ELECTION OF 2024: WHAT AMERICA HAS BECOME

If I have been stupid enough to publish occasional social commentary in the past, I surely cannot ignore the recent 2024 Presidential election in the USofA. I refuse to pretend that I have a complete handle on just what the hell is going on in the country of my birth. But I have a few ideas.

* A majority of the voting citizenry of the USofA chose a lying, narcissistic, sexual predator to be the face of their nation. They chose a serial evader of the consequences of his acts to be their Chief Executive. The bankrupter of a casino will lead the American economy. A man who routinely insults the military will be their Commander in Chief. In general, these attributes were not hidden from his supporters. Character didn't matter to them. This is what America has become.

* Obama's election normalized hate. Hate is a stronger emotion in the voting booth than love. 

* Democrats have chosen to take up the causes of marginalized people. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's a lousy electoral strategy. By definition, marginalized people do not constitute a majority. You can argue that, taken together, they do add up to a majority. The problem with that thinking is that marginalized groups have different, sometimes conflicting concerns. Being pulled in different directions does not lead to coherent electoral strategy. To address that array of concerns, you first have to get elected. And bumper stickers, not manifestos, get you elected. Snow White was a white woman who lived with seven little white men. She was kissed without her consent by a white Prince. Deal with it. Don't make it a campaign issue.

* Progressives want Democrats to double down on the Progressive agenda. But Red states are not Red because Democrats are not sufficiently woke. I fear that the opposite is true. AOC demonstrated her chops by moving to the center early, even if ever so slightly. (Did I really say that?) By the demographics, Democrats have become the party of the elites. And the concerns of people with resources sufficient so that they don't have to worry about the next rent payment or where the next meal is coming from are not the concerns of a majority of the country. It's the economy stupid.

I believe that the Western European model of democratic socialism is the proper governance model for a modern, enlightened state. I also believe that the proper economic model for such a state is properly regulated capitalism. Those two statements are not oxymoronic. Renault-Nissan is the largest automaker in the world, they make excellent cars, and it's 15% owned by the French government. That's a big enough stake to make certain that the corporate types don't screw up. The French, German and Spanish governments combined own just over 25% of Airbus and Airbus is kicking Boeing's butt. So capitalism is alive and functioning reasonably well in Western Europe. But at the same time, Europe has embraced single-payer healthcare and strong quality-of-life guarantees for workers. After 10 years and multiple hospital procedures, both day surgeries and overnights, my wife and I are convinced that French healthcare workers, first and foremost, care about helping us. We are not treated as profit points by anyone in the system.

If that's the type of system that we want for Americans, we need to be as dedicated to a long-term strategy as Republicans have been. We need to vote in every election, from local school boards on up. We need to require schools to teach basics first. When I give the clerk at the counter $1.01 for a $.51 order, there should be no head scratching about the amount of change that I'm due. Critical thinking does not seem to follow if you can't read, rite, and do rithmatic. Our elected officials, whether in the minority or the majority, must be even more ruthless than the Republicans have been since Obama was first elected, ruthless against the opposition, ruthless against distractions within our own party.

TIM WALZ: MY HOT TAKE ON HARRIS' VP CANDIDATE

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have never voted for Donald Trump. I would never vote for Donald Trump. I would rather vote for Barry Goldwater than Donald Trump and Goldwater has been dead for a while now. Even dead, he'd make a better President.

When Biden stepped back and anointed  Harris as his successor, the Veepstakes immediately began. My thinking on the matter was fairly simple. I counted five attributes/qualities that would be required to be named Harris' VP. I got four of the five right.

The two easiest qualifications to predict were political necessities. The VP candidate had to be male and had to be white. I'm not particularly proud of my country for having to say that, but as Teddy Roosevelt's favorite political commentator opined in the late 19th Century, politics ain't beanbag. The rest of the quote is highly indicative of the 10th Century male mentality, but at least the part about beanbag applies. Obama's candidacy and election unleashed a supposedly dormant racist streak in the American electorate and Hillary Clinton's candidacy added misogyny to the equation. Those two streaks run sufficiently deep in the hearts of a sufficient number of voters, even a portion of those who might otherwise be partial to a Harris candidacy, that a ticket with two persons of color or two women just does not make political sense in the real world of American politics.

