The Bigger Picture
Published on December 17th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I began discussing why I believe President Obama’s decision to use another “surge” of American troops in Afghanistan was the most moral decision he could have made under the circumstances. The primary reason I cited was my belief, shared by President Obama, that America had a moral obligation to try to bring enough order and stability to Afghanistan, so that we could leave there with some hope that its citizens will be able to maintain this on their own after we are gone. But there are other reasons too.
I would ask those on the left who are critical of President Obama’s decision to send more American troops into Afghanistan instead of withdrawing them, to seriously consider what would most likely happen if America simply pulled out of the country. Do they honestly think the Taliban insurgency would collapse? I could be wrong but I doubt that very many of those who oppose Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan have taken into account what will likely happen if the Taliban insurgency was to continue after an American pullout. So allow me to paint a picture of the two possible scenarios that could unfold if America pulled out of Afghanistan next year.
In an ideal world it is possible that an American withdrawal will leave the Taliban without a foreign enemy that it can use to motivate its fighters and or encourage more Afghanis to join its ranks. Under this scenario the Taliban wouldn’t be able to muster the resources they need to engineer a complete takeover of the country and or their Afghani opponents would be able control significant portions of the country. Possible? Yes. But likely? Hardly. That’s because, unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world.
I would therefore contend that the most likely effect of an American withdrawal would be an ensuing takeover of the entire country. Given their past history of providing quasi-governmental support for al Qaeda terrorists, it is also more likely than not that the Taliban will do so again, especially since al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in the Pakistan frontier regions are now engaged in a heated conflict with Pakistani government troops.
As such, another Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will likely lead to the re-establishment of a base of operation for al Qaeda from which it can plan and train for more terror attacks against innocent civilians in the US as well as other nations around the world. Spain, the UK, Kenya, Indonesia. Do any of those names ring a bell?
Furthermore, with a secure base of operations in Afghanistan, al Qaeda terrorists will also be in a position to launch attacks against its Muslim neighbors in the region such as Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and China too for that matter. While it is indeed possible that the Taliban will try to discourage these kinds of cross border attacks by its al Qaeda allies, no evidence currently exists that suggests they are likely to do so. However, based on the Taliban’s current support for al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Pakistan, the only hard evidence we have to date tells us we can expect more rather fewer attacks on the regimes that control countries on Afghanistan’s borders.
Why should this concern my friends on the left here in Europe and in America? After all, these countries are thousands of miles away from our homes in America and Europe so any instability in this region of the world is unlikely to ever affect us or our way of life. The problem with this line of thinking is that it fails to properly consider the risk of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the pseudo-religious al Qaeda terrorists.
I would contend that anyone who believes that al Qaeda wouldn’t try to gain control of some of these nuclear weapons or that al Qaeda wouldn’t actually use them if it succeeded in acquiring them, is also ignoring the Taliban and al Qaeda leaders’ track record of recruiting and training suicide bombers to kill innocent mostly Muslim civilians indiscriminately. They have no regard for human life so why would they let the thought of killing a few million Muslims stand in the way of using nuclear weapons?
While some of my friends on the left may not wish to acknowledge the reality of the very real threat posed to millions of innocent people by these pseudo-religious Muslim terrorists, the vast majority of political leaders around the world agree that this threat is very real. That is also the reason why you don’t see or hear any of them criticizing Obama’s decision to devote more resources to the conflict in Afghanistan.
But there is one more reason I want to cite which gives the greatest support to my argument that Obama’s decision represents the most moral choice that he could make under the circumstances. It is also something none of my friends on the left appear to have ever considered. It is the fact that most Afghani civilians don’t want America to leave and allow their country to fall back into the clutches of the Taliban.
Unlike most of my leftist friends, I have actually discussed this issue with native Afghan men and women. They are disgusted by the inefficiency and corruption that characterizes the current government in Kabul but they have a much greater fear of what will happen to their friends and family if the Taliban ever regain power. They reminded me that they had lived under Taliban rule once before and that they didn’t know a single person back in Afghanistan who wanted to ever live that way again.
One woman also asked me to consider the fate that awaits women should the Taliban ever come to power again. Having done so, I would now ask my friends on the left to also take a moment to talk to some Afghan women about Obama’s decision before they begin trying to organize protests against it.
Next week I’ll discuss Climate Change!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Troop Surge in Afghanistan
The Bigger Picture
Published on December 10th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I criticized President Obama and his administration for the way they mis-handled his healthcare reform, and to a lesser extent his climate change proposals, by allowing liberal Democratic Congressional leaders to take the lead in developing them.
But this week I want to applaud the President for both his handling of the evaluation process and his decisions about what America should do in Afghanistan. Mind you, I have absolutely no idea if the strategy Obama is moving to implement in Afghanistan will either succeed or fail. What I can say however, is that based on what I know about both his reasoning and the process he went through to arrive at his decision, I think he has made the best and most moral decision possible under the circumstances.
Trust me; I can already hear the angry protests from my leftist or left leaning friends here in Ireland and back in the states. “How can you dare to say that deciding to send more American soldiers into Afghanistan was in any way a moral decision?” In fact after hearing me express this opinion yesterday, one of my mates here in Dublin told me he won’t even listen to my reasons much less consider or discuss them with me.
OK so even though I will listen to, consider and discuss his opinions and or reasoning for disagreeing, he has made it very plain that he has no intention of doing likewise. Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture? No matter. For those of you who care to read on I will attempt to expand on and explain my reasons for believing President Obama’s decision was the most moral one he could have made given the circumstances.
To begin with I think one has to put the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the proper perspective. As far as I am concerned the invasion of Iraq was both wrong and immoral because it placed both American military and Iraqi civilian lives at risk even though Iraq was in no way a security threat to the United States or its neighbors. The only moral underpinning cited by the Bush administration in support of their decision to invade Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was a ruthless and murderous dictator.
OK I’ll buy that. But if that is a valid reason to invade another nation half way around the world, then what about Kim Jong il in North Korea or Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the dictators in control of Sudan and at least half a dozen other countries? In the case of North Korea we knew for a fact that they had nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them, while we had only unsubstantiated (and false) speculation regarding Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapon intentions and capabilities. That was the primary reason why both I as a Republican and Barack Obama as a Democrat opposed the decision to Invade Iraq from the very start of the Iraq War.
Since a substantial majority of Americans have now come to the same conclusion about the Iraq War, from a purely political standpoint, the easiest decision for Obama to make regarding Iraq would be to pull out completely and simply blame George Bush for whatever happens after America has completed its withdrawal from Iraq. But as I wrote in several previous columns over the last 3 years, although I was adamantly opposed to the Iraq war, I also believed just as strongly that it would be immoral to pull out of Iraq without first making an attempt to stabablise the country and reduce the violence there.
Like it or not, we can’t go back to the way things were in Iraq prior to the American invasion or change the foolish decision President Bush made to invade it. President Obama also rightly recognized that although the Bush administration had been wrong to invade Iraq and had made a bloody mess of the country in the process, America still had a moral obligation to try to clean it the mess we made before we withdrew.
Afghanistan is not Iraq however and the circumstances that precipitated our decision to invade that country were markedly different as well. Afghanistan and its Taliban regime were a security threat to the United States and other nations because they were providing safe havens for al Qaeda terrorists to train those bent on killing innocent civilians in the United States and other countries. The Taliban were and still are just as ruthless and murderous as Saddam Hussein in terms of how they treat Afghani civilians but that was not the reason why America invaded Afghanistan, nor should it have been.
How quickly we forget. Both Barack Obama and the leaders of many other countries around the world fully supported the decision to invade Afghanistan because it was a safe harbor for al Qaeda terrorists and their leader, Osama bin Laden. Many Islamic nations also supported the decision to overthrow the Taliban regime as well.
Unfortunately, following the successful overthrow of the Taliban regime, President Bush turned his attention away from Afghanistan to Iraq instead of devoting the resources needed to rebuild that country’s infrastructure and institutions, thus bringing some semblance of order and stability to Afghanistan and its war weary people.
Once again however, President Obama can’t undo the mistakes made by his predecessor which opened the door that allowed the Taliban to rebuild their armed strength in Afghanistan. Unlike President Bush, Barack Obama and most other Americans have no illusions about “winning” the war in Afghanistan. But we do have a moral obligation to try to bring enough order and stability to the country that we can leave there with some hope that the citizens of Afghanistan will be able to maintain this on their own after we are gone.
