Are we fitted into the times we are born into? So asks Abraham Lincoln in the new film that should be required viewing for all – more so for modern-day Republicans than anyone else. The Lincoln in Lincoln is the dream of any Democrat or Republican. A nation so divided as ours is today, riven by intense ideological rivalries and regional, sectional differences, could use an individual who commands the respect of all to ask the eternal question we ask of ourselves with often vague success, How and where do we fit? Lincoln did not ask the more important question that has dogged humankind since it attained the power to reason, What does it all mean? No, he asked the one that we should be able to answer, for we do have the power to control our lives. Incumbent in Lincoln’s question is the degree to which each citizen and resident of the United States understands his or her responsibilities.
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Two Parties: Two HispanicLatino Vice Presidents
The attention that the HispanicLatino vote received during the presidential campaign and future demographic projections of its growth have caused the media and obsessive politico-types to speculate about when the first President of HispanicLatino descent will be sworn into office. The strategic placement of the HispanicLatino population in critical states has made a deep impression on political strategists that appears lasting and could accelerate the election to the Presidency a member of a group that only this year surpassed 10 percent of the national voting electorate. It seems absurd that people on television are fantasizing about future administrations, but the emergence of the telegenic Castro twins of San Antonio on the national scene had fueled the chatter.
The Unrepresentative House of Representatives
As the composition of the new Congress that convenes in January becomes clear as the last of the contested races for seats in the House of Representatives are settled, the complaints by Hispanic/Latinos that they are underrepresented sound quaint — especially with the election of new gay and lesbian, Asian, Muslim and bisexual candidates. A new set of fresh HispanicLatino faces will go to Capitol Hill, but they are the products of a system that is not working despite the continuing diversification of Congress itself.
The truth is that HispanicLatinos are vastly underrepresented in Congress. Up until the 1970’s congressional districts were drawn by state legislatures with no equity in mind. In one district, 50,000 voters would elect a representative compared to 500,000 in another, making the votes of the 50,000 ten times more valuable. Once the Supreme Court ruled in the 1960’s that each citizen’s vote was equal to another, it was not long before each person, regardless of voting status, was to be represented equally. Today, congressional districts are roughly equal in population, currently standing at about 715,000 each. But equal numbers in population do not translate into equality for HispanicLatinos.
Asking More from Marco
Marco Rubio has gotten himself into a pickle, hasn’t he? Is the shine off the apple, or is there something behind that Bush? These questions forced the first of the faux 2016 presidential candidates to show up in Iowa 10 scant days after the election to give a speech. Rubio officially found out on Nov. 6 that Americans rejected the fearful-anxious movement that catapulted him onto the national scene in the first place. The Tea party is not dead but it does not have as much of a future as the ink it gets.
What Marco Rubio said during his transparent trip to Iowa last week is not going to cut it for him or his party – or the nation. The country today needs real leadership – political brinksmanship, even – not the cautious catnip Rubio offered last week. The country needs more from all of us. It needs us to be less ideological. It needs the no-tax pledge signers to understand fiscal reality. It needs environmentalists to understand natural gas development. It needs a new integrity. It needs less media. It needs a new way to fund campaigns. It needs a lot more than what we are giving it. And it certainly needs more from young telegenic Hispanic/Latinos like Marco Rubio who are supposed to be a great part of the future.
First heal then rebuild
Ceaselessly, the babble goes on about the crossroads the Republican party faces after its rejection by almost 64 million voters. And, of course, the discussion misses the point. The usual post-election hand-wringing in the wake of a political defeat has gone beyond usual recrimination. Desperation has turned bitter. Ill-informed and/or cynical political strategists and pollsters had hoodwinked the party’s faithful into thinking they were going to win an election with a nominee who truly considers half of the nation way, way beneath him. Despondency has conflated into screeching on the radio about the old America dying. The resentments that right-wing gasbags with microphones spew into the air unfortunately cloud the opportunity that America has before it.
More of a Hologram: Lincoln or the Supreme Court?
In my mind the Supreme Court is at the precipice. A majority of the court has come to personate Mitt Romney’s lack of understanding of the new world around us. In deciding to accept a case out of Alabama in order to rule on the constitutionality of critical parts of the Voting Rights Act, the court is placing itself in judgment. No one with a pip of integrity can believe that changes in election laws leading up to the 2012 presidential election had any other purpose – and their authors any other motivation – than to suppress the constitutional rights of certain American citizens whose ballots were to be denigrated if possible.
