Tag: Debate

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Politics Politics Feature

The 9th District Debate: ‘Who is Who and What is Not’

CREDIT: jb

Every old saw has an ideal application, and Sunday night’s
televised debate involving three 9th District congressional
candidates perfectly invoked that sardonic chestnut which goes, “All have won,
and all must have prizes.”

When the sometimes stormy hour-long affair at the studios
of WREG-TV, News Channel 3, had run its course, backers of incumbent first-term
Democrat Steve Cohen ended up being reassured of his unmatchable experience and
prowess. Those supporting Cohen’s chief primary challenger, attorney Nikki
Tinker, were likewise convinced of their candidate’s common touch and oneness
with the people. And state representative Joe Towns’ claque (such as there was
before Sunday night) were pleased with their man’s singular common sense and
panache, as well as his full-out assault on unidentified “special interests.”

Conversely, detractors of Cohen may have seen him as
somewhat smug and supercilious, Tinker’s opponents might feel justified in
seeing her as shallow and opportunistic, and those prepared to discount Towns
could have likened him – as did Richard Thompson of the Mediaverse blog –
to another notorious spare political wheel, John Willingham.

The actual impact on whatever portion of the electorate ended up watching the
debate was probably a composite of all these points of view. And, while Cohen
might have finished ahead in strict forensic terms, the equalizing effect of the
joint appearance and the free-media aspect of the forum had to be a boost for
both his rivals.

Questioning the contenders were Norm Brewer, Otis Sanford, and Linda Moore – the
former a regular commentator for the station and the latter two the managing
editor and a staff writer, respectively, for The Commercial Appeal,
a debate co-sponsor, along with the Urban League and the activist group Mpact Memphis.

All three panelists posed reasonable and relevant questions, as did the two
audience members who were permitted to interrogate the candidates – though the
issues raised (or the answers given), tended to be of the general,
all-along-the-waterfront variety. All three candidates viewed rising gas prices
and the home-mortgage crisis with alarm, and all wanted to see improved economic
horizons. Each claimed to have a better slant on these matters than the other
two, but Cohen could – and did – note early on that neither Tinker nor Towns had
found fault with his congressional record to date. “I appreciate the endorsement
of Miss Tinker and Representative Towns for my votes,” he said laconically.

The Race Issue

The first real friction as such was generated by a question from the CA‘s
Moore, who made bold to touch upon what she called “the elephant in the room” –
namely, the importance of racial and religious factors in the race.

This brought an unexpected protestation from Tinker that she was “not
anti-Semitic” and regarded it as “an insult to me” that she had been so accused.
That such an allegation had been made was news to most of those attending,
though one of her chief backers, Shelby County Commissioner Sidney Chism, had
made the point last week, addressing a black ministers’ association on her
behalf, that Jews were likely to vote for co-religionist Cohen.

And well they might, on the general principle that voters tend to gravitate
toward candidates of like backgrounds. There has been no suggestion from the
Jewish community, however, that a Jew should represent the 9th
District, while Tinker and many of her supporters openly assert that the
majority-black urban district should be represented by a black congressman. As
Tinker put it Sunday night, noting the demographic facts of life in Tennessee’s
nine congressional districts, “This is the only one where African Americans can
stand up and run,” she said. “Can we just have one?”

If Tinker expected agreement from Towns, himself an African American, she didn’t
get it. “If you’re black and no good, you’re no good. If you’re white and no
good, you’re no good,” he said, in pithy dismissal of the issue. That did not
stay him, later on, from chastising Cohen for what Towns said was the then state
senator’s anguished reaction to a lower-than-hoped-for black vote in 1996 after
losing his first congressional race to Harold Ford Jr. that year.

Cohen’s response to that was that his frustration had mainly stemmed from the
vote garnered against him that year by the late Tommie Edwards, a relatively
uncredentialed opponent in Cohen’s simultaneous reelection race for the state
senate. The congressman noted that he went on to win the black vote in the 2006
general election. As for 2008, Cohen, a sometime speaking surrogate for
presidential candidate Barack Obama this year, cited voter acceptance of racial
differences in his own case, that of Obama, and that of Shelby County Mayor A C
Wharton, an African American.

“We’ve turned a corner,” Cohen maintained. “Barack Obama, A C Wharton, and Steve
Cohen are in the same boat, and it’s a boat that’s moving forward.”

Towns made an effort to rock Tinker’s boat as well as Cohen’s, castigating as
“demeaning” her frequent declarations, in a TV commercial recycled from her
previous run in 2006 and elsewhere, that she’s running in part to make sure
that her infirm grandmother’s government check continues to get to her “porch.”

More friction

Tinker’s pitch Sunday night was heavy in such personally tinged declarations,
which constituted a counterpoint of sorts to Cohen’s frequent citation of his
endorsements and the financial benefits to the district and other
accomplishments from his legislative record, both in Congress and previously,
during his several decades as state senator. In a sideswipe clearly directed at
the incumbent, she said, “”People are tired and fed up. At the same time we’ve
got elected officials just running around here and going to galas and, you know,
giving out proclamations and renaming buildings.”

Debate moderators Richard Ransom and Claudia Barr had their hands full keeping
accurate tabs on time allotted to the principals, especially during a segment
allowing candidates to accuse and challenge each other. Tinker availed herself
of such a moment to ask Cohen, who holds an investment portfolio, if it was true
that he “profited” from an increase in gasoline prices.

The congressman rebutted the notion, contending, “I always vote against my own personal financial
interests.” He then turned the question around on Tinker, inquiring about the
stock holdings in her pension or 401 K accounts at Pinnacle Airlines, where she
works as a lawyer. Cohen also pressed Tinker on her self-definition as a “civil
rights attorney,” extracting her grudging concession that she had served
Pinnacle for the last decade on the management side of labor-relations issues.