This is why I believe President Obama’s decision to use another “surge” of American troops in Afghanistan was the most moral decision he could have made under the circumstances. But there are other reasons too……..
Published on December 10th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I criticized President Obama and his administration for the way they mis-handled his healthcare reform, and to a lesser extent his climate change proposals, by allowing liberal Democratic Congressional leaders to take the lead in developing them.
But this week I want to applaud the President for both his handling of the evaluation process and his decisions about what America should do in Afghanistan. Mind you, I have absolutely no idea if the strategy Obama is moving to implement in Afghanistan will either succeed or fail. What I can say however, is that based on what I know about both his reasoning and the process he went through to arrive at his decision, I think he has made the best and most moral decision possible under the circumstances.
Trust me; I can already hear the angry protests from my leftist or left leaning friends here in Ireland and back in the states. “How can you dare to say that deciding to send more American soldiers into Afghanistan was in any way a moral decision?” In fact after hearing me express this opinion yesterday, one of my mates here in Dublin told me he won’t even listen to my reasons much less consider or discuss them with me.
OK so even though I will listen to, consider and discuss his opinions and or reasoning for disagreeing, he has made it very plain that he has no intention of doing likewise. Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture? No matter. For those of you who care to read on I will attempt to expand on and explain my reasons for believing President Obama’s decision was the most moral one he could have made given the circumstances.
To begin with I think one has to put the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the proper perspective. As far as I am concerned the invasion of Iraq was both wrong and immoral because it placed both American military and Iraqi civilian lives at risk even though Iraq was in no way a security threat to the United States or its neighbors. The only moral underpinning cited by the Bush administration in support of their decision to invade Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was a ruthless and murderous dictator.
OK I’ll buy that. But if that is a valid reason to invade another nation half way around the world, then what about Kim Jong il in North Korea or Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the dictators in control of Sudan and at least half a dozen other countries? In the case of North Korea we knew for a fact that they had nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them, while we had only unsubstantiated (and false) speculation regarding Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapon intentions and capabilities. That was the primary reason why both I as a Republican and Barack Obama as a Democrat opposed the decision to Invade Iraq from the very start of the Iraq War.
Since a substantial majority of Americans have now come to the same conclusion about the Iraq War, from a purely political standpoint, the easiest decision for Obama to make regarding Iraq would be to pull out completely and simply blame George Bush for whatever happens after America has completed its withdrawal from Iraq. But as I wrote in several previous columns over the last 3 years, although I was adamantly opposed to the Iraq war, I also believed just as strongly that it would be immoral to pull out of Iraq without first making an attempt to stabablise the country and reduce the violence there.
Like it or not, we can’t go back to the way things were in Iraq prior to the American invasion or change the foolish decision President Bush made to invade it. President Obama also rightly recognized that although the Bush administration had been wrong to invade Iraq and had made a bloody mess of the country in the process, America still had a moral obligation to try to clean it the mess we made before we withdrew.
Afghanistan is not Iraq however and the circumstances that precipitated our decision to invade that country were markedly different as well. Afghanistan and its Taliban regime were a security threat to the United States and other nations because they were providing safe havens for al Qaeda terrorists to train those bent on killing innocent civilians in the United States and other countries. The Taliban were and still are just as ruthless and murderous as Saddam Hussein in terms of how they treat Afghani civilians but that was not the reason why America invaded Afghanistan, nor should it have been.
How quickly we forget. Both Barack Obama and the leaders of many other countries around the world fully supported the decision to invade Afghanistan because it was a safe harbor for al Qaeda terrorists and their leader, Osama bin Laden. Many Islamic nations also supported the decision to overthrow the Taliban regime as well.
Unfortunately, following the successful overthrow of the Taliban regime, President Bush turned his attention away from Afghanistan to Iraq instead of devoting the resources needed to rebuild that country’s infrastructure and institutions, thus bringing some semblance of order and stability to Afghanistan and its war weary people.
Once again however, President Obama can’t undo the mistakes made by his predecessor which opened the door that allowed the Taliban to rebuild their armed strength in Afghanistan. Unlike President Bush, Barack Obama and most other Americans have no illusions about “winning” the war in Afghanistan. But we do have a moral obligation to try to bring enough order and stability to the country that we can leave there with some hope that the citizens of Afghanistan will be able to maintain this on their own after we are gone.
This is why I believe President Obama’s decision to use another “surge” of American troops in Afghanistan was the most moral decision he could have made under the circumstances. But there are other reasons too……..
What the President and Democrats SHOULD have learned from Mid-Term Elections
The Bigger Picture
Published on December 3rd in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In last week’s column I faulted President Obama for his handling of two of his three most important domestic policy issues; healthcare reform and climate change legislation. I believe the President blundered by allowing Congressional Democrats to take the lead in developing these bills, thus providing his Republicans opponents with plenty of ammunition for them to use in an attempt to torpedo these initiatives.
While I am a strong supporter of the President and his domestic policy agenda, unlike many of Obama’s other supporters, I also won’t hesitate to take President Obama to task when I believe he has erred. But before I expand on my critique of how the President mishandled his healthcare and climate change proposals, lets put them into context by first examining how he succeeded in achieving his number one legislative priority shortly after he took office; arresting the free fall in the American economy.
President Obama correctly perceived that stopping the economic hemorrhaging caused by the financial wounds various segments of the economy had suffered was his most important job as our nation’s 44th President. To that end Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, took the lead in crafting an economic stimulus package rather than leaving it to Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives and Senate.
The Obama administration proposed a combination of increased federal spending, which was criticized by Democratic liberals as being too small and by Republican conservatives for being wasteful, and tax cuts that were criticized by liberals as unnecessary and by conservatives for being less than what was needed. But at this early stage in America’s economic recovery process it appears that President Obama and his economic advisors got the economic stimulus package that they proposed just right.
I should also note this isn’t just my opinion either. At the same time US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was being raked over the coals by a few Democrats as well as the Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee at a hearing on Capitol Hill, a very different consensus of opinion about Obama’s stimulus package was emerging from a group of respected non-partisan economic analysts.
Before the hearing a Democratic representative unhappy about America’s high unemployment rate was asked by a TV interviwer if Geithner should be allowed to remain as Treasury Secretary and responded with an emphatic “No!” Then during the Joint Economic Committee meeting the next day, one House Republican told Geithner he had “failed” while another Republican on the committee said President Obama should have never given Geithner the Treasury job to begin with.
Maybe I’m crazy to think this way, but I just have a lot more faith in what a group of knowledgeable economists have to say about the Obama administration’s economic recovery legislation than I do in the opinions of politicians from either political party about the success or failure of these policies.
In response to Congressional complaints that the huge economic stimulus package wasn’t working, Nigel Gault , the chief economist at IHS Global Insight was quoted as saying; “I don’t think it’s right to look at it by saying, ‘Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn’t work.’ I’m afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus.”
Mr. Gault’s opinion is shared by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys Economy.com, who was quoted as stating that; “In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus.”
But in contrast to the Obama administration’s development of the apparently successful economic stimulus legislation, when it came to healthcare reforms and climate change legislation, the President let Congressional Democrats develop these proposals on their own with very little input or guidance from the White House. As a consequence, 5 different House and Senate committees drafted their own separate versions of healthcare reform proposals that addressed the desires of their generally more liberal constituents.
The end result was an incoherent jumble of healthcare reform proposals that gave anti-Obama Republican conservatives all the ammunition they needed to put conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans on the defensive. What were they thinking? That they could still win enough support from these legislators to pass these bills without putting them at risk of losing their upcoming swing state or district re-election battles in 2010? Obviously these more liberal Democratic Congressional leaders weren’t thinking!
Crafting healthcare legislation that addresses the concerns of liberal Democratic constituencies is not a strategy that will work unless Democrats have an overwhelming majority in both Houses of Congress. Well guess what? They don’t and their chances of achieving such a majority in 2010 have never been dimmer. What the more liberal Democrats don’t seem to understand is that getting healthcare reforms passed in the Senate is dependent on selling the idea to the 85% of Americans who currently have healthcare insurance, not the 45 million Americans who don’t.
