A Moment of Reflection Before the Next Phase Begins

The election has ended; President-elect Obama is on his way to the White House; Senator McCain -- after a very eloquent and gracious concession speech -- is on his way back to the Senate. In terms of the historic nature of this event, it's incredible and something well worth celebrating.

During the time ahead, though, the political differences will be argued and both my fiscal conservatism and my social liberalism will be challenged from many sides. I really look forward to the debates ahead, and as a great lover of the game of politics I am looking forward even more to the palace intrigue that will begin at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Today, it is time to put partisanship aside and look at what the election means for the nation. Michael Gerson, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote what I feel is a very eloquent piece about where we are at this point in history. I commend it to you here today and hope that in the time ahead everyone focuses on the fact that it's not the R or the D behind a name that matters, but what we can all do for the country.

"Hail to the Chief"
By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I come to this moment of national decision with deep concerns about the next president. His victory is likely to unleash an ideological and vengeful Democratic Congress. In the testing of a long campaign, Barack Obama has seemed thoughtful but sometimes hesitant and unsure of his bearings. He promises outreach and healing but holds to a liberalism that sees no need for innovation. And as the result of a financial panic that unfairly undermined all Republicans, Obama has stumbled into the most dangerous kind of victory. A mandate for change but not for ideas. A mandate without clear meaning.

But a presidential election is more than a political choice; it is a moral dividing line. It involves not just the triumph of a majority but a transfer of legitimacy that binds the minority as well. This is a largely undiscussed topic in modern political debate: legitimacy. It is a kind of democratic magic that turns votes into authority. It does not require political agreement. It does imply a patriotic respect for the processes of government and a determination to honor the president for the sake of the office he holds.

In the past few decades, the magic of legitimacy has seemed to fade. Opponents of President Bill Clinton turned their disagreements (and Clinton's human failures) into an assault on his power. Some turned to insane conspiracy theories, including accusations of politically motivated murder. After President Bush's reelection, elements of the left began their own attack on his legitimacy, talking of impeachment while repeating lunatic theories about deception and criminality.

After a deserved honeymoon, the new president is likely to find that the intensity of this bitterness has only gathered. Because of the ideological polarization of cable television news, talk radio and the Internet, Americans can now get their information from entirely partisan sources. They can live, if they choose to, in an ideological world of their own creation, viewing anyone outside that world as an idiot or criminal, and finding many who will cheer their intemperance. Liberals have perfected this machinery of disdain over the past few years. Given the provocation, the same approach is likely to be turned against the new president by the right as well.

Barack Obama's first years may well be dominated by a recession and a swiftly arming Iran. Some conservatives will be tempted to take joy from his inevitable struggles; others to spin conspiracy theories from his background and associations. It will be easy to blame every emerging challenge on the faults and failures of an inexperienced young president. But it will be more difficult for me.

I remember the vivid days of possibility that follow a presidential victory. I happened to be in the Roosevelt Room in January 2001 just as the portrait of Teddy Roosevelt, heroic on horseback, was moved over the fireplace, where it hangs during Republican administrations. And I know that someone, feeling the same hope and burden that I felt, will be watching when Franklin Roosevelt is moved back to the place of honor.

There is a tremendous sense of history and responsibility that comes with serving in the White House. You gain an appreciation for the conflicted choices others have faced -- and for the untamed role of history in frustrating the best of plans. It becomes easier to understand a president's challenges and harder to question his motives. Ultimately, I believe that every president, and the staff he hires, feels the duty to serve a single national interest. And, ultimately, we need our presidents to succeed, not to fail for our own satisfaction or vindication.

This presidency in particular should be a source of pride even for those who do not share its priorities. An African American will take the oath of office blocks from where slaves were once housed in pens and sold for profit. He will sleep in a house built in part by slave labor, near the room where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation with firm hand. He will host dinners where Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 entertained the first African American to be a formal dinner guest in the White House; command a military that was not officially integrated until 1948. Every event, every act, will complete a cycle of history. It will be the most dramatic possible demonstration that the promise of America -- so long deferred -- is not a lie.

I suspect I will have many substantive criticisms of the new administration, beginning soon enough. Today I have only one message for Barack Obama, who will be our president, my president: Hail to the chief.

