Speech

“I think it is maybe time -- what do you think -- for maybe a businessman. How about that?”  That’s what Clint Eastwood told the assembled in Tampa.  Ah, the solution to our problems, a businessman as president.  And of course Mitt Romney couldn’t agree more.  We heard the word business 17 times in his acceptance speech — his credentials in it, President Obama’s lack of them.  He pointed out that the President “…took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business.”  

That’s an interesting qualifier for the presidency, one that apparently the American people have never put high on the list.  Indeed, looking at the backgrounds of our forty-four chief executives you will find numerous generals, professional politicians and lawyers.  We’ve had at least one academic and, yes, an actor.  But in the long list there were only two businessmen: Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush, the first and only MBA.  In addition to the many misty eyed memory lane moments, Romney’s speech focused on the economy, the importance of free enterprise and business.  Eastwood said it may be time for a businessman, Romney’s unmistakable rejoinder — I’m your guy.

The only problem is that the two businessmen presidents turned out to be disastrous for the economy.  Hoover presided over a depression that continues haunt us and Bush over the worst economic collapse since.  It was the non-businessman presidents who led us out of downturns —  clearly this one remains a challenge — and in robust periods of growth.  Franklin Roosevelt, the politician, Ronald Reagan, the actor, and Bill Clinton, the lawyer, certainly didn’t seem deficient because they lacked business experience.  And Clinton left us with a surplus compared with George Bush who, through a combination of tax cuts and two unfunded wars, ran up the lion’s share of the deficits for which the Romney-Ryan team  blames President Obama.

Yes, we surely need a business president, one with the background of Hoover and Bush.  That’s what the people in Tampa offered us.  And speaking of former presidents, Bill Clinton is slated to be the lead off featured speaker in Charlotte.  Did you notice the absence of former presidents in Tampa, except of course for the usual bow to Patron Saint Reagan, this time delivered in film and by those noted flame keepers, Newt and Callista.  Apparently the Romney people think dead chief executives are  a safe bet; live ones are better left at home and out of sight.

According to the US Census, African American and Latinos combined now represent an almost 30% of the population.  Did you see much evidence of that as the TV cameras panned out at those gathered in Tampa?  The GOP constituency, certainly those who make it to conventions, is White as Ivory soap, a group that has declined from 75.1% to 63.4% in just the last ten years — Latinos in contrast are up 33%.  Keep watch next week and you’ll see a much more representative audience in Charlotte.  This week’s crowd cheered loudly when Romney said, “As president, I will protect the sanctity of life. I will honor the institution of marriage.”  They still care deeply about socially conservative issues, but young Americans have a different take.  According to Pew Research, “…young people favor gay marriage by more than two-to-one (65% to 30%).”  And they join the majority of Americans across most age groups who favor women’s reproductive rights to one degree or another.  I don’t know what this year’s election will bring, not only for the presidency but most particularly for the House and Senate.  Near term, the demographics and out-of-sync views in Tampa may not be deciding factors, but long term a party that looks backward with a combination of nostalgia and anger for what is no more, is ill positioned for the real future.

They say there has been scant movement in voter preferences for months.  Most of us probably take in these conventions with minds already made up.  I plead guilty to that and will enthusiastically vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  I’ll be sincerely relieved to see Romney-Ryan go down to defeat, euphoric if the election is not as close as predicted (we all can dream).  As to Clint Eastwood, politics aside, I’m still a big fan.  He is one of the great movie makers of our time and I sure hope he keeps on with his day job for years to come.

  

Transcenders: coming to a digital device near you next week.

1%

National Park Service

Many of our presidents have been rich.  Our first, George Washington, whose land and other holdings brought his fortune to an adjusted $525 M, made him the wealthiest by far.  Speak about getting out in front of a trend.  Of course there have been ups and downs — Jefferson and Madison were super rich while in office and both died in debt. TR inherited his money.  Bill Clinton had modest means during most of his presidency but has since made a fortune.  Only eleven of our presidents, including one of our greatest, Abraham Lincoln, were not millionaires.  With a net worth estimated as high as $250 Million, if elected, Mitt Romney would immediately rise to second richest.  Of course there have been other super rich candidates in modern times — Ross Perot (by far the wealthiest), Steve Forbes, John Kerry and this year John Huntsman.  They all lost their bids. 

Wealth doesn’t disqualify Romney, nor should it.  As discussed in earlier posts, Billionaire Mayor Michael Blumberg and other enormously wealthy office holders can be and are effective.  But there is a dark side.  It’s not that more rich people are running for high office, but that the price of entry is making politics less and less accessible (often prohibitive) to even moderately affluent citizens.

