Election Day in the United States

We don't get the day off today to vote, but most of us take time to do it, even if it means we lose our lunch hours or miss an hour at the gym, or make it home late to supper. We don't always have the best choices on the ballot: but for that we can only blame ourselves. Still, with our mother country, Great Britain, we invented the right of self determination by a nation of the enfranchised who limit their government by their own choice.

It isn't a perfect system by any means. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is always subject to the corruption of some--Senator Ted Stevens of Alaksa comes to mind at present, but there have been others. As with cops and apples, there will always be a few that rot. And we have nets that often catch them, and then out they go.

Each election we make a transition to new leadership and we do it peacefully without soldiers, without coups, without deadly plots, without real rancor. We may not like the person who wins the day, but we know we can vote the rascal out on the next go 'round.

And then we go back to work.

There were a lot of promises made during this election. But the real promise of America is not what our government says it will give to us. It is in those moving words of our Declaration of Independence, penned by the genius of Thomas Jefferson:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

In most parts of the world today, these are still revolutionary concepts. Government not designed to be our mother and father, but to be our instrument. America does not promise each of us wealth and happiness. It promises us the opportunity to seek them. The concept must be popular. Else why do so many, critical always of us as too rich, too big, too materialistic--why do so many seek to come here?

Like my great grandfather Jan VerWolf of Holland, they come seeking opportunities that are not open to them at home. Some succeed. Some fail. All are Americans.

That's why we vote today.

Election Week Dreaming

We have never had an election in American history the pulse of which has been taken so frequently by so many. It’s like having a one-year-long pre-race coverage for the Kentucky Derby. Every slurp of water, whinny, training trot, cool down, and every bag of oats has been covered ad nauseum . The coverage has in fact worked to reduce the meaning of the vote Election Day to the most boring horse race in history. As Jay Leno put it on Friday: “Oh great. On Sunday we set the clocks back and get one more hour of this election."

It is hard to imagine that there really was a time when Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln felt it would undignified to campaign for himself and so relied almost entirely upon surrogates speaking for him.

Gallup has been doing a daily tracking poll. All the major networks have commissioned polls and CNN does a “poll of polls.” The bottom line is that Republican candidate John McCain has led in none of them. Thus, if the polls are accurate, and there are so many of them it would be an incredible anomaly if they were not, the election for President it all but over.

It doesn’t leave much for a conservative to cheer about. You find yourself going back over the “if only”s the way you do when a marriage has gone bad or when, for example, the Titanic went down. “If only the ship had been traveling more slowly.” “If only the men in the crow’s nest had seen the iceberg sooner.” “If only the radioman on the California hadn’t gone to bed early.”

So now the “if only”s go like this for me:

If only we hadn’t had an incumbent Republican President who spoke English as if it were a second language.

If only Jeb had run for President instead.

If only the economy hadn’t tanked thirty days before Election Day.

If only W hadn’t waited so long to fire Rummy.

If only Hillary had won the Democratic nomination—she was so unpleasant even McCain could have could beat her.

If only everybody in the media weren’t rooting for Barak Obama.

If only Dick Cheney didn’t remind so many people of Darth Vader.

If only Sarah Palin had turned out to be a little less perky and a lot more intelligent.

If only the John McCain we met in the primaries had appeared during the general election.

If only McCain had won the nomination in Y2K instead of now.

If only Carl Rove had gone missing in a flight over the North Pole.

If only someone had actually done a real investigation of ACORN.

If only the SEC had actually regulated the securities business as it was supposed to.

If only Arizona had the population of New York.

If only John McCain were part Kenyan.

But reality being what it is, conservatives will be forced to suffer through the endless recriminations of Tuesday night and Wednesday. Fortunately, I’m going to be too busy to watch all that on the Morning After. My termite guy is coming to find out if my house is about to fall in.

Experience and Leadership: What Does it Mean?

We’re about to elect one of the least experienced candidates in American history to be our leader in these troubled times. Does it matter? History tells us the answer is yes, and no.
You would have to go back to Abraham Lincoln to find a presidential candidate in the U.S. with as little experience as Barak Obama. When Lincoln was elected to serve as U.S. President in 1860 he had served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, and just one two-year term in the U.S. Congress. But Lincoln had also run his own businesses—first as the owner of a store (something he wasn’t very good at, by his own admission) and then as a lawyer. He had served as a captain in the Illinois state militia, a position which, at that time, meant election by the men he commanded. He was 51 years of age when he became president.