What's On My Mind Headed Into Tuesday - Part 3

I'm running out of time before tomorrow's election and I haven't yet run out of issues to discuss, so today I'm going to focus on the two biggest things on my mind as I head into the voting booth tomorrow.

This picture from our family vacation in August shows MB and E. looking out at the ocean, but I've always thought of it with the added layer of looking out to the horizon. Tomorrow represents moving one step closer to the horizon of their lives -- their future. I know how I'm voting and I'm comfortable with my decision, but regardless of what happens tomorrow I'll do whatever I can as a parent to secure their future, their horizons.

And if Senator Obama does in fact win the election, then consider me a member of the loyal opposition for the next four years.

What's On My Mind Headed Into Tuesday - Part 2

The next two things of concern to me headed into Tuesday's election...

1. Card check. Those pressing this legislation would rather have you focus on the misleading title, the Employee Free Choice Act, rather than on the fact that if passed the bill means anything but a free choice for American workers. Right now, the decision on whether to unionize is a two-step process: workers are first asked if they want to hold a vote on unionization, and if 30 percent say yes then there is a second vote on whether to unionize (a vote that is done by secret ballot). In this method, even if a worker doesn't want a unionized workplace, they can say they want to hold an election and then vote against it with their private ballot. Under card check rules, however, unionizing is moved to a one-step process where workers automatically vote on unionizing -- and it's done in such a way that their vote is public, and where they are open to pressure from coworkers and union organizers to vote for it. Proponents of the legislation say that it doesn't take away the secret ballot at all, but that is a flat-out lie.

Why is card check such an important issue for unions (and the Democrats they support with their contributions)? Quite simply, it is because unions don't hold the sway that they once did -- their membership rolls have been steadily declining, and the money they are able to obtain through union dues has also fallen. If card check is enacted, union rolls will go up, mandatory dues will increase, and organized labor will once again have vast pools of money to play with and throw at their candidates of choice. This is such a big issue for them, in fact, that a story in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago stated that organized labor intends to spend upwards of $300 million in this election cycle for candidates and to push this agenda.

What will this mean for businesses and workers if it passes? That depends on the company for which these men and women work, but in most instances it will among other things:

• Mandate new benefit plans and salaries for workers (which, at least with the company for whom I work, will actually be much lower on both counts than what workers are receiving);
• Dictate new job titles and levels of seniority that could be more restrictive than those put into place by management;
• Make it more difficult for companies to expand and complete renovations or improvements to their workplaces because of being forced to adhere to union regulations on time-lines and contract bidding; and
• Subject management to the whims of organized labor with regard to strikes and work stoppages.

The House of Representatives passed this last year, and it was only because the Democrats held fewer than 60 seats in the Senate that it didn't progress further. Obama has said he will sign any card check bill that makes it to his desk; McCain is opposed. In short, this bill could be disastrous for American businesses, and even though polls have shown that an overwhelming number of men and women don't like the idea and would be less inclined to vote for a candidate who supports card check, many politicians have very little backbone and are more worried about losing the financial support of unions than representing their constituents.

2. Reductions in the military. Last week, Barney Frank of Massachusetts announced his desire to cut the military budget by 25 percent, which translates to roughly $150 billion. That's a pretty ambitious goal, particularly since -- wait for it -- Congress just recently passed legislation calling for an additional 92,000 Army troops and Marines between now and 2013.

Things in Iraq and Afghanistan have not gone well, despite the success of the surge in recent months, and troops are most definitely stretched thin with their deployments. But is cutting the military budget the way to approach solving this problem? Remember, the Democrats are the ones who are the first to say that their votes against bills providing funding for the troops aren't a demonstration of their lack of support for the troops. If that's the case, then what would slashing $150 billion show them? And I wouldn't be too quick to say that it's money that would be allocated for weapons systems -- because in the long run, I have a strong suspicion that that will not be the case.

Senator Obama has denied that he plans on doing this, but given that if he wins he will have a majority in both the House and Senate with which to work, would he have the guts to buck his party and veto such a measure? Given his past record of bucking his party in favor of the national interest, I don't think so.