Big money has always played an outsized role in our democracy.  Big banks, big corporations and the wealthy class have always held the vital center of power.  Using business speak, we might call them the control stakeholders.  Middle class Americans may have been an engine of our economy through their purchase of goods and services in the post war period, but let’s not pretend that they have ever been in control.  That’s not socialist talk or business bashing, just a reality check. 

The Occupy initiative (you can’t call it a movement) made a singular contribution to our current discourse: the 99%, or conversely the 1%.  They touched a nerve reminding us, as if we didn’t already know, that the disparity between those at the very top and everyone else is growing exponentially, the gulf widening every day.  In making 1% a headline, they were sounding an alarm.  Staying on the present course, portends big trouble in our future.  It’s the kind of trouble that could make Zuccotti Park look like contained child’s play.  What’s remarkable is that Occupy isn’t a movement and that this kind of trouble has yet to show its face.  That speaks volumes about today’s complacent populace, but perhaps more so that a vital tipping point has yet to be reached.

It is in this context that Mitt Romney’s wealth, not unprecedented in elective politics, has taken on a larger meaning.  Many people see him as the 1%’s number one poster person.  Fair or not, he has become the token for one of the fundamental societal problems of our time.  It isn’t only that people like him have so much more than anyone else but that the system seems structured to keep them at an advantage, one that is expanding rather than being held in check.  That probably explains why his taxes loom so large as an issue.

Most of us don’t have tax shelters and even fewer have money stashed abroad.  The Romney advantage is inaccessible to us.  Of course it is perfectly legal. Much-admired companies like Apple keep a disproportionate portion of their money off shore, also to avoid paying taxes.  Romney’s problem is not that he has done anything wrong but that, unlike most of the super-rich, he is running for president.  That’s a personal game changer.  We hold our presidential candidates to a higher standard, one in which their assumed right to privacy, albeit still in place, is greatly diminished. 

So it isn’t a matter of whether Romney is paying taxes owed but whether in not making the returns public, he may be hiding something.  Are there indeed years in which, using shelters and loopholes, he paid none?  As Republican icon Ronald Reagan might say, we should trust but we need to verify.  Of course, beyond the problem that we want transparency, is that Romney’s economic proposals are likely to benefit him personally.  Simply put, they will put even more money directly into his pockets and, of course, not necessarily in ours.  Whether or not that’s fair is irrelevant.  Perceptions rule the day in politics.  Just look at the current campaign, it’s all about building perceptions, one of the few non-partisan actions left.

There is something quite remarkable, even inexplicable, about Romney’s continued insistence on keeping things so close to the vest.  It certainly isn’t doing him any service.  In addition to the issue of his opaque wealth, he will be the first Mormon standard bearer of a major political party.  The Mormon Church itself is noted for a high level of secrecy.  While Romney invited a few reporters to join him for Sunday worship at his New Hampshire church this past weekend, non-Mormons and even some of the faithful are barred from entering their Temples.  As the official church website puts it, “only baptized members who are qualified and prepared are allowed to enter a temple after it is dedicated.”  There are also aspects of his church’s relatively recent history, including polygamy and racial discrimination, that Romney understandably keeps off the table.

To be clear, nothing should bar a Mormon from the presidency any more than being a Jew, Muslim, Hindu or follower of any other religion.  With two Catholics running for Vice President this year, we’re likely to see a long overdue inclusion of non-Protestants running for and being elected to the White House.  Perhaps even atheists.  But, like it or not, the uniquely built-in secrecy of the Mormon Church just feeds on the perception, again perhaps unfairly, that Romney is keeping something from us.  Withholding his tax returns has larger consquences.

Despite Occupy’s success in bringing the 1% issue to the forefront, it may not be the central issue our presidential election.  One thing that stands in the way is that raising the issue prompts cries of class warfare.  I would argue just the opposite.  If we want short circuit real class warfare in this country, we should be addressing the disparity between what is essentially a divided society, and doing it with considerable urgency.  Redistribution of wealth may not be the solution, nor is it in the cards given our capitalistic system.  But narrowing the gap and tipping the balance of advantage more in the direction of the 99% must be considered, and seriously so.  Other than paying lip service, the chances of a President Mitt Romney becoming an advocate for the 99% are next to nil.  That, among other things, is what this upcoming election is really all about.

Stay tuned — it’s called Transcenders and it will be coming soon.

What a trip!

