Category: General

Tom Vilsack

Warning: Undefined array key "adf" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 69

Warning: Undefined array key "sim_pages" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 70

Tom Vilsack is finishing his second term as the governor of Iowa. He did not run for re-election. My research indicates that Vilsack had a vision for his state and in his eight years in office he succeeded in implementing that vision to a great degree. This suggests the ability to focus on a goal and work with others to make it happen. This shows leadership.

In my searching, Vilsack came across as a candidate with ideas and experience who is ready to do more than talk about what should be done. Rather than forming an exploratory committee, he made his decision to run and filed his papers for candidacy. This suggests that he will take action once he makes a decision.

The language of his dialog is positive and issue oriented. I hope to see this kind of campaigning continue when there is a specific opponent to campaign against. In other words, I hope to see more of campaigning for issues and ideas and less of campaigning against other candidates.

I endorse Tom Vilsack for President.

Tags 2008, endorsements, national candidates

General

Endorsements

I had not intended to suspend posting until I had done some research on the governor of Iowa, but that is how life played out so here, after four days, is some insight into the endorsement process. I freely admit that, even as an independent voter, I am not free from bias. The first time I hear about a candidate choosing to run for president I will probably have an idea, based on their position and what I have heard previously, of whether I expect they will receive an endorsement from me. For example, with Governor Vilsack I had heard very little about him which suggested a lack of showmanship. The fact that he was a two term governor of a state which was not known to be particularly liberal or conservative suggested an experienced public servant who was not a polarizing force. I would initially guess that I would endorse such a candidate.

On the other hand, I will openly admit that most third party candidates are likely to have a harder time getting an endorsement from me based partially on the wacky ideas I have heard from a variety of third party candidates over the years. My experience suggests that the majority of third party candidates have an agenda or a specific issue and lack the propensity to work with others. On top of that, most of them don’t honestly expect to have a shot at winning and it shows in the way they campaign to their niche supporters.

At these early stages of campaigning, my endorsements have the possibility of changing as a result of new information. That being said, I am not at all opposed to getting through the primaries with candidates in each party that I endorse. In fact, I hope that the candidates who win the primaries from each party are candidates whom I can endorse.

One final caveat, when I endorse someone it should not be construed as an endorsement of a party. I never vote for a presidential party, I vote for a president. If I endorse Governor Vilsack it says nothing about the Democratic Party. If I endorse Governor Bush it is an endorsement for Bush, not for the Republican Party. (Honestly I do not expect Jeb Bush to run. I used him as an example because I do not want to suggest an endorsement for a candidate who has not yet chosen to run. In the case of Governor Vilsack, I will be posting the results of my research presently.)

Tags candidates, endorsements, goals

General

Getting Answers to Old Questions

Post author By David
Post date November 10, 2006
No Comments on Getting Answers to Old Questions

I just remembered something I wrote back in September. Tuesday made it possible to answer some questions I asked clear back then. I had said that “between the presidency and the two houses of congress each of the major parties should be in control of at least one of the bodies – thus forcing the various governmental bodies to compromise in order to make things happen.” We now have Republicans in control of the White House and Democrats in control of the House and the Senate.

I had asked, “would this administration be better if their party did not control both houses of congress?” An early analysis of that question came in the New York Times today. From the article:

‘You’re seeing the George Bush who has always been adept at playing the hand he is dealt,’ said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House.

Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman and lobbyist, put it this way: ‘I’ve never thought that George Bush was a rigid ideologue; I’ve never thought that he was a hardened partisan. He is a businessman first, and in business you don’t spend a lot of time crying about changed circumstances. You figure out quickly how to adapt, and that’s what he’s doing.’

Certainly this does not answer whether this “M.B.A. president” can make things work with a Democratic congress, but we’ll find out.

I also said that “those in the House have some incentive to do something because they will face re-election in another two years.” The New York Times article adds another incentive for Democrats to work with Bush:

‘Their whole theme has been the do-nothing Congress,’ Mr. Black, the Republican strategist, said. ‘Now, if they get in there and make themselves vulnerable to that charge, it hurts them in ’08. He knows that they have an incentive to get things done, and he’s going to take advantage of that.’