If I had had Harris' ear during the decision-making process, my next two criteria would have been to choose a governor from the Midwest to add executive experience to the ticket. Although Harris holds the second highest executive office in the country, she came to it from the Senate. Senators generally value consensus. They are masters of shifting the goalposts to come to an agreement. But it's the job of the President to set the goalposts and determine how much, if any, they should be allowed to shift at all. It's a different mindset, one that neither Obama nor Biden ever mastered. A governor on the ticket might assist Harris in developing that skill. Midwestern? Geographical balance, particularly since there's a Left Coast liberal at the lead.

I got the last bit wrong though. I expected her choice to balance the ticket in another way, to be more centrist than Harris. But Walz is not a centrist, as were the main challengers for the nod. No, I think that Harris chose Walz because he was as close to her progressive leanings as anyone else in the running. She doubled down. No deep policy divides. No clashes of style - although there are clearly style differences. Just not clashes. This pairing is not JFK and LBJ, or Lyndon and Hubert for that matter. Kamala and Tim will have no problem holding hands and singing Kumbaya together all of the way to the White House.

THE ATTACKS

       Military Service: Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard as a teenager. After 24 years of service, he had risen to the rank of Command Sergeant Major. I have read interviews with both superiors and subordinates that confirm that for some time prior to his retirement, Walz had discussed with them his desire to run for Congress and his concern that doing so would require him to leave the Guard because the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in political activities. He did indeed file for his run for the House in early 2005, some time before his unit was informed that they should prepare for the possibility of being deployed to the Middle East sometime in the next two years. Before. The charge that he deserted his unit because they had been cautioned to prepare for deployment is false. I suppose that he could have withdrawn from the Congressional election or asked the Pentagon for an exception to the Hatch Act as would have been required if he stayed with his unit. He did none of that. He simply continued with his planned retirement. I suspect that those in his former unit who accuse Walz of cowardly behavior will be voting for Trump. They’re entitled. I thank them for their service.

Walz's bio said that he had retired as a Command Sergeant Major. And the day that he retired, he was addressed as a Command Sergeant Major and treated like a Command Sergeant Major. The day after his retirement, because he had failed to complete a correspondence course to confirm his promotion from Staff Sergeant Major, he was considered a Staff Sergeant Major for benefits purposes. You say to-MAY-to. I say to-MAH-to. He's changed his bio.

In supporting gun control legislation, Walz once said that he opposed civilians carrying weapons such as he carried "in war." He misspoke. Although he carried such weapons and trained with such weapons, he never served in a combat zone. It is correct to say that Walz misspoke.

        Governor of Minnesota.: Tampon Tim is the sort of sniggering teenage nickname that one might expect from immature males uncomfortable discussing women’s periods. Such men are mostly Republicans, apparently. As governor, Walz signed a bill requiring that public schools make menstruation products freely available to students beginning at fourth grade. His critics charge that the law requires such products in bathrooms for boys. Not true. The law leaves the matter of distribution up to the individual school district.  I have read of several districts that do not require such products in boys rooms. I have not read of a single one that does.

Walz also signed a bill making free breakfast and lunch available to all students. In addition to simply making certain that kids were fed properly while in their charge, the law was intended to relieve districts of the administrative burden of qualifying students for free meals and of tracking families in debt to the system. Saving children the embarrassment of being refused service due to debt or administrative error was also a consideration. The attack comes because a contractor to the state’s Department of Education was found to have  defrauded the feeding programs of the Department of over $250M. The problem with this attack is that the fraud predated the law that Walz signed. It even predated Walz’s governorship, having begun during the administration of his predecessor. Yes, the buck stops at the governor’s desk. But in this case, the buck had been being passed before Walz had anything to do with the program.

IN CONCLUSION

Walz can be shown to have made mistakes. He has spent his entire life in the public eye in one way or another, so there are nits to be picked. But Walz has done nothing so egregious as to come close to losing my vote. In fact, the more that I dig, the happier that I am with Harris’ choice. I will vote Harris/Walz enthusiastically and with a clear conscious.