Even before it began, a distracting etiquette gaff marred Mitt Romney’s trip to London.  Were that not enough, he added a controversial pre-departure interview with The Daily Telegraph.  In it he spoke of his special connection with the Brits because of our shared Anglo-Saxon heritage.   To make certain that was clearly understood, an advisor added that The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.  Of course, its current occupant isn’t an Anglo-Saxon, which I would guess would explain the claimed disconnect.  Here we go again, a not so thinly veiled code for what has become a recurring theme if not in, then certainly around, the Romney campaign.  Of course, perhaps these statements aren’t meant as code but that, as suggested in an earlier post, Mitt is just out of touch — so clueless that he knows not of what he speaks.  I don’t know what’s worse.  You be the judge.

That brings me to the curious but also transparent Israel trip.  Both presidential candidates have been raising money abroad, largely from ex-Pats and Mitt pulled in a pile of dough from a $2,500 a head gathering in London.  But the trip to Israel was something else entirely.  In what looked to me more like a United Jewish Appeal (UJA) mission for the well healed than a maiden trip abroad as the presumptive nominee, Romney actually brought the donors with him.   The UJA mission type entourage was led by gaming king Sheldon Adelson, the GOP’s new super star sugar daddy (Frank Rich’s designation).  25% of the Jerusalem speech audience, one of the few he delivered, was made up of those American donors who had come to the Holy Land specifically to give Romney money.

If you don’t quite see this as a faux religious fundraiser, consider Romney’s remarks to the assembled.  I am overwhelmingly impressed with the hand of providence, whenever it chooses to apply itself, and also the greatness of the human spirit, and how individuals [donors] who reach for greatness and have purpose above themselves are able to build and accomplish things that could only be done by a species created in the image of God.  Wow, divine instructions to fill the candidates coffers and almost in sight of the Western Wall, newly stuffed with a Mitt prayer.  This will certainly go down as one of the greatest fund raising props ever used by a candidate for the American presidency.

There was an unmistakable smell of pandering in the Romney visit — pandering combined with etch-a-sketch.  The first came with Romney’s proclaiming his support for the military action rightist Israeli leaders talk so loosely and regularly about but which flies in the face of American policy.  While leaving no option off the table, our current focus is on diplomacy and sanctions.   It should be said that, red meat Republican rhetoric aside, most American voters are tired of wars and, based on recent experience, have good reason to wonder if they work. 

Then came the comments true to what has become Romney’s etch-a-sketch MO  It can be simplistically described as flip-flopping but more accurately is reflective of a man who seems totally lacking of conviction. Romney, as Massachusetts governor, signed what would become the model of the national Affordable Care Act.  Then presidential candidate Romney disavows and vigorously denounces exactly what he signed into law.  Finally, in full pandering mode, he tells an Israeli audience that they have healthcare that is superior to ours.  Come again, Israel has universal health care with a mandate to boot.  I can only paraphrase the question Joseph Welch asked Senator McCarthy nearly fifty years ago: have you no shame, sir?  

The White House shouldn't feel singled out by that pre-London Anglo-Saxon remark.  Romney it seems can’t help himself.  At one point during his Israel visit, he drew a  cultural differences distinction between Israelis and Palestinians suggesting that they accounted for the success of first and the lack thereof of the second.  Forget that he then offered statistics that were inaccurate or that he ignored that one group ruled its own country while the other lived under military occupation.  For the Palestinians there was no code involved, just a clear message which Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas simply called racist.  A really good start in foreign relations, Mr. Romney — a really good start.

Finally, again out of sync with US policy, Romney referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and promised to move our embassy there when he was president.  Our bi-partisan policy is that the designation of a capital would have to await negotiations since both parties now claim it.  But what struck me was that just days before Mitt set off for the Holy Land the New York Times carried an op-ed penned by Dani Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, the place most of us know as the West Bank.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence.  Dayan, no relation to the fabled Israeli General, is a high tech entrepreneur who opposes a two state solution and, while secular, is a leader in the largely ultra-orthodox settler movement.  As Tom Friedman points out in his column, Dani Dayan reads the Romney trip, and most especially the rise of influentials on the right like Adelson and Aipac, as a victory for the settlers.  Indeed a Romney presidency would rekindle the rightist axis that existed between his host and former Boston Consulting colleague Bibi and the Bush-Cheney administration.  Yes, Obama and Netanyahu aren’t warm pals, but under his presidency Israel has actually received more military aid than from any other.  As I have written before, the single state solution far from strengthening the Jewish state is likely, in the long run, to destroy it.