Day: October 30, 2010

The Importance Of The Cell Phone Vote In Tuesday’s Elections!

With so many races so evenly split, according to polls, attention must be drawn to the cell phone vote, which is NOT measured by polling companies, which call people only on land line phones!

With the growing number of citizens who do not have a land line phone, and with so many of these people being young and often less affluent, the potential for mistakes in the polls is enormous!

Races that seem settled may not be over; evenly competitive races could be more one sided; and the appeal of President Obama and others that the coalition of people who elected him in 2008 should get out there and save the reforms that have been brought about, could indeed lead to major upsets in the polls that might be memorable!

The election is still coming, and everyone should be voting, as it can have an historic impact on the future, or be a detriment to our recovery from the economic recession caused by Republican party policies, and “sweetheart” deals with the major banks, insurance companies, and other corporations!

Corporate Threats On Employees And Politics: 1896 And 2010! Back To The 19th Century! :(

More than a century ago, corporations were dominating our politics and corrupting it in what was called “The Gilded Age”!

Many corporations pressured employees to vote for the Republican party as the party of big business and its belief in laissez faire capitalism. So when William Jennings Bryan was nominated by the Democrats in 1896, corporations became intimately involved in working to defeat him, depicting him as a socialist, a Marxist, a radical, and an extremist. Many corporations warned their workers that if Bryan was elected, the companies would be firing workers and eventually shutting down!

The tactic worked, and conservative William McKinley won the Presidency, continuing GOP and big business dominance of American politics. Only with his tragic assassination in 1901 did the nation gain Theodore Roosevelt, who represented the beginning of progressive change, including some of the ideas and visions of William Jennings Bryan!

Now, more than a century later, and thanks to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January of this year, corporations are again running amuck in their determination to defeat the Democrats, and reverse the reforms brought about by President Barack Obama! They are spending inordinate amounts of money, and promoting distorted commercials to scare and intimidate voters, either not to vote, or to vote out of fear and trepidation of what Barack Obama represents, a very typical depiction similar to that used against William Jennings Bryan more than a century ago!

But even more outrageous is what one franchise owner of a McDonald’s in Ohio has done–to warn workers that if the Republicans do not win the political races in the state, that their measly pay will be lowered and benefits will be lost! 🙁

This is just one example of how corporations are intimidating their employees and trying to fix the election results, and it is evidence of how labor rights hard won over the past century are now endangered by newly gained corporate powers that make us realize that the Supreme Court is setting the nation backward, before the reforms of the Progressive Era, to the traditional corporate dominance and abuses of the Gilded Age!

Are Americans going to sit back and allow a century of political, social and economic reform to be wiped out by the reactionary desires of corporate America, which caused the Great Depression and the Great Recession? 🙁

Will the Supreme Court be allowed to take us back to the 19th century Gilded Age, and repeal the 20th century? 🙁

One thing is clear: no matter what happens on November 2, the struggle for progressive political, social and economic reform, which many had thought had been won under Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, will have to continue!

We may have to redo old battles for reforms we thought were permanent, and the division that exists in this country may become greater than ever, as progressives cannot allow the return of the 19th century and the Gilded Age without continuing to fight for change!

The Coming Class Warfare Battle In The Republican Party! Romney vs. Palin!

As we are about to witness the midterm elections of 2010, the future of the Republican party is becoming quite evident!

The battle for the Presidential nomination is likely to be a struggle between more educated, less religiously devout Republicans and those who are poorly educated, much more religiously devout, and are attracted to the Tea Party Movement emphasis on anger and bitterness toward government!

The leader of the first group is likely to be former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is supported 2-1 by college graduates and 3-1 by those with more than one college degree, according to a Gallup poll.

The leader favored by the group of people without college degrees is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has worked very hard to attract these voters who are angry and bitter about government, and are drawn to the anarchy and ignorance which the Tea Party Movement and Sarah Palin represents!

And the fact that Romney is a Mormon, a religion which many evangelical Christians consider not to be Christian, will be a major barrier for him in 2012, and will benefit both Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is an ordained Baptist preacher!

So it may very well be a class warfare struggle facing the GOP over the next two years, which will be to the benefit of President Obama for the 2012 Presidential campaign!

The Florida Senate Race:Voting For Kendrick Meek A Lost Cause!

Congressman Kendrick Meek of Miami has been a good public servant to his congressional district, but his Senate campaign is a hopeless exercise in futility!

There have been reports that former President Bill Clinton, a good friend of Meek, and a vigorous campaigner for Meek in the past month, has been urging him to withdraw from the Senate contest in Florida, due to his low poll ratings, and the real danger that Marco Rubio, who represents the extreme right wing of the Republican and Tea Party Movement, seems about ready to win the Senate seat next Tuesday.

One can be a party loyalist, but one also needs to be a party realist, and even at this late date, Kendrick Meek should realize the handwriting on the wall, and withdraw from the race, and endorse Governor Charlie Crist, who is seen as very liikely to caucus with the Democrats if he was fortunate enough to win the Senate seat.

Crist has already admitted that it would be difficult to caucus with the Republican party which has trashed him so badly, and Crist has shown as Governor that he has courage and a willingness to reconsider some of his more conservative views. This should be seen as a sign of maturity and growth, not as a cynical political move!

All Democrats and progressives in Florida, whether or not Meek withdraws, should face reality and cast their ballot for Charlie Crist as the best choice for our new Senator, and pray that Marco Rubio, with his right wing agenda, is overcome by Crist, despite the pessimistic results of public opinion polls!