One of the few liberal Democrats who understood this kind of political calculus was the now deceased “Lion of the Senate”, Ted Kennedy. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Ted would have let any bills out of committee until he had developed a package of reforms that he could persuade a smattering of conservative Democratic and moderate Republican legislators to vote for. The bill would have been criticized by liberals for not going far enough to address the needs of the uninsured and by anti-Obama conservatives for going too far, but it would have passed and become law.
Ted Kennedy’s stance on reform legislation was to get the most significant reforms in place then come back in a couple of years and make it better. Thankfully, President Obama finally appears to be ready to adopt this approach to healthcare reform. Now what does Obama do about Afghanistan?
Published on December 3rd in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In last week’s column I faulted President Obama for his handling of two of his three most important domestic policy issues; healthcare reform and climate change legislation. I believe the President blundered by allowing Congressional Democrats to take the lead in developing these bills, thus providing his Republicans opponents with plenty of ammunition for them to use in an attempt to torpedo these initiatives.
While I am a strong supporter of the President and his domestic policy agenda, unlike many of Obama’s other supporters, I also won’t hesitate to take President Obama to task when I believe he has erred. But before I expand on my critique of how the President mishandled his healthcare and climate change proposals, lets put them into context by first examining how he succeeded in achieving his number one legislative priority shortly after he took office; arresting the free fall in the American economy.
President Obama correctly perceived that stopping the economic hemorrhaging caused by the financial wounds various segments of the economy had suffered was his most important job as our nation’s 44th President. To that end Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, took the lead in crafting an economic stimulus package rather than leaving it to Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives and Senate.
The Obama administration proposed a combination of increased federal spending, which was criticized by Democratic liberals as being too small and by Republican conservatives for being wasteful, and tax cuts that were criticized by liberals as unnecessary and by conservatives for being less than what was needed. But at this early stage in America’s economic recovery process it appears that President Obama and his economic advisors got the economic stimulus package that they proposed just right.
I should also note this isn’t just my opinion either. At the same time US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was being raked over the coals by a few Democrats as well as the Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee at a hearing on Capitol Hill, a very different consensus of opinion about Obama’s stimulus package was emerging from a group of respected non-partisan economic analysts.
Before the hearing a Democratic representative unhappy about America’s high unemployment rate was asked by a TV interviwer if Geithner should be allowed to remain as Treasury Secretary and responded with an emphatic “No!” Then during the Joint Economic Committee meeting the next day, one House Republican told Geithner he had “failed” while another Republican on the committee said President Obama should have never given Geithner the Treasury job to begin with.
Maybe I’m crazy to think this way, but I just have a lot more faith in what a group of knowledgeable economists have to say about the Obama administration’s economic recovery legislation than I do in the opinions of politicians from either political party about the success or failure of these policies.
In response to Congressional complaints that the huge economic stimulus package wasn’t working, Nigel Gault , the chief economist at IHS Global Insight was quoted as saying; “I don’t think it’s right to look at it by saying, ‘Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn’t work.’ I’m afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus.”
Mr. Gault’s opinion is shared by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys Economy.com, who was quoted as stating that; “In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus.”
But in contrast to the Obama administration’s development of the apparently successful economic stimulus legislation, when it came to healthcare reforms and climate change legislation, the President let Congressional Democrats develop these proposals on their own with very little input or guidance from the White House. As a consequence, 5 different House and Senate committees drafted their own separate versions of healthcare reform proposals that addressed the desires of their generally more liberal constituents.
The end result was an incoherent jumble of healthcare reform proposals that gave anti-Obama Republican conservatives all the ammunition they needed to put conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans on the defensive. What were they thinking? That they could still win enough support from these legislators to pass these bills without putting them at risk of losing their upcoming swing state or district re-election battles in 2010? Obviously these more liberal Democratic Congressional leaders weren’t thinking!
Crafting healthcare legislation that addresses the concerns of liberal Democratic constituencies is not a strategy that will work unless Democrats have an overwhelming majority in both Houses of Congress. Well guess what? They don’t and their chances of achieving such a majority in 2010 have never been dimmer. What the more liberal Democrats don’t seem to understand is that getting healthcare reforms passed in the Senate is dependent on selling the idea to the 85% of Americans who currently have healthcare insurance, not the 45 million Americans who don’t.
One of the few liberal Democrats who understood this kind of political calculus was the now deceased “Lion of the Senate”, Ted Kennedy. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Ted would have let any bills out of committee until he had developed a package of reforms that he could persuade a smattering of conservative Democratic and moderate Republican legislators to vote for. The bill would have been criticized by liberals for not going far enough to address the needs of the uninsured and by anti-Obama conservatives for going too far, but it would have passed and become law.
Ted Kennedy’s stance on reform legislation was to get the most significant reforms in place then come back in a couple of years and make it better. Thankfully, President Obama finally appears to be ready to adopt this approach to healthcare reform. Now what does Obama do about Afghanistan?
What President Obama MAY have learned
The Bigger Picture
Published on November 26th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Happy Thanksgiving Day (in America)! Last week I noted that the number lesson Republicans could learn from this month’s mid-term elections was that the surest path to electoral victory was to run in favor of things like economic development rather than against proposals such as President Obama’s reforms of America’s healthcare and energy policies.
Avoiding debates about controversial social issues like abortion or gay marriage and instead focusing on job creation was a strategy that worked for Republican gubernatorial candidates’ Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey. On the other hand, national Republican’s support for Doug Hoffman’s attacks on President Obama’s policies and moderate Republican candidates who don’t agree with the Party’s social conservatives, led to the loss of a staunchly Republican New York legislative seat in Congress.
Fortunately for the Democratic Party’s future election prospects, many Republicans, especially those who are members of the social conservative class, have failed, or simply refuse, to see the bigger picture (sorry, no pun intended). While there are some Republicans at both the national and state levels who are very concerned about the Party’s future prospects, nary a one will discuss their concerns on the record for fear of invoking the wrath of right wing TV and radio pundits like Sean Hannity.
The Republican Party also continues to suffer from the lack of any real national leader other than Sarah Palin. Talk show demagogues like Rush Limbaugh love Sarah Palin and continue to extol her virtues as a potential successor to President Obama in 2012. Other Republicans gripe about her but dare not do so publicly for fear of provoking outrage among Palin’s slavishly devoted social conservative followers.
While McDonnell and Christie have both announced that they plan to have centrist administrations, social conservatives are revving up their attacks on more moderate Republicans like Florida Governor Charlie Crist. But if social conservatives do indeed win these intra-party battles with more moderate Republican politicians, they will also lose most of the general election wars their standard bearers will also have to wage.
That being the case, should Democrats really be concerned about their electoral chances in 2010 and beyond? I would suggest that Democrats shouldn’t take too much solace from the civil war Republican social conservatives are waging against their party’s moderates. Doing so only allows President Obama and his fellow Democrats to continue to avoid dealing with their own shortcomings rather than coming to terms with them.
Pinning one’s chances for success on the failures of your competition is hardly what one would call a “winning” strategy in business, politics or any other field of endeavor. A winning strategy takes advantage of mistakes made by one’s opponent, but it doesn’t depend on them slipping up. President Obama and the Democratic Party need to recognize that while the Republican Party’s internecine war may leave some of their candidates bloodied and weakened going into a general election, they could still win it.
I think it is foolish for Republicans to cite the results of 1994’s general election to herald this year’s mid-term election victories as predictive of a Republican drubbing of Democrats in 2010, 2 years into another new Democratic President’s first term. What Republicans fail to acknowledge is that much of their success in 1994 was due to the fact that an unprecedented number of Democratic lawmakers chose not to run for re-election that year. Open seats are always the ones most likely to be won by the other party, yet less than 10 Democrats have announced plans to retire in 2010 versus almost 50 in 1994.
But it is just as reckless for Democrats to use past history to spin the results of the Virginia and New Jersey mid-term elections as being indicative of nothing more than these state’s voters’ contrariness and low voter turnout. Granted, voter turnout was much lower and these states do have a history of electing governors from whichever party doesn’t hold the White House. However accurate these historical analogies may appear to be though, they still can’t obscure the fact that the soft underbelly of the Democratic Party was also exposed in this month’s elections.
