Barack Obama's Cabinet: Part 2

Barack Obama has just announced that he will be nominating Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce for his cabinet. It seems Obama's new strategy is to employ his former opponents from the Democratic primaries into positions of power. 4 out of the 8 candidates are now going to be in the cabinet this Spring. What's next? My guess, John Edwards as Secretary of Energy, Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Transportation, Chris Dodd as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and my personal favorite, Mike Gravel as Secretary of Agriculture. Then again, Mike Gravel after the primary jumped ship, endorsed a Green party candidate, and then joined the Libertarian party. Talk about reaching across the aisle...

The Supreme Court: The Final Frontier

Although most is the election is over with two senatorial races still remaining, one aspect of the American Political System remains overlooked. This aspect is the Supreme Court. While thinking about which party to vote for, one had to consider what that would mean for the Supreme Court later down the line. With an increasingly aging court, there will be vacancies that will need to be filled by the Obama administration. Justice John Paul Stevens is currently 88 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is currently 75. There are also three other Justices in their seventies. This past election was pivotal to the Supreme Court as the future nominated Justices would either mean a conservative or a liberal court.

Justice Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito are considered to be the conservatives of the court whereas Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer are thought to be the liberals of the court with Justice Kennedy viewed as a "swing voter". If McCain had been elected president, that would mean that his nominations would most likely be conservatives and would therefore have more conservative rulings. Roe v. Wade would most likely be overturned and abortion would no longer be protected.

With an Obama presidency however, his picks will most likely be more liberal and will therefore have more liberal rulings. If more Justices retire, or are no longer healthy enough to serve, Obama may be able to secure a liberal majority in the court, which could mean a liberal court for over 25 years or until more Justices retire. I'm sure we will know in the near future.

Sex Education Reform

In modern American society, families are changing and evolving faster than ever before. While this evolution is for the most part for the better, there are still some issues that linger and need to be answered with comprehensive policy changes in the new Obama Administration. Policy reformation must be brought forth to ensure that America’s youth stay healthy, informed, as well as responsible when dealing with sex. Therefore, the lack, or misguided use of sex education in the public school institution must be reformed to be more comprehensive and informational.

Abstinence-only education. Especially in religious context, teenagers are taught to wait until marriage to have sex, yet some of these teenagers then become pregnant though being taught abstinence-only; much like the case of Bristol Palin, Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s daughter becoming pregnant though being taught to stay abstinent until marriage. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) also run rampant among teenagers that are taught abstinence only education. The article Red Sex, Blue Sex from The New Yorker states, “Communities with high rates of pledging also have high rates of S.T.D.s” (Red Sex, Blue Sex). Pledging meaning teenagers who vow to remain abstinent until marriage.

Clearly, teaching abstinence only education or having no sex education does not impede teen pregnancy or the spread of STDs in the manner that it should. Therefore, policy should dictate that abstinence should be taught as the primary sex education in school, yet also there should be an emphasis and safe sex. Condoms should be distributed freely to students in high school. Sex should not be taught as a “bad thing” to students and should be embraced as natural as long as long as teenagers are healthy and responsible.

Although these issues are not the only ones hurting American teens, their reformation will act as a conduit for other issues like child neglect and abortion. A developed society should be able to reform it’s policies when they no longer work in the modern context. A society’s foundation relies on a strong family unit and a healthy population of citizens to survive.

Work Cited: Margaret, Talbot. "Red Sex, Blue Sex." The New Yorker 11 Nov 2008 2 Dec 2008 .

Spare Some Change, Mr. Obama?

As Barack Obama unveils his cabinet dream team, I can't help but wonder how these picks indicate change in the government. Some of the people he are picking were members of past administrations and even (gasp) the Bush administration. His pick of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State indicates that he is putting in the same people that he has spoken against throughout his campaign. It seems hypocritical to put in his opponent, the person he worked to beat, into his cabinet. People can no longer blame it on him trying to appease Clinton supporters since he no longer has to. Is it out of guilt or obligation? No one can say for sure.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's pick for Chief of Staff, worked as an advisor for Bill Clinton during his term as President in the 90's. Many politicians have charged that Emanuel is too partisan, being a strict democrat. House Minority Leader John Boehner claimed, "This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center" (Emanuel pick gets mixed reaction). Obama ran his campaign stating that he would reach across party lines in order to proliferate bi-partisanship, yet his pick of Emanuel might say the opposite.

