Clinton's New York days are over

After eight years as New York's junior Senator, it's been confirmed that Hillary Clinton is heading back to Washington: The former First Lady is scheduled to appear on Monday in Chicago -- her home town -- with president-elect Barack Obama.

Clinton is slated to serve as Secretary of State, a remarkable evolution in a career that had already taken her into some of the most curious and unexpected corners of American history.

From the popular but embattled Clinton White House, to her "carpetbagger" victory in New York, to her ill-fated run for the Presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton has disproved the old saying that there are no second acts in American lives.

Clinton has had a couple of second acts already and is heading for what will certainly -- success or failure -- be a fascinating final act.

Her elevation will now trigger a second wave of confusion in Albany, as Governor David Paterson searches for a replacement.

Awkward, isn't it? New York will be represented by both a Governor and a U.S. Senator that the voters didn't choose.

America may not be the most logical or productive democracy in the world, but we certainly have the most fascinating.

I defy anyone to find a figure more complex and compelling than Clinton. Your thoughts? Post below...

What are your thoughts?

We're all Mumbaians now?

In the late-1980s I lived in Malaysia, one of the most populous Muslim countries in the world. I lived alone in a slum of Penang, an island city, surrounded for the most part by young Malays fresh from the kampung villages.

It was a fantastic time: the young men were generous and funny and curious about my reasons for living in such a place. (Actually, they asked a lot of the same questions that my parents were asking.)

On the corner was a news stand that also sold used paperback novels. I would drop by every couple of days to pick up a copy of the International Herald Tribune and to see if an interesting book had turned up.

There, too, the men were open-minded, curious, complexly ironic about their Muslim faith, their moderately Islamist government, and their lives. They would chide me humorously for being clean-shaven, insisting that I would never look like a man until I had a full beard.

Sometimes we would go for tea and the leisurely conversation would range over every conceivable topic.

For the most part, they had been educated in schools established by the old British colonial administration, which meant that I often felt absurdly ignorant. They could quote Shakespeare and Tennyson as fluently as they could quote the Koran.

Then one day a scandal erupted over Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses." A fatwa was issued by the top cleric in Iran condemning the book as blasphemous.

Muslims all over the world called for Rushdie's death.

When I mentioned Rushdie at the news stand, my friends were matter-of-fact about it: Rushdie deserved to die and the person who murdered him would be doing God's work.

I pushed back, arguing that surely a man shouldn't be killed for writing a story. They weren't bothered by my opinion, simply uninterested. Rushdie, they believed, was a dead man.

In the years since -- especially post-9/11 -- I have often remembered that moment, my bafflement, my sense that I had discovered a rift that had been obscured.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of a "war on terror." And the conservative argument that the West is fighting a global war against "Islamic fascism" strikes me as absurd.

The men on that street corner in Penang weren't fascists. They had no desire to destroy the West. They didn't hate freedom. And they weren't ignorant.

But there was something there: a divide no less intractable for being bafflingly complex.

Watching the horrible news from Mumbai the last couple of days, I felt it again, the sense that we've stumbled into a very dangerous situation.

And the sense that even now -- after all this time -- we lack the words, the language, that can help us understand our predicament.

A Ricochet Blow For the North Country?

When Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued his dreary outlook for New York state's economy, the good news (if you can call it that) seemed to be that most of the job losses are concentrated far, far from the North Country.

DiNapoli predicts that 175,000 of the 225,000 lost positions will be in New York City.

But the snap-back of all those losses downstate will be a massive bleed of tax revenue: as much as $6.5 billion lost from the finance sector alone.

DiNapoli is talking about New York needing a federal bailout -- one that would likely make the bailout for the Big Three automakers pale by comparison.

If things get that bad, Albany funding for North Country jobs and projects could evaporate. Stay tuned (or hide your head under your pillow.)

Political lay-offs in Albany

Assuming the Democrats really do take a majority position in the state Senate, a lot of faces will change in Albany.

The Times-Union reported this week on a letter circulated by state Senator Frank Padavan, a Republican, warning his staff that the ripple effect could be painful.

Here's an excerpt:

“This is not an easy letter for me to write but in fairness to all of you I want you to know what is going on.

“In light of the pending changes to the Senate Majority my staff allocation will be reduced by more than half and some difficult choices must be made. If you are eligible for retirement I would suggest you submit your papers. Those of you who are not retirement eligible should consider seeking other employment.