Although only a handful of Democratic seats will be up for grabs in 2010 due to legislator retirements, there will still be another 50 Democrats running for re-election in historically Republican leaning Congressional districts. These moderate and conservative Democrats originally won those seats thanks to support from disenchanted Independent voters during the waning years of the Bush administration. As a consequence these Democratic officeholders are particularly concerned about the sentiments of Independent voters in the US and their respective districts. They should be!
Exit polling in both Virginia and New Jersey showed the same worrisome trends for Democrats among those Independent voters who strongly supported Democratic candidates in the 2006 and 2008 general elections. In both Virginia and New Jersey Independents voted for the Republican candidates by almost a 2 to 1 margin and for those who were most concerned about economic issues, the margin was almost 3 to 1. So what explains such a remarkable shift by Independent voters?
While the general public and many Independent voters still have favorable opinions about President Obama, the results of the mid-term elections signal a growing concern, particularly among Independent voters about the mounting federal budget deficit. To their political credit, Republicans have seized on these concerns, using them to try to stymie Congressional Democrats healthcare and climate change legislation by telling voters these bills will push America even deeper into debt.
While Republican claims that President Obama’s policies are pushing up the nation’s budget deficit shamelessly ignore their own budget busting actions while they held the reins of power, President Obama is at least partially to blame for giving Republicans some of the ammunition they are now using against him. I strongly believe President Obama should have never allowed Democratic Congressional leaders to take the lead in crafting such landmark healthcare reform and climate change legislation. I’ll explain why next week.
Published on November 26th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Happy Thanksgiving Day (in America)! Last week I noted that the number lesson Republicans could learn from this month’s mid-term elections was that the surest path to electoral victory was to run in favor of things like economic development rather than against proposals such as President Obama’s reforms of America’s healthcare and energy policies.
Avoiding debates about controversial social issues like abortion or gay marriage and instead focusing on job creation was a strategy that worked for Republican gubernatorial candidates’ Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey. On the other hand, national Republican’s support for Doug Hoffman’s attacks on President Obama’s policies and moderate Republican candidates who don’t agree with the Party’s social conservatives, led to the loss of a staunchly Republican New York legislative seat in Congress.
Fortunately for the Democratic Party’s future election prospects, many Republicans, especially those who are members of the social conservative class, have failed, or simply refuse, to see the bigger picture (sorry, no pun intended). While there are some Republicans at both the national and state levels who are very concerned about the Party’s future prospects, nary a one will discuss their concerns on the record for fear of invoking the wrath of right wing TV and radio pundits like Sean Hannity.
The Republican Party also continues to suffer from the lack of any real national leader other than Sarah Palin. Talk show demagogues like Rush Limbaugh love Sarah Palin and continue to extol her virtues as a potential successor to President Obama in 2012. Other Republicans gripe about her but dare not do so publicly for fear of provoking outrage among Palin’s slavishly devoted social conservative followers.
While McDonnell and Christie have both announced that they plan to have centrist administrations, social conservatives are revving up their attacks on more moderate Republicans like Florida Governor Charlie Crist. But if social conservatives do indeed win these intra-party battles with more moderate Republican politicians, they will also lose most of the general election wars their standard bearers will also have to wage.
That being the case, should Democrats really be concerned about their electoral chances in 2010 and beyond? I would suggest that Democrats shouldn’t take too much solace from the civil war Republican social conservatives are waging against their party’s moderates. Doing so only allows President Obama and his fellow Democrats to continue to avoid dealing with their own shortcomings rather than coming to terms with them.
Pinning one’s chances for success on the failures of your competition is hardly what one would call a “winning” strategy in business, politics or any other field of endeavor. A winning strategy takes advantage of mistakes made by one’s opponent, but it doesn’t depend on them slipping up. President Obama and the Democratic Party need to recognize that while the Republican Party’s internecine war may leave some of their candidates bloodied and weakened going into a general election, they could still win it.
I think it is foolish for Republicans to cite the results of 1994’s general election to herald this year’s mid-term election victories as predictive of a Republican drubbing of Democrats in 2010, 2 years into another new Democratic President’s first term. What Republicans fail to acknowledge is that much of their success in 1994 was due to the fact that an unprecedented number of Democratic lawmakers chose not to run for re-election that year. Open seats are always the ones most likely to be won by the other party, yet less than 10 Democrats have announced plans to retire in 2010 versus almost 50 in 1994.
But it is just as reckless for Democrats to use past history to spin the results of the Virginia and New Jersey mid-term elections as being indicative of nothing more than these state’s voters’ contrariness and low voter turnout. Granted, voter turnout was much lower and these states do have a history of electing governors from whichever party doesn’t hold the White House. However accurate these historical analogies may appear to be though, they still can’t obscure the fact that the soft underbelly of the Democratic Party was also exposed in this month’s elections.
Although only a handful of Democratic seats will be up for grabs in 2010 due to legislator retirements, there will still be another 50 Democrats running for re-election in historically Republican leaning Congressional districts. These moderate and conservative Democrats originally won those seats thanks to support from disenchanted Independent voters during the waning years of the Bush administration. As a consequence these Democratic officeholders are particularly concerned about the sentiments of Independent voters in the US and their respective districts. They should be!
Exit polling in both Virginia and New Jersey showed the same worrisome trends for Democrats among those Independent voters who strongly supported Democratic candidates in the 2006 and 2008 general elections. In both Virginia and New Jersey Independents voted for the Republican candidates by almost a 2 to 1 margin and for those who were most concerned about economic issues, the margin was almost 3 to 1. So what explains such a remarkable shift by Independent voters?
While the general public and many Independent voters still have favorable opinions about President Obama, the results of the mid-term elections signal a growing concern, particularly among Independent voters about the mounting federal budget deficit. To their political credit, Republicans have seized on these concerns, using them to try to stymie Congressional Democrats healthcare and climate change legislation by telling voters these bills will push America even deeper into debt.
While Republican claims that President Obama’s policies are pushing up the nation’s budget deficit shamelessly ignore their own budget busting actions while they held the reins of power, President Obama is at least partially to blame for giving Republicans some of the ammunition they are now using against him. I strongly believe President Obama should have never allowed Democratic Congressional leaders to take the lead in crafting such landmark healthcare reform and climate change legislation. I’ll explain why next week.
What Republicans COULD learn from Mid-Term Elections
The Bigger Picture
Published on November 19th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
If this month’s mid-term elections in the United States were not a barometer of Americans satisfaction or dis-satisfaction with President Obama’s performance in office this past year, are there any insights into American voter sentiments that members of either the Republican or Democratic political parties can draw from them?
While I could be wrong, I think both parties could learn some valuable lessons from the mid-term election results that they could apply when they are developing strategies for next year’s national and state elections.
I will start with the Republican Party which emerged victorious in the only two state governor races that were contested this month. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele loudly crowed to the news media that the mid-term elections heralded a “Republican renaissance” which was a bit over the top in my estimation. However overblown Steele’s analysis may have been, this was to be expected since any electoral success by Republicans in the mid-term elections was bound to be wildly celebrated by Republicans given the party’s notable lack of success in the past two national elections.
But hyperbole aside, the Republican candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia did execute successful campaign strategies that led to a Republican takeover of two governors’ offices currently occupied by Democrats. But the strategies both of these Republicans used to win those elections are ones that the social conservatives who now dominate the Republican Party would be wise to take note of.
Both Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie avoided any discussions or debates about their positions on the social issues that Republican social conservatives hold so dear. Both men instead focused on the need for jobs and economic development coupled with tax reductions as they appealed to moderate and independent voter’s concerns about these “pocketbook” issues. As a result they were able to win a plurality of their states’ independent voters similar in size to the one President Obama and many other Democrats got from these same voters in last years national elections.
The other important thing Republicans need to consider is the fact that a much lower voter turnout in both of those elections also contributed to their candidates’ success. The younger and minority voters who typically favor Democrats were largely absent from the polls on election day which in turn allowed the Republican Party’s older and predominately white voters to cast a larger percentage of the election’s votes than the percentages attributed to Republicans in a national election year. So the bottom line is that the Republicans who won these state elections two weeks ago succeeded because they ran in favor of something, like jobs and economic development, instead of against everything President Obama and national Democrats propose such as healthcare reform.
