Tag Archives: Obama

Senate for Sale

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About nine years ago a colleague of mine at PLU, a psych prof, decided to run for our district’s House of Representative seat. He was just re-elected to his fourth term.  But the way he went about it was an awful lot of work.  He had to raise money, campaign, study issues, and shake an endless number of hands.

No thank you. And anyways, how exclusive a club can it be with 435 members? And they say you have to start campaigning for re-election the day after you’re sworn in. Again, no thank you.

My plan is to enter the “Obama Senate Seat Sweepstakes” (allegedly) being conducted by Illinois Governor Blagojevich.    

I’ve thought long and hard about what to offer and I’ve finally come to a decision.  I don’t know how I failed to include this most cherished item of mine in my “top 10” list of possessions.  So here you are Gov Blago:

 

Yes, as hard as it is to believe, I’m willing to part with my UCLA Bruins 7up Commemorative Bottle because of a recurring nightmare where our house catches fire. We escape safely, but standing in our drawers in the street, L asks, “Did you get the wedding pictures?” To which I say, “No, but I got THE BOTTLE!”

One side lists Wooden’s ten NCAA Championships and the other side “Salutes John Wooden” by listing his career stats. There’s also an excerpt from the Pyramid of Success that reads as follows: Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

I know that quote will resonate with you.  I have a feeling you’re about to have extra time to “become the best you are capable of becoming.”  I look forward to hearing from you, and rest assured, I’ll sign anything you’d like guaranteeing not to tell anyone why you picked an unknown from Washington State.

Deja Vu All Over Again

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When the first George Bush was president he oversaw a process that resulted in eight National Education Goals that were straight out of the Republican play book. When Clinton took office he surprisingly said, “Those sound good to me.” 

Now, when I listen to Obama education soundbites, I hear echos of the national educational goals, especially with regard to privileging math and science education at the expense of not just the humanities, but every other subject area.

Here’s a question I’d like someone in the press corp to ask the PE at his next press conference: Your repeated emphasis on math and science education is consistent with your last few predecessors who viewed schooling as a key variable in continued economic growth. Is that the exclusive purpose of schooling or are there other important purposes?

Maybe PE Obama should just get on with it and expedite things by passing an executive order declaring that all elementary schools teach reading and math exclusively and all secondary schools teach math and science exclusively.

The redundant social studies, art, music, foreign language, English, and other teachers can contribute to economic growth by rebuilding highways and bridges.

President-elect Obama

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F, a former student of mine just wrote the following. F is a real cosmopolitan. She’s Nigerian, she was in my class when I taught in Ethiopia, and she’s currently honing her ground strokes in Canada.

Hey Ron…
What happened yesterday in America? A British newspaper proclaimed it a giant leap for mankind. From Obama Japan to Antarctica to Kenya to Western Europe and of course Canada, people seem to have recognized that something truly profound and seismic just took place. It goes beyond Barack’s inspirational vision of unity and change I suspect and his clear grasp of current tall issues facing the US economy and by extension the world at large, his delineation from the platitudes of the Republican party and the sense that with tectonic plates shifting constantly around the globe he may be the leader the free world needs at this time. Perhaps the real reason people wept openly was the acknowledgment of emotional inclusiveness more than anything else, the feeling that everyone was indeed equal, and that this wasn’t illusory. Is this then the dawn of a new Golden Age? Are we all going to be happy now for ever and ever? I daresay, I think not—Darwinism and everything else that makes sure human beings will ultimately see separation in all things could still win out as it has every time for millions of years; after all prosperous homogeneous societies haven’t necessarily been the end of terrible ills. I can only hope I guess that Obama will carry these great expectations the same way he weathered the rigors of the campaign trail—pretty damn well, in my opinion—but who can see the future?

F’s thoughts inspire a few of my own. First, it’s strange that I’ve been by the phone all day and I haven’t received a call from Obama’s transition team.

I kicked on CNN this morning at 5:40a before meeting up with M, my neighbor, friend, and McCainiac training partner at 5:55a to get our morning run on. CNN had a split screen that showed people celebrating Obama’s victory in Georgia (the republic), Kenya, Western Europe, and one other foreign location. I felt an affinity with those people who were celebrating Obama’s improbable victory. Of course it’s a special unexpected accomplishment for African Americans, but I believe it’s also a watershed for anyone who is not white or male. And it’s even a watershed for white males like me who believe we may now begin to maximize all of the talent that’s available in this incredibly diverse country. 