What's On My Mind Headed Into Tuesday - Part 1

Four days out from the election, and I admittedly have some very great concerns about the direction this country may take over the next four years as a result of the outcome of Tuesday's vote. Regular visitors to my blog know that I try extremely hard to examine issues from both sides and not jump based on my conservative gut, and I have tried to do that in thinking through how I feel about this election. Over the next few days (and perhaps even several times each day), I'm going to lay out some of what concerns me and what will be on my mind as I head into the voting booth next week.

In this installment:

1. Single-party control of the government. I'll be the first to admit -- even as a conservative -- that the eight years of the Bush Administration overlapped with the 12 years of Republican control (at varying times) of the House and Senate have been a disaster. The party which came in on the heels of the 1994 Republican Revolution, whose leaders proclaimed that they were heralding the beginning of an era of smaller government, completely lost its way. Any surpluses which existed (side bar: the surpluses of the Clinton years were the result of Congress and the Administration working together; trying to give credit solely to Clinton is incorrect, since it takes both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to get legislation enacted) are long gone, and yes, spending has increased dramatically. The past year alone has seen falling GDP, rising unemployment, and the revelation that our national economy is much more fragile than we were led to believe (or than the experts such as Alan Greenspan even expected). The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 did work, and revenue flowing into D.C. actually increased; it just couldn't keep pace with the checks the government was having to send out of D.C.

But is swinging the pendulum completely to the other side going to make things any better? I don't believe it will. Just as the Republicans during the past several years threw bipartisanship out the window, the Democrats since 1996 have done no better (even with Speaker Pelosi's pledge to bring both sides of the aisle together to work for the common good). And putting control in the hands of a party who I fear will ignore the members of its more moderate segment and throw the situation even further left will do just as much harm as the ultra-conservatives who have tried to guide the agenda since 1994. Any hope of "Washington coming together for the common good" is close to being completely gone for many years, and unlike the previous eras of Democrat control of Washington (the years when the Sam Rayburns and Tip O'Neills actually worked with Republicans) I fear that the hands of bipartisanship extended across the aisle will be completely withdrawn.

2. New taxes and wealth "redistribution." Ever since Senator Obama made his now-famous comment to Joe Wurzelbacher about spreading around the wealth to ensure that those behind him have a fair opportunity, folks are quick to throw around the word socialism. I'm not worried about what word is used to describe it, be it socialism or anything else, but I am worried about why the government feels it necessary to determine who I help and to what extent I help them. I used to consider myself middle class, but with the moving-target definition we've gotten of that lately (Is it $250,000? Is it $200,000? Is it $100,000?) I'm not so sure anymore. Depending on what number folks finally decide on, I may find myself suddenly (and quite unexpectedly) in the upper class.

My family and I contribute quite a bit to charity each year, and would in fact like to be able to do more. The reality is there are other financial obligations and debts that we must eliminate first. With increased taxes, how are we going to do that? It will take longer to pay down the debt, and we'll have less coming into our household that we can in turn give to those churches and charities that we choose to help. So point one: higher taxes will restrict our ability to give. And I have always believed that it is not government's responsibility to be the sole source of public assistance; the American people should take that upon themselves to help their fellow man, while at the same time recognizing that we should strive to give a hand-up, not a hand-out. It seems to surprise a lot of folks, but poverty also existed in the time of the founding fathers; however, mandating that the government address these problems was not something they included in the Constitution. They relied on the inherent good nature and goodwill of man to address these problems; why has it shifted so much in the 221 years since the drafting of the Constitution that we now expect government to hand us everything? Instead of giving candidates nearly one billion dollars for attack ads and staff salaries, think about what good we could have done with that money on the streets of our inner cities, our shelters, our food banks, and our charities.

Point two: even if we do ultimately fall into the category of receiving a further promised tax cut, I'm certainly not fool enough to ignore the fact that the taxes passed on instead to small businesses will hit us just as much as if we had more money being taken directly out of our checks. Sure, we may (hypothetically as an example here) have an extra $100 a month coming in, but that money will in turn have to go to our childrens' daycare expenses (increased taxes on them will drive up their fees), food (increased taxes on farms and food producers will drive up their overhead, and those costs will be passed on to us), fuel (the small, independent gas station owners will have to pay more and increase their portion of the gasoline cost -- as will we), utilities (taxes applied to companies providing our electric, water and gas services will increase our rates) -- and on and on and on.