If anything is to happen, the president must move toward the center. I still hope, as I said in September, that this will force the Republican Party to come back toward the center. Having lost the House and the Senate, I hope they will have the motivation to do so. They can hardly pretend that this was just some small setback.

Tags parties, reactions, thoughts

General

Non-Sequiter

I stumbled on to another example of blind loyalty by our senior senator. In character for the man who said that the alternative to attacking Iraq was, “we could have attacked North Korea, Iran, or Syria instead,” Senator Hatch said that, “you’d have to tarnish every young American who served over there,” for Donald Rumsfeld’s legacy to be marred by mistakes in Iraq. This suggests that there is no difference of position between the soldiers on the ground and the men that give them their orders.

Just as it is possible for commanders to give good orders which are poorly executed by the men on the ground, so in this case we have had a series of mistakes from those at the top which have generally been well executed by the soldiers on the ground. Thus there is distinctly a difference between the soldiers on the ground and those that give them orders.

If Senator Hatch meant to suggest that making mistakes in Iraq does not prove that Donald Rumsfeld is evil, then I have to agree with him. What he does not acknowledge is that even a good leader may be tarnished by mistakes without becoming a bad leader. For example, the legacy of Robert E. Lee was tarnished by the actions at Gettysburg. Pickett’s charge was well executed by George Pickett and his men, but it was a colossal mistake by General Lee. None of this makes General Lee a poor general. Similarly, the mistakes made in Iraq will surely tarnish the legacy of Donald Rumsfeld without reflecting poorly on the soldiers who served there (not including Abu Ghraib participants). While this tarnish is in fresh view, it should be remembered that the perspective of history will determine whether Donald Rumsfeld was good or not. Either way, we can safely say that Secretary Rumsfeld is no General Lee.

Tags candidates, Orrin Hatch, reactions, State, thoughts

General

Ideal Politics

Now that election day is over – here are some things I would like to see (ideally) in politics:

Two candidates running against each other who canvas together, advertise together, and publicly seek to achieve 100% voting in the area covered by the office they are seeking.
- I could just imagine two candidates who have different views coming before the voters and saying “Vote for me, or vote for him, just vote.”
- I could imagine mailings and flyers where one side presented the views of one candidate and the other side presented the views of the other candidate. The bottom would read “Paid for by the committee to elect the next representative of State House District #21”
No negative campaigning – that would be necessary for #1 to work

If those things were to happen I think we could have real political dialog happening, and we could hardly fail to get good people elected – I can imagine that only good people would engage in such a campaign.

I know this is extremely idealistic. I would be very surprised to ever see such a thing.

Now for some results of yesterdays elections.

Nationally, NPR has a story on how the base of the GOP failed on election day. I think they got the story backwards. It would be more accurate to say that the GOP failed the voters before election day. Thus the results at the polls.

I also saw that Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as Secretary of Defense. This is good news, but a few years later than it should have been.

Voters chose not to retain Judge Leslie Lewis. This means that voters were getting the information being presented about her. To put this result in context – 54% of voters voted not to retain her. All other judges were retained, receiving between 88.32% and 76.55% support for retention. In other words Judge Lewis received 30 percentage points less support from voters than any other judge in this election. Now the question is – does it require the kind of negative publicity that Judge Lewis received to make voters drop a sitting judge? While I believe that the majority of judges do a good job, I still believe that voters suffer from a dearth of information on their judges so it is difficult to make meaningful choices with our ballots where judges are concerned.

The opinion question that I felt was under-publicized passed with over 66% support. I don’t think that indicates a good campaign for the issue since every ballot issue on my local ballot passed with similarly high margins. Some of them probably should not have passed – at least not that easily.

Tags ideal, reactions, thoughts

General

Good News on Frontrunner

I was excited to read this news. Now if only we could get to the point where they ran the same story with one little tweak. I would like it to read that “Frontrunner Commuter rail line in Utah County is 50% complete.” That will take a while.