But Cohen’s relentless prosecution of that line of questioning also yielded
Tinker what may have been an effective moment in self defense.

When the congressman interrupted Tinker at one point, insisting on a direct
answer to a question, she responded, “Mr. Cohen, I’ve respected you, and I’ve
allowed you to [finish your answers]…I’m asking for your respect, as humbly as I
know how.” Apropos his allegations about the nature of her employment, she
contended that her airline’s flight attendants and baggage handlers are “on the
front lines with me and supporting me in this campaign.” She concluded, “My
heart is pure, and I’m satisfied with what I’ve done.”

“…Who is who and what is not….”

It remains to be seen to what degree viewers were satisfied with what the
candidates, together or singly, had done in a debate that, as Towns suggested,
was meant to “allow… us to see who is who and what is not.”

One issue that remained unexamined was that of abortion, on which Cohen has long
been known as pro-choice, while Towns has just as resolutely proclaimed his
pro-life views. Tinker’s position has been shrouded in mystery, though she
received an endorsement — and presumably the promise of funding – from the
pro-choice group Emily’s List.

CA columnist Wendi Thomas, originally scheduled to be a panelist for the
debate, wrote a column speculating on the dilemma of Tinker, many of whose
supporters are virulently anti-abortion. One result of that was apparently a
negative reaction from the Tinker camp, who in any case saw her column as
over-critical and, according to debate organizers, requested that Thomas be
replaced as a panelist.

One result: Moore was there in Thomas’ stead. Another result, inadvertently or
not: No question about abortion was ever asked.

jb

Settling in for the fray: Cohen, Tinker, and Towns

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Tangling in Tennessee

NASHVILLE — The second of two presidential debates to be held within spitting distance of Memphis was scheduled to take place in the state’s capital on Tuesday night, and various influential Memphians — including Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, who thereby missed Tuesday’s joint city-county forum on consolidation — were on hand to kibitz.

Among those conspicuous by their attendance were former 9th District congressman Harold Ford Jr., who was featured, either as panelist or as subject, in several of the warm-up events. (The political future of Ford, now head of the right/centrist Democratic Leadership Council, became a subject in a Monday forum on “political civility” presided over by Governor Phil Bredesen.)

The debate at Belmont University between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain came at a crucial point in the presidential race, with various polls showing McCain falling behind Obama. McCain was generally credited with a vigorous performance in the debate in Oxford, Mississippi, two weeks ago, as was his running mate, Sarah Palin, in her contest with Democrat Joe Biden last week in St. Louis.

But in both cases, polls showed the Democrat to have fared better.

(In-depth reports on this and the previous two debate events can also be found at memphisflyer.com.)

• U.S. senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican up for reelection, got some big-time help from Democratic friends last Friday night. Memphis mayor Willie Herenton hosted a reception for Alexander at the Majestic Grille in downtown Memphis in tandem with MPact Memphis, 100 Black Men, and the Black Business Association of Memphis. A C Wharton, who along with Herenton has endorsed Alexander, was also an attendee.

The affair was described by Alexander’s staff as “political” but not a campaign event. The senator faces opposition in November from Democratic nominee Bob Tuke of Nashville.

Both in a brief interview and in his prepared remarks, Alexander, the GOP’s caucus chairman in the Senate, defended the amended $700 billion bailout bill passed by both houses of Congress and signed on Friday by President George Bush.

Acknowledging that the bailout plan was unpopular with the American public, Alexander compared the situation confronting members of Congress to one in which “a big ole wreck out on the highway” had occurred, blocking other drivers whose first instinct was to get angry and blame the careless drivers who’d caused the accident.

Among the blocked vehicles might be one car “carrying money for your auto loan,” others carrying the funds for “your mortgage loan or somebody’s farm credit loan,” and yet another “carrying the money for your payroll check.” Under those circumstances, the senator argued, the only feasible thing to do was to clear the highway of the obstructing vehicles, “getting ’em off the highway,” so that ordinary commerce could resume.

That, in essence, was what had been done with the bailout package. “Next week we can have our philosophical discussion about what we can do so as not to have another wreck,” Alexander said. “But this was step one in making this economic downturn shorter and easier to get out of.”

In his introduction of Alexander, Herenton praised the senator for his work on behalf of a “rescue package vital to this community getting back on its feet.” Boasting a friendship with Alexander that went back two decades (“three-and-a-half decades,” Alexander would offer by way of correction), the Memphis mayor said, “His service deserves the support of all great American thinkers and all great Tennesseans.”

Alexander told reporters the bailout package had been improved during the past week with add-ons. The so-called extenders included several provisions useful to Tennesseans, including a continuation of the state and local sales-tax deduction for Tennessee residents and a solar tax credit that would benefit Sharp Manufacturing.

Asked to appraise last week’s debate performance by Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Alexander said that Palin had performed well in the debate, especially when compared to Democratic opponent Joe Biden, whose Washington insider lingo might strike most Americans as “a foreign language.”

The senator added, “That was the second time — the first was the convention — when she had to get up in front of 70 million Americans and perform. Not many people could do that.”

• Tennessee’s other Republican senator, Bob Corker, had been one of the chief critics of the original $700 billion bailout package but was among those who overwhelmingly approved it last week. Corker said he was willing to abide the newest version of the bill, because the measure had become “a purchase of assets” and not an “expenditure” — a bill for “Main Street” and not “Wall Street.”

Overall, said Corker in a conference call with Tennessee reporters on Thursday, the bill was necessary to “create liquidity in the financial system,” including the credit markets normally accessed by small businesses and ordinary purchasers.

He had been skeptical when the plan was first outlined almost three weeks ago by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson but, after participating in the revision process himself, had been satisfied by early changes that, he said, protected taxpayers, provided accountability and oversight, and limited exorbitant executive pay.