There were also two special elections in New York and California to fill vacant seats in the US House of Representatives that Republicans have conveniently tried to ignore. That’s because while they were winning two governors elections they were also losing these two elections for the national Congress. While the California contest was in a heavily Democratic district that the Democratic candidate John Garamendi was expected to win, such was not the case in New York’s 23rd Congressional district.
In fact this largely rural New York district had never before elected a Democrat to Congress and the Republican Party had held this seat for more than 125 years. This was one of the most Republican House districts in the country and the last time any other party held this seat it was the Whig party back in the 1850’s.
The District’s Republican Party chiefs selected a moderate Republican, New York State Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava, to run against an attorney and US military veteran, Democrat Bill Owens, to fill this vacant US House position. However, judging by the comments of potential 2012 Republican Presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin you would have thought Ms Scozzafava was a die hard liberal Democrat.
When Republican social conservatives objected to the choice of Ms Scozzafava because of her support for abortion rights and gay marriage, this special election quickly morphed into a national cause celeb for right wing media figures like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They urged their followers to instead support the Conservative Party candidate Bob Hoffman and right wing activists from around the country promptly descended on New York to campaign for Mr. Hoffman. Conservative activists did so because viewed the election as both a referendum on President Barack Obama and a fight over the soul of the Republican Party and or a victory for grassroots conservatism
Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty saw which way the wind was blowing, so to curry favor with conservative activists, they promptly turned their backs on Ms Scozzafava and endorsed Mr. Hoffman too. The ensuing “civil war” that then erupted between Republican moderates and social conservatives finally led Ms Scozzafava to withdraw from the race a week before the election and endorse her Democratic opponent instead.
Police were later summoned to several polling places on Election Day to deal with overzealous electioneering by Hoffman’s social conservative supporters. Hoffman, who was leading in pre-election polls, responded to his defeat by accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election and slashing the tires of a campaign volunteer. The local police chief later said that there had been no tire slashing and that the campaign worker simply “drove over a bottle and cut his tire”.
Yet, in spite of their unexpected loss of a Republican Congressional seat, Republican activists nonetheless claim the election in New York was a “victory for grassroots conservatism”. I’m sorry but I just don’t see how Hoffman losing a Republican seat by running as an anti-Obama social conservative while McDonnell and Christie are winning elections by avoiding this strategy is a “victory for grassroots conservatism”. I must say it never ceases to amaze me that so many Republicans still believe they must appease the Party’s social conservatives in order to get elected. This tactic worked real well for Hoffman didn’t it?
Published on November 19th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
If this month’s mid-term elections in the United States were not a barometer of Americans satisfaction or dis-satisfaction with President Obama’s performance in office this past year, are there any insights into American voter sentiments that members of either the Republican or Democratic political parties can draw from them?
While I could be wrong, I think both parties could learn some valuable lessons from the mid-term election results that they could apply when they are developing strategies for next year’s national and state elections.
I will start with the Republican Party which emerged victorious in the only two state governor races that were contested this month. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele loudly crowed to the news media that the mid-term elections heralded a “Republican renaissance” which was a bit over the top in my estimation. However overblown Steele’s analysis may have been, this was to be expected since any electoral success by Republicans in the mid-term elections was bound to be wildly celebrated by Republicans given the party’s notable lack of success in the past two national elections.
But hyperbole aside, the Republican candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia did execute successful campaign strategies that led to a Republican takeover of two governors’ offices currently occupied by Democrats. But the strategies both of these Republicans used to win those elections are ones that the social conservatives who now dominate the Republican Party would be wise to take note of.
Both Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie avoided any discussions or debates about their positions on the social issues that Republican social conservatives hold so dear. Both men instead focused on the need for jobs and economic development coupled with tax reductions as they appealed to moderate and independent voter’s concerns about these “pocketbook” issues. As a result they were able to win a plurality of their states’ independent voters similar in size to the one President Obama and many other Democrats got from these same voters in last years national elections.
The other important thing Republicans need to consider is the fact that a much lower voter turnout in both of those elections also contributed to their candidates’ success. The younger and minority voters who typically favor Democrats were largely absent from the polls on election day which in turn allowed the Republican Party’s older and predominately white voters to cast a larger percentage of the election’s votes than the percentages attributed to Republicans in a national election year. So the bottom line is that the Republicans who won these state elections two weeks ago succeeded because they ran in favor of something, like jobs and economic development, instead of against everything President Obama and national Democrats propose such as healthcare reform.
There were also two special elections in New York and California to fill vacant seats in the US House of Representatives that Republicans have conveniently tried to ignore. That’s because while they were winning two governors elections they were also losing these two elections for the national Congress. While the California contest was in a heavily Democratic district that the Democratic candidate John Garamendi was expected to win, such was not the case in New York’s 23rd Congressional district.
In fact this largely rural New York district had never before elected a Democrat to Congress and the Republican Party had held this seat for more than 125 years. This was one of the most Republican House districts in the country and the last time any other party held this seat it was the Whig party back in the 1850’s.
The District’s Republican Party chiefs selected a moderate Republican, New York State Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava, to run against an attorney and US military veteran, Democrat Bill Owens, to fill this vacant US House position. However, judging by the comments of potential 2012 Republican Presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin you would have thought Ms Scozzafava was a die hard liberal Democrat.
When Republican social conservatives objected to the choice of Ms Scozzafava because of her support for abortion rights and gay marriage, this special election quickly morphed into a national cause celeb for right wing media figures like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They urged their followers to instead support the Conservative Party candidate Bob Hoffman and right wing activists from around the country promptly descended on New York to campaign for Mr. Hoffman. Conservative activists did so because viewed the election as both a referendum on President Barack Obama and a fight over the soul of the Republican Party and or a victory for grassroots conservatism
Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty saw which way the wind was blowing, so to curry favor with conservative activists, they promptly turned their backs on Ms Scozzafava and endorsed Mr. Hoffman too. The ensuing “civil war” that then erupted between Republican moderates and social conservatives finally led Ms Scozzafava to withdraw from the race a week before the election and endorse her Democratic opponent instead.
Police were later summoned to several polling places on Election Day to deal with overzealous electioneering by Hoffman’s social conservative supporters. Hoffman, who was leading in pre-election polls, responded to his defeat by accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election and slashing the tires of a campaign volunteer. The local police chief later said that there had been no tire slashing and that the campaign worker simply “drove over a bottle and cut his tire”.
Yet, in spite of their unexpected loss of a Republican Congressional seat, Republican activists nonetheless claim the election in New York was a “victory for grassroots conservatism”. I’m sorry but I just don’t see how Hoffman losing a Republican seat by running as an anti-Obama social conservative while McDonnell and Christie are winning elections by avoiding this strategy is a “victory for grassroots conservatism”. I must say it never ceases to amaze me that so many Republicans still believe they must appease the Party’s social conservatives in order to get elected. This tactic worked real well for Hoffman didn’t it?
The US Mid-Term Election Results
The Bigger Picture
Published on November 12th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In this week’s column I will try to analyze the results of America’s off-year elections. Incidentally, the decision to award the Nobel Prize to Obama had absolutely no effect on these elections and President Obama’s performance during his first year in office had virtually no impact either.
The November 2009 general elections are called off-year elections because odd numbered year elections always follow the even numbered year elections for federal and national offices such as Congress and the Presidentcy. They are also mid-term elections for members of the US House of Representatives who must run for Congress every two years. As such, off-year and mid-term elections tend to be exclusively focused on local, city and state political concerns rather than national politics.
Because voter turnout tends to be much greater when national elections are held and because governments save money by combing local and state elections with federal elections, with few exceptions, most states and cities actually conduct their respective political contests in conjunction with the even numbered year’s federal election cycle. So even though most major cities like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco have mayoral and city council elections in off-years, the only states that do so are Virginia, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky.
Given the lack of national political issues involved in last week’s elections, I must confess that I find it amazing as well as somewhat humorous that so much national and international media attention was focused on the state elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey. Last time I checked no state governor or city mayor has ever taken part in the national domestic and foreign policy decisions made in Washington DC. So why on earth would anyone in the news media think the results from a couple of state and local elections are an indication about how voters feel about Congress and or President Obama’s performance thus far? Well, even though I don’t see much national impact from them, for what it’s worth here is my take on the results of last week’s American elections.
