Beware of Politicians Bearing Bromides

We are about to start a ten month sprint to our next national election. Control of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives is at stake. The results of the election will determine the direction the country takes, or stalemates, in matters of immigration, gun control, climate change, economics, taxation, health care, foreign policy and gender equality.

These issues are big; they are serious. We are all impacted by the outcome of the elections. The positions of competing candidates demand serious consideration. A vote in support for one candidate over another should be cast after a careful weighing of the qualifications and fitness for office of each of the competitors. 

I had planned to write generally about my frustration with the mindless name calling and fear-mongering that passes for electioneering these days. The appeals to our viscera shortcut the ability and willingness to look in depth at the merits of each candidate seeking our support. My need to deal in generalities fell by the wayside when I received a solicitation from Minnesota Eighth Congressional District candidate Stewart Mills.

I have known Stewart Mills for about 20 years. We have mutual friends in the Gull Lake area and have socialized together. He has proven to be a valuable executive with the the Mills family businesses, negating jealous assumptions of nepotistic promotion.  Mr. Mills has been a generous benefactor to local charities, providing support when asked to numerous fundraising ventures. I expect him to be formidable, well-funded candidate as he seeks to wrest the Eighth District seat from Congressman RickNolan and the DFL in November.

It would have been nice to have received campaign literature from Mr. Mills that signaled his intent to run a campaign on legitimate issues. It would have been refreshing to see this newcomer to politics renounce relying on soundbites and half truths to garner support. It would have been nice to see a display of courage evidenced by a discussion of substantive differences in approaches to addressing our nation's ills. Instead, yesterday's opening gambit from the would-be congressman was little more than mindless name calling and fear-mongering.

Consider the claims in Mr. Mills' literature. President Obama is 

• hostile to small business owners (underlined and in boldfaced)
• contemptuous of spending restraint
• obsessed with raising taxes, and
• hell-bent on a government takeover of health care.

As to Congressman Nolan, the picture is just as frightening and just as short on substance. Congressman Nolan is

• to the left of President Barack Obama! (underlined and boldfaced)
• an unapologetic liberal
• recipient of an F (underlined and boldfaced) rating from the National Rifle Association
• convinced that President Obama's health care takeover doesn't go far enough, and
• an advocate of more Big Government stimulus spending despite the fact that the first round was a trillion dollars down the drain.

Congressman Nolan's call for campaign finance reform is referred to as "welfare for politicians!" (underlined and boldfaced). According to Mr. Mills' literature, Congressman Nolan's "biggest gripe" is that "President Obama doesn't go far enough in his Far Left policies!"

You get the idea. The solicitation consists of a four page letter, devoid of substance, but full of references to Reagan Republicans (good), Big Government (bad), repealing Obamacare (good), Nolan's liberalism (bad), Mills' business experience (good), Nolan's business experience (just kidding; not mentioned). Drop me a line and I'll send you the entire diatribe.

As I've said, I've known Stewart Mills for 20 years. But I've known Rick Nolan for nearly 37 years. We were acquaintances when I worked on Capitol Hill in the '70's (he had the better job). We became close friends when we both returned to Minnesota. I've had the honor of offering counsel to him, when asked, in his capacity as a Congressman, as a private citizen and most recently as a candidate. Rick Nolan is one of the most thoughtful, dedicated public servants I have had the pleasure to know. 

He has strived to make good on his 2012 promise to promote the civility in Congress he enjoyed during his first tenure in D.C. His stand on campaign finance, for example, is not a plea for "welfare for politicians". It is the result of his recognition of the very real damage sustained by us all when our elected representatives are expected to spend 36 hours a week fundraising just to meet the threshold of modern day campaign costs. Similarly, he takes President Obama to task for not pushing for a single payer system of health care first proposed by Republican politicians and generally acknowledged as the only way to successfully assure universal coverage. Recognizing that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, he spends his time trying to fix its ills, not waste time on meaningless repeal votes.

 My point here is not to argue for Congressman Nolan's views over Mr. Mills. That will likely come later. My point is that we should strive to be an educated electorate and demand that our candidates, Republican AND Democrat, rely on more than a series of inflammatory one-liners to earn our support.