Most important of all, “100 percent of any income made will go toward paying down the debt,” Corker said in a news release. “If our resources are invested properly, the federal government will get all of its money back and taxpayers may even see a return on the investment.”

This, he would elaborate on the conference call, distinguished the bailout bill from the Bush-sponsored “stimulus” package enacted earlier this year, which Corker opposed. “That money was thrown into a ditch. This money we have a chance of getting back.”

Corker told reporters that the much-vaunted tax-break “extenders” to the bill to attract votes not only weren’t an incentive for himself but really didn’t change the final package. “They are related but have very little effect on each other. I wish [the extension package] hadn’t been included,” said Corker, who thought it might attract more Republican members when the House voted again on Friday but could also repulse the “Blue Dog” or conservative Democrats who had been induced to vote for the bill when it first came before the House on Monday.

Indeed, 8th District congressman John Tanner professed outrage at the additions and went through a process of rethinking his original vote for the bill.

“Some of us in this body are so thoroughly disgusted with the other body right now and the way this bill has been handled,” Tanner said in a speech on the House floor. “We’ve found that it doesn’t take a lot of political courage to spend other people’s money who can’t vote.”

But when push came to shove, Tanner voted for the bill as amended by the Senate, which passed the House handily this time, 263-171.

“When the [Treasury] secretary came over here with a bill, it was a bailout. It was public risk and private gain,” Tanner said during debate on the bill. “By the wisdom of the body here, we put Section 134 — the ‘recoupment’ clause — in, which now makes it private risk and public gain, which is the way it ought to be. It is now a situation where we’re not talking about bailing out Wall Street or the high-flyers. If, at the end of the day, there is a shortfall to the treasury of the United States, then [the financial industry] will be assessed that shortfall, and the treasury will be made whole.”

Voting again for the bill, as he did earlier last week, was 9th District congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis, who had pushed vigorously for what may have been a key piece of the add-on bait that switched votes from the “nay” side to the “aye” column.

Cohen had prepared his own legislation raising the deposit-insurance ceiling of the FDIC. The congressman had sought an increase to $200,000. The final bill saw the ceiling rise to $250,000.

The chief exception on the local congressional front was the 7th District’s Marsha Blackburn, who voted against the bailout legislation both times it came before the House and appeared frequently on a variety of TV talk shows as a vigorous opponent.

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Opinion Viewpoint

The Political Party

Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t get his nickname, “The Killer,” because he killed somebody. Mississippi’s piano-rocker acquired his dangerous-sounding moniker because he frequently used the term as a generic nickname for friends and acquaintances. The Killer’s verbal tic bounced back, establishing an appropriate brand name for rock’s iconic wild man.

I mention all of this in prelude to a story about something weird that happened a little southeast of the Killer’s ranch — last Friday, in the Grove at Ole Miss — where a huge crowd assembled to watch presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama duke it out via jumbotron. Fierce supporters of McCain and Obama threw a peaceful party there in honor of the Democratic process. At that party, both groups decided that — whether they liked it or not — the time for serious change had finally arrived.

When McCain called himself a “maverick” for the umpteenth time, he did himself no favors. Instead of branding himself, the 72-year-old politician transformed himself into the pimply geek who’s trying to prove he’s tough. And everybody in the Grove felt it.

The crowd at Ole Miss was thick with Republicans. Given the sheer number of cute teenage girls with McCain’s name stitched across the ass of their Daisy Dukes, it’s probably safe to assume that conservatives were a strong but conflicted majority, possibly unable to reconcile their politics with their politicians (let alone the cut of their daughters’ britches). One blond coed felt comfortable enough to wear a button reading “I’m Pro-Gun” next to another button reading “I’m Anti-Obama.” But for all this Republicanism, both candidates were cheered throughout the debate, with McCain receiving oohs and aahs for the tough shots he fired across the bow of an opponent he couldn’t look in the eye. As a pugilistic spectator sport, it seemed clear that from this crowd’s perspective, the grumpy disabled vet was going to emerge a battered but certain winner. And so it should have been.

No matter what you may think of his policies, Obama is a lousy debater. He stammers and parses like John Kerry doing a comic impression of a John Kerry impersonator. Nevertheless, Obama’s biggest ideas — like delivering a tax cut to 95 percent of Americans — still seemed to make their way through to the consciousness of working-class voters and Republicans who’ve grown weary of trickle-down theories and extreme Reaganomics. His reminder that McCain once crooned “Bomb, bomb Iran,” to the tune of an old Beach Boys song didn’t have to be smoothly delivered.

When McCain reminded viewers about his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a bipartisan wave of disapproving moans rumbled through the crowd. There was no cheering countermeasure, no chants of “USA, USA.” There was instead a palpable sense that even in the deep-red state of Mississippi, where chicks dig guns and detest Democrats, war is losing its luster.

In Denver and St. Paul during the political conventions, the streets were feverish with protest and disagreement. Oxford’s debate crowd was, on the other hand, entirely civil. With the possible exception of one man who screamed “Hit ’em in the mouth” when moderator Jim Lehrer asked the candidates how they planned to handle Iran, McCain was easily the angriest person in Oxford.

Considering the debates of 2000 and 2004, there’s nothing to suggest that reasonable answers win presidential debates. But even as a sign reading “Palin’s a Fox” was toted from the Grove by some resolutely conservative church lady, the TV pundits were calling the debate a draw and giving a slight advantage to Obama. Flash polls showed that the Democrat won by especially large margins among independents.

There was no bragging among conservatives in the Ole Miss parking lots after the show. There was certainly nothing to rival the cocky displays in New York on the last night of the Republican National Convention in 2004, after Bush was recoronated at Madison Square Garden.