In Virginia, I suspect there was a least one Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, who was secretly smiling about Republican Bob McDonnell’s thumping of Democrat Craig Deeds in the race for governor. However, Terry McAuliffe wasn’t smiling because the man who defeated him in the Democratic primary, Craig Deeds, had lost the general election but rather because he had warned Deeds and Virginia Democrats that they would lose the governor’s race unless they made jobs and economic development the focus of their campaign. Craig Deeds preferred to focus on a Masters thesis McDonnell had written twenty years ago in which he expressed rather extreme anti-gay and anti-feminist sentiments. Instead, it was the Republican candidate, McDonnell who followed this script and the result was he won the governor’s race going away by a double digit margin.
By focusing on “old” political views that McDonnell said he no longer held, Deeds actually succeeded in reinforcing McDonnell’s support among older white social conservative voters who overwhelmingly supported his candidacy. On the other hand, the suburban white female voters Deeds was trying to alarm with his focus on these “old” social conservative views, by and large seemed to believe McDonnell’s contention that they no longer represented his position. McDonnell ran a very smart “centrist” political campaign that de-emphasized his social conservatism and pushed job creation instead.
Although President Obama did campaign on behalf of Deeds, he and his administration didn’t put a lot of effort into it and had distanced themselves from the contest in the months leading up to it. The bottom line is Craig Deeds ran a poor political campaign against a savvy Republican with a better campaign strategy and tactics. As for a referendum on President Obama, 60% of the voters said the President had no effect on their vote. Another 20% said Obama moved them to vote for McDonnell while another 20% said he pushed them into voting for Deeds, thus effectively canceling each other out.
A similar story played out in New Jersey where the Republican Attorney General, Chris Christie narrowly beat out incumbent Democratic governor, Jon Corzine for this statehouse executive job. Like McDonnell in Virginia, Christie focused on job creation and the need to reduce New Jersey’s high property taxes and avoided all discussion of his positions on social conservative issues. Governor Jon Corzine had also become very unpopular among a majority of New Jersey voters for his poor handling of the state’s budget, economic and tax problems and his effort to reduce property taxes during the summer were regarded as too little too late by many voters.
However, in contrast to Virginia, President Obama did campaign more aggressively on behalf of the embattled Democratic governor of New Jersey than he did for Craig Deeds in Virginia. But voters in New Jersy mirrored their counterparts in Virginia as regards the influence the President ended up having on their decision about who they would vote for with the vast majority saying it had no effect while the ones who said it did effectively cancelled each other out. So was the New Jersey governor’s race an indication of dissatisfaction with President Obama’s performance? I think not.
One thing that did stand out in both states however, was the demographic makeup of the electorate. Voter turnout in Virginia was about half (only 39% of eligible voters) in the governor’s race versus almost 75% in last year’s Presidential contest, while it was down by over a third in New Jersey. Younger voters who turned out in droves last year didn’t cast as many ballots this year and minority groups that accounted for 20% of the vote in last year’s Presidential race cast less than 15% of the votes in the governor’s race.
Although I think it would be foolish to read much into last week’s general election results, I will discuss some conclusions that both Democrats and Republicans can draw from them next week.
Published on November 12th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In this week’s column I will try to analyze the results of America’s off-year elections. Incidentally, the decision to award the Nobel Prize to Obama had absolutely no effect on these elections and President Obama’s performance during his first year in office had virtually no impact either.
The November 2009 general elections are called off-year elections because odd numbered year elections always follow the even numbered year elections for federal and national offices such as Congress and the Presidentcy. They are also mid-term elections for members of the US House of Representatives who must run for Congress every two years. As such, off-year and mid-term elections tend to be exclusively focused on local, city and state political concerns rather than national politics.
Because voter turnout tends to be much greater when national elections are held and because governments save money by combing local and state elections with federal elections, with few exceptions, most states and cities actually conduct their respective political contests in conjunction with the even numbered year’s federal election cycle. So even though most major cities like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco have mayoral and city council elections in off-years, the only states that do so are Virginia, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky.
Given the lack of national political issues involved in last week’s elections, I must confess that I find it amazing as well as somewhat humorous that so much national and international media attention was focused on the state elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey. Last time I checked no state governor or city mayor has ever taken part in the national domestic and foreign policy decisions made in Washington DC. So why on earth would anyone in the news media think the results from a couple of state and local elections are an indication about how voters feel about Congress and or President Obama’s performance thus far? Well, even though I don’t see much national impact from them, for what it’s worth here is my take on the results of last week’s American elections.
In Virginia, I suspect there was a least one Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, who was secretly smiling about Republican Bob McDonnell’s thumping of Democrat Craig Deeds in the race for governor. However, Terry McAuliffe wasn’t smiling because the man who defeated him in the Democratic primary, Craig Deeds, had lost the general election but rather because he had warned Deeds and Virginia Democrats that they would lose the governor’s race unless they made jobs and economic development the focus of their campaign. Craig Deeds preferred to focus on a Masters thesis McDonnell had written twenty years ago in which he expressed rather extreme anti-gay and anti-feminist sentiments. Instead, it was the Republican candidate, McDonnell who followed this script and the result was he won the governor’s race going away by a double digit margin.
By focusing on “old” political views that McDonnell said he no longer held, Deeds actually succeeded in reinforcing McDonnell’s support among older white social conservative voters who overwhelmingly supported his candidacy. On the other hand, the suburban white female voters Deeds was trying to alarm with his focus on these “old” social conservative views, by and large seemed to believe McDonnell’s contention that they no longer represented his position. McDonnell ran a very smart “centrist” political campaign that de-emphasized his social conservatism and pushed job creation instead.
Although President Obama did campaign on behalf of Deeds, he and his administration didn’t put a lot of effort into it and had distanced themselves from the contest in the months leading up to it. The bottom line is Craig Deeds ran a poor political campaign against a savvy Republican with a better campaign strategy and tactics. As for a referendum on President Obama, 60% of the voters said the President had no effect on their vote. Another 20% said Obama moved them to vote for McDonnell while another 20% said he pushed them into voting for Deeds, thus effectively canceling each other out.
A similar story played out in New Jersey where the Republican Attorney General, Chris Christie narrowly beat out incumbent Democratic governor, Jon Corzine for this statehouse executive job. Like McDonnell in Virginia, Christie focused on job creation and the need to reduce New Jersey’s high property taxes and avoided all discussion of his positions on social conservative issues. Governor Jon Corzine had also become very unpopular among a majority of New Jersey voters for his poor handling of the state’s budget, economic and tax problems and his effort to reduce property taxes during the summer were regarded as too little too late by many voters.
However, in contrast to Virginia, President Obama did campaign more aggressively on behalf of the embattled Democratic governor of New Jersey than he did for Craig Deeds in Virginia. But voters in New Jersy mirrored their counterparts in Virginia as regards the influence the President ended up having on their decision about who they would vote for with the vast majority saying it had no effect while the ones who said it did effectively cancelled each other out. So was the New Jersey governor’s race an indication of dissatisfaction with President Obama’s performance? I think not.
One thing that did stand out in both states however, was the demographic makeup of the electorate. Voter turnout in Virginia was about half (only 39% of eligible voters) in the governor’s race versus almost 75% in last year’s Presidential contest, while it was down by over a third in New Jersey. Younger voters who turned out in droves last year didn’t cast as many ballots this year and minority groups that accounted for 20% of the vote in last year’s Presidential race cast less than 15% of the votes in the governor’s race.
Although I think it would be foolish to read much into last week’s general election results, I will discuss some conclusions that both Democrats and Republicans can draw from them next week.
Why Did They Give President Obama a Nobel Prize?
The Bigger Picture
Published on November 5th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Since Tuesday was Election Day back in the states, I will discuss the results and their implications for President Obama’s political agenda next week. I will use today’s column to conclude my discussion about the negative reactions from some commentators in America to President Obama’s selection as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Last week I said that I basically agreed with the concept that actions speak louder than words. Many of those who expressed disagreement with the Nobel panel’s decision to give this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama have cited the same idea in support of their arguments that it wasn’t proper to give the Nobel Prize to President Obama at this early stage of his Presidency. They feel it would be more appropriate to wait and see what President Obama actually accomplishes as President before handing him such a prestigious international award.