Voters in the areas covered by the Frontrunner line in the report approved money for Frontrunner 6 years ago. They expect to be up and running in less than 2 more years. In Utah county we have the chance next week to approve money for the southern portion of Frontrunner which will run through our county. If it is developed at the same pace we could have commuter rail by 2014. First things first, the voters in Utah County need to approve the Opinion Question on the ballot next week which would provide money for Frontrunner. That is why I was lamenting that there seemed to be so little publicity about the issue.

Tags reactions, State, transit

General

Senator Hatch

I found it interesting while listening to Senator Hatch’s interview on RadioWest that he uses the very same arguments as to why Senator Moss should be replaced back in 1976 as I have been using to argue that Senator Hatch should be replaced in 2006. He said that Senator Moss was not representing Utah. I have said that Senator Hatch represents the GOP more than he represents Utah.

When asked about Iraq he quoted the White House line about how this was the reason that we had not had another terrorist attack since 2001. I think the only affect this has had regarding terrorist attacks is that the terrorists have another target to hit. They can attack the green zone in Baghdad and it is an attack against the US. The only thing he said about Iraq that I agree with is that he praised the men and women who have served there. The war was a mistake and we need leaders who can admit that and look for the best way forward. We do not need leaders who doggedly insist that the war was necessary but not perfect. Senator Hatch implies that the only alternative to attacking Iraq would have been to attack North Korea, Iran, or possibly Syria in place of Iraq. Apparently we desperately needed to go to war and Iraq was the target of choice.

I thought that the Senator was off base when he implied that those who criticize the war are just people who are critical of everything. (“I think that the critics are just doing what critics always do.”) He fails to recognize that many of those criticizing the war are people who are generally supportive of their leaders, but who refuse to be blinded by the party line. He claims that “the liberal media criticized World War II during Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.” I’d like to see evidence of that, even though he did rattle off the names of a dozen newspapers when asked about it. If I ever do see proof of that statement, I’ll compare the criticism from the 1940’s with the criticism of this war – I’ll bet that the criticism of the current war is much more specific and well founded – not to mention more widespread.

When I wrote about Pete Ashdown I had intended to cover the Orrin Hatch interview from a neutral perspective. After listening to the interview I no longer wish to do so. Senator Hatch seems more and more to represent the GOP rather than Utah. He doesn’t even talk about the concerns of our state – he talks about the concerns of conservatives. I recognize that Utah is a conservative state, but when coupled with statements like, “we didn’t have to attack Iraq, we could have attacked North Korea, Iran, or Syria instead,” I find it impossible to overlook the fact that we have a conservative senator or a Republican senator rather than a Utah senator. I’m voting for Pete. I think he’ll represent Utah instead of representing a party.

Tags candidates, openness, Orrin Hatch, reactions, State

General

Come November

I had fun reading in the New York Times about how various people in the Republican Party are pointing their fingers at each other regarding why they seem to have so little public support. There are certainly a wide variety of reasons for people to be disenchanted with the GOP. I think I best heard this type of situation with the party summed up something like this:

A party gets into power based on a set of goals or ideals. After staying in power for a while the only ideal left is to stay in power.

That appears to be the case here. Party leaders only want to keep the party in power while constituent groups are tired of being associated with the party while feeling like the party is no longer looking after their interests.

Although there are many causes, I think that the public lack of support is an exaggerated response to the Foley scandal. My personal views of the party are completely unaffected by this news, but I would not be surprised to learn that for many people that was the final straw. The Democrats would jump on that issue if it was all they had to work with, but there’s so much more for them to address. For those who are unhappy with Iraq, the economy, immigration, or anything else, it might be enough for people to say “not this too – I’m leaving.”

Whatever the results on November 7th, I hope the Republican Party wakes up and starts to focus so that when 2008 rolls around nobody can be sure of which way the election will go. That, in my opinion, is the best recipe for solid political dialog. That would be a welcome change from the meaningless political rhetoric we have been subjected to lately.

Tags parties, reactions, thoughts

General

17th Amendment

I love being invited to comment on things. In this case, I have been pointed towards an article from September of 2002 by John W. Dean on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and whether it should be repealed. As a brief reminder, the 17th Amendment changed the way that senators were selected. Originally senators were chosen by state legislators while representatives in the house were selected by direct election. That structure, and the election of the president by the electoral college are the two fundamental differences between our government and a pure democracy.