The willingness on the part of many citizens – and state attorneys general – to engage and use anti-Constitutional means to limit the rights of voters persists, and it can be found in almost any part of the Union. The most blatant example this year occurred not in the southern states and other localities specifically covered by the Act but in Pennsylvania, which is barely included in provisions related to Spanish-speaking citizens. The law that sought to thwart better the rights of voters was enacted in Harrisburg, 100 miles from Philadelphia, the cradle of this country’s liberties, and 40 miles from Gettysburg, where the most anti-democratic force ever organized on American soil was defeated, marking a turning point in the civil war between North and South. To that same Gettysburg did Abraham Lincoln lumber to dedicate a shrine to the fallen of that battle but where, in fact, he rededicated America to the justness of the war and to itself.
Petraeus: A Reflection of Our Lack of Prudence and Restraint
Waiting for the circus to unfold this morning as General David Petraeus testifies before closed congressional committees ostensibly looking into the terroristic attack on the American mission in Benghazi, my mind races back years when I got into a drag-out fight in the newsroom I used to help manage. Two of our reporters, egged on by a clueless line editor originally from out of state with little knowledge of Texas, wanted to do a story on one of the state’s most promising sons. Our story would have taken him down Petraeus-like – a huge loss for a state that can produce the likes of an indicted John Connally, a discredited George W. Bush, a shameless Phil Gramm and the redoubtable Rick Perry. Texas also can produce a Lyndon Johnson or an Ann Richards, so it does have the ability to generate the exceptional star, which this man was.
Far, Far From a Status Quo Election
Years ago as a young boy in the small town of West Texas where I grew up, I would daydream along the railroad tracks in the shallow valley below our home. I would wait for the high, mighty trains that I imagined came roaring from Los Angeles from the west or Atlanta from the east. The trains would slow down as they sped by an old salt lake but even so would displace enough air to create a powerful force that on occasion sent my thin, reedy body reeling and crashing into the brown dirt. While other boys were sniffing glue, I was getting off on sudden blasts of air from caravans of steel that the day before might have sat idling near the Pacific or come from the other side of the country where Sherman ran roughshod over the Confederacy.
One day, one of the trains slowed to a pace slower than usual. A clump of rail yard workers not far from me waited. One of the crew stood by a thick iron stick that he pushed away from his body. As he did, the tracks moved and separated in part. I watched with fascination. A new set of tracks appeared suddenly and diverted the massive train to another set of tracks. That decades-old image came to mind as I sat with my old college roommate watching the returns of the election of 2012 that some observers have characterized as a status-quo election. It was anything but. In fact, it was a shattering election – far more important than the pedantic conclusion that Democrats retained control of the White House and the Senate and that Republicans maintained their majority in the House.
A New Ambassador for a New Time
The topic of immediate concern in Washington is the nation’s fiscal crisis. Nothing is more important. But not long thereafter, the time for immigration reform will arrive. What does immigration reform mean? When will the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress draft and propose legislation? Is the intention to build on the last proposal that went nowhere? Is there a legalization component? President Obama should be involved directly, but will he engage? Who in Congress and within public interest organizations will be central to this drama? Is there a cost to the Treasury? What terms are acceptable to discuss in public? Will the fight be as bitter as over healthcare? What steps are being taken to assure that the public accepts proposed legislation? Will all come to naught in the face of Republican opposition and predictable Democratic angst? Will hard political capital on both sides of the aisle be used to get this done? Or will one party use it to set up the other in time for November, 2014?
Listed in this fashion, the questions frame the sheer difficulty of what is demonstrably easier said than done. No one has answers for most of them, except that the Administration will need every tool to achieve success – and develop new ones.
Teetotaling the Tea Party
The baying at the moon began the instant it became evident that none of the swing states were going Mitt Romney’s way on Tuesday evening. Like gargoyles atop a cathedral, the faces of Republican strategists and their sidekicks on right-wing television looked stunned with surprise then were etched by gall. After denial could no longer hold back the reality of the night, horror began to grip their faces. Barack Obama would be President until 2017, and the billions of dollars that the Supreme Court had sanctioned for corporations to buy the election started going down the drain as each race for the Senate was called. Their only consolation was losing a handful of seats in House of Representatives – and that only because state legislatures throughout the country have so gerrymandered congressional districts that Democrats cannot mount competitive races in most states.
And so before the night was out, the discussion turned to how Republicans “reach out” to HispanicLatinos, who generated supermajorities of as much as 80 percent in some states for the Democratic ticket. Continue reading