BIDEN, HARRIS, TRUMP, OBAMA AND AMERICAN POLITICS 2024

I wouldn't be much of an American who blogs his opinions if I didn't chime in on the events of the past week or two in American politics. FULL DISCLOSURE: I believe Trump to be an existential threat to sanity and civility in public life. His picture appears in the OED in the definition of egotistical narcissist. Anyway, here are my quick takes:

* During the recent televised debate, Biden looked like a tired and deflated old man. Trump presented as a confident and unapologetic liar. In other words, both men came across true to their respective natures. 

* I'm 75 years old. I ain't what I used to be. The excuse that Biden was tired after flights and meetings just doesn't cut it. Presidents are not allowed to fail on the world stage at critical times because they are tired. Yes, we expect too much of the mere humans that we elect to that office. Tough cookies. That's the minimum requirement. When the phone rings at 2am, you'd better damn well be wide awake and ready to eat raw meat.

* Harris was the obvious choice. An open Democrat convention would have been a disaster. Uncontrolled chaos. Everybody who mattered understood that Harris was inevitable except, apparently, for the Obamas. If nothing else, that proves that Obama was never an executive type. A true executive makes reality-based decisions, even if their preference would be a different reality. Harris is the reality. Not acceding to that reality after 48 hours is either pettiness or delusion. Now, today, her election prospects are not an issue. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. (By the way, that's not a quote about politics uttered by some wag like Churchill. It was a drill created by a typing instructor a century ago.) EDIT: The endorsement from the Obamas has come. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

* Speaking of Obama, can you tell that I found him a disappointment? In today's world, nuance is not an option. The education system has failed. Analytical thought is missing in action, even on elite college campuses. Netanyahu, for all that I dislike him, was correct in his speech to Congress when he likened Gays for Gaza to Chickens for KFC. We now live in a bumper sticker world in which Obama's careful attempts to walk the lines do not bear electoral fruit. Championing a law called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) cannot compete with chanting Build the Wall. At the other end of the spectrum. the 900 pages of the Affordable Care Act cannot satisfy those who advocate Medicare for All. One can wish for a better world. One can work to create a better world. But in order to do so, it's necessary to navigate the world as it exists with open eyes and effective strategies.

* Trump will get his votes. That can't be helped. The Kool-Aid has been drunk. The election will hinge on the turnout on the Democrat side. If Harris energizes women, people of color, and those whites who have resisted the Kool-Aid, even in states that are trying to make that difficult for them, she wins. Especially in states that are trying to make it difficult. Energy and enthusiasm will decide this election. Harris' task is to create that energy and enthusiasm among her constituency. Or she will lose.

BERNIE, BLOOMBERG, AND GEORGE SANTAYANA

You know Bernie. You know Bloomberg. Who the hell is George Santayana?

Santayana was a very interesting guy. He came to the USofA from Spain at the age of eight shortly after the US Civil War. Although he spoke of himself as an American, he lived a Euro-centric life, spending his last years in Italy. A poet, novelist, and philosopher, Santayana taught philosophy at Harvard with T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Gertrude Stein, and W. E. B. Du Bois among his students. Very influential.

Santayana had one of those minds that translated thought into pithy turns of phrase.

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."

"The Bible is literature, not dogma."

"Sanity is madness put to good use."

What does all of this have to do with Bernie and Bloomberg? Here is the relevant Santayana quote:

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I like a lesser famous part of that line. When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual.

American Progressives loved Hubert Humphrey. As a US Senator in the 1940s, he successfully argued for the first plank in a Democratic Party platform that called for an end to racial segregation. He was in on the beginnings of the Peace Corps and the Civil Rights Act, Then Humphrey made the mistake - in the eyes of Progressive young Democrats - of accepting LBJ's offer to be his VP. The Vietnam War was a deal breaker for Progressives. They didn't consider the loyalty that Humphrey exhibited to POTUS as in any way explainable. They made a circus of the Chicago convention in 1968.