Finally, Obama's decision to keep Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, on board for his Presidency is completely hypocritical of his call for change in government. Secretary Gates has served under three Republican Presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Keeping Secretary gates on is not change. I support Obama's pick of a republican to encourage bi-partisanship, but he should have picked someone fresh with new ideas. In order for Barack Obama to achieve his vision of a new government must come with a new crowd. As the saying goes, if you're part of the problem, you're not part of the solution.

Works Cited: 

"Emanuel Pick Gets Mixed Reaction." CNN.com 11 Nov 2008 2 Dec 2008 .

Obama's Test: The Economy? Mumbai? Somali Pirates?!?

Since Joe Biden proclaimed that there would be an international crisis within the first 6 months of the Obama presidency to test Obama's leadership, the media and the American Citizens have been holding their collective breath waiting to see what horrible event will occur. Will it be the economic recession, the Mumbai crisis, or was it the Somali Pirates that Obama should have handled? The correct answer is that these are not Obama's problems.....yet.

What the media seems to neglect is that we still have a president named George W. Bush. Although he is in the lame duck phase of his presidency, or as CNN put it "the lamest duck", He still has the ability to work on reform to even remotely try to fix the economy. Although his approval rating is the lowest it has been, that does not change the fact that he is still our leader and Barack Obama is not. It is a great idea for Obama to create his economic team now and to set out a plan for when he is elected, but that is not for another two months. Two months of economic recession could mean the difference of putting some people out of their homes or not being able to feed themselves. George Bush should be working now with Barack Obama to make the transition easier into office when his term is over so Obama can set his plan into motion right away. There should be some aspects George Bush could do now in order to put a solution to the crisis in motion. (Obama's full economic plan can be found at http://change.gov/agenda/economy_agenda/).

Some people have suggested moving the inauguration to an earlier date so Obama can work right away to fix the economy. Though audacious, this measure has occurred in the past. The original inauguration date was March 4 but during The Great Depression, it was decided that Herbert Hoover should leave office earlier and Franklin Roosevelt be put in sooner so that he could work to fix the crisis earlier. I say let George Bush be president until inauguration and let history will judge his presidency.

My Election Predictions

Electoral Votes
Barack Obama - 322
John McCain - 216

What are your predictions?

Hillary Clinton: A Broken Woman

One question that has been on my mind since the Democratic primaries ended is, "How does Hillary Clinton REALLY feel about Obama's presidential bid?" Today I got my answer from CNN Video which had a clip of the Clintons voting in Chappaqua, New York today. Watch here:



To me, Hillary Clinton comes off as dejected and generally depressed that she could not have voted for herself in that booth. Her blatant lack of insincerity while speaking about Barack Obama's presidency could not have been more obvious. The way she comes out of the booth and puts those long pauses in between "Barack Obama!...Next president of the United States...No doubt about it....we're going to have a great election today...." comes off almost as sarcastic. Then she begins the interview by saying, "I am so looking forward to getting to work with President Obama..." putting the stress on the work she is going to do rather then congratulating Obama on his campaign efforts. She comes off as still self-centered and bitter after everything that has happened during the primary season. One can see further through her insincerity they way that her eyes wander during the interview. She generally looks down as if she's embarrassed about the outcome. That is the curse of the politician that belongs to a political party. They must endorse their victor even if they themselves are the loser of the primary.

The McCain campaign has recently used a quote from Hillary Clinton in a robocall used to target people in key states that may have voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

The robocall says,

“I am calling for John McCain and the RNC. Listen to what Hillary Clinton had to say about John McCain and Barack Obama:

‘In the White House there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign and Senator Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002. I think that is a significant difference.’

This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee at 866-558-5591 and authorized by McCain-Palin 2008.”

(RNC enlists Clinton to attack Obama)

Did Clinton have the urge to pull the Republican lever in the booth? And if she did, did she follow it?

The Absent Middle Class President

To become President in American politics, one must either come from an over privileged, rich family, or from a family teetering on the almost lowest rung of societal hierarchy. Historically speaking, we have not had a "middle-class" modern president. We either have families like the Kennedy's, the Roosevelt's, or the Bush's, that are super-educated, rich and privileged become presidents and politicians, or we have people that come from rural areas of "small-town America" like Ronald Reagan that rise from the bottom to hold the highest office in the land. In Reagan's case, he came from a rural area of Illinois and was educated at public school and then at Eureka College, as small, not particularly elite school. Juxtapose this with George W. Bush's experience, coming from a political family (his father being president), born in New Haven then lived in Greenwich, being educated at boarding school and then Yale. George Bush comes from the upper-class of society and yet in a way acts as if he came from the rural town of Crawford, Texas. Bush's genius has managed to gain the best of both the upper-class and the lower-class.

