We are Back

After a long hiatus we are back to posting again with even more reasons why we are cutting and running from the Republican Party. Stay tuned.

Back after a long layoff during which I kept hoping that my Republican Party would regain its sanity. Yet it contines to regress. This blog will now be devoted to ideas and thoughts about ways to restore sanity to the party before it becomes extinct.

READING LIST

The following books have been completed or are in progress over the Holidays. The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter, The Good Physician by Kent Harrington, Daydream Believers by Fred Kaplan, The Forever War by Dexter Filkins and The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I am about to tackle Change for America edited by Mark Green and Michelle Jolin and for fiction I am reading The Gate House by Nelson DeMille

End of a good week

Friday, a good day for the transition team, a meeting with a very impressive set of economic advisors and then an impressive press conference--how nice it is to see intelligence and honesty in a press conference. No he, appropriately, didn't answer all of the questions, but he didn't lie or bs. What a change. Only one slip up on the attempt at humor re Nancy Regan. Oh well nobody is perfect. While the stock market vacilated up and down during the press conference it ended the day up 248. I think that it will take off on Monday.

What to do about Lieberman?

I hate to say it, since all of my instincts are that Joe Lieberman should be tossed out of the Democratic caucus by the Senate. However, I learned during this campaign that we need "to to disagree without being disagreeable." Despite Lieberman's 180 degree turn today when sugar would melt in his mouth as he praised Barack Obama. I think that, on balance Senator Lieberman should maintain his seniority in the Democratic caucus in the expectation that he will, on most matters, oppose the inevitable filibusters which will seek to stall the Obama program.

75 days to go and things will get better. On terrible economic news, the Dow plunged 443 today on top of 486 yesterday. Better to hit bottom before rather than after Barack takes over. On the international front Russia is saber rattling. What a welcome for the President-elect. I am just waiting for the Obama rally in the stock market which will start once everybody realizes that things are different and this is a new day. So far no missteps by Barack. He will exceed expectations.

Thoughts on the day after

76 days to go, the transition team is not only named, but apparently up and running (as it has been quitly for months). The first appointment--Rahm Emaanuel as chief of staff is a good one, but a loss for the Congress. I was hoping that he would supplant Nancy. Oh well.

With 4 Senate races undecided and several House seats still up for grabs today marks the official beginning of the 2010 Election season. 1/3 of the Senate and a ton of governors are up for election and control of statehouses is essential with reapportionment coming based upon the 2010 census.

The fight about countrol of the Republican Party is always as is the debate as to what it means to be a "real Republican." Apparently a relative of those "real Americans" that we heard about during the campaign. Apparently a meeting is taking place tomorrow to determine the direction of conservatism in the United States. I think that all they have to do is what I did the other day by pulling out and reading my autographed copy of Conscience of a Conservative. My father was given the book by Barry Goldwater who I had originally had met at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel and I couldn't help comparing John McCain and Barry Goldwater. Both were Senators from Arizona,soundly defeated in their quest for the Presidency but Barry Goldwater preserved his dignity and reputation. John McCain compromized his honor by selling out to the religous right and the neocons. The Republican party must return to its Goldwater roots.

YES

YES--YES WE CAN

Waiting for Results and Tomorrow

My predictions before any results are in are Obama with over 350 electoral with a margin of 54-46%. The Democrats to pick up 8 seats in the Senate, but they will lose Lieberman to the Republican. In the house the Democrats will pick up over 30 seats. I pray that I am right in predicting the above because our country cannot stand a McCain victory.

I am convinced that Barack will govern to the center and attempt to unify the country and reduce the extreme partisanship which has too long dominated our political scene. As I write this I am still hearing hate advertisements from the Republicans on CNN and reports of Republican Robo calls. There has to be a better way. I hope that I can get my Republican party back, but the chances do not look good.

Even before the votes are in it is apparent that tomorrow we will be starting a critical period in our history. We have 77 days for the transition when we will get an idea as to how our next President will govern. Whoever wins, the Republican Party has been torn apart and the battle for control of the party will be vicious. Likewise there will be a battle between the far left and centrists of the Democratic Party.

TOMORROW THE 2010 ELECTION CAMPAIGN STARTS along with a battle for control of the Republican Party. However, the first news is good. The Dow Jones rose 305 points in anticipation of an Obama victory. For the record on election day the Dow is at 9,625; NASDEQ 1780 and S%P at 1,005.

History and My Grandchildren--Race

Memories that will be foreign to my grandchildren thanks to Barack Obama.

My first stark memory of blacks in America was in the 1940's when my parents drove from our home in the suburbs of Chicago to Florida and I was exposed to "colored" rest rooms, drinking fountains and the 'rear of the bus". There were no blacks living in our communities--Wilmette, Kenilworth and Winnetka and of course none in my grade school. My exposure to blacks other than in reading Tom Sawyer and other books by Mark Twain,were Joe Lewis and Jackie Robinson.

As I progressed to high school and Stanford in the 1950s was much the same. We did have one black on our high school football team and I do remember playing and beating Morton High School with him the week after there was a riot in Cicero when a black family attempted to move into the area. I had one black friend at Stanford who came from the Chicago area who. I believe, was the first black to play football Stanford and live in a fraternity house at Stanford, but blacks were few and far between on campus. In the 50s most of my generation was apthetic on questions of race relations.

Things were no better when I was commissioned in the Navy. The only blacks that a recall serving on our destroyer were mess cooks and I do not recall any black officers. After the Navy, I attended the University of Chicago Law School which was situated in the midst of a black area on the South Side of Chicago, but I recall no blacks in my law school class which graduated in 1964, nor in the large, liberal orientated lawfirm which I joined in Chicago.

Probably the most significant day in terms of my personal awareness of problems of racial relations other than what I read in the newspapers and on television, was April 4, 1968. I was working on the defense of a criminal antitrust case in Detroit and when I finished summarizing the day's transcript at 11:00 I went out for a drink in a bar near the hotel which we had frequented for months during the trial. I had several drinks and noticed that the atmosphere was not as friendly as usual among the black patrons of the bar--in fact I was the only white there. When I left, as I was walking down the street, I was scooped by two officers who threw me into their car and asked "what I was doing on the streets." It was then that I learned of the assissination of Martin Luther King. (As an aside, 6 months earlier I had restrained an elderly co-council outside a New York restraunt who was attempting to punch Dr King in the nose because he had dinner with a white woman.) As I sat in my hotel for days under martial law as Detroit burned it became apparent that something had to be done about race relations in the United States, but I never dreamed that a black could run for the highest office in the land.

It has been a long time since that night in 1968 and progress has been too slow. As we all know prejudice still exists, particularly in my generation and in certain parts of the country which will remain nameless (It may be that these areas will self identify themselves in the analysis of today's election results). I can only hope that there no longer is a Bradley effect.

However, with the nomination of Barack Obama by the Democratic Party after wining a contentious primary against the Clintons, and after today's election I believe that we have moved to a new era. The candidacy of Barack Obama is not "affirmative action"--he earned it. The long sought goal of a "color blind" society and Constitution appears to be drawing neigh.

Today, because of the candidacy of Barack Obama our country is a better place and today is a historic day when all citizens can vote for a black as President of the United States. The only way this can get better is if he wins. But as I said at the outset the greater significance is that my grandchildren will never experience the prejudice, based upon race, that was a part of my youth. THere are plenty of other prejudices that they will have to deal with and overcome, but hopefully, they will never encounter prejudice based upon the color of a man or woman's skin.

Red State, Blue State

Dear Red States,

If you manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenues, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico

Peace out,

Blue States