(Side-bar: It really aggravates me when politicians and the American public rail on oil companies for what they term "obscene profits." For me, God love them for their success!! Why should we penalize anyone for working hard and achieving great success, whether they be a small business or a multinational? And I certainly think it's ridiculous to focus on the oil and gas industry alone: in 2005, per dollar of sales, the oil industry made eight cents of profit, and yet you never seem to hear that the biotech industry made nearly 20 cents profit per dollar, or that banks and lending institutions made nearly 18 cents per dollar. Even technology firms during that time made about two cents more in profit per dollar. Why aren't they being targeted for increased taxes? Why aren't the Democrats hammering them about windfall profits? My answer: it's not sexy to increase taxes on Microsoft, but it sure looks good to stick it to Conoco Phillips or ExxonMobil.)

Next installment in my pre-election series: card check and the military.

A Campaign Comedy Break

It's nice, even for one evening, to take a break from the grind of increasingly partisan, increasingly bitter, increasingly intense presidential politics. Thank goodness for the annual Al Smith dinner in New York, and for Senators Obama and McCain having the opportunity to poke fun at each other for even just a bit. And with that, here are the clips of the two candidates for you to enjoy.

We Have the Candidates...and We're Off!

So the race has officially been set: Obama v. McCain for all the marbles. It should be an exciting race; I've seen first-hand the excitement that Obama can generate among the masses (as with this picture that I took at his rally at American University in Washington in January),

and I've had the chance to listen to McCain in a one-on-one setting (as when he taped my former boss' television show, when this picture was taken).

So who's it going to be? Just over five months separate us from the answer -- and what a ride it will be getting there.

For Ds, Rs, and Indies, a Great Speech

Even now, 24 hours later, this is still an impressive speech -- regardless of background or political affiliation. It's definitely one that will be remembered for quite some time, both for the significance of Obama's accomplishment and because of how good an orator he really is...

Caucus Day; How Much of a Prognosticator Am I?

For the first time in many years, I've gotten extremely interested in the outcome of the caucuses and primaries -- and at a relatively late point, considering how long the campaign season has already been running. Before the results in Iowa move too far along, let me throw up my predictions, based on absolutely nothing except my gut:

Democratic Caucus

Barack Obama
John Edwards
Hillary Clinton

Republican Caucus

Mike Hucakabee
John McCain
Mitt Romney

Update number 1 (8:52 p.m.): Democrats - Clinton 33, Edwards 33, Obama 32
Republicans - Huckabee 36, Romney - 23, Thompson - 14

Update number 2 (10:52 p.m.): Democrats - Obama 38, Edwards 30, Clinton 29
Republicans - Hucakabee 34, Romney 25, Thompson - 13

Enough of the results have come in that they've called it for both sides, so Obama and Huckabee are the big winners at this point. The Obama win is for me personally a mixed blessing: I really would relish seeing Hillary crash and burn in the primaries, but she's also the one candidate that I think would really unify the GOP in the general election. New Hampshire is going to be really interesting next Tuesday; can Huckabee keep up the momentum? Will McCain pick up where he left off in New Hampshire? Is Obama just the surprise du jour, or is today's win really going to put a hurt on Edwards and Clinton?

I'll put my predictions for New Hampshire up on Monday; now it's time to go watch the end of the Virginia Tech - Kansas game...

A Little Bit of Faith and a Little Bit of Politics...

...but not together. There are two things I wanted to touch on briefly here.

The first concerns the ongoing legal difficulties with the Catholic Archdiocese of Southern California, which has agreed to pay the victims of sexual abuse by priests a total of $660 million. In yesterday's Washington Post, there was an article on page A-3 talking about one of the steps the archdiocese is taking in order to help pay those massive costs: evicting nuns and selling their property. In the piece, entitled "Nuns' Evictions Pose Perception Problem for Catholic Church," staff writer Karl Vick writes:

"Here in Santa Barbara, the sins of the fathers are being visited on the Sisters of Bethany. The three nuns living in a modest building on Nopal Street received an eviction notice last month ordering them to be out by Dec. 31. Earlier 'would be acceptable as well,' the letter said.

