Thursday, November 13, 2008

Transition and Flubs

So now the election is over and our President Elect is working with his transition team so that come January 20th he can hit the ground running. The "talking heads" on Obama's side aren't done preening (and I'm not sure I'm done either), and the loyal opposition (hopefully loyal), are dissecting what went wrong with McCain and the GOP.

Hmm..

Negative campaigning.
Not staying on message due to negative campaigning.
Breaking promise about not participating in negative campaigning.

A wife wearing a $300,000 outfit when one at $3000 would have been just fine. Put in perspective, the cost of said outfit would buy a couple modest $150,000 homes in parts of Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Belen, Bernalillo, or Rio Rancho. It would buy 25 fuel efficient Smartfortwo cars at the base price of $11,990. I'm sure other voters could come up with their own local equivalancies. It reminded us of the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots while the economy wallowed like a corracle on the Irish coast in winter.

Insulting the American public by picking a VP candidate with a severely limited worldview. I may be an idiot about some things, but at least I'm not particularly insular and have wide ranging areas of interest.

Not having a plan that was really innovative and challenging. That lack doesn't speak well for a "maverick". Sorry Mac. You want my attention, you need to get down here with us working class folks and really see what our world is like and understand we're the base. If the base is shaky and unsupported, the rest of the structure falls apart and McCain offered nothing old or new to to stabilize & secure that base.

Just another .02 in the hat.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi interesting perspective, and I like you view. One can find many shifts per say, in classes at least here in SoCal. Just today as a colleague and I toured a gallery, hundreds of protesters marched up Broadway demanding equal rights.

Also we can feel and see the difference in uppper middle class, and lower middle class to regular low blue collar peeps here.

But it is still a beautiful city to live in...

hugs and kisses.

Jormengrund said...

Winners write history, so whatever failings McCain had (there were many!) are really just bits of dust in the wind.

I'm anxious to see how well Obama does, but to be honest, I'm really not expecting much from these first four years in office.

Why? Because he's going to be spending quite a bit of time proving to everyone that he's NOT Bush, or Clinton, or Reagan, etc..

Thus, I'm guessing that he's going to try to get some things done, and hope for re-election in order to get more pressing things done later on..

We'll see!

(oh, this also goes for if McCain had won as well.. He'd be doing the same thing.. It's been a precedent EACH time a new president has been elected that I've been able to tell!)

Morgan said...

I hope you'll pardon me, jormengrund, but it seems that 'not expecting much from these first for years in office" and your reason is the kinda tired thinking that's plagued us in the US for some time now. It's jaded. Will the earth move? Probably not. But I do expect to see a good work performed and some significant reforms started that really do have an eye toward the long term well being of our country.

I could be utterly wrong, but my assessment is that Obama is secure enough that he doesn't have to worry about proving he's not Bush, Clinton, Reagan, et. al. to the American public much less the rest of the word.

Jormengrund said...

No offense taken, really.

I hope I don't offend as well when I point out that this same sentiment was given of Clinton, Reagan and Bush Sr. when they all stepped into office as well, yet their first terms were spent proving that they weren't the "other guy".

It's a sad fact, but it's been proven time and again.

It doesn't matter how secure you are in the knowledge that you can do this job.

It's about public opinion, and outward display.

I mean, come on now, if it were really about how well you ran a business, 3/4 of our presidents could then be considered MAJOR failures, because what did they leave their successor?

Public opinion, and the ability to "spin" their persona is what is now defining our people who serve in government. Sure, some bills and actions are applauded, but most of the time there is so much chaff that gets put into action to cover the real goal that folks don't understand what's going on.

I'll give you a local example:

Here in my area, there were six bills that were voted on.

Four of them got serious media attention.

Two were for the local jail, one was for schools, and one was for the library.

The other two? Only stuff for increasing the wages of the county employees and their benefits.

What ones do you think got the most attention?

It wasn't the ones about wages and benefits.

Those passed with not a single vote against.

The others? Many groups crowed about how they stopped this bill or that bill..

However, the simple truth is that the cost they averted by shooting down a public school means that they just diverted those funds into someone else's pocket.

Political spins are what is destroying this nation. As long as it seems like you're doing something, and giving the public what it thinks it needs, you're doing a GREAT job.

Cynical? Yeah.

Realistic?

Sadly, yeah.

Can you honestly tell me that this country is in a better position now than it was back in the Johnson and Carter administration?

Or are you old enough to remember it?

Sorry, political ranting here is over.

Robot Nine said...

A $300 dress would be MORE than sufficient, any more and a person would be drastically catering to an elitist mentality. The $2700 saved versus the $3000 dress could feed 90% of the people in this world for almost 7 1/2 years! Just a thought.

Morgan said...

You're right of course. But then, I've never owned a dress that cost more than $120.00, so I was reckoning $3000 as an 'elite' thing - appropriate to her wealth and station.

Morgan said...

Joremund, of course I'm old enough to remember it. I am 54 after all. I lived through it.

"Spin" is a relatively recent phenomenon, so I do actually remember a time when 'spin' was not part of the vernacular, nor a even a 'behavior' when talking or acting/reacting to politics and so on.

No, we're not better off. We've lost ground. But for the first time since Kennedy, I actually feel optimistic.