Who could have predicted that Lincoln would have been such a great leader? People who knew him, liked him and saw him as a principled man. But in the age before television and YouTube this was a very small group of people. He was a great reader and a great story teller. He was one of the first leaders in Illinois to publically speak against slavery. In 1860, many of the wheeler-dealers in his party could see the conflict with the South on the horizon and wanted no part of the presidency. Lincoln, whom they saw as bumpkin, was nominated, in part, because no one in the know really wanted the job. Nothing in his past could have foretold what a transcendent leader he was to become during the single worst period in American history. In reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about Lincoln, Team of Rivals, I was repeatedly struck by the nuance of his political thinking, in addition to all the usual qualities we associate with Lincoln: wisdom, compassion, folksy charm, and self-sacrifice. The leadership Lincoln rose to might have been predicted by his friends; but how could voters have imagined it?

By contrast, Winston Churchill spent his entire life preparing for the most important role he was to play on the world stage: Prime Minister of Britain during World War II. He graduated from Sandhurst, Britain’s foremost military academy, in the top ten of his class. He served with distinction in India, the Sudan, and South Africa before being elected to parliament at the age of 26. In various governments over half a century he served as Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, Minister of Munitions, and Lord of the Admiralty. He also served as an officer in the trenches of the Western Front in World War I. He wrote dozens of books, served as a war correspondent, was captured by the Boers in South Africa, escaped, and traveled 300 miles to freedom. “I’m Winston bloody Churchill, and I’m free!” he famously shouted on as he crossed into Portuguese-African territory. He was the grandson of the Duke of Marlborough and though his skeptical grandmother called him “that upstart, Winston Churchill,” his leadership skills were not a surprise to anyone.

Ronald Reagan’s experience is the subject of much discussion. The fact that he spent the early part of his life as a movie actor caused a great deal of laughter among the inside-the-beltway crowd in Washington. But what he had done in Hollywood was to rise to the top of a profession to which millions aspire and only a rare few achieve. He served as president of the Screen-Actors-Guild, one of the largest unions in the world. He served in the military during World War II. And, he had executive experience: he served two terms as governor of California, a state so large and so fertile it has the fifth largest GNP in the world. It is true his only foreign policy experience came from his knowledge of California’s role as a world class exporter of goods and services. But, as we learned when his handwritten speeches were published after his death, he had been a student of foreign affairs all his adult life.

Reagan, like all great leaders, was a creative thinker. When offered two bad choices in the war games of his day—concede to Soviet aggression or commit to the philosophy of “mutually assured destruction” (known as MAD) in a nuclear war—Reagan imagined a third solution, a missile shield that could protect the U.S. from just such a holocaust. Once again, the non-creative thinkers in Washington derided his idea and called it “Star Wars.” Missiles that intercept missiles are in use today, most famously in Israel, where the American technology is much applauded.

At 47, Barak Obama is the youngest and least experienced of all of the leaders I’ve sited here. He has served three terms in the Illinois senate and part of a term in the U.S. Senate. He has never run his own business nor served in the military. We have no idea what kind of a leader he will be. He might be a bad leader. He might be a good one. We know next to nothing about his leadership abilities. Yet this is not so terribly unusual. There is no real experience that can prepare a person to become President of the United States. Since it appears he is going to get elected we can only hope and pray he’ll be good at his job. The peace and safety of the world depends upon it.

Vote Early and Often: Or Just Early?

The line at this early voting location in Central Florida, the Winter Park Public Library, stretched half way around the building when I stopped by today.

I’ve always been a little concerned about early voting in presidential elections. Maybe I’m superstitious, but I have long believed that a voter should wait and make sure nothing untoward takes place in the days before Election Day that might impact his vote. That’s why they call it Election Day. The vote for president, it seems to me, should be a snapshot of how voters across the nation feel about each candidate on a specific day in November, not how they view candidates during that month or that season.

