John F. Kennedy
President Kennedy once said “Politics is the only game that matters.” It’s winner take all, and the winner decides how your money is spent. President Clinton used to say “It’s the economy, stupid.” This still applies. Neither the President nor the Congress was focused on putting Americans back to work. They need to re-read Keynes, and also study Ecological Economics. (And Mr. President it’s not the economy according to the economists, it’s the economy according to voters who are up to their eyeballs in debt, unemployed, or facing foreclosure, and their kids, with health care, courtesy of your law, but fresh out of college, with huge college loans, and no jobs.)
Gov. Elect Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo’s win of the NY Governor’s race was not a surprise. Altho the margin – 1,135,214 votes (2,565,869 votes, 61%, to 1,430,655, 34%, Washington Post) is staggering . Some of my conservative Republican friends voted for Cuomo. Others abstained. How could they vote for Carl Paladino, with such an obvious inability to govern, a guy who is uncomfortable with gay people but who owns 2 gay bars?
Congratulations to Governor-Elect Cuomo, and the State of New York. Popular Logistics would like to see Gov. Cuomo run for President in 2016.
Lucy Liu, Actor
Jennifer Lopez, Singer & Actor
Senator Harry Reid won reelection, thanks to Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans, by a margin of 5%. Hispanic citizens were 10% of the vote, with 66.7% voting for Reid. According to the AP, on NPR, “Reid won two-thirds of the Hispanic vote” 80% of African-Americans and 75% of Asians.
(Note to Sharron Angle – like Asians and Hispanics generally, both Lucy Liu, on the left in blue, and Jennifer Lopez on the right in beige, have black hair and brown eyes. Even if I didn’t know who they were, I’d know the woman in blue is Asian and the woman in beige is Hispanic, or white-with-a-tan.)
Senator Harry Reid
The coal and oil industry poured money into the campaigns of Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and Proposition 23, the anti-clean energy initiative in California. They lost. Lance Williams, writing in the California Journal, wrote that Fiorina’s campaign was given $292,800 from fossil fuel companies and Republican outside California. The breakdown is $122,800 from fossil fuel companies outside California and $170,000 from Republican Party officials ouside California. According to Reuters, “Fiorina, the former chief executive officer of computer giant Hewlett-Packard, bolstered her own campaign treasury with loans of $1.25 million in personal funds.” Fiorina and Paladino loaned their campaigns $Millions. Since the campaign will pay them back, they didn’t really risk their own money.
The Republican-Tea Party lost in Alaska, as Lisa Murkowski beat Sarah Palin’s boy Joe Miller, the guy who’s security people handcuffed a reporter (NPR or Salon) who persistently asked questions about the candidate’s alleged improprieties. Popular Logistics would have preferred Scott McAdams – he understands the science on climate change and supports renewable energy (Mackerel Sky or the Alaska Journal).
Senator Elect Coons
Should the the citizens of Delaware elect to the Senate someone who, in her own words no longer “dabbles in witchcraft”? Should the citizens of Nevada elect someone who suggests that there would be “Second Amendment remedies” if she loses?
Contrast New York’s Governor-Elect with NY District 13’s non-relected Congressman, Michael McMahon. McMahon won in ’08 because his predecessor was disgraced by calling his girlfriend, not his wife, after an incident involving driving under the influence of alcohol. McMahon served by running away from his base. If you’re going to be defeated, you might as well be go down fighting like Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold, or John Adler. Democrats need to understand what the Republicans understand – what Cuomo, Reid understand, and Obama understood in ’08 – fire up your base and get out the vote.
The Republican-Tea Party beat Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold, John Adler. Without Citizens United (see Adam Liptak, the New York Times, 1/21/10, “Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit“, they wouldn’t have been able to pour money into those or other races.
The worst idea, from a democratic and libertarian standpoint, is this notion, ratified by the Supreme Court, that “a corporation is a legal person,” and therefore that First Amendment rights, such as Freedom of Speech, apply to corporations. This is not in the long term interests of the United States.
The losers will be ourselves and our children. According to Kenneth Chang, writing “Money for Scientific Research May Be Scarce With a Republican-Led House” published Wednesday, 11/3/10, in the New York Times, “Federal financing of science research, which has risen quickly since the Obama administration came to power, could fall back to pre-Obama levels if the incoming Republican leadership in the House of Representatives follows through on its list of campaign promises.”
Looking closely at the California Journal on contributions to Fiorina’s campaign … $292,800 from fossil fuel companies and Republicans outside California. Here’s a breakdown:
$170,000 from Republican Party officials, most outside California.
$2,500, from Palin’s PAC
$2,400 McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign
$5,000 Susan Collins, Maine,
$1,000 Olympia Snowe, Maine,
$5,000 Lindsey Graham, S. Carolina,
$5,000 Thad Cochran, Mississippi
$5,000 Bob Corker, Oklahoma,
$5,000 Kay Hutchison, Texas,
$5,000 Saxby Chambliss, Georgia,
$2,500 John Barrasso, Wyoming
$2,000 Orrin Hatch, Utah
$1,000 Trent Lott, Mississippi, retired
$5,000 Haley Barbour, Mississippi Gov, retired
$3,000 Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Gov.
$1,000 George Allen, Virginia Gov., retired.
$122,800 from Fossil Fuel / Global Warming companies
$63,000 from Midwestern coal mining interests.
$47,500 from various other energy companies.
$5,000 from Tesoro Petroleum
$4,800 an executive with Oklahoma’s Alliance Coal
$2,500 from Valero PAC
How much free advertising did Fiorina and other Republican-Tea Party Candidates get from Murdoch and bin Talel via “Faux News”? How much support came from Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries – directly via the Tea Party and indirectly via PACs?