Pennsylvania is done....what now?

Another goalpost has come and gone.  There are still the same questions about Obama's ability to withstand the Republican attack machine.  Clinton still has her issues of trustworthiness.  I've come to hate what politics has become.  Now Barack Obama is in quite a predicament.  He has to prove his toughness while at the same time trying to stay above the 'politics of old'.  

I'm going to try to play the role of Obama strategist here for a minute.  I would advise Obama go back to what got him here.  Write some more inspirational speeches that speak to the working class so called 'Reagan Democrats'.  Talk about hope as it is involved with specific issues that trouble working class voters.  Let Clinton keep attacking you.  If you ignore her, she will eventually go away.  You don't need to prove yourself to her anymore.  The people have spoken.  While it is not a decisive lead, you lead her in popular vote.  That is as simple as it sounds.  More people have voted for you than for her.  She can try to cast all of these doubts about your past and your patriotism, but the people have shown nationwide that they don't have those same questions.  Show your strength by telling the American people what you're going to do.  Your actions will prove to those who have doubts about your personality.  When they see your plans exist to help them out, they will shed all these false doubts that the Clinton campaign has created.  

Instead,  you need to turn your focus to John McCain.  The days of being gracious to Senator Clinton are over.  You have to get serious about general election campaigning.  Since the differences between your plans and Senator Clinton's plans are almost nonexistent, show the American people how different you are from John McCain.  He IS another Bush term, as far as you're concerned.  You must fight back against the notion that you're going to raise everyone's taxes.  Tell the American people that lower and middle class taxes are not going to rise.  Tell them that, in fact, they are most likely to be cut.  Show the people that you are fighting for them, to pull one out of Hillary Clinton's book.  The three things you need to do are:  play up hope again with new and different speeches, focus your charges on John McCain (but don't go negative, just compare, compare, compare) and last but not least you need to get very specific about what you want to do.  Mix a lot of specifics in with your message of change and hope.  

I think with this strategy, you will not only win the Democratic nomination, but you will also win the General Election in November.

Special Interests

American politics is getting to be a depressing subject to think about.  First, I'm saddened at how little the American people seem to care about what is going on in the world and our own country today.  I can understand how most of them wouldn't care though.  Most people are trying to raise a family, support themselves and their family by keeping a steady job, and in their spare time are trying to a enjoy a life full of hard work and tribulations.  

 

What most people want from government is just the tools they need to accomplish these things.  Most people aren't concerned with a war in Iraq when they are battling everyday to simply put food on their table or pay their bills.  With today's mortgage crisis, people are too worried about keeping their roof over their head than having the Bush administration fight to give immunity to companies participating in the illegal wiretapping of American citizens. People are too scared of another terrorist attack to care about what tactics America is using to try to get information from 'suspected terrorists'.  

Government needs to reestablish the American citizens' trust in it to take care of our very basic needs before it can hope to drum up support for any other action.  It's going to be very hard to get the American people, myself included, to get serious about global warming until our basic needs are taken care of.  When we can stop worrying about having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and about all the things listed above, we can take on bigger, worldly issues.  For now, American politics is at a stalemate with itself.  It has to convince people that they will take care of it's own citizens while at the same time convince the rest of the world that we are still in a position to lead the world into this new century.  

My second problem with American politics, is the divisive nature of it all.  It doesn't seem like anyone wants to work towards real solutions anymore.  With politicians so worried about appeasing either its own party or special interests to fund their reelection process, it's hard to put the focus back on the American people.  Politicians stick to party lines so much that many of them are unwilling to move to conclusions that will help the American people.  I'm not saying that a politician should compromise his/her ideals or morals to pass a law with sections that contrast to their own views, but they must work together to focus on laws that will help the American people achieve their most basic of goals.  I think the majority of American people are more inclined to support a bill to help our economy get out of the recession it is currently in than bills banning gay marriage or banning abortions.  There are some special interests out there, whose main goal is either banning gay marriage or getting gay marriage added as an amendment, but we as American people need to realize that there are more important things we need to work on before tackling a society's morality.  The politicians can help move this along by eliminating the bowing to special interests.  Special interests are so effective because they are organized in a manner that the American people just cannot do.  They have a focus of one area and throw all of their resources (money and people) into that issue.  It has been found that having a lot of money will not get special interests' agendas approved; but what their money will do is buy the lawmaker's time.  This time could be spent listening to the American people about it's concerns, needs, and wants.

Instead, we have politicians more worried about keeping their status-quo as the perennial incumbent than about the needs of the people.  I won't make this a blanket statement, as I think there are some politicians out there who generally want to help the people.  There obviously aren't nearly enough of them, however.  I cannot think of a bill or law that has been passed since I've been following politics (about 8 years....yeah I know, the Bush administration, but still) that has actually helped the American people.  It seems like every bill or law that has been passed has been about terrorism, war, or trying to promote the economy in ways that haven't worked, i.e. tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.  Oil companies have sustained record profits each quarter, while our government continues to provide them money to support alternative energy research.  At the same time, Americans are paying more and more for gas every week.  What I propose is, reinstate the taxes to these corporations, and use the tax money made from these companies, along with the grants we were giving them to do research, and invest it in universities.  These universities can work on new technologies without having to worry about turning a profit.  This money can be used to grow scientists of the future, while at the same time creating opportunities for jobs in the new markets their findings create.  

I'm not an economic expert, by any means, but it seems essential that we invest in the future of the economy while making sure that these companies don't pass on the lessening of their profits to their consumers.  Instead of having a bottom-up model of distributing the costs of these taxes, take it right off the top starting with the CEOs.  The common stockholders, low to mid level employees, and the consumers should not have to suffer anymore so that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation can have an extra 50 million dollar bonus.  

This is just one of the many issues that needs to be addressed by politics today.  The only way this is going to be possible is if the special interests are taken out of the government, which in turn will get our politicians doing the thing they are supposed to be doing to begin with: serving the American people.  In return, Americans will be comfortable with their lives and willing to support more broad legislation to improve the world for the future generations.  I don't know how to get the ball rolling, but I have great faith in Barack Obama to be the candidate that can get things started.  You may say/think what you want to about the Senator, but since he has been elected to public office, he has made his number one fight be ethics in government. He wants to make our government more transparent; hold them more accountable.  I think getting rid of special interests is the only way to get American politics back on track.  

Republicans may not agree with his platform and his economic strategies or his foreign policy stances; but our greatest fight is none of these things.  Our greatest fight, at this time, is a personal fight.  It is a fight to recapture the American dream.  It a fight to live comfortably without worrying about where your next meal is coming from, or if your home is going to foreclosed on tomorrow.  The first step to this comfortability is making sure that the government is doing all it can for YOU, not for a special interest group pumping money so get their issue face-time with the lawmakers.