It can reasonably argued that Progressives gave us Nixon.

When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual.

Toward the middle of the 2016 Democrat primary season, it became clear that Bernie couldn't win. He did quite well in caucus states, but he simply couldn't make a dent in the early primary states and Hillary rolled up big numbers. What did his supporters have to say about that? The rules are unfair and need to be changed, they said. Primaries should be open so that Republicans who would prefer Bernie can vote for him. And towards the end of the primary season, when the math was insurmountable? We have to change the rules regarding Super Delegates, they said.

Why did Bernie's supporters think that it was OK to change the rules in his favor? Their rationale was simple. Bernie's strength was unexpected. He had almost derailed the Hillary juggernaut. If the rules were just tweaked a little bit in recognition of that strength, Bernie could win. But the rules weren't changed, Bernie lost, and the scorn heaped on the Democratic Party by disappointed Progressives continued right through the general election.

Did Bernie give us Trump? It can be reasonably argued.

When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual.

Fast forward to today. Bloomberg has propelled himself to the top tier of candidates, current polling placing him third or fourth nationally. His strength is unexpected. He threatens to derail the Bernie juggernaut. If unexpected strength would have been sufficient to change the rules in 2016, why is it not sufficient in 2020 to put Bloomberg on the debate stage?

Bernie's supporters will argue that if the rules weren't changed in 2016, we shouldn't change the rules in 2020, no matter what our position had been four years ago.

That could be called hypocrisy. Or, to be charitable, Bernie's supporters may have simply forgotten their previous positions. Or 2016. Or 1968.

When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual.

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT PARTY CHAIRWOMAN HOSPITALIZED

Heather McFeather, Chairwoman of the California Democrat Party, was admitted to Los Angeles Memorial Hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The injury occurred shortly after the Party refused to endorse the re-election bid of US Senator Dianne Feinstein. The hospital reported a spate of similar hospitalizations since the Presidential election of 2016.

"More and more politicians, primarily Democrats, seem to be shooting themselves in the foot," according the hospital's press release."Our thoughts and prayers are with McFeather, for whatever they are worth."

In a related story, President Trump tweeted: Now McFeather knows how painful bone spurs in your feet can be.

AN AMERICAN EXPAT'S TAKE ON WORLD POLITICS: PART 1 - FRANCE

I enjoy politics. I enjoy reading about politics, talking about politics, writing about politics. And I've been a politician. I was a member of my town council in Pennsylvania for a couple of decades, chairman for a good bit of that time, and I sat on the two-county regional planning commission that covered the Lehigh Valley of eastern Pennsylvania including the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, twice serving as chairman.

This last year or two have been like heroin for a political junkie like me. As an American expat living in the south of France among politically aware expats from around the world, Brexit, Trump, and Macron have been front and center to read about, to talk about, and now to write about. What better time to look back and look forward than at the beginning of a new year?

I don't pretend that these will be detailed analyses. Pick nits if you will. In fact, I invite discussion. Even dissent. My insights are free of charge and worth every penny.

Let's get to it. And let's start in France. Why France? Because of the three countries that I will be discussing, France is the one country that seems to have gotten it right. Who'd have thunk it?

The French hold a series of elections, regional government, Presidential, and National Assembly in that order. Each of the elections may be two-tiered. That is, if the candidate for a particular office does not receive 50%+1 of the vote, a runoff between the two top votegetters is held. Campaigning is strictly controlled. For instance, all campaigning must cease on the Friday before the Sunday voting and the publication of polling in the French press is forbidden on election day.

The regional elections way back in December of 2015 were truly extraordinary from this American's point of view. Why? Because the center-left Socialists and the center-right Republicans cooperated to prevent the anti-European, anti-immigration, far-right National Front from controlling a single one of France's 13 regions. How did they cooperate? The Socialists withdrew candidates with no chance to win in favor of their Republican rival.