Unflattering pictures of a bearded Rick Nolan from the '70's or attacks on his age are no more relevant to the issues in this campaign than complaints about the length of Stewart Mills' hair or his social exploits. When you see a campaign relying on such tactics, or on the scare tactics of Mr. Mills' campaign literature, it is time to stop and ask whether the proponent is so lacking in actual justification for his election that baseless pandering is the central theme of his or her effort.

No differently than any other job interview, a campaign should clearly identify the substance of the office-seeker and why he or she is the best person to fill the position. Few of us would seek employment by merely describing ourselves in platitudes to the interviewer and promising illusory solutions to the challenges posed by the job. A political candidate seeking our support should be held to the same standard we impose upon ourselves.

As we sprint toward November 4, let's take the time to consider the actual merits of each candidate and refuse to accept easy answers and slick campaign promises as substitutes for thoughtful resolve to make a difference in public service.

Where Have You Gone, Spencer Tracy?

One of my earliest movie memories is being befuddled watching the 1960 screen adaptation of Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized telling of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial". The movie probably aired on television in 1964 when I was 12. While I missed the parable about McCarthyism, which the country had recently survived, I was familiar with Darwin's theory of evolution. I could not believe that someone could be criminally prosecuted in 20th century America for teaching science in a public school classroom. My young mind cheered when the character based on William Jennings Bryant became flustered by Clarence Darrow's cross-examination, caught up by contradictions in "God's Word".

By 12, I was an avid reader. I had been attending Hebrew School five days a week and Junior Congregation at our synagogue on Saturday for several years. I understood the concept of faith and the power of Biblical (Five Books of Moses) lessons. I viewed the lessons as stories, designed to guide me in my conduct in society. That remains true today. The idea that someone's religious beliefs could be imposed on society in general to mandate conduct, worse, thinking, was abhorrent. Live and let live. It never occurred to me that I should rail against my non-Jewish friends because they consumed pork or went to work on Yom Kippur. Their faith led them to behave in a different manner than mine did, albeit just as Godly from their point of view.

Forty years later, I am appalled that we take science and secular education so lightly in the U.S. that we are still having debates about whether our children should be taught evolution. While the modern approach by the proponents of Creationism is to artificially temper the impact of imposing religious beliefs by insisting that two theories of mankind's development be taught side by side, letting the students "choose", my abhorrence is not lessened. No one really believes that young students in an environment offering both religious and scientific theories to explain the development of our species freely and effectively weigh the merits of each. The insistence on injecting Creationism or "Divine Intervention" into a public school curriculum necessitates debunking the scientific theories that explain the process in less convenient terms.

If we focus on debunking science to mold minds to accept matters of religious faith, we sow generations of unthinking conformists. We reap the erosion of technological excellence and take a back seat to economies and cultures for whom education encourages acting on curiosity and distinguishes matters of faith.

We are already seeing the impact of co-mingling teaching matters of religious faith with the results of scientific study. According to the Pew Research Center, only 60% of Americans believe in evolution; 33% do not. Members of Congress serving on the House Science Committee unabashedly proclaim that "evolution, embryology and the Big Bank Theory" are Satan's work.  Incredibly, the handful of individuals in control of the committee in Congress responsible for approving legislation related to science, don't believe in science. More incredibly, there's not enough outrage from the public or courage by the Speaker of the House to effect the reassignment of the individuals to less conflicted positions.

We have all been bombarded with allegations of efforts to impose Shari'ah law on Western Civilizations. They typically arrive in our emails or Facebook news feeds as urgent warnings to wake up to the rising birth rate among Muslims and the deference being shown to Islamic practices in American jurisdictions. Without getting into the accuracy of the warnings, I find it incredibly ironic that the religious right in the United States, terrified at the prospect of having someone else's religious beliefs imposed to control their secular activities, fails to recognize that governing in accordance with Biblical passages is just as threatening to our Constitutional system of government.

We are free to practice our respective religions. We are not entitled, in public forums like public schools, to impose our religion and the faith on which it is based on everyone else. Parochial schools offer a solution for parents determined to emphasize the Almighty's interaction in the world around us. Let us insist that religious indoctrination be limited to schools affiliated with churches, synagogues, mosques, ashrams and the like. Let us also encourage a vigorous examination and questioning of scientific principles without threatening God's wrath on those who do so.