Politician's main job while campaigning is to reach out to middle class Americans because thats where the biggest base of voters is located. American complain that the middle class is underrepresented and that the focus of politicians is to cater to the middle class, yet we have yet to see a modern president from such a class. Why is this? Is it because the middle class doesn't generally move up or down in the social hierarchy? Is it because we see middle class Americans as too average? The answer is not obvious. Perhaps the next batch of presidential hopefuls will yield the average, middle class American, that has been absent from these past elections.

Meet the Future Candidates

As the 2008 presidential election comes to a close, I find myself wondering how Barack Obama's potential presidency will open the doors for minorities in politics who may look to run for president in the future. Particularly, I wonder, "What will the candidates of the 2012 and 2016 elections look like? Will the major party candidates become more diverse or will they return to the stereotypical white, older male candidate? Is this the last we've seen of Sarah Palin on a presidential ticket?
Historically, the major party candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties have failed to produce an Asian-American candidate, a Jewish candidate, a Hispanic candidate, an Atheist candidate, and the list goes on. I believe that the the diversification of candidates will depend on Barack Obama's potential presidential performance in the White House. In this way, Obama will become a symbol for all minorities in politics. If Obama can disprove all the rumors about being a muslim and get rid of his "outsiderness" while in office, it may open the doors for other minorities who may face the same troubles while trying to emerge into the American political system. Barack Obama however is a perfect example of hypodescention, or viewing a person thats mixed race as one race. Americans seem to neglect that Barack Obama is as black as he is white and was raised by his white mother.
The question that remains on my mind though is, "Will Barack Obama's presidency change the world's view of America?" If Obama is elected president, other nations will no longer be able to view us as xenophobic, or bigoted. The stereotype of the American as a southern accented, undereducated, racist person can no longer be held in the global community.

Palin as President

If this election cycle has proven one thing, it's that Sarah Palin has proven to be the easiest candidate to satirize. This has been most evident on the internet. One website particularly has summed up every attack made on Palin during the election. The website is www.palinaspresident.com. It's a game like website that satirizes Sarah Palin as president. The user clicks on objects in the oval office and then a fake sound bite from Sarah Palin will play. It's this type of satire that perpetuates the attacks made on Palin throughout this election.

If the Other Party Wins

Collegehumor.com put out a video satirizing party differences today. (I see that the video doesn't fit onto the page so click on it to view it larger)

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I think this video summarizes some fears that parties have of each other this election cycle. Though extreme, do you think these examples have any base or are they all just caricatures?

John Kerry's Joke?

John Kerry took a jab at John McCain at a summit concerning about energy issues. Kerry joked, "Barack got asked the famous boxers or briefs question...then they asked McCain and McCain said, 'Depends'." Depends referring to the adult sized diaper used mainly be geriatrics. Is this joke a reflection of this elections personal attacks and ill humor, or a harmless jab?

The Bradley Effect

As of October 20, 2008, according to pollster.com, the current polling percentages between the two major party candidates are Barack Obama with 49.3% and John McCain with 43.7%. As Barack Obama’s polling numbers grow, I have heard a growing use of the term “the Bradley Effect” being used by pundits and political analysts in the media. This term “Bradley Effect” is used to describe the discrepancy between the projected polling numbers and the actual outcome of election results for non-white candidates.
This effect is believed to be caused by people giving inaccurate polling responses to pollsters saying they would vote for the non-white candidate in order to not be perceived as racist instead of stating their true preference. This originated from the 1982 gubernatorial election in California in which Tom Bradley, an African-American democrat ran against a white, Republican candidate George Deukmejian and lost. In the last days before the election, polls showed that Bradley had a significant lead over Deukmejian, yet on election day, Bradley had a worse turnout with white voters then formerly received and narrowly lost the election.
This effect is not always relevant to all elections between a white and non-white candidate as there are still non-white politicians. But in this historical election, the media appears to be becoming more skeptical of Barack Obama’s advantage in the polls and the term Bradley Effect has been making its way into the vernacular of the media. We will only know if this phenomenon had any impact on this election on November 4.

Obama palling around with terrorists?

According to CNN.com, Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of being friendly with terrorists at a fund raiser in Colorado. Palin said, "We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would rather target their own country." These comments were fueled by the accusation that Obama was friendly with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the radical group Weather Underground.