At the same time, I couldn’t help but think how M would interpret the same footage. I deeply appreciate my American citizenship, but ultimately, I think of myself as a global citizen. In contrast, M thinks of himself exclusively as an American. As a result, he thinks we’ve made substantial progress on the war on terrorism under 43 because we haven’t been attacked in seven years. He isn’t even aware of how many attacks there have been in other places. I count those deaths, he seemingly doesn’t.

I believe we need to rely more on diplomacy and less on our military strength. M believes diplomacy is pointless and military strength is the key to our security. So if he were watching the CNN split screen, he’d probably say, “There you have it, another reason people should have voted McCain-Palin.” Why? Because he’s suspicious of the “other” and prefers having adversarial relations with foreign countries. His perspective is a “guy on the street” version of real politic. Every country’s every decision is based upon their perceived self interests and military power trumps diplomacy. Ultimately, we have no true friends, we’re a lone shining light on the hill.  

F raises the prospect that this momentous occasion doesn’t mean everything will inevitably turn out well. I always get nervous whenever someone younger than me is more cynical than me, but I have to agree with her. I thought his speech last night was excellent and chuckled at Mark Shield’s when he criticized it for being too long. I think he spoke for 17-20 minutes, at the end of a campaign that lasted 21 months! I’m going to give Mark a pass on that one because he was up way past his bedtime. One of several aspects of the speech that I liked was how he began lowering expectations. “The road will be steep, there will be setbacks.” Then he said progress will take more than a year and maybe more than a term. How will it turn out? As F implied, only time will tell.

And like F, I was tremendously impressed with his campaign, especially his communication skills and poise. So I’m going suppress my normal cynicism and be cautiously optimistic that he can leverage his incredible momentum to as Tavis Smiley said, “Make sure progressive policies trump personality.” He’ll put an excellent team together and Congress will work with him at least early on.

Can we grow the economy while preserving the environment, rebuild foreign alliances, and begin making progress on a long list of global challenges? If we patiently and persistently work together inside and outside of government, yes we can.

Too Excellent?

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It gained momentum during the Pennsylvania primary when Obama passed on beer shots and rolled a few gutter balls. Hillary’s peeps went on the attack saying he’s not a regular guy, he’s an elitist, out of touch with beer drinking bowlers who work factory jobs and hunt on the weekends.

The criticisms multiplied after Hockey Mom burst onto the national stage. Obama was too professorial, too intellectual, too eloquent, too damn skinny. He was a media darling, because like him, the media are arrogant out-of-touch east-coast intellectuals. On the other hand, Palin was celebrated for not being professorial, not being intellectual, not being particularly eloquent. She was regular folk. She hunted moose.

Obama was a man of ideas, she was a woman of action. Like ordinary folk, she hopped from anonymous college to anonymous college before graduating and reading the sports news for a living. In contrast, Obama attended the Punahou school, then Occidental, then Columbia, then the bastion of elitism, Harvard, where he became the first African-American to edit the Harvard Law Review.

Even though we tell ourselves that education is important, people are suspicious of those that attend elite institutions. Obama went from editing the Harvard Law Review to a community organizing gig in Chicago which cynics charge was simply a calculated plan to jumpstart his political career. There’s another strike against him, too ambitious.

I understand cynicism, but maybe there was something about growing up poor that combined with classroom and extracurricular experiences at Punaho, Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard that resulted in a genuine social conscience.

For awhile there, at the end of the Republican Convention, when McCain-Palin pulled even, I thought our national motto had become style over substance. Better not to be too poised. Better not to be too intelligent. Better not to be too fit. Better not to be too ambitious.

All of a sudden conservative Republicans who always advocate for excellence over equity were back-pedaling en masse.

Obama illustrated there was a tipping point, one can be too excellent. I can’t help but wonder if latent racism explains why many on the right felt compelled to portray Obama’s excellence as elitism.

Even last Wednesday night, McCain repeatedly referenced how eloquent Obama was, by which he meant, he’s just too smooth, he can’t be trusted. 

So Obama’s probable victory will restore my faith that what I’ve attempted to model and teach my children—pursue excellence in school, learn to communicate well, take care of your body, be ambitious about serving others—still resonate despite the best efforts of the Palin fanbase to retreat on excellence and dumb down the election.