Southerners have a gift for masking their various hatreds beneath the thin but convincing veneer of civility. But something else happened in Oxford last week: A calm cross section of the American South came together to eat, dance, listen, and ultimately, to change.

Goodness gracious. Great balls of fire.

Chris Davis is a Flyer staff writer.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Win, Lose, or Draw?

John McCain, the old warrior, came to Oxford, Mississippi, last Friday to punch out an opponent. Barack Obama, the former law professor, came to take part in a conversation that he presumed would favorably showcase his elegance and expertise.

That was the story of the first presidential debate at Ole Miss’ Gertrude Ford Center, and it should have been prefigured by the way in which the previous week had gone. On the previous Wednesday, as we all subsequently learned, Democrat Obama reached out to Republican McCain to see if the two might make a joint statement concerning the ongoing bailout negotiations in Washington.

McCain’s response was to call a press conference in which he made the shocker announcement that he intended to “suspend” campaigning and return to Washington to do … whatever. And this could well mean he would miss the much-ballyhooed one-on-one down in Oxford. Meanwhile, he let it be understood that Obama could follow him to Washington if he cared to.

In the sequel, we all saw the photo-op shots of McCain at the conference table three seats to the right of President Bush, and, sure enough, there was Obama three seats to the left. God only knows what either of them contributed to a dialogue that, as an anxious and stupefied financial world would learn this week, led to no immediate agreement.

Meanwhile, down in Oxford, preparations for the debate went on feverishly if somewhat nervously, in the knowledge that Obama would definitely be down for something — a “town hall” meeting if nothing else. And when, on Friday morning, McCain finally allowed as how he’d be there, too, all seemed well.

If the Arizona senator had wanted center stage, he’d got it, for better or for worse. Had his off-again/on-again attitude toward the debate stamped him as a waffler? Or would he know how to use the spotlight, now that it was turned fully on himself?

In either case, the initiative was McCain’s. If it hadn’t been obvious before, it certainly was when, only minutes before showtime, Cindy McCain came onstage for an unexpected cameo just when Janet Brown, executive director of the Commission for Presidential Debates, was getting ready to say her lines in the ritual dog-and-pony show that preceded the debate proper.

It was obvious in the candidates’ characteristic tics as the debate wore on. As one of the network summaries would note, McCain uttered countless variations on the phrase “Senator Obama doesn’t understand,” meanwhile looking stonily ahead. Obama’s refrain, on the other hand, was agreeable in the extreme, consisting of frequent nods of the head as his adversary talked, followed by equivocations beginning, “Senator McCain [alternately, “John”] is right.”

All of this came off unpredictably. In the immediate aftermath, a reporter for the BBC began his TV stand-up with these words: “Whatever the spin doctors will say, the reality is that Barack Obama has always found it hard to match his debating skills with his inspiring oratory. John McCain was far more aggressive on foreign policy. He made his experience count.”

And there was this, from Rhodes College professor (and sometime blogger) Michael Nelson, a longtime pol-watcher who has written several books on political campaigns and the presidency: “McCain didn’t look like an old man!” Meaning that he came off as seasoned rather than doddering.

But the first poll soundings, like one from CBS giving Obama a 14-point edge among uncommitted voters and another from CNN showing a 51-38 percent differential, seemed clearly to lean toward the Democrat.

Some key to this disconjunction may lie in the curve thrown the two aspirants right off the bat by moderator Jim Lehrer, who announced: “Tonight’s [debate] will primarily be about foreign policy and national security, which, by definition, includes the global financial crisis.”

As translated into what actually ensued, what he meant was that issues relating to “foreign policy and national security” weren’t touched, even tangentially, until some 30 minutes into the hour-and-a-half proceedings, when Lehrer happened to ask a more or less pro forma question about the economic impact of spending on the Iraq war.

In the half hour preceding that foot-in-the-door on what had been billed as a foreign policy debate, McCain and Obama traded licks on the ongoing financial crisis, focusing rather more on their standard economic boilerplate than on the current bailout crisis itself.

Each of them deplored the moment in the roundest terms. Obama: “We are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.” McCain: “We’re not talking about failure of institutions on Wall Street. We’re talking about failures on Main Street, and people who will lose their jobs, and their credits, and their homes.”

Each candidate touted his own health-care and energy proposals and deplored his opponent’s. Obama got to talk about his proposed middle-class tax cuts to benefit “95 percent” of the public (the percentage who consider themselves “middle class,” it would appear) and his determination to close tax loopholes for the wealthiest few. McCain got to complain about earmarks and pork-barrel spending and what he said was the second highest rate of business tax in the world.

As for the issue of the moment — the threatened insolvency of the nation’s economic structure — both candidates claimed to have done something substantial to fix things.

Obama talked about the four general propositions he had proposed as add-ons to the $700 billion bailout package: enhanced oversight, a means by which taxpayers might recoup their investment, a lid on “golden parachutes” for CEOs, and help for homeowners on foreclosures.

McCain made the case for the efficacy of his own bailout — from the campaign trail. “And yes, I went back to Washington, and I met with my Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they weren’t part of the negotiations, and I understand that. And it was the House Republicans that decided that they would be part of the solution to this problem.”

Whatever.

When asked point-blank by Lehrer, both candidates said they were inclined to vote for the emerging bailout deal, whereby $700 billion of suspect Wall Street securities would be bought up by the federal government (i.e., the taxpayers). In any event, neither would have to right away, inasmuch as the House — all those advance predictions of success notwithstanding — rejected the proposed bailout package 225-208, with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voting no.

Once a clean transition was made into foreign policy discussion per se, McCain, whose own military background is so well known, seemed to feel himself on more confident ground. “I have the ability, and the knowledge, and the background to make the right judgments, to keep this country safe and secure,” he said. “I don’t think I need any on-the-job training. I’m ready to go at it right now.”