While I have a great deal of respect for many of the political analysts that made these types of comments, I still strongly disagree with them. Granted, my perspective on American politics has been altered by living abroad here in Dublin for the last three years. But I also know that there are many other political commentators back in the states who have never lived abroad who nonetheless share the same sentiments that I do.
As I mentioned last week, the motives of political extremists on the right and left who condemned the selection of President Obama are just as transparent as those of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists who have now become their newest allies. Sowing seeds of mistrust and hate is an integral part of the message these rigid thinking people want others to believe. So a national and world leader who seeks to inspire ordinary citizens in both the US and the rest of the world with a message of hope and peace undercuts their message and reduces the chances that their skewed vision of the world will prevail.
And in at least a few instances, any accolades given to President Obama simply serve as an opportunity for money-grubbing demagogues like Rush Limbaugh to rally their rigid thinking acolytes to call in and voice their displeasure. What these simpletons don’t realize however is that “Rushbo” and others like him use these calls as proof of the popularity of their shows to radio and TV advertisers. Truth be known, Rush Limbaugh makes a lot more money from advertising sales when there is a Democrat like Clinton (and now Obama) in the White House than when someone named Bush resides there.
But ascertaining the motivations of more thoughtful US political commentators is a much tougher task, especially when they are people you respect and in some cases seek to emulate. While I may be wrong in my assessments of these political analysts’ motives, I truly believe most of the negative reactions that they expressed were quite sincere.
Many of them are just as dismayed by the partisan political gamesmanship they see on display in Washington DC as I am, so stoking partisan flames doesn’t make any sense to me as a motive for them. Nor do any of them have radio and TV shows that would benefit from rousing anti-Obama supporters as a means of demonstrating their shows’ popularity to advertisers. Furthermore, most of them have been generally supportive of President Obama’s economic stimulus, environmental and healthcare reform proposals, so undercutting the President doesn’t make sense in this regard either.
So although I think their motives were genuinely sincere, I also think they were rooted in the fact that they are also products of America’s somewhat unique cultural affinities. Like me, they were all born and raised in an American culture that celebrates and recognizes real achievements more than it does hopeful aspirations or abstract ideas. It’s not that Americans and American culture doesn’t appreciate those with a gift for lofty words and inspiring speeches; it’s just that Americans expect them to be translated into action. If they aren’t, then Americans tend to view them as impractical and rather useless.
But precisely because they, like so many other Americans have been raised to believe that “actions speak louder than words”, I think those political commentators who were critical of the Nobel committee’s decision to award the Peace Prize to President Obama missed a very critical point. The world may no longer be threatened by the possibility that the Cold War could become a nuclear holocaust, but there are still many other potential disasters lurking on the horizon. So the words and vision of America’s President matter because the world is looking to America for solutions to these problems.
President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and their neo-conservative Republican allies used the American public’s anger and revulsion over the 9/11 terrorists attacks to advance their idea that America was powerful enough to replace recalcitrant regimes and transform those countries into a mirror image of America. They demanded concessions from their adversaries as a pre-condition to even talking directly with them. But their bullying tactics didn’t work and President Obama is now trying to salvage what he can from the disastrous economic and military policies his predecessors implemented.
Obama knows that while America may still be the most economically and militarily powerful country in the world; it no longer has the political will or the wallet it needs to bend opponents to its will. Obama also realizes that the process of resolving the worlds many conflicts can’t begin until we first change the rhetoric we are using and stop demonizing those we disagree with. Obama is also secure enough that he can talk to America’s enemies instead of trying to bully them.
The Nobel award is recognition that President Obama’s use of rhetoric is important because he is setting an example for other political leaders around the world. Unlike some US commentators, the Nobel panel also realizes that without a change in political leaders’ rhetoric, the chances of resolving the world’s conflicts are slim and none.
Published on November 5th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Since Tuesday was Election Day back in the states, I will discuss the results and their implications for President Obama’s political agenda next week. I will use today’s column to conclude my discussion about the negative reactions from some commentators in America to President Obama’s selection as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Last week I said that I basically agreed with the concept that actions speak louder than words. Many of those who expressed disagreement with the Nobel panel’s decision to give this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama have cited the same idea in support of their arguments that it wasn’t proper to give the Nobel Prize to President Obama at this early stage of his Presidency. They feel it would be more appropriate to wait and see what President Obama actually accomplishes as President before handing him such a prestigious international award.
While I have a great deal of respect for many of the political analysts that made these types of comments, I still strongly disagree with them. Granted, my perspective on American politics has been altered by living abroad here in Dublin for the last three years. But I also know that there are many other political commentators back in the states who have never lived abroad who nonetheless share the same sentiments that I do.
As I mentioned last week, the motives of political extremists on the right and left who condemned the selection of President Obama are just as transparent as those of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists who have now become their newest allies. Sowing seeds of mistrust and hate is an integral part of the message these rigid thinking people want others to believe. So a national and world leader who seeks to inspire ordinary citizens in both the US and the rest of the world with a message of hope and peace undercuts their message and reduces the chances that their skewed vision of the world will prevail.
And in at least a few instances, any accolades given to President Obama simply serve as an opportunity for money-grubbing demagogues like Rush Limbaugh to rally their rigid thinking acolytes to call in and voice their displeasure. What these simpletons don’t realize however is that “Rushbo” and others like him use these calls as proof of the popularity of their shows to radio and TV advertisers. Truth be known, Rush Limbaugh makes a lot more money from advertising sales when there is a Democrat like Clinton (and now Obama) in the White House than when someone named Bush resides there.
But ascertaining the motivations of more thoughtful US political commentators is a much tougher task, especially when they are people you respect and in some cases seek to emulate. While I may be wrong in my assessments of these political analysts’ motives, I truly believe most of the negative reactions that they expressed were quite sincere.
Many of them are just as dismayed by the partisan political gamesmanship they see on display in Washington DC as I am, so stoking partisan flames doesn’t make any sense to me as a motive for them. Nor do any of them have radio and TV shows that would benefit from rousing anti-Obama supporters as a means of demonstrating their shows’ popularity to advertisers. Furthermore, most of them have been generally supportive of President Obama’s economic stimulus, environmental and healthcare reform proposals, so undercutting the President doesn’t make sense in this regard either.
So although I think their motives were genuinely sincere, I also think they were rooted in the fact that they are also products of America’s somewhat unique cultural affinities. Like me, they were all born and raised in an American culture that celebrates and recognizes real achievements more than it does hopeful aspirations or abstract ideas. It’s not that Americans and American culture doesn’t appreciate those with a gift for lofty words and inspiring speeches; it’s just that Americans expect them to be translated into action. If they aren’t, then Americans tend to view them as impractical and rather useless.
But precisely because they, like so many other Americans have been raised to believe that “actions speak louder than words”, I think those political commentators who were critical of the Nobel committee’s decision to award the Peace Prize to President Obama missed a very critical point. The world may no longer be threatened by the possibility that the Cold War could become a nuclear holocaust, but there are still many other potential disasters lurking on the horizon. So the words and vision of America’s President matter because the world is looking to America for solutions to these problems.
President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and their neo-conservative Republican allies used the American public’s anger and revulsion over the 9/11 terrorists attacks to advance their idea that America was powerful enough to replace recalcitrant regimes and transform those countries into a mirror image of America. They demanded concessions from their adversaries as a pre-condition to even talking directly with them. But their bullying tactics didn’t work and President Obama is now trying to salvage what he can from the disastrous economic and military policies his predecessors implemented.
Obama knows that while America may still be the most economically and militarily powerful country in the world; it no longer has the political will or the wallet it needs to bend opponents to its will. Obama also realizes that the process of resolving the worlds many conflicts can’t begin until we first change the rhetoric we are using and stop demonizing those we disagree with. Obama is also secure enough that he can talk to America’s enemies instead of trying to bully them.
The Nobel award is recognition that President Obama’s use of rhetoric is important because he is setting an example for other political leaders around the world. Unlike some US commentators, the Nobel panel also realizes that without a change in political leaders’ rhetoric, the chances of resolving the world’s conflicts are slim and none.