These attacks seem to be a last ditch effort by the McCain campaign to slander Obama as his numbers in the poll continue to increase. The McCain campaign is aiming to portray Obama as an outsider and a foreigner, trying to cater to American's xenophobia. Republicans used this fear tactic to make Americans weary of Obama. When McCain says this election is not about race, it is a lie because they have been playing into Obama's minority status as a way to defer voters by threatening that he has been in cahoots with terrorists and that he is perhaps a muslim.

A recent poll from Pollster.com shows Obama with an 8 point lead ahead of McCain. With only 28 days until the election, these numbers portray a grim outlook for the Republican candidate.

Who Really Stands by What They Say?

My favorite part of the bailout rhetoric is as follows.  According to Barack Obama, McCain "votes" with Bush 90% of the time, and we cannot take a 10% chance with the future of America.  This assertion implies that George Bush is wrong 100% of the time.  When the bail out package came into realization President Bush supported it, I assume that this is what Senator Obama meant by votes.  Obama spoke with bush Tuesday morning about the necessity of the bill’s ability to pass congress, and McCain suspended his campaign to support the bill. Both Senators Obama and McCain voted for the bill, it failed anyway, and the DOW Jones industrial average fell 778 points.  With Wall Street in this much turmoil one doesn’t even need to know where Main Street is to guess what kind of condition it is in.  Intricate dances about avoiding and rescheduling debates and street maps aside there is a clear logic problem here.  President bush is always wrong and John McCain is wrong whenever he “votes” with bush, why should Obama voted for it. Further more Barack Obama cares about middle class Americans more than the big banks; but the bill will also help middle class American’s, McCain doesn’t support government meddling in the economy or big spending; but can’t afford to loose a single swing voter who supports the bill, so neither candidate should have voted for it. Congress struck the down, and the American people ran out of confidence in the economy as a result showing their support.  Who is right? It certainly seems that none of the candidates should have voted for the bill because it opposed both of their views in some way. 

Barack Obama’s main focus in his economic policy is the well being of the middle class American taxpayer.  A bill giving $700 billion to banks is not the kind of economic stimulus that senator Obama generally supports. McCain’s economic policy is in direct opposition to the ideals laid out in the bailout plan. McCain is so opposed to government spending, and regulation that he would like to suspend all government spending that isn’t absolutely necessary for the first year of his presidency, and because of this there is no reason, under McCain's plan that he should have supported the bailout either. Aside from this both candidates have attempted to distance them selves from President Bush and his approval ratings, but even senator Obama called the President in order to further plans to help the bill pass.  The tendency in America to associate candidates and their parties with ideals falls through in moments like this.  It is when America is in turmoil that it is revealed that both candidates have the interests of the American people at stake, have viable plans for the future of our country, and a great deal of insight and intelligence applicable to good policy making.  That and neither candidate wanted to be responsible for the recession that could result from not passing the bill and wanted more votes, which is much more likely.   

Mark Warner's Democratic Convention Speech

As I watched the Democratic National Convention, I was inspired by speech after speech as each speaker gave their own thoughts and plans for America, as well as their concerns on the direction the country has taken in the recent years. The time slot held by Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was given to former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. I was ready to listen to another speech filled with hope rhetoric and inspiring stories of hardship, yet I was thoroughly disappointed while listening to Warner's speech, which was misguided and seemed to lack any general direction. I felt as if the speech was too colloquial; there was nothing smart or eloquent about it. Warner repeatedly asked and answered his own questions such as, "...which candidate knows that we don't have another four years to waste? Barack Obama." In the beginning of the speech, Warner talks about his work on developing the first cell phone, a story which lacked a point or had any real value to the rest of the speech. Very few Americans can relate to being a budding entrepreneur and making a fortune off of a cutting edge technology which is why his experience was such a poor choice deliver to this audience. Warner also gave a sad attempt at a throwback to Obama's 2004 speech in which Obama famously spoke about not being a country of blue or red states, Warner proclaimed, "...it doesn't matter whether it's got a "D" or an "R" next to it, because this election.... this election is not about liberal versus conservative. It's not about left versus right. It's about the future versus the past." Whether or not this point was meant to be a deliberate resemblance of Obama's speech, it lacked the reference. In short, Warner's speech was uninspiring and half baked. This slot in the convention should have been offered to a Democrat who could actually provoke some thought and inspiration during this pivotal election.