Dean suggests that the 17th Amendment, along with the 16th Amendment (legalized income taxes) were the driving forces behind the expansion of the federal government in the last century. He also points to Federalist No. 10 which suggests that the purpose of the Senate is different from the purpose of the House of Representatives. The Senate was not expected to represent the citizens of their state, but rather the government of their state. In fact, what James Madison describes for the Senate sounds more like what we might have if the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association were to come together in a governing body.

The article cites law professor Todd Zywicki from George Mason University in saying that “the true backers of the 17th amendment were special interests” who “hoped direct elections would increase their control, since [direct elections] would let [the special interests] appeal directly to the electorate, as well as provide their essential political fuel – money.” Although that assessment sounds right, I cannot prove it. I can say that the change has voided any significant difference between Senators and Representatives. Now the difference is that Senators serve longer terms and do not represent a set number of constituents.

Dean concludes:

Repeal of the amendment would restore both federalism and bicameralism. It would also have a dramatic and positive effect on campaign spending. Senate races are currently among the most expensive. But if state legislatures were the focus of campaigns, more candidates might get more access with less money — decidedly a good thing.

Zywicki adds:

Absent a change of heart in the American populace and a better understanding of the beneficial role played by limitations on direct democracy, it is difficult to imagine a movement to repeal the 17th amendment.

I agree on both counts. I believe that the founders did not structure our government as they did based on whims. They knew what they were doing and most of us do not understand what they were doing, much less why they were doing it. They allowed for amendments because they knew it would be necessary to make changes at times – I think the founders would have applauded the 14th Amendment. But I also think that it is not wise for us to use the amendment process to fundamentally change the form of government that they set up. Sadly, most citizens are not sufficiently informed to understand the differences caused by this amendment.

Tags amendments, Constitution, reactions, senate, thoughts

General

Iraq

Post author By David
Post date October 17, 2006
4 Comments on Iraq

After three years in Iraq (and three years worth of news and commentary on Iraq) I just had a new thought on the situation this morning. What would happen if we left Iraq now?

I am not an advocate of cut-and-run but I think we have to ask ourselves that question if we are to make an honest assessment of the situation. The only reason to stay in Iraq is if we want to prevent what would happen if we were to leave. The general consensus seems to be that if we leave there will be anarchy and its attending chaos. I am beginning to wonder how much worse it would be than it already is.

I know the Bush Administration would argue that it would be worse, and that they don’t intend to leave until Iraq is stable. I believe that violence would get worse soon after the US military leaves, but will Iraq ever be stable?

Sometimes a temporary solution to a problem may prevent a final solution (like propping up “friendly dictators” rather than allowing other countries their autonomy). Currently in Iraq there are thousands of Iraqis dying each month. What would it look like if we left?

What if, in the absence of the US military, Iraq entered an unchecked civil war where 10,000 Iraqis died each month for 6 months before they reached some sort of stability and the death tolls fell to 500 per month. The reason for my thoughts this morning was that I began to wonder if that was inevitable. If we stayed in Iraq for two more years and then pulled out would they have a short period of extreme instability as soon as we left before things settled down? Perhaps they would have 10,000 casualties per month for only two months.

Let’s compare these two scenarios to see what the cost would be of “staying the course” for two more years. The war is costing us roughly $100 billion per year and (conservatively) 50 US casualties per month. That translates into a cost to the US of $200 billion dollars and 1200 more lives. What does that purchase give us according to my scenario? Assuming 2500 Iraqi casualties per month while the US is on the ground, there would be 80,000 Iraqi deaths (60,000 over 2 years at 2500 per month plus 10,000 per month for two months of instability) before they achieved stability. If we were to cut and run under my scenario there would be 70,000 Iraqi casualties (60,000 over six months of civil war plus 500 per month for the next 20 months) before they achieved stability.

I don’t pretend that my numbers are accurate, if they were it would be easy to decide to save $200 billion dollars, 1200 US lives, and 10,000 Iraqi lives. I think my numbers should be just realistic enough to make people want to see real estimates of the cost of continuing this war. Let’s get experts to consider all the factors so that the public knows what they are supporting, or opposing.

Tags Iraq, thoughts