Obama was more tentative, to the point that some of his hesitations were built into the transcripts that were handed out irregularly to the attendant media: “And part of what we need to do, what the next president has to do — and this is part of our judgment, this is part of how we’re going to keep America safe — is to — to send a message to the world that we are going to invest in issues like education, we are going to invest in issues that — that relate to how ordinary people are able to live out their dreams.”

There were moments of heat, moments of light, and some nice extended dialogues on policy, though — largely at McCain’s insistence — far too much time was devoted to the pluses and minuses of the “surge” and to the Republican candidate’s repeated praise of the “great general” David Petraeus, current commander of American forces in Iraq.

Each man earned style points, and these may have benefited McCain disproportionately, since much of what he had said and done in recent weeks (notoriously his pronouncement, early in the bailout crisis, that the American economy was “fundamentally sound”) had seemed curiously off-point, arousing speculation here and there (and anxiety among his supporters) concerning his age and fitness.

Early in the debate, when Lehrer, playing bad-boy moderator, commanded Obama to direct a rather professorial and abstract criticism to McCain directly, the Arizona senator managed a wry grin and said, “Are you afraid I couldn’t hear him?” When Obama chided McCain for not promising an audience to the prime minister of Spain, the following exchange ensued:

Obama: “If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we’re going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.”

McCain: “I’m not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I’m president of the United States. I don’t even have a seal.”

More impressively, McCain seemed to have an all-purpose instant recall when he needed it. At one point, after Lehrer had cited a platitude from former president Dwight Eisenhower, McCain responded simultaneously with an apt reference to letters Ike had written as commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force on the eve of D-Day in World War Two.

Sometimes, however, McCain over-played his hand. When he chastised Obama for talking out loud about the prospect of invading Pakistan, Obama was quick to remind him of a famous indiscretion of his own: “Coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and sung songs about bombing Iran [“Bomb, Bomb, Bomb/ Bomb, Bomb Iran!,” to the tune of the old rocker, “Barbara Ann”], I don’t know how credible that is.”

In the end, neither man gained a decisive victory, nor did either commit an error so serious as to undermine his chances. The debate might well be regarded as a draw, though even before the next two presidential forums, this Thursday’s debate in St. Louis between vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden could tilt things one way or the other.

Only one thing is surefire about that one: Win, lose, or draw for Republican Palin, a resurgent Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live will have new fodder for two nights later.

That’s if the congressional version of Deal or No Deal? doesn’t end in disaster between now and then. In which case — literally — all bets are off.

• Former Memphian Babs Chase, now head of foreign press for the State Department, shepherded a large corps of journalists from various countries around Oxford. Sitting at a picnic table last Thursday night on the lawn of the university’s journalism facilities and dining on Southern-fried specialties were Sulaiman Alamin, from Sudan; Ole Nyeng of Denmark; and Jean-Marc Veszely of Belgium.

All were frank to say they hoped for an Obama victory — a reminder of the McCain strategy of trying to stigmatize the Democratic candidate’s support as reflecting a foreign consensus rather than a Middle American one. But all three journalists made it clear they were motivated less by any “celebrity” of Obama’s than by fear and loathing concerning what they see as the disasters of the eight-year Bush administration.

But, asked who they thought would win, the three split, with only Nyeng, the Dane, opining in favor of Obama. Veszely was not prepared to pronounce, and Alamin refused to believe that Americans would actually vote for someone with African ancestry. He saw McCain as the victor, primarily on racial grounds.

“Things here have not changed that much,” said the Sudanese freelancer, though his point would have been disputed by Chancellor Robert Khayat and other University of Mississippi officials, who did their best all week to convince the media, foreign and domestic, that things had indeed changed, not only in America at large but at Ole Miss itself. Once a citadel of segregation but now struggling to redefine itself, the school is, in the words of a letter from Khayat that appeared in every media press packet, “a nurturing and diverse community where people of all races, religions, nationalities, economic groups, and political alliances live, study, and work comfortably together.”

Now that’s something that no major Mississippi official, governmental or academic, would have said backaways.

• Complementing the carnival that was the Ole Miss campus last week were numerous booths, vans, exhibits for the curious, and donors like Anheuser-Busch, which maintained a food-and-drink tent nearby the media facilities and offered exotic enough fare — Portobello mushrooms, Italian sausage cheeseburgers, German beer, and French wine — to attract politicians like Massachusetts senator John Kerry and his Michigan colleague Carl Levin.

Not least among the bounties in this provender-laden tent were Rendezvous ribs, personally supervised and served by restaurateur John Vergos himself.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Political U-Turns in New Hampshire, GPS-Style

CREDIT: Cheri DelBrocco

MANCHESTER, N.H. –No doubt, the Global Positioning
System is one of the greatest inventions to come along in a long time. That
voice that tells us to turn left, right, and pull a U-turn is so reassuring.
Last night, I would have been as lost as a little lamb in New Hampshire snow
without it. Driving the highway from Nashua to Manchester seemed less
stressful knowing that a satellite signal in the sky had figured out a way to
keep me from getting lost by keeping me on the right path to my destination.

The double header debate on the campus of St. Anselm
College gave voters a chance to hear the candidates from both parties. It was
cold and snow was piled two feet high, but inside the Dana Center for the
Humanities, the candidates were getting hot. In this state, whose motto is
Live Free or Die, it’s do or die for Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton.

Clearly, not only Governor Romney and Senator Clinton but
all the candidates have become hyper- aware of a new fact since the Iowa
Caucus. A new word, the word, has emerged like a bull’s-eye on the
elective radar: change. Folks in New Hampshire are using a kind of political
GPS to determine which candidate will make the quickest U-turn on the policies
and actions of the last seven years. Most want a change in almost every
policy and aspect of government, both foreign and domestic. Tina, the 20 year
old student/waitress at Chili’s Restaurant in Nashua summed it up this way,
“I’m not sure who I am voting for yet, but I am looking for the one who is
going to pull a fast 180.”