The Nobel Prize for President Obama
The Bigger Picture
Published on October 29th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I said at the end of last week’s column “partisan political conservatives were by no means the only members of the political news media in America questioning the Nobel panel’s decision to award President Barack Obama its Peace Prize.”
Not surprisingly, there were also some folks on the political left, both in America and other parts of the world, who denounced the Nobel decision because nine months into President Obama’s first term; America is still engaged in a war with Islamic extremists in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The extreme left will never accept anything less than a total withdrawal of American military forces from the region while the extreme right will claim with equal fervor that a withdrawal represents a capitulation to terrorism.
But political extremists, be they right wing conservatives or left wing liberals, are all actually cut from the same cloth in my humble opinion. The same is also true of most Christian conservatives, ultra-orthodox Jews and Islamic fundamentalists. That’s because, from a psychological perspective, they have so much more in common with each other than they do with the vast majority of other people who live in their societies.
From where I sit, political and pseudo-religious political extremists only differ in terms of their respective ideological, political and or religious views. But if you look just below the surface you will find exactly the same type of person and personality. They are all extremely fearful people who are unable to comprehend the complexities of life and adjust to changes that are simply a part of living within a society of other social beings. They are suspicious of others who don’t share their views, see conspiracies happening all around them and are prone to suffering from severe bouts of paranoia.
In short, these extremists are ruled by their numerous real and or imagined fears. They struggle to try to control those aspects of life that they are most afraid of and react to everything that happens out of fear. They simply must be in control of everything that affects their lives or else they fear that much worse things will happen to them. That is why they are so prone to trying to bully others emotionally, verbally and if all else fails, physically and quite often very violently.
They see the entire world and every issue, every decision, every position and every choice that one must make in life in very rigid terms of black or white, good or evil, right or wrong. For these poor souls there is no such thing as a middle ground or compromise with those who don’t share their exact same view of the world.
So it really comes as no surprise that such apparently disparate extremists like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Rush Limbaugh and left wing political extremists all now find themselves in universal agreement that Barack Obama doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. They find themselves in agreement about Obama precisely because President Obama doesn’t hew to the rigid ideological lines and perspectives on life they have.
As such, Barack Obama is a very real threat to their fragile psychological existence. If by some chance President Obama were to succeed in forging compromises that a majority of other people within their respective societies found acceptable, then what would become of the world vision they espouse? No, they simply can’t allow people like President Obama the opportunity to bring quarrelsome factions together.
What really concerns me though is the fact that some political commentators, who are generally more thoughtful and centrist in their political views, picked up on some of the reasons being given by extremists, on both the right and the left, as to why President Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Prize and ran with them. The general argument on the part of these commentators is that Obama hasn’t really done anything to deserve such an award, or at least he hasn’t done anything substantial enough to deserve it yet.
But some of these negative opinions were also tinged with disappointment that nominees they felt were more deserving didn’t win. Indeed I can sympathize with them to some extent because there were some very worthy candidates in addition to President Obama. One example was Greg Mortenson, who has built over 100 schools to educate girls and young women in Afghanistan and Pakistan through his Central Asia Institute. But the reality of any prestigious award such as the Nobel Prize is that it is an honour just to be considered, because there can only be one winner chosen and there are equally good arguments that can be made on behalf of all of those who don’t win them.
With some others, I sensed they were afraid that awarding Obama the Nobel Prize at this early stage of his Presidency would diminish his chances of future success. These commentators genuinely want President Obama to vanquish his right wing and often racist opponents and implement the many domestic and foreign policy changes he has proposed. While I understand their concerns, I don’t see how they are helping President Obama succeed by publicly decrying his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
But after pondering why these usually level headed political pundits would respond to the Nobel announcement in such a surprising manner, I believe I have finally sorted out an explanation for their behaviour. Understanding their somewhat curious reasoning however, requires an understanding of American cultural values that extol action. Growing up in America, one constantly hears the phrases; “Actions speak louder than words.” And “Talk is cheap.” If I had a dollar or a euro for every time I have heard someone in the states quote either of these two phrases, I would be a very wealth man.
Mind you, I happen to be someone who believes in the core concept contained within both of these phrases. More often than not, what you do is much more meaningful than what you say. I’ll conclude this discussion about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize next week.
Published on October 29th in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I said at the end of last week’s column “partisan political conservatives were by no means the only members of the political news media in America questioning the Nobel panel’s decision to award President Barack Obama its Peace Prize.”
Not surprisingly, there were also some folks on the political left, both in America and other parts of the world, who denounced the Nobel decision because nine months into President Obama’s first term; America is still engaged in a war with Islamic extremists in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The extreme left will never accept anything less than a total withdrawal of American military forces from the region while the extreme right will claim with equal fervor that a withdrawal represents a capitulation to terrorism.
But political extremists, be they right wing conservatives or left wing liberals, are all actually cut from the same cloth in my humble opinion. The same is also true of most Christian conservatives, ultra-orthodox Jews and Islamic fundamentalists. That’s because, from a psychological perspective, they have so much more in common with each other than they do with the vast majority of other people who live in their societies.
From where I sit, political and pseudo-religious political extremists only differ in terms of their respective ideological, political and or religious views. But if you look just below the surface you will find exactly the same type of person and personality. They are all extremely fearful people who are unable to comprehend the complexities of life and adjust to changes that are simply a part of living within a society of other social beings. They are suspicious of others who don’t share their views, see conspiracies happening all around them and are prone to suffering from severe bouts of paranoia.
In short, these extremists are ruled by their numerous real and or imagined fears. They struggle to try to control those aspects of life that they are most afraid of and react to everything that happens out of fear. They simply must be in control of everything that affects their lives or else they fear that much worse things will happen to them. That is why they are so prone to trying to bully others emotionally, verbally and if all else fails, physically and quite often very violently.
They see the entire world and every issue, every decision, every position and every choice that one must make in life in very rigid terms of black or white, good or evil, right or wrong. For these poor souls there is no such thing as a middle ground or compromise with those who don’t share their exact same view of the world.
So it really comes as no surprise that such apparently disparate extremists like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Rush Limbaugh and left wing political extremists all now find themselves in universal agreement that Barack Obama doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. They find themselves in agreement about Obama precisely because President Obama doesn’t hew to the rigid ideological lines and perspectives on life they have.
As such, Barack Obama is a very real threat to their fragile psychological existence. If by some chance President Obama were to succeed in forging compromises that a majority of other people within their respective societies found acceptable, then what would become of the world vision they espouse? No, they simply can’t allow people like President Obama the opportunity to bring quarrelsome factions together.
What really concerns me though is the fact that some political commentators, who are generally more thoughtful and centrist in their political views, picked up on some of the reasons being given by extremists, on both the right and the left, as to why President Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Prize and ran with them. The general argument on the part of these commentators is that Obama hasn’t really done anything to deserve such an award, or at least he hasn’t done anything substantial enough to deserve it yet.
But some of these negative opinions were also tinged with disappointment that nominees they felt were more deserving didn’t win. Indeed I can sympathize with them to some extent because there were some very worthy candidates in addition to President Obama. One example was Greg Mortenson, who has built over 100 schools to educate girls and young women in Afghanistan and Pakistan through his Central Asia Institute. But the reality of any prestigious award such as the Nobel Prize is that it is an honour just to be considered, because there can only be one winner chosen and there are equally good arguments that can be made on behalf of all of those who don’t win them.
With some others, I sensed they were afraid that awarding Obama the Nobel Prize at this early stage of his Presidency would diminish his chances of future success. These commentators genuinely want President Obama to vanquish his right wing and often racist opponents and implement the many domestic and foreign policy changes he has proposed. While I understand their concerns, I don’t see how they are helping President Obama succeed by publicly decrying his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
But after pondering why these usually level headed political pundits would respond to the Nobel announcement in such a surprising manner, I believe I have finally sorted out an explanation for their behaviour. Understanding their somewhat curious reasoning however, requires an understanding of American cultural values that extol action. Growing up in America, one constantly hears the phrases; “Actions speak louder than words.” And “Talk is cheap.” If I had a dollar or a euro for every time I have heard someone in the states quote either of these two phrases, I would be a very wealth man.
Mind you, I happen to be someone who believes in the core concept contained within both of these phrases. More often than not, what you do is much more meaningful than what you say. I’ll conclude this discussion about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize next week.
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