Don't Throw Away Your Teeth

The 94-year-old woman was frustrated with her new dentures. They irritated her gums, despite repeated visits to the dentist who kept telling her to give it time and she would get used to them. She complained to her friend she wanted to just throw her dentures in the garbage and eat soft foods. He told her, “Don't throw away your teeth.” He said he had the same problem when he got new dentures, but reassured her that he did eventually get used to them.

Throughout our lives we trade advice and encouragement with friends. “Dump him, he's not right for you.” “Don't worry, you'll get a new job that's even better.” “It isn't a big deal, kids grow out of these things.” “I know you miss her after all these years, but time will make things easier.”

Coming from people we know and love, these simple platitudes help us get over the little bumps in the road and through the most profound losses. They are just words, but they make a huge difference.

Sometimes we need more than words, more than a hug, more than a gift basket. That is what Mitt Romney doesn't seem to understand. His gesture of packing canned food to ship to areas hit by hurricane Sandy, and his running mate Paul Ryan's photo op helping at a soup kitchen, were supposed to show their deep concern for people in need. Instead, they were powerful symbols showing how far from reality current Republican attitudes towards social responsibility are.

Damage from the hurricane will run into the billions of dollars. Millions of people need power, water, debris removal, rebuilding, transportation, medical care, and more. The effort will require many thousands of people and many billions of dollars over a period of months, and even with all that, people will suffer losses. The notion that a shipment of canned food or a serving of soup is all that is needed is astounding, and yet that is the essence of the Republican party's call to eliminate what they label as entitlement programs for what Romney called the 47 percent whom he said “are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” Today, the people who think they are victims and that government has a responsibility to care for them includes nearly 100% of the people in New York and surrounding areas.

Just as ridiculous is the Republican philosophy that people can get by without government assistance because private charity will get the job done. Last year, the American Red Cross spent $283 million helping victims of nearly 70,000 natural disasters in the US, including drought, tornadoes, and floods. The same type of disasters occur every year. There is no way the Red Cross or all other charities put together will be able to help nearly as many victims of hurricane Sandy as the government will help. And yet Romney and his party pretend that miracles will happen and the multitude will be fed with a few loaves.

If we abolish FEMA and eliminate government assistance as Romney suggests, we will be turning natural disasters into human catastrophes. If we continue to deny the influence of man-made climate change, as the Republican platform proposes, we will have more natural disasters with more severe consequences.

There are things we can do as individuals, other things we can do through philanthropic institutions, and still other things we can only do as a nation with the assistance of our government. Right now, the most important thing all of us can do to help the victims of hurricane Sandy and victims of disasters still to come is to not vote for Republicans.

Confessions of an Undecided Voter

Sometimes it's easy to decide who to vote for. Elaine Nekritz and Julie Morrison have my support. They are both good people with strong credentials and records, I generally agree with their views, and their opponents are both scary.

But like a lot of people, I am having trouble deciding which presidential candidate to vote for. Certainly I won't be voting for Romney. On too many issues, he appears to have no idea what he is talking about, and when he does articulate a clear policy, it is usually one that will hurt more people than it will help.

Although I tend to vote for Democrats, I am having trouble convincing myself to vote for Obama. Too often, he has turned his back on the principles he espoused and the constituencies that supported him when he was first running for office. I can't find any reason to think he will be any more courageous or effective in a second term than he was in his first.

Fortunately, Obama is making it easy for me to not support him by sending strong signals that he doesn't care whether or not I vote for him. He hasn't campaigned in Illinois where I live. He seems to assume, as do many analysts, that he will win this state without making any effort. Like any other candidate, if he doesn't think he needs me, I don't see any reason to argue with him.

There is a Green party candidate, Jill Stein, who may get my vote. I'd be shocked if she won Illinois or any other state, but maybe this is a good time to help third parties get a larger voice in our elections. Some of my Democratic friends will be upset with me if I don't back the entire ticket, but I know that a lot of them haven't been very happy with Obama either, even if they have been making apologies for him.

I can't really think of any reason not to vote Green, but still, I haven't decided for sure. The two-party system is ingrained in me. I recall Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson, and George Wallace. Parts of some of their campaigns were good for the country. Parts were irrelevant. Some of their efforts may have helped elect people who we would have been better off not electing.

