If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
G. K. Chesterton
Election Night 2011: A Lesson For GOP
But Not As Good For the Dems As They Think...
I planned to write about Issue 2 in Ohio (essentially holding serve on the aggressive collective bargaining reforms which passed by one vote in the Ohio Senate and signed into law by Gov. Kasich) and the personhood measure in Mississippi. The principles behind these reforms, but I thought they went too far and alienated independent and moderates (including Republican moderates). The people behind these reforms I think had good intentions, just like the people whom supported more ideologically pure Nevada and Delaware Senate candidates last fall.
The Dems and the unions can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig: what the moderates and independents said in rejecting both measures, which I fully expected (the personhood measure was more up in the air) even if I didn't publish them, was that the reforms went too far. In fact, I think there was some understanding in Ohio that some of the union reforms were more popular than others. The Ohio measure was even stricter than the Wisconsin reforms, which resulted in a few successful recall elections along with an almost certain recall election for Governor Walker within the near future. I think even Kasich realized an all-or-nothing reform was a political loser. Let me give an example--the idea the public sector union members should contribute as a relative percentage the average of what private sector employees contribute is VERY, VERY hard for union members to defeat (but they did because other things were more difficult to swallow: like putting some compensation items on the union table (say, wages) but not others (health care)).
When it comes to union reforms, I would have handled things differently. I'm not going to write a long essay here, but I'll give a few examples of how I would approach pragmatic reforms. For example, I would argue for individual and aggregate compensation caps, transitions from defined benefits to defined contribution plays for younger public servants, and bans on LIFO layoffs. [For example, I might suggest equal distributions of layoffs across income quintiles based on performance criteria.] In short, I want to vest the unions in the difficult issues of labor cost containment.
If the progressives think that Ohio voters just gave public sector employees all-you-care to milk at the state or local government teat, they are wrong: you can't squeeze blood from a stone. So this is really more of a symbolic win for unions; the state and local government can't pay them what they don't have.
As to the Mississippi initiative declaring the legal equivalent status of life begins at conception causes all sorts of complications (including the disposal of embryos at fertilization clinics). The scientific fact is that a baby is distinct from his or her mother from the moment of conception. It's very difficult to enforce laws when, in fact, many pregnant women may not even be aware or sure of their status. From a pragmatic perspective, I think when some of the same criteria we use to determine whether older people have died--for example, a functioning nervous system, brain, heart, etc., the ability of a fetus to live, given available technology, separated from her mother, could provide a basis of when society has a vested interest.
In other election news, Ohio voters passed an anti-ObamaCare initiative, the Republicans held on to the open governor's seat in Mississippi (Gov. Barbour was term-limited out of office), and Virginia may have given the GOP an evenly-split state senate, allowing with the Republican lieutenant governor casting a tie-breaking vote, the strongest hand the GOP has had (with an even more dominant Republican-controlled House and governor) for only the second time in the past century. The popular Kentucky Democratic incumbent governor was easily reelected.
The big picture: the GOP ideologues lost big time (which is good news for Mitt Romney). The unions won a marquee initiative, but the vote had been widely predicted by the polls for some time. I think one of the Fox News contributors had it right tonight when they saw 2010 as an election where the GOP swept the low-hanging fruit. I think 2012 will likely be a good, but not great year for the GOP; I expect Obama will be defeated and the Senate will flip to the GOP. I think the size of the victory will depend on the economy: if the economy slips into a recession, it may be a very, very bad year for the Dems. But I think the die has been cast. Even with a billion dollars behind him, I think there's been so much unhappiness for so long that even if somehow unemployment got back below 8% (unlikely), Obama has permanently lost the faith of the country in handling economic issues. If the economy improves, it will be despite Obama, not because of him.
The Ongoing Cain Sexual Harassment Scandal
I provided an earlier discussion of recent Cain sexual harassment scandal developments in yesterday's post.
Let me be clear at the outset: Cain and his campaign completely lost credibility with me today. I've been hinting for several weeks the candidate I prefer is Mitt Romney, but I have also mentioned that I favored any of the GOP candidates against Obama. If Herman Cain is nominated to either spot of the ticket, I will likely vote for a third party, possibly Libertarian.
When I saw the Cain campaign go after Sharon Bialek, I was convinced that Herman Cain lacks the character needed in a President. I found myself yelling at the Fox News contributors (I think Hannity was one of the ones) talking about no evidence. In theory, there are lots of ways to corroborate the story. For example, there might be hotel records (or Bialek may have hard copies of hotel confirmations, invoices, etc.), including records of any hotel upgrade to a suite and what party initiated and/or paid for an upgrade.