OK. Stop. Take a deep breath. And think about that for a minute, you sophisticated American political operatives out there. In places where they had no hope of winning, Socialist candidates not only withdrew their names from consideration. They urged their followers to vote for the conservative Republicans in order to prevent a win by a surging, populist fringe. And it worked. Although the National Front took the most votes overall in the first round of the regional elections, they failed to end up with political control of a single one of the thirteen French regions.

But wait. It gets better.

Having received a record number of votes in the regionals, and with failed/corrupt/uninspiring candidates for President  representing the major political parties, National Front leader Marine Le Pen's followers were charged up. There was a real chance that an anti-immigration, authoritarian, populist/nationalist might be elected President in 2017. (Sound familiar?) Enter Emmanuel Macron. An investment banker who joined the center-left Socialist government in early 2012, Macron worked his way into a Cabinet-level role and managed to institute several business-friendly reforms. But in 2016, he saw his chance, left the Socialist party, and formed En Marche!, the brand new political party that was to be the platform for his election as the youngest French President ever.

As is the case with any political party that is the child of a single politician, En Marche! defies easy categorization. Although supported by prominent centrists and even greens, Macron also committed to various workplace reforms that would eventually send the unions into the streets to protest. In shorthand, I'd say that Macron and therefore En Marche! are generally socially liberal and fiscally conservative. (Understand that by American standards, socially liberal in France is very liberal but fiscally conservative is far to the left of anything true American fiscal conservatives would recognize. My guess is that this sort of political philosophy is shared by a majority of Americans. They just don't have a political party that consistently espouses it.)

Macron proved a cagey politician, became the darling of the media, and eventually led the field in the first phase. He crushed National Front's Le Pen in the runoff. The turnout for the runoff was historically low at about 75%, probably because it was understood that Le Pen had no chance. By the time that the elections for the National Assembly rolled around, the wave was complete. En Marche! won a clear majority of seats in the French legislature without having to form any coalitions.

There are two lessons that I take away from the French elections as an American political observer.

The first is that the French understood in ways that Americans can't seem to wrap their heads around that love of country can and should have primacy over political loyalty, even over political philosophy. 60% of voters in the American 2016 Presidential election voted for a candidate other than Trump. That's a practically unprecedented rejection. Given a turnout below 60%, Trump received the vote of less than 25% of eligible voters. Yet Trump won. Why? Because Americans failed to understand the dangers of a Trump Presidency, underestimated the chances of a Trump victory, and so either stayed at home or voted for a candidate that had no chance of winning. Americans have no basis for pride in their electoral system given that result.

The second takeaway is that the Republican and the Democrat establishments had better keep their eyes open. The Tea Party movement has pulled the Republican Party far to the right. Progressives are similarly convinced that Democrats should move further left. Take heed. A new centrist party in France, less than two years old, swept into power on an irresistible wave fueled by contempt for a corrupt and unresponsive establishment and a desire for a centrist government. If it's true that the majority of Americans are centrist, the two major American political parties are moving in a way that invites a third party to fill the vacuum.

It couldn't happen in America, though. Right?

En Marche!

OPEN LETTER TO MY FELLOW DEMOCRATS

Dear Democrats,

Having moved to France a couple of years ago, I have had the benefit of following the recent Presidential election at arm’s length – no television news, no mailings, no robocalls. Just internet sites like Flipboard that allowed me to pick and choose between such sources as NPR, Fox, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, AP, CNN, and such. I’m invested, though. I voted.

Here’s what I think, free of charge and worth every penny.

Progressives are now on the march. Trump is not their President. Well, I beg to differ. Trump is indeed their President, and mine too, just as Obama was the President of the Trump voters who so despised him. It is our job now to hold Trump’s feet to the fire with the same intensity that has led to Obama being criticized relentlessly from both ends of the political spectrum.

Never in my political life spanning over 60 years have I witnessed a torrent of obvious lies spoken by Presidential candidates and accepted by their devotees equivalent to the lies spoken almost daily by all four of the major party candidates. I include the Bobbsey Twins because there were those, as few as they were, who actually voted Green or Libertarian as though either of those clueless twerps represented an alternative. I don’t know if those votes affected the outcome of the election. As we all now understand, polls only have value to the elegantly coifed men and women who read the news or opine about the horse race without any connection to electoral reality. But the idea that voting for either Stein or Johnson was acceptable, either as a protest or because they deserved serious consideration for the Presidency, is ludicrous. I have in the past, when confronted with unacceptable choices, written in Sandy Koufax, a man of unquestioned character, unquestioned talent, and an aversion to the limelight. Can anyone say the same for Stein or Johnson?