"Among those being forced to move is Sister Angela Escalera, 69, who, diabetic and able to get around only with a walker, had hoped to live out her days in the Santa Barbara convent. 'This is how the archdiocese is going about getting the money to pay off the victims,' said her younger sister, Rosemary Escalera Gutierrez, 64, a former nun in the order."

Vick went on to say that Gutierrez was having to speak on behalf of her sister because the church had "slapped a gag order on the nuns."

I haven't been able to find a copy of the complete letter, but needless to say this gives me cause for concern (even though I'm not Catholic). I'm sure there are folks in the archdiocese who are saddened that they are having to "rob Peter to pay Paul," but I would like to think that church officials would have done a better job of trying to better explain this decision. And where are the sisters supposed to go? I didn't see a single mention in the article of trying to assist the three nuns in finding new housing; are they trying to demonstrate that the sisters are expendable -- thanks for your service, now move along? I think that question was partially answered by another former member of the order: "These nuns are precious to us, but there are priests living in fabulous-looking little houses by themselves. You don't see them getting kicked out."

You can read the complete article here.

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On the political side, today I attended a conference hosted by Americans for Prosperity, an organization that fights for greater transparency in the appropriations process, the elimination of earmarks and wasteful spending, smaller government -- in essence, conservative values that the Republican Party seems to be abandoning. All of the candidates running for president from both parties were invited; none of the Democrats accepted, while Giuliani, Romney, Paul, Brownback, Thompson, Huckabee, and McCain were all scheduled to speak at various points during the two-day event.

A coworker and I attended the morning session today and heard Giuliani, Huckabee, and several others speak. A few quick thoughts:

• I liked Giuliani's talk, which ran right around half-an-hour and was focused purely on economic themes. However, it didn't have that assertiveness that a lot of people associate with him in the context of his 9/11 days (which he actually left out of his remarks). He's still a contender for my vote, but I'll need to see a little more passion.
  
  
• Huckabee gave what I thought was the best set of comments (although he was only allowed 7 minutes, as opposed to the larger blocks of time set aside for Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, and Romney), and he spoke without once referring to any written remarks. Having met him twice over the years and having had a chance to chat with him, I think he would make an outstanding nominee -- but he's got huge hurdles in the way of recognition and fundraising that he'll need to overcome.
  
  
• I didn't catch much of Ron Paul's speech, but he and Brownback (like Huckabee) were only given about five minutes to address the crowd. Paul's strict "overbudget-busting" philosophy and remarks fired up what was already a pro-Ron crowd, but I thought the most amusing part was what I have referred to after the fact as his "Oscar moment." In the Oscars, when an award recipient goes over their allotted time, the orchestra starts up and plays them off the stage whether they're finished or not. About five minutes in, the taped music being used throughout the morning started up, and I have expected to see a lovely woman in a long gown come out on stage to escort him off. Paul, however, just talked that much louder -- much to the delight of the crowd -- and eventually was able to finish without musical accompaniment.

Unfortunately, Thompson's schedule was completely changed, and I had to leave over an hour before he ended up taking the stage -- and wasn't able to hear his remarks. It was a fun morning, and certainly gives me a lot more to think about in the coming months (all the time maintaining a certain realistic attitude that -- while I'd like to see us retake the House and Senate and keep the White House -- it's going to be a big swing in the other direction next year).

James Carville, however, in an interview with Politico (a fairly-new D.C. political newspaper), basically said that a lot can happen, and gave a pretty frank assessment of how things can change. Among his statements were these two quotes which I have to admit I enjoyed reading, even if only for a moment:

“We are a little bit of a shellshocked political party. We somehow or another always figure out a way to blow it,” Democratic strategist James Carville said. “Democrats have to talk their way out of winning.” -- and -- “Republicans have just gotten very good at this,” Carville said of presidential politics. “Somehow or another, in the last three elections, they’ve tended to close a little better than we have. No. 3 is that they have a more disciplined and effective echo chamber.”

Time will tell -- although with the nominee for both parties being chosen by mid-February (if things play out like many think they well), things will be here before we know it.

Draft Fred Thompson!

