Presidential elections

As the primaries are beginning, I am naturally reflecting on the main candidates. I already discussed the chances (in my opinion) each candidate has in the upcoming primaries. Now I want to discuss the actual candidates and my opinions of them. This represents my thoughts on the candidates as individuals and on the issues.

I am facing the Democratic primaries MORE undecided than when I began. From the start I liked our candidates. They are a good bunch! Astonishingly intelligent and capable, even those I don't fully agree with on the issues. At first I figured I'd vote for any of the main candidates in the primary except Hillary, though I know I would be proud to work for her if she wins the nomination. Now I am even LESS decided because I even have entertained the possibility of voting for Hillary in the primary! I honestly don't yet know who I will vote for.

Probably the candidate who most matches my personal values is Kucinich. But I don't think I'd vote for him for two reasons: first, he has no real shot; and second because even if I like his values, I am unconvinced he'd make an effective leader. Carter was possibly our most moral and intelligent President ever, but he fell short as a leader at a time when even an effective leader would have been tested. We need a better leader than I think Kucinich would be in these days of a massive Bush mess.

Tomorrow the primaries/caucuses begin with Iowa. For the Democrats, Iowa and New Hampshire maintain their place as the kick off states for the primaries. The Republicans have thumbed their noses at New Hampshire by intercalating Wyoming after Iowa and before New Hampshire. So be it. Some argue that this whole circus and the prominent places for Iowa and New Hampshire are a dumb way to conduct a primary. I have started to feel that the tradition of the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary as leading the way has some merit, though I might add in another state or two within that first week. The reason I like these early testing grounds is that they really are the ONLY time where face-to-face time between candidates and voters is more important than TV spots, and so money may matter just a bit less in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary than it would in major states like Florida or California. Hire a bus and shake hands and make your case in person seems to be the norm in these two states, and having the first votes come in such an environment may well be a good thing. Let TV advertising take full control after individual voters, poking and prodding the candidates in person have had a shot I say. So maybe I am getting old fashioned, but I think Iowa and New Hampshire are good first testing grounds.

So what does the next month mean for determining our next President. Well, we all know it is probably going to all be over Feb. 5th when a whole slew of states, the biggies included, vote. Anything after that is likely to make little difference...with the caveat that as of now neither the Dem nor the Rep field is clear enough that we are guaranteed clear front runners even after Feb. 5th. But what happens between now and Feb 5th is VERY likely to pare things down to clear frontrunners for each party.

A New Year’s Resolution for ALL Presidential Candidates

Joel S. Hirschhorn

No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it should be. Let me acknowledge that even though I have been pegged as “Democracy’s Mr. Fix It,” until recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a key part of our Constitution.

Our Founders were acutely aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to, when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal government. They built in a critically important form of direct democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused to implement. Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: “The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”

There are so many ways I could hit this photograph with my final thoughts on this photograph. Yet, I keep coming back to two quotes that resonated with me during the whole Lunch with Clinton mess.

The first quote comes from FireDogLake's Hardin-Smith:

liberal bloggers were invited to meet with the former President of the United States to talk about policy initiatives and the Democratic party and politics going into the November elections.

These words resonated because it made no sense to me for any of the bloggers in that meeting to rationalize the omission of the top bloggers of color in the left; especially if these discussions were meant to hammer on what Democrats could do to win the midterms and, down the road, the presidency. Why would these bloggers be silent accomplices to this big tactical mistake? Why in the world would they want to keep the influencers of thousands of connectors within the colored grassroots?

Then I read this quote from Jeralynn Merrit: I enjoyed being with Liza one night in Amsterdam, but FDL is family.

I was so blown by how not just simple, but simplistic and pedestrian the explanation was. The photograh is about "family". Not just in the physical sense of the word, mind you.

Look again at the photograph?

Have you read at least 5 of these bloggers? Take any --MyDD, FireDogLake, DailyKos, Americablog, Mahablog, TalkLeft, Eschaton, The blogging of the President. Tell me, how really different are these bloggers' styles of writing, topics of discussion and brand of ranting?

Armstrong Williams (of all people!) wrote the following in an article called, Diversity, which is about the absence of people of color in the technology fields :

For example, when hiring, bosses may look for those personal traits they associate with their own success. Consequently, they may end up hiring people who look, think and act in a manner similar to themselves. If confronted with a minority applicant who looks, sounds or communicates differently, they may turn these differences into perceived soft skill deficits.

[...]

Unfortunately, this sort of latent discrimination is virtually impossible to prove. Partly because there exists a strong tendency among judges (and sometimes even juries) to favor an employer's interpretation of events. But more to the point, because people in management simply tend to mentor people who look and act and sound like their sons.

What that means is that young, white Americans have traditionally benefited from the availability of mentors to help hone their talents, while minorities, even to this day, suffer from a lack of mentors to identify with and learn from. There is a logical progression: a lack of mentors equals a lack of learning opportunities, equals a lack of advancement, and equals a lack of certain high level positions being filled by minorities. With time, this sort of arbitrary sorting of high and low level employees comes to be regarded by many as the natural way of things

Most of the people, and I would argue for the exception of Jessica Valenti, have had through the last 2 years what amounts to the kind of working relationships Armstrong describes in his essay. They refer to each other's work regularly, refer each other to grants, workshops, conferences and mainstream media opportunities. And they all as a block make decisions on which candidates they are going to be fundraising. As a block, they all work together as one seamless narrative called "the blogs".

That's the problem I see with that photograph.

We have here a picture of suppression. There are experiences taken out of the picture. There are political interpretations and strategizing taken out of the picture. There are whole swaths of voters and electoral percentage points taken out of the picture. There is a whole history and present of political activism within the Democratic Party that has been taken out of that picture.

It is not lost on me that the top black and latino bloggers of the "liberal blogosphere" are not too keen on Hillary Clinton running for president. It is not lost on me either that we describe ourselves as progressives and not as liberals. As you can see, not one of us is in that photo.

Which is why, when I asked the fateful 3 questions,

What does it mean though that there are 20 bloggers invited to this lunch and not one is black or latino? What does it mean for this group of bloggers to be patting themselves on the backs for being with Clinton when they are all in Harlem and not one of them is a person of color? What does it mean for these people to be there and have not one of them raise this issue in their blogs?

I was not just referring to race.

When I asked those questions I was thinking : Why is diversity such a dirty word when it should be considered an integral part of any political practice?