This op-ed by my friend Marshall Auerback is REALLY GOOD!!!!! I follow it with another good op-ed to bookend Auerback's.
Chuck
Phi Beta Iota: In meetings with various non-profit and non-partisan advocacy groups over the past year we have been quite stunned to observe that they are all vested in the two-party system and are afraid of electoral reform. The other bad news is that most partisans have no idea that both parties have been bought and paid for by Wall Street, they really think the trillion dollar bail-out was bad judgement rather than corruption compounded by conflicts of interest. This is very much like intelligence or acquisition reform–people are in pain and want to change, but not in enough pain to demand wholesale change.
It's About the Economy: Obama Still Doesn't Get It
By Michael Auerback
A majority of Obama voters who switched to Brown said that “Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street.” A full 95 percent said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote. Surprise, surprise, policies do matter.
But what was the President’s reaction? ABC News reported, “President Obama said today that he feels he lost a direct connection to the American people in his first year in office because he focused too heavily on policy-making.”
“If there's one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,” Obama told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview at the White House.
The arrogance and presumption of the statement is remarkable. Mr. President, the American people have core values, and they don’t encompass political cronyism and tolerance of fraud and corruption. And they go beyond mere reminders that “change takes time”.
Don't Waste Your Vote!
Why I Voted for the Republican in Massachusetts
By JOHN V. WALSH
Of course the Democratic operatives are now blaming the disconsolate and bewildered loser, Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley, for running a “poor campaign.” But in what did the poverty of her effort consist? She merely assumed that the Democratic voters and the independents here in Mass who are by and large a pretty progressive lot had nowhere else to go. They had to vote for her, and so she did not need to campaign very hard after the primary. The Democrats were mightily surprised on this score. She is not to blame, but the Democrat Party assumption that they can take progressives for granted is very much to blame for this humiliating defeat.
So Massachusetts has delivered a warning to the Democrat Party. Do not take the peace vote or the jobless vote for granted. We want peace and we want jobs and we want decent affordable health care. If you do not deliver, we will go elsewhere. We will not vote for you. We will vote the other Party in protest. Or we will stay home and vote with our butts.