Thank You, Molly

Observation 1: My daughter-in-law, Molly BD Stern, posted a comment on Facebook a week or so ago in which she asked when I was going to return to blogging. This proves that God put our in-laws on the Earth, a generation or so after we'd become set in fixed behavioral patterns, in order to push us in directions immediate family members knew better than pursue.

Observation 2: My good friend and prolific blogger, Charlie Leck (chasblogs.blogspot.com), has often noted that he writes to give his grandchildren insight into their grandfather, preserving an ancestral log for generations to come.

Observation 3: Today is January 1, 2014. As the first day of the year, tradition dictates that we make resolutions as we look to the future and acknowledge shortcomings of the past.

Observation 4: Tying it all together, God willing, 2014 is the year in which my daughter-in-law will make me a grandfather for the first time. I have resolved, again, to follow Charlie's example and to acquiesce to Molly's request, and spend some time this year pondering from the prairie.

My failure to maintain this blog over the past couple of years did not result from a lack of opinions. It resulted from the inability to overcome the sense of futility felt at the prospect of sharing opinions with a public not interested in discourse outside the scope of propagandistic soundbites. I love to write. I do a lot of writing as part of my profession. But it is excruciatingly difficult to allocate time to the process when you feel like you might as well be baying at the moon.

We shall see how this goes. My plan is to write frequently, but briefly. My plan is to post links on Facebook and LinkedIn and encourage discourse. I may not always be civil, nor always politic. I will respect the opinions of others as long as they result from honest introspection developed from reasoned analysis. I will not hesitate to express my own reasoned analysis to ridicule charlatans and politi-bries (my word) who promote themselves by taking pages from the Joseph Goebbels' Big Lie playbook. And, to keep it light,  I will rely on puff pieces from time to time, likely to highlight my photography or personal relationships.

Somehow, January 1, 2014 seems like the perfect date to relaunch Prairie Pondering. In 2014, my son will become a father, my daughter will become a bride, my friend Rick Nolan will seek well-deserved reelection to Congress and (to be continued).

G. Keillor's Underwood Typewriter

Hope and Change 2.0

The 2012 presidential election is two days behind us and I'm still giddy. The thrill of victory is all the sweeter by my appreciation for the agony of the GOP's defeat. Last Sunday, while watching the Fox News show with Chris Wallace, I was worried. Fox's talking heads were predicting an Electoral College landslide for Mitt Romney. For weeks, my conservative friends had been sharing analysis demonstrating that President Obama's support among young and minority voters did not approach anything near 2008 levels. The continuing high unemployment rate and slow pace of economic recovery made it impossible for the president to get re-elected. Wisconsin was a shoe-in for Governor Romney as evidenced by Governor Walker's repudiation of recall efforts. Elizabeth Warren was a fraud whose success germinated from lying about her heritage on her resume. Nevada's concentration of Mormons and foreclosed real estate assured placement in the Romney column. Florida's Jewish voters had received the message that President Obama had thrown Israel under the bus and the state's governor was doing his best to suppress the vote of likely supporters of the president. Constitutional amendments on the ballot in Minnesota designed to bring conservatives to the polls would threaten Minnesota's traditional blue status. The multi-million dollar final blitz by GOP Super-pacs was going to eviscerate support for the president.

It was all too much to bear. It made it impossible to rationally believe in Nate Silver's 538 Blog assessment that President Obama was strongly favored to win re-election. Now, how sweet it is!

The reality is that the GOP campaign was based on inflammatory rhetoric rather than substance. The governor's supporters drank their own Kool-Aid  and (to mix metaphors) believed that the seeds of hate for the president they'd been sowing for four years would take root and wipe Democrats off the Electoral map.

Don't get me wrong. The country has serious problems facing it at home and abroad. All of us need to be concerned about them. But the GOP strategy of spending four years obstructing every effort the president made to address those problems and then smearing him for being ineffectual ultimately did not sell. The efforts to rile up the under-educated white male base with racist dog whistle references to the president's heritage, religion, Socialist leanings and past associations failed to bring enough lemmings in to make a difference. Attempts to manipulate the electorate by suppressing likely Democrats and baiting conservatives with inflammatory constitutional amendments backfired. Democratic turnout was enhanced in response to these not-so-subtle attacks on the moderate/liberal electorate.