Progressives in the Democratic Party are now complaining that Bernie was the better candidate and would have won the Presidency had not the DNC favored Hillary. To that argument, one never to be resolved, I would offer three points.

First, suppose that you are a lifelong member of a club. You work hard, invest time and money. Then one day, a man who for decades had every opportunity to join the club, but who refused to do so, suddenly enrolls for the sole purpose of becoming the leader of the club. His opposition for leadership is a long-time, committed member. How could anyone expect the membership of that club not to have an obvious preference between the two? It’s simply childish to suppose otherwise. We are talking politics here. And politics ain’t beanbag.

Secondly, having spent the entire primary season trashing Hillary and the DNC mercilessly, Progressives have argued that Hillary was a flawed candidate. Their vitriol lasted throughout the primaries and general election campaign. Could their constant, vicious attacks have had a bearing on the manner in which Hillary was viewed by those observing the carnage from the outside? I would certainly think so. For those on the fence, the rancor demonstrated by people purporting to be members of her own party even after the primaries were over had to have been a consideration.

Finally, marching is bullshite. Petitioning is bullshite. Only voting in an election counts. Man up. And if that phrase is too sexist for you, tough patooties. Man up.

Moving forward, we need to be asking several questions, with one voice, loudly and with conviction.

Has a wall been built along our southern border? Has Mexico paid for it? Have 11,000,000 illegals been deported? Has Trump deported even as many people as Obama has? How many Muslims are on the new national registry? (These aren’t my priorities at all but they were campaign centerpieces.)

On November 8, 2008, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at 930.99. On November 8, 2016, it closed at 2,139.56, worth 130% more. That’s Obama’s record. How do the markets compare under a Trump administration?

In January, 2009, when Obama took office, the unemployment rate was 7.8%. In October, 2016, (most recent available numbers) the rate is 4.9%, a decrease of about 60%. That’s Obama’s record. How does unemployment compare under a Trump administration? (It’s true that the workforce participation rate declined from 65.7% to 62.8% during the same period. We’ll track that too.)

Of interest to an expat like me is the strength of the dollar, the exchange rate against the euro. On January 1, 2009, it cost $1.40 to buy a euro. On election day, I could buy a euro for $1.09, meaning that the dollar is 30% stronger against the euro since Obama took office. That’s Obama’s record. Let’s see if Trump’s dollar fares as well.

There are other indicators that we could use – decline in the deficit, inflation near zero, exports up. But let’s focus on just a few, easily determined, generally accepted statistics.

Let’s hold Trump and the Republicans in Congress accountable. If we have lost because the electorate has been pulled to the right, let’s start pulling back from the left. Let’s demonstrate why the better educated electorate votes Democratic. Let’s learn.

Affectionately,

Ira

#NeverMind: BREXIT REVISITED

The International Olympic Committee has announced that, beginning in Rio, the winner of each event will still be awarded a gold medal but only the flag of the second place finisher's country will be displayed and only the national anthem of the third place finisher will be played. The only person/team allowed on the podium will be the last place finisher.

"We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," said IOC Chairman Phineas Bluster. "It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game."

It all started with a peewee soccer league in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Jonah Rainbow's mother Persephone was so distraught at the sight of Jonah's tears after a last second goal cost Jonah's team the league championship that she ordered a set of trophies exactly the same as those presented to the league champions, invited all of her son's teammates to a barbecue, and held a presentation ceremony in her back yard. Everybody got a trophy.

The movement grew when the Democratic Party agreed to change its name to the Democratic Socialist Party in order to appease Bernie Sanders' supporters. And #EverybodyGetsATrophy went international when newly elected British Prime Minister Sissy Brightly Tweeted #NeverMind when asked about the Brexit. "Did you see all of those young people marching in London? I just couldn't disappoint all of those poor kids who were too busy to vote in the referendum. #NeverMind. We'll stay in Europe."