But before the primary, the people here will have to
navigate through something else: a monster spin machine. After the debates
last night, the spinning was so full tilt, it felt like I was watching a
broken down Maytag with too many towels. Every candidate had a spin-doctor and
the stampede of cameras, recorders, mikes, and lights was like the stampeding
buffalo scene in Dances with Wolves.

Elizabeth Edwards entered the room looking energized as
she passionately discussed her husband’s debate performance. She predictably
claimed he had hit a home run and emphasized his “you cannot ‘nice’ people to
death” comment, an obvious jab at the call of both Obama and Richardson for
dialogue with Pakistan’s Musharraf and other leaders in the Middle East.
Assisting her was former Michigan congressman David Bonior, who pointed out
Edwards’ debate commitment to end all combat missions in Iraq and to close all
bases there in the first year of his presidency. Joe Trippi, former manager
of the Howard Dean campaign, was putting additional frosting on the Edwards
cake by claiming Edwards would definitely carry the day on Tuesday.

Senator Obama had his own spin game going through the
medium of campaign strategist David Axelrod, who immediately declared Obama to
be the clear winner and forecast a sunnier outcome in the New Hampshire
primary for this candidate than the win last week in Iowa.

The room was also filled to the rafters with heavy
hitters such as Joe Scarborough, Joe Klein, Bay Buchanan, and Jeff Greenfield,
each trying to out-spin and out-opinionate the other. This went on for well
over an hour, at which time the media fanned out to various networks and local
stations to broadcast their latest chestnuts

In a little over 24 hours, the good people of the Granite
State have got their work cut out for them. The die is cast and the call for a
change in direction is resonating loud and clearly. For now, we can only
speculate on whose voice we might be hearing when the nation turns on its
political Tom Tom in November.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Idol Fancies

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon,

Going to the candidates’ debate.

Laugh about it, shout about it.

When you’ve got to choose,

Every way you look at it you lose.

— “Mrs. Robinson” by Paul Simon

These traveling roadshows called debates have increasingly taken on the air of a TV reality program. I watched one Republican debate, but after seeing a majority of the candidates admit, en masse, that they questioned the validity of evolution, I didn’t need to watch another.

The Republican debates are equivalent to the summer replacement show America’s Got Talent. (The Democrats shade toward American Idol.) The contestants are carefully scrutinized as to appearance and confidence levels, and expectations run high each week over who will stumble and who will rise to the challenge. They even have judges posing as questioners. They critique the candidates’ answers and attempt to build rivalries within the group. The role of the intemperate asshole judge is played by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (alternately, Chris Matthews). The flaw in the concept is that we can’t phone in each week and get somebody booted in order to thin this herd and maybe hear something of substance.

I took an online poll in which you were asked to match your opinions with the candidate who most closely holds your views. Mine came out Dennis Kucinich, which is good and bad.

I admire the congressman’s courage to call for impeachment openly and often. (He nearly got a vote to the floor last week.) I agree with him on ending the war in Iraq and holding the planners accountable. And he has been the single most consistent liberal voice in all these dark Bush years.

But I also know Kucinich hasn’t got a chance to win the nomination. I’ll happily vote for him in the Tennessee presidential primary to make a statement. Hell, I once voted for Prince Mongo for county mayor. I also voted for LaToya London on American Idol.

But once again, machine politics and corporate cash rule over procedure, and even though Kucinich’s rousing debate performances rival the American Idol appearances of Bo Bice, he’s going to lose to the blond lady who was mistreated when she was younger.

Before Hillary gets measured for crown and scepter, however, it would be well to remember that not a single vote has yet been cast and that the American voter is a famously fickle animal who will turn on you in an instant. How else can you explain Taylor Hicks winning American Idol, or George Bush winning anything, for that matter?

I’m sure Kucinich is at least as deserving as fellow ugly duckling Clay Aiken was. But if I had to review Hillary’s debate performances thus far, I would say, à la Randy Jackson, “It was just aw’ite for me, Dog. You’re a little pitchy.”

While this lite operetta continues, President Zero is neglecting some serious issues: The Chinese are trying to date-rape our children; Wal-Mart has been discovered taking out life insurance policies on its aged workers and collecting benefits when they die; Laci Peterson has morphed into Stacy Peterson; a discovered statement left behind by the still-deceased Saddam Hussein said his flim-flammery about WMD was not to threaten the U.S. but to fool Iran.

Barack Obama has promised to take off the gloves this week. And did I fail to mention our troops are in the middle of a foreign civil war with no end in sight? Too bad we can’t just vote the troops off the island.

Al Gore may have won his Oscar and his Nobel Prize, but Carrie Underwood and Daughtry kicked major butt at the AMA’s, and Fantasia was up for an award, too. With the current television writers’ strike, the mid-January start of the new season of American Idol might have to be moved up, just like those nervy upstart states want to do with their Johnny-come-lately primaries.

Then we could have five nights of nothing but American Idol and debates. But if the debates are going to compete, they have to really want it, Dog. This is, after all, a singing competition. And there is one lonely voice singing in the corner, crying, “Impeach now. Impeach now.” Can you hear him? It’s Dennis “The Dark Horse” Kucinich, and his spouse is better looking than Hillary’s any day.

Hey, no one believed Ruben Studdard could win either. Seacrest out.

Randy Haspel is, among other things, a Memphis musician and wit. He writes at bornagainhippies.blogspot.com.