There was also a passing reference to a newsmax story I mentioned in yesterday's post; Cain allegedly attempted to get a female acquaintance to fix him up for dinner with an Egyptian businesswoman; when the first woman refused to do the fix-up, Cain asked her out instead. So they went out to dinner--the lady invited a couple of other people along. Cain apparently ordered a couple of very expensive bottles of wine and allegedly left the others paying the dinner check. The reason for mentioning the whole story is because one of the Fox News contributors laughed off the incident as being a dispute over a dinner check....
"I can categorically say I have never acted inappropriately with anyone, period. And as far as these latest charges? I reject all of those." - Herman Cain, ABC News interviewer Jonathan Karl, 2/08/11
"I have never acted inappropriately with anyone, period.The charges and the accusations I absolutely reject: They simply didn't happen. They simply did not happen."Amy Jacobson, Chicago area radio host, spoke to Megyn Kelly on Fox News earlier in the afternoon said that she personally saw Sharon Bialek, whom has worked at local media stations, start a personal conversation with Cain at a local Tea Party function a month back and seemed tense and a little agitated in a one-sided conversation with a simply-nodding Cain, implicitly validating a claim Bialek made during yesterday's news conference. Note the sexual harassment charges surfaced roughly 10 days ago.
Cain said that the first time he had seen accuser Sharon Bialek was during her press conference with attorney Gloria Allred yesterday, and that he didn't remember either her or her name.
"As they got to the microphone, my first thought was, 'I don't even know who this woman is,' " said Cain. He said he could not remember Bialek from the National Restaurant Association, where he was president and CEO from 1996 to 1999, and "where she said she worked." The NRA has confirmed that Bialek worked for the trade group from 1996 to 1997.
Asked about Karen Kraushaar, an accuser whose name was made public Tuesday, Cain called her allegations baseless. "To the best of my recollection that is the one that I recall that filed a complaint, but it was found to be baseless." He said he doesn't remember any of her accusations, except for making a gesture that she was the same height as his wife.- ABC News, Cain, 5PM EST News Conference, Phoenix, AZ 11/08/11Hold on. It's almost impossible to prove you didn't do something. The kinds of evidence which would be convincing would be, say, if Herman Cain was provably traveling overseas at the time the alleged incidents occurred in the states. But say if Cain and any of the women were briefly alone in the same place unrecorded, how could the woman prove that she slapped his hands from approaching her private areas? Maybe in some Clintonian rationalization (it depends on what the definition of 'is' is), Cain believes since he never physically touched her private areas, it didn't constitute improper behavior.
The Clintonian distinction I find relevant because he has been constantly shifting his story on whether the women were given settlements or whether there was a negotiated exit. That is disingenuous bunk; he's playing deceptive word games.
So when he says that others investigated these incidents, they found them "baseless"--unless you can prove that they never had access to each other at the time of a claimed incident, they might have the lady's allegation and his denial. It's possible that they asked the woman in question for other evidence (witnesses, etc.) to corroborate her story. Unless the woman managed to videotape the full encounter or had witnesses, how would she prove it?
Most people want to impress their CEO--not commit career suicide. Cain's denial here reminds me of the Lewinsky scandal where Democratic apologists explained that it was impossible for her to get access to Clinton--there were secretaries, military guards, etc.
My guess is that the burden of proof is on the claimant. That's not the same as an exoneration or baseless. What I would say is an exoneration is a clear contradiction of fact (like not possibly being where she claims he was) or her statement was so full of errors or otherwise lacked credibility.
Political Humor
"I don't think Herman Cain is well-versed on foreign affairs. A reporter asked him how he would handle Greece, and he said he would put an extra layer of wax paper under the pizza." - Jay Leno
[Well, when asked for his thoughts on Turkey, Cain said he prefers the drumstick...
When Herman Cain talks about foreign affairs and the countries he's visited, Gloria Allred is listening and has her travel agent on speed dial.]
"We'll see what Herman has to say about this in 30 minutes or less or we'll give you your money back." - Jimmy Kimmel
[The difference between the pizza business and government is when Obama doesn't deliver in one term or less, he expects voters to give him another term.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Foreigner, "Waiting for a Girl Like You". I'm not a consistent viewer of the television show Glee; I have always had a love for almost all movie musicals, and occasionally I enjoy this show's coverage of some "oldie" material from the 1960's on. Now I refer to it as "the show that comes on before New Girl'. I saw the third clip below on a recent Glee episode (I found the embedded clip via a Google search). I also did a search on the story line, and it goes like this: Puck (Mark Salling, below) and Quinn had an unplanned high school pregnancy resulting in the birth of baby girl Beth, presumably the adorable sweetheart to whom he's singing the acoustic version of Foreigner's ballad (one of my personal favorite ballads of all time). I love it! What a cute little sweetie! [I want to dedicate this song to Nicole Robinson; I just found out yesterday was her birthday. Beautiful grand-niece #7; I also have 4 handsome grand-nephews, 12 nephews, and 9 nieces.]