In recent days, there's been a lot of attention given to a potential run for the White House by former senator and current faux-New York district attorney Fred Thompson. Honestly, I'm thrilled by the prospect, and I hope he does jump into the race. It would be a great and much-needed change of pace for a party that in recent years has drifted from saying what it means and meaning what it says to saying what sounds good.

I did some checking on the web and right off the bat found two websites that have been set up to convince him to run. The one I'm most impressed with is Fred '08 -- sound clips, information on the committee that's been set up to draft him, information on his conservative credentials, and a great deal more. I've signed up for updates, and look forward to following this grassroots effort in the days and weeks ahead.

Thompson is honestly the one guy who could get me excited about the GOP field again: I like Huckabee, but he won't make it far; I like Rudy, but I'm concerned all of the baggage he brings with him and how it will detract from some of his successes as mayor of New York; McCain, while someone I respect because of what he has been through in his life, strikes me as a loose cannon; Gingrich is also a strong conservative, but he's also got baggage, and I have a hard time forgetting things like his public complaint over having to disembark Air Force One through the back door; Romney is impressive, but I'm not sure he can win a national race against a top Democrat contender.

If Thompson jumps in, he's my guy.

The End of an Era

It still hasn't quite sunk in yet, but today marked the end of a decade of working in the U.S. House of Representatives. In many ways, this hadn't come as a surprise -- I had been looking for a new job for several months, one that would boost my salary while not requiring me to work 12- and 13-hour days that were so prevalent at regular intervals throughout the year. With a three-year-old daughter and a wife pregnant with a second child, a job with those hours just wouldn't have been fair to anyone.

However, what was unexpected was the fact that, immediately after election day, I found myself as one of the hundreds of "collateral casualties" resulting from the switch in power from Republicans to Democrats. Many members of my family who are Democrats called to gently rub in the massive GOP losses on November 7, only to find out that I got voted out of office along with many of the members of the House. I certainly don't hold that against them though; in fact, my youngest sister voted for the first time this year, and I can only be proud of the fact that she educated herself about the candidates and issues in her area and went out to cast her ballot.

It's certainly been a great ten years. I've had the honor of working with some phenomenal staff members during that time, but more than that, I've been employed by three of the best Members imaginable: Sonny Callahan (Alabama), who first took me on as an intern in 1996 and then (in his own inimitable way) jokingly told folks that he hired me as his field representative one year later because I just wouldn't go away; Jo Bonner (also of Alabama), who gave me a great opportunity to be his press secretary in the heart of the action on Capitol Hill (and to try to fill the big shoes he left behind when he was Sonny's press secretary); and Jim Nussle (Iowa), who brought me on board to give me the chance to work for one of best committees in Congress. I learned more than I would have ever thought possible from each of these men, and I will certainly carry many of these lessons into the next phase of my life.

My last few days on the Hill were really bittersweet, a time when I could roam around some of the offices and visit with old friends to say goodbye. I also took the time to wander through the Capitol one last time and soak in the history and wonder of that magnificent building. I've been around it and in it for so many times that I really took for granted the fact that I'm one of the privileged few who could walk over there whenever I wanted and just look around. At the end, when I realized when my time on staff was at an end, I just had to go through one more time. How often do each of us go through life -- with places, with family and friends, with jobs, with just about anything -- taking so much for granted, and not realizing what we have in front of us until it's too late. It is a powerful lesson indeed -- NEVER take your time here for granted.

The next phase represents the great unknown in my life, however. I'm so much of a Type A personality that I always like to have everything planned out in advance and know pretty much how things are going to work. In this, I don't; I've had some very successful interviews and have progressed well into the hiring process at several firms, but there's still no solid answer on where I'll be hanging my hat in the new year. I keep reminding myself that God will put me where I need to be when I need to be there -- and I'm sure he's getting quite a chuckle that I'm insisting on continuing to try putting Him on MY timetable, rather than surrenduring myself to his schedule.

I can certainly use the next week after Christmas (a nice period of down-time before my next round of interviews) to reflect on the changes in my life, and to think about many of my friends and coworkers find themselves in a similar position. God has plans for each of them, too; I just hope they are aware of that and carry that knowledge with them from one day to the next.