A reporter asked her about all of her rural constituents who voted Leave. "Have they marched yet? You get points for marching, don't you?"

I AM A REGISTERED DEMOCRAT BECAUSE...

...because my party believes in civil rights and LGBT rights.

...because my party believes in equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work.

...because my party believes that it takes government oversight to ensure that we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, food that is safe to eat, and safe workplace conditions.

...because my party believes that the economic playing field should be fair, that strong unions have made life better in this country, that people and businesses that earn more should pay more, that welfare should not be a reward for the rich but a safety net to the poor.

...because my party believes that together we can help each other recover from natural disasters and that together we can better understand and react to our changing climate.

...because my party believes that everyone who is eligible has the right to vote free from hindrance.

I am a registered Democrat because I join with others who believe the same. I want the candidates of my party and those who choose those candidates with me to believe the same. I have no quarrel with those who choose to register as Independent or Republican. They have their reasons. But without making a commitment to my party's principles, a commitment that is real, timely, and not the result of the exigencies of the moment, they have no place in determining the standard bearers of my party. That privilege belongs to its members, those who have made that commitment alongside me.

There are those who say that there is no difference between the political parties. And I can agree that there is too much money buying access in politics, too much lobbying in Washington, and too much deference paid to those who fund campaigns. But can you see the difference between Bader Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor as opposed to Roberts, Thomas, and Alito? If you can, then you know that there is a difference.

I am a registered Democrat.

HANDICAPPING THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - OCTOBER 2015

DEMOCRATS

That's Lincoln Chaffee pictured on the left. Nice guy. Smart guy. Not going to happen. But he takes a nice picture.

Last month, I gave Hillary one more month at the head of the field. After the first debate, she stays there. Not that Bernie didn't do well. But he still has that accent from the Northeast. He's still a Socialist. And he's still Jewish. In a country that has just elected a black Muslim from Kenya twice, Bernie's electability has to be considered, whether that word makes you gag or not.

Last month's new wildcard, Joe Biden, remains in place but he's fading fast. Clinton avoided a major stumble in the debate. Joe's window is closing.

October, 2015
Favorite: Hillary Clinton
Long Shot: Bernie Sanders
Wild Card: Joe Biden
Prediction: Hillary Clinton

July, 2015
Favorite: Hillary Clinton
Long Shot: Bernie Sanders
Wild Card: Elizabeth Warren
Prediction: Hillary Clinton

REPUBLICANS
Scott Walker is gone. Flamed out. I'm not sure why. It happened a bit too quickly. I'll put on my tinfoil hat and see if I can't pick up some vibes. It's hard for me to believe that, like Boehner, his party found Walker wanting as a conservative. But even fervent followers of the predictions of Nostradamus would have difficulty finding meaning in the Republican maelstrom this cycle. And Rubio is now one of the reasonable ones?

One other change from last month. Dr. Ben has donned the Christian mantle that I thought would belong to Santorum and has instead devolved to Huckabee. I'm throwing him into the mix. Reluctantly, but he polls well. Trump? His 20% - 25% is solid but won't increase and ain't enough. Bush? He's all upside and still...STILL...has the name and the money.

October, 2015
Favorite: Jeb Bush
Long Shot: Mike Huckabee / Ben Carson
Wild Card: Kasich and Rubio Lead the Pack 
Prediction: Jeb Bush

July, 2015
Favorite: Jeb Bush
Long Shot: Rick Santorum / Mike Huckabee
Wild Card: Any Current/Former Republican Governor/Senator Not Named Christie or Perry
Prediction: Jeb Bush

THE SUN REVOLVES AROUND THE EARTH AND OBAMA IS A MUSLIM: WHY AMERICANS ARE IDIOTS

In 1999, 18% of Americans polled said that the Sun revolved around Earth. In 2012, 29% of Americans believed that cloud computing involved real clouds. Are we really all idiots? Read more on the Political Page.