I have a lot more to say about the election and about the frustrations felt to my core with the direction conservatives want to take us. That's for later. Several friends have commented that, in the weeks leading up to the election, I seemed to be getting cranky and condescending in my online exchanges in social media. I plead "guilty" and owe them an explanation. It's coming. Now that Obama 2.0 is uploaded, I am no longer willing to sit silently while uninformed Fox News ventriloquist dummies tear down our country and its president.

For now, I'll just leave you with this: I want to believe that Hurricane Sandy played a major role in undermining Governor Romney's campaign efforts and results. The poetic justice of a natural disaster enhanced by climate change and referred to as an Act of God being responsible for the defeat of a climate change mocker whose base claimed God as their own is too marvelous for words.

More Signs of Reason Gone Mad

Among the senselessness that comes to mind when reading about last night's shooting at a movie theater in Aurora is the knowledge that someone working for the NRA will arrive at the office today and be tasked with doing damage control. Worse, 2nd Amendment fanatics will start decrying "liberals" for using this as an excuse to try to violate their Constitutional rights. Welcome to the other side of the Looking Glass.

R.I.P. Tom Davis

Tom Davis, Comedian and ‘SNL’ Sketch Writer, Dies at 59

This is so sad and sobering. When I was a senior at UCLA, I lived in West L.A., near a bar/club where Franken and Davis did stand-up. I ran into them one night. I had met Al while visiting mutual friends from SLP at Harvard a couple of years before and we shared other close friends. They were looking for a ride back to Minneapolis and we spent a couple of minutes figuring out if it would work to go back together. That didn't work out (would have been a Hell of a trip) but I've always remembered what a nice guy Tom seemed to be. He was my age and on a completely different career path. The fact that he's now "inanimated", reminds me of a special time of my youth and the reality of its passing. He's left me with a new (again) appreciation for enjoying each day that Life offers. R.I.P Mr. Davis. My condolences on your loss, Senator.

Elections Matter

When Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate in the middle of the health care debate, there was a general consensus that the lackluster campaigning by his Democratic opponent and the relatively low voter turnout gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican. Notably, the race was seen as a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. Brown's election jeopardized passage of the ACA and cries of "Elections Matter!" resounded from a vocal minority who were determined to push their agenda on the majority.

When Scott Walker became governor of Wisconsin in the off-year election of 2010 and started on a previously unannounced campaign to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, cries of "Elections Matter!" were heard again, again to justify the imposition of a minority agenda on the majority.

Elections do matter. My growing frustration with hope and change submitting to block and parry is directed at those who share my politics but not my willingness to vote. Governor Walker's ability to push back the recall effort in Wisconsin resulted largely from a broader consensus than contributed to his initial election that elections matter and that he should be given his full term.

What I don't understand, except as a strategy in the war of politics, is why elections only matter when the minority scores a victory in a low turnout election. There was an election in 2008, too. President Obama, who campaigned on universal health care, won handily in an election in which well over half of the eligible electorate participated. Not one Republican was willing to acknowledge that the 2008 election mattered and support the will of the People by voting for the ACA. Recall that the President accepted the invitation of the House Republican Caucus to meet directly and respond to their concerns over a wide range of issues in a televised, unscripted setting. As a result of the way he successfully responded to the false rhetoric and soundbites upon which Republican congressmen based their opposition to the ACA and other programs, the GOP decided that there would be no more invitations extended to the White House for similar exchanges. And, although Senator Brown's election ultimately did not matter enough as it related to blocking the ACA, there was, and remains, a refusal to apply the same elections matter theory of democracy to the acceptance of issues unpopular with conservatives.

Now that the Supreme Court has determined that a Constitutional basis exists for support of the ACA, the GOP is redoubling its efforts to repeal the bill, primarily by replacing President Obama in November. If successful, there will be a return to "Elections Matter!" But if the election in 2012 is going to matter, I am going to do what I can to re-elect President Obama in order to re-send the message from 2008's electorate. More to come.