Categories
News

Ole Miss to Host Presidential Debate

Mark September 26, 2008 on your calendar. The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced today that the first presidential debate will take place in Oxford, Mississippi, at Ole Miss’ 1,200-seat Gertrude Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

The other debates are scheduled for Nashville’s Belmont College, where Fred Thompson could enjoy a home-podium advantage, and Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

No word yet on whether or not locals and Ole Miss alumni plan to tailgate in the Grove prior to the debate.

Participants in the debate to be announced later.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

Some African Americans have raised the question about Barack Obama, “Is he black enough?” But the young senator also may have a problem in that he is not white enough for a lot of Americans who I think are not ready to accept a man of color as president. This is sad. If Obama got the Democratic presidential nomination, I would gladly vote for him rather than any of those no-good Republicans.

I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but white racism has been driven underground. Few white people today will voice even a legitimate criticism of an African American lest they lose their job or get crucified by the press and be branded a racist. But just because people keep silent or even maintain a facade of tolerance doesn’t mean that prejudice has been extinguished. We would be far better off if white people felt free to express their true opinions. Then, at least, we would know where everybody stands.

There is no genuine debate in America on the subject of race. Like the state of Israel, the subject is forbidden if it involves criticism or dissent from the politically correct views. This is not good. Hidden prejudice is difficult to combat.

Thomas Jefferson said words to the effect that lies or errors are not to be feared as long as people are free to debate them. Prejudice of any kind is, after all, an error in thinking. These days it is equated with hate, but that, too, is an error. A person can be prejudiced but not hate what he’s prejudiced against. People can hate without being prejudiced. The point is that errors in thinking can be corrected if people are free to discuss them. Hate, which is an emotion, is another problem altogether. Haters generally hate everybody, often including themselves.

Senator Obama was lionized at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He has become a celebrity and draws nice crowds at his personal appearances. But he remains far behind Hillary Clinton in the polls despite the fact that he is twice as intelligent and thoughtful, and, no doubt about it, he would make a far better president.

True, he is jug-eared and sounds often too professorial, and many Americans today are looking for stars rather than leaders. But I believe the hidden wall is simply prejudice against the idea of an African American as president.

Right up through and long after the War Between the States, the belief that African Americans were inferior was universal. The North was as prejudiced as the South. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French observer, noted of America that “the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the states which have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known.” Even Abe Lincoln expressed his belief that African Americans were inferior and could never live as equals among whites.

Such deeply ingrained beliefs are difficult to get rid of, especially if, as we have done, we have created a situation where everyone feels compelled to hide them.

As I said, I sincerely hope that I am wrong about this. Obama would clearly be superior to Hillary Clinton or to any of the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul. Nevertheless, I fear the senator is too white for some blacks and too black for some whites.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

If anyone doubts that the

republic created by the U.S. Constitution

is dead, he or she only has to watch the Republican

presidential debates. Save for Ron Paul, all of the candidates believe a

president can take the country to war on his own, though most concede it might be a good idea to “consult” attorneys and even Congress.

The Constitution, written by men more intelligent and better educated than today’s crop of political duds, is quite clear. The president has no authority to take the country to war. The sole authority for declaring war rests 100 percent with Congress.

Naturally, if a shipload of pirates sailed up the Potomac and began shooting at the tourists, you wouldn’t need a declaration to authorize returning fire. American troops defending themselves while they are under attack is not the issue. The issue is that if a president wants to take the country to war against another country, he must, as Franklin Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor, ask Congress to make that decision.

The founding fathers, having suffered under a monarch, deliberately created a weak president. His powers, as specified by the Constitution, are limited mainly to administering the laws passed by Congress, making appointments, negotiating treaties and being the official greeter when dealing with foreign powers. His role as commander in chief is limited to just what it says — the military. The president is not our commander in chief, as the current president seems to think.

Lest anyone be beguiled by the current politicians’ determination to create an emperor and an empire, even the president’s appointments and treaties have to be confirmed by the Senate. Congress has sole authority over taxation and spending. Appropriations for the military are limited by the Constitution to two years. Furthermore, Congress is elected independently of the president and is a separate branch of government. It is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything the president asks it to do, and the president has no authority whatsoever to do anything not authorized by Congress and the Constitution.

The Constitution, which apparently not many Americans have ever bothered to read, is the supreme law of the land. It does not make suggestions. It commands. It was written in clear English. It has provisions to amend it, but it should never be amended by interpretation. That is always a usurpation of power and should be grounds for impeachment.

There is only one way for the U.S. to be a real nation of laws. That way is for the people to demand that every single public official obey the laws as they are written and obey them to the letter. The current president seems to think he can alter laws with “signing statements” and legislate with executive orders. He should have been impeached a long time ago.

The kernel of the nut is this: In our constitutional republic, sovereignty rests in the people. If the people are too stupid or ignorant, too lazy or indifferent, to hold their public officials accountable for violating the laws and the Constitution, then of course they will deserve the tyranny they will surely get.

Self-government is tremendously more difficult and demanding than living under a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, all you have to do is obey. I fear that concept appeals to some Americans today. It’s understandable. Responsibility can be a heavy load to carry. It’s much easier to relegate all of that to the Great Leader and just do what we are told.

Anybody who’s ever been in the military or jail knows what I’m talking about. When you are deprived of the ability to make choices, you are simultaneously relieved of the responsibility for making them. Responsibility is the other side of the coin of freedom.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

No-Shows

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

By now, with early voting under way and scarcely two weeks to go before Election Day itself, it is apparent — even to the extreme Pollyanna types among us — that Mayor Willie Herenton will not be aiding the voters (or his opponents) by participating in any multi-candidate forums.

That’s unless you count the two times he has appeared in series with his three major adversaries — City Council member Carol Chumney, former MLGW head Herman Morris, and former Shelby County commissioner John Willingham.