It would have been nice if the media had given Stein more coverage. She could have changed the dynamic of the debates, which were pretty boring. I don't really know why the media lets the Republicans and Democrats monopolize our political life, but I don't like it.

My most difficult choices will be in races where neither the Republican nor Democratic candidates are attractive but there are no third party alternatives. I don't like to leave a ballot blank, but neither do I like being forced to choose between people who are equally unlikely to move the country in the directions I think it needs to go, and I resent that some Democratic candidates seem to assume that they will get my vote no matter what they stand for and how offensive their campaigning is.

I have heard partisans disparage people who don't make up their minds until they get into the voting booths, implying that indecision is a result of not being informed or of not having strong opinions. In my case they are wrong. I'm pretty well informed politically, and my opinions are well developed. I just don't like some of the choices I am being given.

Business Experience

When Dan Seals was running for Congress full-time, Republicans and some Democrats said he wasn't qualified because he was just trying to land a job. They said he didn't have enough business experience to serve in Congress.

When Bob Dold first ran for Congress, some Democrats gleefully turned the tables and attacked him for not having really managed his family business as he claimed. They pointed out that he was named president of his parents' pest control business just in time for the election, and that his resume showed that he was so busy working on various political staffs outside Illinois that he couldn't possibly have been the business executive that he pretended to be.

Two years later, when Ilya Sheyman ran for the Democratic nomination to run against Dold, he was attacked for being too young and not having enough business experience to know how to help the country get out of the recession. Republicans had fun joining some Democrats who were making these attacks.

Now, Bob Dold is saying that Brad Schneider doesn't really have the business experience that he claims to have. Dold and his backers say that Schneider's consulting company didn't show a profit for the past few years, and that his business credentials are therefore invalid.

The cycle is complete. A pattern has been established. Democrats and Republicans in the 10th District attack each other every election on exactly the same personal issue. Candidates are judged, among other things, on whether they are rich enough and have enough business experience. Neither Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Jesus Christ would do very well if judged by this standard. Very few people who unselfishly devote their lives to public service would.

Despite weekly exhortations from the pulpit that we should devote our lives not to the quest for wealth but to the pursuit of more significant goals, and despite sanctimonious pronouncements on MLK Day by politicians that we should judge one another by the contents of our characters, it is obvious that some politicians think the real criteria we should use to select our leaders is whether they have somehow accumulated a lot of money.

Americans used to tell each other that a person shouldn't be discouraged if they stumbled. The important thing was whether you got up, dusted yourself off, and tried again. But in the 10th District the ethos has changed. Now, it doesn't matter how determined you are. If you don't manage to make a lot of money in business, you are branded a failure in all aspects of life, and particularly unacceptable as a politician.

If government was a business, it might make sense to elect only business people to office. But government is supposed to be more than that. It is supposed to be the instrument of the will of all people. If success at business was due only to skill, it might make sense to elect only skilled business people. But success at business is due to a lot of things other than skill, including luck. If the only measure of success in business was money, we could decide who to vote for simply by looking at their bank accounts and investments. But for business people, success should also be measured by how they treat their customers, suppliers, employees, competitors, and the world.

Neither Democrats or Republicans will say that they prefer to live in a plutocracy, where the wealthy govern, rather than in a democracy, where the people rule themselves. But in the 10th District, it seems like plutocrats are what some people in both parties want.

Romney's Desperation

On the eve of the first presidential debate, with the polls showing Romney trailing and losing support, Republicans decided that their only hope of winning the election is to remind people that President Barack Obama is black and then hope for a racist reaction. They got Fox News to air a recording of Obama speaking in 2007 and to have the Fox commentators push the message that because Obama says he is concerned about the poor and minorities, he is bad for white people.

The video was nothing new. It was shown over and over by Fox during Obama's first presidential campaign. Obama responded to it, and the voters decided not to take the bait that Fox was dangling in front of them. America elected a black man.

One might think that Republicans would have something new to say this election because they can point to Obama's record as president and make their arguments. But apparently, having tried that and seen that it isn't working, Romney's supporters have decided to once again see if they can win the presidency by appealing to racists.

What does Romney have to say about this type of campaigning? So far he hasn't objected. He knows his campaign is in trouble, and he is willing to go along with whatever he is told might help. This does not prove that Romney is a racist. It just shows that he is willing to go along with the race-based strategy.

