Elections are coming

The ads are on the radio and TV every day, every 15 minuets on one channel or the other. It is sickening to learn how much money is spent to get elected.
A hisorical fact: People now seek to get elected in order to enhance their own finicail standing: ie, they want to get rich from the special interst groups and not do their jobs to protect this country.
I pray that in the next 2 years we will have kicked every career politician out of office.

Well, the Congressional elections are over. The final result was no surprise to me. How do you see the situation, now. What about the old career politicians, are they still in power? I just read the following assessment in my "Old European" ;) political magazine.

"The Democrats suffered a debacle at the polls in the US on Tuesday -- and President Barack Obama is to blame. Once celebrated as a great communicator, the president has lost touch with the mood in his country. Now, he must re-invent himself. But can he succeed?

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama will be leaving Washington behind. He is embarking on a trip to Asia, including a stop in Indonesia. The flight is a long one -- almost an entire day. But Obama lived for a time in Indonesia as a child, and the feeling of being at home is something the president could use these days.

After the Congressional elections on Tuesday, it is certainly not a feeling he can enjoy in the US. The president can analyze the results all he wants, the dramatic losses his Democrats experienced at the polls and the loss of control of the House of Representatives. But he is unlikely to find a simple answer to the question as to how he should proceed.

To the right he is confronted by the stark hatred of the Tea Party movement. In the political center, voters abandoned Obama in droves. And on the left there are complaints that instead of Mr. Change, Obama has turned into Mr. Weakling. Young voters and African Americans are, of course, still behind Obama, but many of them didn't even bother to cast their ballots on Tuesday.

The debacle, the largest loss of seats for the president's party in more than half a century, isn't just a warning for Obama. It is a demolition. For two years, Obama was allowed to hope that he had managed to capture the heads of American voters in addition to their hearts. In fact, however, he only managed to find his way to their hearts, and only for a short time.

The Country's Lecturer-in-Chief

America, indeed the entire world, fell in love with the idea in November, 2008 of having a young, black president in the White House. Voters felt that they could be a part of the change that they so wanted -- a change that Obama promised so eloquently.

But the voters' affection evaporated quickly. Campaigns are like poetry, it is said, whereas governing is prose. To be sure, the crises Obama faced when he took the oath of office were enormous. But so too were the opportunities -- like that of explaining to Americans how urgently reforms were needed.

Obama, the great communicator, turned into the country's lecturer-in-chief. His reforms required a vision to give them an overarching structure. But instead, Obama preferred to go on about the failures of his predecessor George W. Bush, who had long retired to his ranch in Texas. Or else he analyzed how the impact of the global recession would have been far worse without him and his economic rescue team.

His advisors seem to still believe that the public just doesn't understand how much good Obama has achieved, from health care reform to tougher regulations for the Wall Street gamblers.

They may well be right. But they are not doing the president any favors. No American without work wants to hear how the unemployment figures would be at 15 percent instead of 10 percent if it were not for the man in the White House. And no one casts their vote out of gratitude.

Uncertainty in America

It seems to have escaped Obama, the great listener, just how fragile the American Dream has become for many Americans or how much they yearn for clear words about their future -- rather than details about health insurance. Instead of listening he has become deaf in the White House. He has not understood how uncertain Americans have become. Perhaps because he has always seems so self-assured himself.

From day one Obama made it look as if he had grown up in the Oval Office -- and continued in his role there as Mr. Perfect: the slender athlete, the award-winning author, the smooth orator, the loving husband and father. Not to mention, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

When America is feeling self-confident and optimistic in can adore this kind of president, like John F. Kennedy was idolized during the Camelot era. However, an America that is uncertain and at odds with itself can find it hard to place its trust in someone who seems so perfect. That too helps to explain why so many people see the former community worker as a member of the establishment -- someone who is allegedly in cahoots with Wall Street and who doesn't take care of ordinary people.

One may find it ironic, unfair even, that the Republicans are profiting from this. But Obama must realize that he himself is part of the problem. That is his only chance of repeating Bill Clinton's success. Clinton shifted towards the center following the crushing defeat for his Democrats in the 1994 Congressional elections.