The news today gives me an example I can use to illustrate what I mean. Until today the big news in America has been the economy, and surveys show this has been the issue most voters have been using to make their choice for president. But today, another big story has been in the news: an attack by U.S. Special Operations inside the borders of Syria, an effort to neutralize what the military calls a “rat line” of Al Qaeda terrorists moving back and forth between Syria and Iraq. Syria is a major player in the Middle East: it holds de facto power in Lebanon, and is one of Israel’s best-armed enemies. What happens in Syria has an enormous impact on what happens in the Middle East and since the bulk of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East, what happens there has an enormous impact on what happens in the world. We don’t know if this incident will grow beyond the borders of Syria, but in the next few days, it is possible.

Voters who have already cast their votes for president, based on the candidate’s views on the economy, might have made a different choice if the peace of the world were at stake.

The U.S. Constitution indicates that the presidential election should take place on one day. In Article II, Section I it states: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.” You could argue that this article refers only to the vote of the Electors and that it devolves to the states to decide when and how those Electors are chosen. But if you look at the intent of the Constitution, it is clear that they expect the election to take place in one day.

In addition, early voting was designed to reduce the long lines voters often see on Election Day in presidential years. But the way early voting is organized, with smaller staffs and fewer places to vote, early voters often have to wait in line anyway. So, factoring out my hesitation about its legality and efficacy, early voting doesn't even accomplish its stated goal.

However, I really need to stop worrying about things like this. When Barak Obama is President he has promised to take care of everything for me. He’s going to find me a job, give me my health care and cut my taxes—unless I make zillions of dollars, which at present seems highly unlikely, especially if I continue to write for a living. So, I’m sure he’ll fix this early voting thing too. I have always believed all the promises of politicians.

The Economic Crisis Deepens: It Makes Me Think of Guys and Dolls and Broadcast News and Thomas Jefferson

The grownups wheeled George W. Bush out again this morning in another attempt to calm the markets, which ignored him as usual and went right on tanking. In fact, since Congress passed the economic “rescue” bill, proposed by the White House, the Dow Jones Industrial average has dropped more than a thousand points. Apparently I’m not the only person in whom our chief executive does not inspire confidence.


What awful luck that America should be going through this at the same time we are having a presidential election. In Britain, where an election for Prime Minister takes no more than a month, the country can turn quickly from a bad leader to an excellent one with very little fuss. When World War II began, the appeaser Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister. Eight months later without missing a step, Chamberlain resigned and the great Winston Churchill stepped in to lead the nation.

Our system is such that we can’t go back and re-examine the candidates we’ve rejected over the past primary season to find someone who might be a better fit for the crisis at hand. What we’re left with are two people who have zero economic leadership credentials and who both seem to believe that the insertion of government into the market is the best way to keep Americans from financial panic. Where will all this money come from for bailouts and FDIC insurance and mortgage rescues?

John McCain is beginning to remind me of Nathan Detroit in the musical Guys and Dolls, always promising marriage to his “fiancé” poor Adelaide and never following through. I don’t know if McCain really does intend to help out individual homeowners by inserting the government between the homeowner in default and his bank, but to me, that seems implausible. So, like Adelaide, in Guys and Dolls, I sing:

You promise me this, you promise me that
You promise me anything under the sun
Then you give me a kiss,
And you're grabbing your hat
And you're off to the races again
When I think of the time gone by
When I think of the way I cry
I could honestly die.”
(”Sue Me” from Guys and Dolls, 1955, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser)

Our other candidate,Obama, is a cipher to me. So smooth, so slick, and no completely unknowable. The only thing we do know about him is that he picks some really creepy friends, from his minister who thought America should be hit again harder after September 11, 2001, to Bill Ayers, his pal who was a fugitive from the feds for bombing the pentagon and the capitol and who said in the book he wrote after he surrendered, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” You can tell a lot from the friends a man chooses.

Our choice then, on one hand, is John “Nathan Detroit” McCain and on the other is a guy who reminds me of the speech Albert Brooks’ gives in the movie Broadcast News. In it he is speaking about a shallow anchorman who has stolen his girl, but it could be about anybody who looks good on the outside and who is something else underneath:

“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I’m semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing . . . he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance . . . Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. . . . And he’ll get all the great women.” (From the film Broadcast News)

I’m disillusioned by this campaign with all its pandering and promises and by its angry tone and lack of real passion for the spirit of America. I’m concerned because it is just at times like this that a country can turn to a really dangerous leader, one who speaks one agenda but holds secretly to another. We have to worry about that, because we are in troubled times. I mean things must be tough. The Mass Mutual Financial Group is using Donavan's "Try and Catch the Wind" in a recent advertisement. My sentiments exactly.