There shouldn't have been much doubt that this is how Romney would act. Way back when there were a dozen or so candidates in the Republican primaries, the insiders were always lined up on Romney's side. They weren't going to back someone who might show some independence and perhaps turn on them in the future on some issue or other. They wanted what they always want in a candidate – someone who will do what he is told.

The Republicans aren't the only ones who look for compliance above all else. That's what the Democrats were looking for, too, in 2008, which is why Obama spent his term as a senator doing little other than scratching backs. He knew that to get the Democrats to nominate him, the powerful and wealthy insiders of his party would have to be reassured that he would go along with their agenda. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that he responded to the fiscal crisis by bailing out powerful people and companies, that he hasn't prosecuted any of them for their crimes, and he hasn't done anything to reduce the concentration in the industries whose concentration helped cause the crisis. They are still too big to fail, and some of them have gotten bigger.

The most powerful dynamic in American politics, and probably all over the world, is personal relationships. The universal lubricant in politics is wealth. Powerful people use them both to perpetuate their positions. This happens not just at the presidential level, but all the way down to the local school boards and village governments. It happens in township political organizations. It happens on church and charity boards.

For the moment, Romney's rich and powerful backers are making a desperate effort to save his candidacy. But they aren't really worried. In a few weeks, regardless of which candidate wins, they will still have plenty of influence and power. And in a few weeks, the great majority of Americans will still feel shut out, which is why the racial campaigning failed against Obama in 2008 and why it will fail this time. People understand that the divide in America isn't Black against White – it is insiders and their money against everyone else. Sadly, neither major party has much to offer all the everyone elses.

Obama Dumps Dems

Obama's speech did not contain a single reference to the Democratic Party or Democrats. His website doesn't mention that he is running on the Democratic ticket. His bio says he was elected to the Illinois Senate, then the U.S. Senate, and then the Presidency, but it never mentions which party he has been affiliated with. The convention that just concluded is not referred to by his campaign as the Democratic National Convention, but instead as just the 2012 Convention. None of the t-shirts, coffee cups, bumper stickers, or other trinkets that his campaign is selling indicate which party Obama is with. From his website, you can buy merchandise proclaiming Nurses for Obama, Environmentalists for Obama, Hispanics for Obama, Latinos for Obama, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Obama, African Americans for Obama, and Babies for Obama, but there isn't a single Democrats for Obama item for sale.

It's pretty clear that Obama does not want to be identified as a Democrat. Presidential campaigns don't just accidentally forget to mention their party affiliation. The decision would have been made at the very highest level, by Obama himself.

People who have watched Obama over the years will not be surprised that he is running alone. When he ran for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, Obama positioned himself as a candidate who was beyond partisan politics. He paid very little attention to most of the other candidates who were running in the same election, putting all his effort into getting himself elected. He didn't want to be encumbered by the positions his party had taken in the past or by politicians whom he might not agree with on all issues. He didn't share the rock-star attention he was drawing to himself, and he didn't share the enormous amounts of money or volunteers he amassed.

Obama followed the same plan when he first ran for President. He was elected with the help of Democratic voters and the Democratic Party, even though he did almost nothing to help the party succeed. As a result, he had no coattails, and his election left him with a Congress that did not have the strong Democratic majority he needed. Once he was president, he turned his back on one Democratic constituency after another, angering his base.

Now, Obama is once again running on the Democratic ticket, but without any indication that he feels any obligation to his own party or even sees a value in having a Democratic Party. It would have been easy for Obama to urge at the convention that everyone work hard for the entire Democratic ticket. Presidents usually do that. But he didn't. He drew all the attention to himself. He told us what he had done during his first term, and what he was going to do during his second, as if he was the entire government and not just the head of one branch. Although he told us that the Republican message that “you are on your own” is an un-American message, that is precisely the message he was sending to nearly every Democrat who is running for Congress, Senate, governor, mayor, or sheriff, and to every Democratic party volunteer and voter. He is running for President, and the rest of us are on our own.

Obama does not seem to realize that without more Democrats in Congress, his agenda is doomed. The Republicans who opposed his policies will be no more interested in them after the election than they were before, and if there aren't more Democrats to support his policies, they will go nowhere.

Obama is a smart man, but in his zeal to promote himself he seems not to have understood what he told the nation in his big speech Thursday night, that we are all in this together. Unless he figures that out very soon and helps other Democrats get elected, he will have no more success in governing the nation during his second term than he did in his first.