Becoming More Humble

Clinton accepted criticism and listened to it. He joked about his weaknesses. It was in his nature to court opponents. After his mid-term defeat he quickly cooperated with the Republicans to forge a major welfare reform.

Obama has never had to court favor, people regarded him as a star right from the start. He takes himself seriously, he only trusts a small number of close aides and he finds it hard to charm members of Congress.

But he has no alternative now. He has to take the anger of the voters seriously even if they supported the Tea Party. He may even have to negotiate with Republicans about measures to curb the budget deficit. The political messiah needs to eat a piece of humble pie.

Clinton responded to his mid-term setback by singling out small issues that he could turn into big victories. Suddenly the world's most powerful man was fighting for school uniforms or television programming for children. These were minor policies, but they were popular. Clinton soon managed to claw himself back up in opinion polls.

During the election campaign Obama poked fun at such maneuvers. After all, he wanted to change the country. "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," he said in January. If he sticks to that view, he won't have the choice."

Well, I guess you can call us the Country of California; at least that's what the pundits are saying on TV and the Radio. California is the only state that maintained the Status Quo of the Career Politicians. So, I guess I'm going to have to suffer at their hands for the next 2 years. "They're all saying 2012 is going to be different." Well, we will see. But Know this Fact. Califoria is owned by the Unions SEIU, the CA state employee's union and the Califotnia Teachers Union have mortagaged thier members pay raisies for the next 20 years to win this election so Now It's all the Dems in power and they'll have no one to blame. Wait until Taxes get passed by one vote over 50% wait till you hear the howl and how the Assembly and Senate are fucking us over by taxes, stupid idiots, why do you think the Constitution requires 2/3 vote?

No sense in complaining just sit back and watch as the eggs go rotten. Guess California is the new Massuchettues.

One thing I do welcome is the rights of whoever wants to get married (human to human) to get married. Why should the hetro community be the only ones to get fucked by Community Property laws of California. Shit, it's about time you have to pay the same fee we do. You had every legal right under the domestic partner law and now, you've fucked yourselves. Wait till your divorces start.

I really am disapointed in the way the slaves bought what their masters told them. I'm talking about the Unions. There was a time when a Union was something to be proud of but now 97% of their dues goes to the Negoation of Benifits and Pay, it goes to the Politican and their hacks, It goes to the Union Bosses and Attorneys that fuck over the working people they are supossed to be protecting and ensuring our rights. But it isn't.
If Unions didn't pay so much money to get "Their People" elected and put that money into the hands of the workers, we'd sill be living at the monety rates of the 1970 and we're worse than that now. Politicians and Unions only care for themselves. In 1978 Jerry Brown made (gave the Unions) state employees pay their "Fair Share" for getting contracts. I was a member of the Highway Department's Negoatiating Team and negoitated things like Expidited Safety Griveance Procedures. Now you can't get tenure as a teacher unless you are Union. The difference between Union Dues and Fair Share Fees was $13.00 a month between what a Union Member paid and what I paid, in 1986 my fair share was $189.00 a month and the union member was $13.00 more. It's the Union fees and dues that are driving jobs out of the US and the Arrogance of the American People to think that they're "to good" or "it's beneath them" to do a job. Get real you want to work there is always a job. I cleaned public toliets at highway rest stops, worked as a bus boy and dish washer before that.
But at least most Californians saw through some of the Props. $18.00 a year per vehicle you own. Let' see, I have my truck, and camping trailer and my sister's car is in my name so I have $54.00? a year fee. Shit, just because I live in a Rural Area Aggricultural I have a $5.00 fee on my trailer. I don't haul rice, tomatos or any other plant or livestock but I pay the fee.
Saw through the sham clean air and redistricting props as well. Natural Gas is the clean energy and the US has more than anywhere. Obama is a coal region politician and you can guess his idea is cleaner coal at the expense of everything.
If they wanted clean energy they'd make it so anyone who had a house could afford it. I paid for my solar and your think they'd give you a credit. It has to be a certian type at a specific periord of time and then they funds for credits has expired. One bull shit after another. We want to be an example to the world start doing it here. We've still got 3rd world conditions in parts of New Orleans and the rest of the South.
I digress.