of the Cold War and Ronald Reagan? Or look to the present and the future, neither of which bear any resemblance to those “old days."

Put simply, this isn’t the time for old people like me to be running the show. It’s time to turn it over to people who grew up in a multi-culture, multi-racial, post-cold-war, television- and computer-based world. People who understand that what happens in Beijing and Bangalore matters as much as what happens in Washington and on Wall Street. People like Barack Obama, who are willing to challenge “the way things are done," and who envision a future that does not depend on the past.

Here’s a small but telling example of Obama’s willingness to look forward instead of backward: He and his advisers planned a campaign strategy around fifty states, rather than just a handful of “blue" states. [That plan was first proposed by Howard Dean while he was chair of the Democratic Party.] As a result, he’s now running even with, and in a few cases ahead of, McCain in states that are supposed to “belong" to the Republicans.

Consider Virginia. Democrats wrote that state off decades ago. “We can’t win in Virginia," they said, “so let’s not waste any time or money there." Never mind that the demographic makeup up Virginia had changed dramatically in the past half century. Democrats like Bill Clinton and Al Gore didn’t bother. They assumed that the past was a good predictor of the future.

Obama rejected that assumption. Instead, he decided to find out for himself just how “red" Virginia was. Turns out it’s a healthy shade of purple -- so he has spent time and money there reaching out to a new generation of voters who’d been written off by Democrats in earlier races.

Again, that’s a small example, but it’s indicative of Obama’s willingness to challenge assumptions, to think in new ways, to imagine a future that is different from the past.

John McCain’s vision of the future, on the other hand, is rooted in past mistakes and old idealogies. That was evident in the first presidential debate, when he constantly and insistently referenced the past rather than the present or the future. Indeed, as I watched that first debate I wondered what people under the age of, say, 35 made of McCain. How many of those younger viewers knew who Gorbachev is? Or Kissinger or Eisenhower? For that matter, how many knew who Ronald Reagan was?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a historian. My mission is to persuade Americans that history is relevant. I don’t plan to abandon my mission. But as a historian, I believe that the past is different from the present.

And if that’s true, then it follows that the future can be different from -- and better than -- the present.

Barack Obama is the person to lead us into a future that we must -- WE MUST -- shape before it destroys us all.

I also support Barack Obama for another reason: Because I understand the power of hope. Yes, I know that many people reject Obama’s calls for hope and his message of “yes, we can." Many people believe that those words are naive or, worse, empty rhetoric.

Not me. I understand the power of hope deep in my gut. I am living proof of hope’s power. Over and over and over again in my 55 years, I’ve changed the course of my life; I’ve dug deep and reached high. I’ve used hope to conquer despair. Even now, at middle-age, I believe in the transformative power of hope. I believe the future can be different than the past or present.

I don’t believe in hope because Obama asked me to. I believe in Obama because I believe in hope.

I hope you do, too.

Why I Don't Support John McCain and Sarah Palin

I'm about as middle-of-the-road as it's possible to get, probably because I'm a pragmatist. I understand, for example, that politicians make promises in order to get elected. I also know that presidents don't write laws governing taxes, immigration, or education. Congress does. A president can cajole, urge, plead, and lead, but in the end he/she can only sign or veto legislation created by Congress.

So when I ponder presidential candidates, their policies matter less to me than do their character and integrity. And that's why I'm not voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I could rattle off a long list of examples, but I'll stick to one: Sarah Palin. As near as I can tell, McCain didn't pick Palin (he wanted Joe Lieberman). Instead, his advisers foisted Palin on him. I gather the rationale was something like this: A female v-p would appeal to disgruntled Clinton supporters. A female v-p choice would signal "change" and thus undercut Obama's main message. Even better, Palin had run for governor as an "outsider" maverick who was opposed to corruption. She was young.

At no time, however, did McCain or his advisers think about who would best serve the nation. I gather that the question was not "Who is best qualified to sit in the White House if something happens to McCain?" but "Who is the most politically expedient"?

Yes, presidential candidates must use expedience as a criteria, but smart ones don't use it as the only criteria. In this case, however, his campaign chose his running mate for self-serving, cynical, selfish reasons.

But I also wouldn't vote for McCain because -- Sarah Palin might end up running the country. And I don't believe that she is interested in anything except what's good for Sarah Palin. Moreover, the idea of her sitting down to negotiate with, say, the president of Iraq or Russia or France -- well, the idea is too frightening to contemplate.

Put another way, McCain's choice of running mate speaks volumes about his character and integrity -- and it doesn't say anything good. But it also tells us about how McCain might behave if elected. Many of McCain's long-time friends say they don't "recognize" the John McCain who is now running for president. That he's become a nasty caricature of his former self. Political observers on both sides say that McCain is not "comfortable" with his campaign's negative tone.

Okay. Fine. But if he doesn't like it, then why is it happening? Who is in charge of the McCain campaign? John McCain or a well-paid political operative? And if it's the latter, then what does that tell us about who will be in charge of a McCain (or Palin) White House? John McCain (or Palin) or a well-paid political operative?

I don't know,and I don't want to find out the hard way.

Why I Don’t Support John McCain And Sarah Palin

I’m about as middle-of-the-road as it’s possible to get, probably because I’m a pragmatist. I understand, for example, that politicians make promises in order to get elected. I also know that presidents don’t write laws governing taxes, immigration, or education. Congress does. A president can cajole, urge, plead, and lead, but in the end he/she can only sign or veto legislation created by Congress.

So when I ponder presidential candidates, their policies matter less to me than do their character and integrity. And that’s why I’m not voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I could rattle off a long list of examples, but I’ll stick to one: Sarah Palin. As near as I can tell, McCain didn’t pick Palin (he wanted Joe Lieberman). Instead, his advisers foisted Palin on him.

I gather the rationale was something like this: A female v-p would appeal to disgruntled Clinton supporters. A female v-p choice would signal “change" and thus undercut Obama’s main message. Even better, Palin had run for governor as an “outsider" maverick who was opposed to corruption. She was young.

At no time, however, did McCain or his advisers think about who would best serve the nation. I gather that the question was not “Who is best qualified to sit in the White House if something happens to McCain?" but “Who is the most politically expedient"?

Yes, presidential candidates must use expedience as a criteria, but smart ones don’t use it as the only criteria. In this case, however, his campaign chose his running mate for self-serving, cynical, selfish reasons.

But I also wouldn’t vote for McCain because -- Sarah Palin might end up running the country. And I don’t believe that she is interested in anything except what’s good for Sarah Palin. Moreover, the idea of her sitting down to negotiate with, say, the president of Iraq or Russia or France -- well, the idea is too frightening to contemplate.

Put another way, McCain’s choice of running mate speaks volumes about his character and integrity -- and it doesn’t say anything good. But it also tells us about how McCain might behave if elected. Many of McCain’s long-time friends say they don’t “recognize" the John McCain who is now running for president. That he’s become a nasty caricature of his former self. Political observers on both sides say that McCain is not “comfortable" with his campaign’s negative tone.

Okay. Fine. But if he doesn’t like it, then why is it happening? Who is in charge of the McCain campaign? John McCain or a well-paid political operative? And if it’s the latter, then what does that tell us about who will be in charge of a McCain (or Palin) White House? John McCain (or Palin) or a well-paid political operative?

I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.