This economic crisis has shed light on the fact that our congress is bogged down in corruption and has betrayed those of us who entrusted our beloved country to its care. Our president, too, has let us down by his negligence and his arrogance, and apparent lack of an iota of common sense. I dislike being a pessimist because I believe the best leaders are optimists with brains like, FDR, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, all of whom had uplifting visions of their nations and led the people to raise their own view of what was possible. Still it is a tough time for us right now. So today, just for today, I can agree with Thomas Jefferson when he said so long ago: "I weep for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

The War in Iraq and Afghanistan

Our Morale Needs a Moral: A Task for the New President

For the third time in several years a member of my family is serving in harm’s way in the Middle East. More than 1.5 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan
since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center. What this means is that I’m pretty much like everybody else in America. We all know someone in our family or neighborhood who has put his or her life on the line in this war on terror.


But something is missing. I keep asking myself what I can do. I’m not a soldier, I’m a civilian and I want to be a part of the fight too. I look around me and I see my friends and neighbors driving their SUVs to the grocery store, getting fat eating pizza and burgers, debating the war with one another, blabbing on television about the presidential candidates, and generally acting as if nothing at all is going on out there. Acting as if our sons and daughters in uniform aren’t dying. I’m just as guilty of this. It calls to mind a prayer Eleanor Roosevelt said she carried with her during World War II:

Dear Lord
Lest I continue
My complacent way
Help me to remember
Somewhere out there
A man died for me today
--As long as there be war
I then must
Ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?

For obvious reasons I don’t identify my relative who is serving in Afghanistan except by the nickname “Lt. Dana.” She sent me the following email recently. I read it as I had just returned from shopping.

"Today we finally have a break in our op tempo. We need it. We lost two more of our own this past week. The most difficult aspect of that for me (because my interaction with the operators is minimal, I usually know of them, but don't know them well personally) is going to the ceremonies and watching grown tough men - the toughest, breaking down and crying, or standing there and trying not to. It is upsetting and infuriating."

After 9/11 we saw how deep was the reservoir of American patriotism. The next president must do two things if we are to successfully pursue this war on terror. He must tap into this reservoir and give us a clear reminder of why we fight. And he must show us all what we can do to help. For the morale of all of us we need a moral reason to go on and for the morale of all of us we need to know that this fight is so important it can’t go on without the help of the American people.

Winston Churchill did this so well. In 1940, when the French threw up their hands and let Hitler walk into Paris, Churchill told the world; “We shall fight on forever and ever and ever …” He used a wonderful word in describing Hitler: he called him “wicked” and in so doing was not only correct in his assessment, made it clear what England was fighting against. “Hitler is a monster of wickedness,” he said. “Insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder.” Then, he took it a step further and told the world what England was fighting for.

"The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move in the world … we learn that we are spirits not animals, and that something is going on in space and time and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

I was talking with a friend of mine last year when he was in town from New York. He was rabid in his anti-war sentiment and said to me: “This is Bush’s war!” No, I said to him it isn’t. Because George W. Bush, for good or for ill, is not the president of only those who like him. He’s the president of the United States, and the soldiers fighting are soldiers of the United States. And in that moment I realized that this young man had not yet heard a reason to embrace the cause of fighting these fanatics who would be the first to eliminate him for having the independence of mind to disagree with the leaders of his country.

I don’t know if we’re fighting terror in the right place or not. But I know these extremists are out there and have to be fought either on their home ground or on ours. I know they hate me because as an American woman I can drive and vote and go to restaurants. I know they hate my country because of the very tolerance and freedom of choice we have to debate the conduct of our nation’s war on terror. I hope the next president, whoever he or she is, will find a way to lead us all to a clear understanding—or reminder, if the tapes from 9/11 aren’t enough anymore—of who we are fighting and why we are fighting them. And then ask us all for some kind of sacrifice to help out, whether it’s walking to work once a week or car pooling or buying war bonds or donating time to our USO. Please ask us all for something, because the sacrifice of our troops is so great we need to believe in our hearts that we are worth dying for.