In Our Whackadoodle Political World, Third Party May be the Only Answer
Lincoln Chaffee Says it all in Independent Run for Governor of Rhode Island
February 21, 2010
By: Dave Rogers
Some say, "The worst is yet to come."
I woke up this morning, February 21, 2010, to broadcaster Glenn Beck theatrically raving on TV that America is toast.
We need to go back to the old days and let everybody fail or make it on their own -- just like the pioneers. Republicans are just as bad as Democrats, he shouted. Cheers arose from conservatives gathering in Washington.
The local paper was less than cheery: too many people asking for money, city pay hike outrage, commercial real estate foreclosure crisis looms, colleges facing squeeze, governors say worst is yet to come economically . . .
One editorial complaint about high school kids getting "worthless certificates of completion" instead of diplomas caught my eye. In our view, such a certificate will be a tremendous accomplishment for some kids. It may give them confidence to seek more training or to work.
Continually raising graduation requirements and trying to force all kids into college prep is a self-defeating policy of schools. We need a two-track program where some kids who are not academically inclined can learn useful skills. Expand the vocational approach, install a training wage of $2 per hour and require universal service for those who drop out. A recent column expounding those ideas drew numerous positive comments.
I talked to an extremely successful local corporation executive recently who told me he took almost all shop classes at the old Handy High. "I left school with a great understanding of the mechanical world, and that has helped me immensely all these years."
There's a definite disconnect when, on C-Span today, Sec. of Education Arne Duncan, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, confronting a 30 percent dropout rate, continue to insist that "raising the bar" is good policy.
We can only raise the bar for highly motivated kids from stable middle-class families and evidence is that these conditions are in the minority today. We just need to help kids survive, graduate and become employable.
Then on to the New York Times: "Millions of unemployed face years without jobs" is the screaming front page headline. Yikes! What a way to wake up.
Here's a column by Senator Evan Bayh telling why he no longer wants to be a senator. Gridlock, hyper-partisanship, etc., etc. Eleven other senators are bailing out, too.
When senators start voting against bills they themselves proposed, Alice in Wonderland definitely has invaded Washington.
And how about Thomas Friedman, prize winning columnist's screed: "The Fat Lady Has Sung." Welcome to the lean years where government's job will be to take things away from people, he writes.
Friedman is the guy who has argued in his books that when low-skill and low-wage jobs are exported to foreign countries, more advanced and higher-skilled jobs will be freed up and made available for those displaced by the outsourcing. He theorizes that as long as those whose jobs are outsourced continue to further their education and specialize in their field, they will find better-paying and higher-skilled jobs.
He also views American immigration laws as too restrictive and damaging to economic output: "It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders -- as wide as possible -- to attract and keep the world's first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent."
Now, all of a sudden, Mr. Friedman is realizing that the proverbial fat lady is warbling at our economic funeral. But he hasn't admitted that his pet theories are bunk, that jobs at all levels are going offshore and not coming back, and on top of that we are bringing immigrants to take more jobs.
Re "nation building," or "Regeneration" as Friedman calls it, Obama is not moving fast enough, not focusing, the Republicans are irresponsible obstructionists despite having created the problem, etc., says Mr. Friedman, commenting:
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"Mr. Obama won the election because he was able to 'rent' a significant number of independent voters -- including Republican business types who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives -- because they knew in their guts that the country was on the wrong track and was desperately in need of nation-building at home and that John McCain was not the man to do it.
"They thought that Mr. Obama, despite his liberal credentials, had the unique skills, temperament, voice and values to pull the country together for this new Apollo program -- not to take us to the moon, but into the 21st century."
It all sounds like the same tune sung every time a society gets in trouble; everybody else is to blame. The rats are fighting over the control of the cheese. Deck chairs are not even being re-arranged on the Titanic because no one can agree on where they should be placed.
Former senator Lincoln Chaffee, however, may have had the last word. He recalls pollster John Zogby's 2001 prophecy that a third party could seize the political center. Chaffee himself is on an Independent run for Rhode Island governor. And, he hints that Bayh may be planning a 2012 run for President as an Independent.
My guess is that the young people, the Republicans, and the moderates who are abandoning Obama would flock to an independent who promises action on our problems (i.e., health care, the deficit, campaign reform) that are insurmountable without bipartisanship.
Such a development could be the only way to break gridlock in Washington and get the country moving again.
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