The first of those occasions occurred several weeks back when the mayor deigned to appear — separately, as did the others — before a public evaluation session of the Coalition for a Better Memphis, answering the same set of policy questions as his opponents. He was third in line for that event and, coincidentally or not, also finished third in the coalition’s ultimate numerical evaluations (behind Morris and Chumney, in that order).

Only last week, Herenton made another partial concession to the forum concept when, at Homebuilders on Germantown Parkway, he deigned, albeit briefly, to sit on the same stage as his three main contenders at an event put on by the Cordova Neighborhood Association. Speaking first, he itemized his dogs and ponies and then left, leaving Chumney to chastise him for not staying to “answer questions” and Morris and Willingham to do similar tut-tutting.

Actually, the format of the evening, which also featured candidates in several council districts, did not permit questions, nor, ipso facto, did it allow for answers.

Herenton next had an opportunity for some joint Q&A action on Sunday, when he, the other mayoral candidates, and aspirants for various council seats were invited to appear at an event sponsored by the Central Gardens Neighborhood Association at Idlewild School.

His Honor had accepted the association’s invite, but he opted out when he learned he would not be able, as at the two prior events, to speak his two-cents’ worth and then depart but would be expected to stick around with the others to field questions — including some from the audience and from children at three neighborhood schools and, potentially at least, from his opponents.

As it happened, the Central Gardens folks excluded several candidates who had not completed the association’s fairly extensive questionnaire on issues before a deadline had passed. As a result, both Chumney and Willingham, along with various council candidates, found themselves on the outside looking in, having to settle for passing out their campaign literature to arriving attendees.

Among mayoral contenders, only Morris and the inimitable Laura Davis Aaron were empanelled. Morris, who — buoyed by a fresh endorsement from The Commercial Appeal — seems to be enjoying something of a late rise, performed well, and Aaron, whose persona has sometimes seemed to be an SNL improvisation, outdid herself with a dire warning — Grim Reaper-like, given the presence of the student corps — that children educated in the public schools, unlike their home-schooled counterparts, would die.

Jackson Baker

A rare group sighting: the top four mayoral candidates in Cordova

(It was some consolation that “Dr.” Aaron, who claims to receive visions from God, did not say when.)

One of the questions directed at the field of candidates concerned their attitude toward those of their opponents who had spurned the opportunity to come forth. Predictably, the absent Herenton drew barbs from Morris and others — as did incumbent District 8, Position 1 councilman Joe Brown from opponent Ian Randolph, who has picked up some good late support in various quarters.

Brown has indeed been a no-show at the campaign year’s public forums and other collective events, whether or not his reason is what Randolph alleges it is — to exploit voter confusion of himself with the other Joe Brown, the former Criminal Court judge who now holds court on syndicated national television.

The other main target of complaints concerning his chronic abseentism from public scrutiny was Reid Hedgepeth, a political newcomer who is seeking election to the District 9, Position 3 seat being vacated by council veteran Jack Sammons and who has stout support from Sammons, FedEx founder Fred Smith, and other influential Memphians.

Hedgepeth’s support group also includes the first-time candidate’s fellow developers, or so alleges opponent Lester Lit, a retired businessman who makes that charge in a radio ad now running and who verbally blistered Hedgepeth on Sunday for consistently making himself scarce.

“Vote for me or Desi [Franklin] or Mary [Wilder]” was Lit’s generous advice to attendees at the Central Gardens forum. (Both Franklin and Wilder, who also seek the District 9, Position 3 seat, were present, as they, like Lit, have been for other candidate forums this year.)

Hedgepeth is a special case. Unlike Brown, who maintains his own North Memphis community center for constituents, and unlike Herenton, who has been the cynosure at several mass rallies in the inner city and who has made selected drop-in appearances elsewhere, Hedgepeth has, by apparent design, been the subject of few public sightings.

Sammons, who by general acknowledgement is directing the Hedgepeth campaign, pooh-poohs the necessity of his protégé’s making appearances at forums and other such events. “He needs to be out where the people are,” said the retiring councilman on the occasion of the recent opening of Hedgepeth’s Park Place campaign headquarters.

And that, Sammons went on, passing his hand over a wall map, meant concentrating on door-to-door canvassing. It should be said that there are skeptics in other candidates’ camps who doubt that Hedgepeth is doing much door-to-door, either. What is incontestable is that Hedgepeth has beaucoup campaign signs — including what would seem to be scores of large wooden ones — all over District 9 and, for that matter, in adjoining areas, both inside and outside the city.

And this week saw the appearance of a TV spot in which the 30-year-old former University of Memphis tight end appears both personable and focused and promises, once in office, to be the source of “straight talk” and “practical solutions.”

Meanwhile, it would seem, voters will have to do without much of either. Hedgepeth’s highly packaged and well-financed campaign so far has distinct resemblances to the election efforts of Nikki Tinker, a repeat candidate for the 9th District congressional seat who, in both 2006 and in the campaign she has already launched for 2008, has eschewed much in the way of policy statements and whose public appearances are highly controlled. She too, like Hedgepeth, has relied heavily on direct mail, visible campaign paraphernalia, and expensively produced media.

Whether coincidentally or not, both Hedgepeth and Tinker also reportedly have stout support in local corporate circles.

None of that conclusively demonstrates anything, for better or worse, about the potential of either candidate in office, but it is the kind of outward, detached manifestation that Joe Saino, a candidate for District 9, Position 2, had in mind on Sunday at the Central Gardens forum when — almost in the manner of ’60s balladeer Joe South — he denounced the prevalence of “signs, signs, signs.”

But even Saino, a retired businessman and public official best known these days for his muckraking blog efforts at memphiswatchdog.org, has his signs out. They all do. On the day after Election Day we’ll see which ones were omens and which just turned out to be litter.

Next week: the Flyer‘s pre-election issue