“In the very near future I will have to begin a task that I hoped I would never have to do and that is making staff reductions.”

I have some good friends working in GOP offices in the Senate and this is a particularly tough time for this kind of shake-up.

With the economy hitting conservative think-tanks and the widespread Republican losses at all levels -- from Albany to Washington -- there aren't a lot of perches open out there.

Bush's 100 days

In the eleven weeks between election day and the inauguration of Barack Obama, President George W. Bush is locking in his legacy.

I don't mean the status of forces agreement with the Iraqis.

I mean the hundreds of billions -- and possibly trillions -- of dollars in financial commitments that he and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson have been making.

Bail-out promises have been handed out like Halloween candy to some of the biggest financial institutions in America.

Which means that America's taxpayers will be wearing cement shoes fitted for them by Mr. Bush for a long time to come.

Should the boat tip over, the plunge to the bottom will be very quick indeed.

Everyone agrees that some sort of bailout is needed. The question is whether the team currently in the White House possesses the intellect, the rigor and the ideological flexibility to do it right.

Are the proper safeguards in place? Do we know how the bailout money will be spent? Or is Wall Street simply the latest version of Baghdad or New Orleans: a money pit with zero accountability?

All of which raises a more fundamental question: Should the transition period be shortened?

I've always been a big fan of longer transitions. The holiday between the campaign season and actual governance seemed to offer a kind of cooling-off period.

It was a chance for the bitter sword of politics to give way to the plowshare business of running a nation.

In more practical terms, those eleven weeks gave the incoming President-elect a chance to rest and gather his new team.

But the Bush administration has tested many institutions of American life during the last eight years.

His performance during this crisis has raised serious questions about the wisdom of allowing a lame duck to lead for so long.

Many Americans thought the long wait to November 4th was unendurably tense. Now we wait with baited breath for January 20th.

What do you think? Comments below.

The T-U handicaps Kirsten Gillibrand for US Sen

The Albany Times-Union has a nice survey of all the possible Hillary-replacement picks. Names range from Nita Lowey to Andrew Cuomo.

Here's the paper's view of North Country Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was re-elected earlier this month to a second term. Those numbers in the first line reflect her power-ranking -- first in New York state, then in the House.

Kirsten Gillibrand (Central New York): #22 in NY, #255 in House, Age: 41

• Stats: Elected 2006, Committees: Agriculture, Armed Services
• Demographic advantages: woman, Upstater, represents a heavily-Republican district
• Power ranking: “Too few terms or years in office in Congress to have significant clout, Successfully amended one or more bills on the floor of the House or Senate, Member has reduced power due to Freshman status.”
• Fundraising: Raised: $4,482,340, Spent: $3,638,157, Banked: $886,445
• Pork: $23,848,500
• Pros: Female, from upstate, proven strong fundraiser, represents a heavily-Republican district.
• Cons: Low statewide name recognition, very short tenure in office - only won her second term in office this month.

Bottom line? Probably not a serious contender, but it's fun to at least have a regional name on the list.

A North Country recession?

Sometimes journalists are guilty of connecting dots that are just, well, dots.

But given all the gloom and doom on the financial page, it's hard not to see a pattern in lay-offs and downsizing across the North Country region.

Here's a back-of-the-napkin list: dozens of workers are out at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (Rouses Point); the American Management Association (Saranac Lake) is cutting staff; officials have proposed government lay-offs in Lewis County; and International Paper plans to slow production at their mill in Ticonderoga (no job cuts anticipated).

''It's just a sign of the times,'' said George Rivers, Rouses Point mayor, in an interview with the AP. ''But it's not so bad compared to what's happening around the country.''

Statewide, New York lost roughly 14,000 jobs last month, according to the Associated Press. The highest unemployment rate outside of New York City was in St. Lawrence County (6.9%).

That's just a hair above the national average.

It's an example of worldwide crisis that we're in economically right now," says Saranac Lake village Mayor Tom Michaels. "Saranac Lake is not insulated from that."

In addition to cut-backs of existing companies big projects that had been proposed for the region could be at risk.

The Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake and the Laurentian aircraft maintenance facility planned for Plattsburgh could be derailed by the collapsing finance and housing sectors.

What can we do about the shifting economic sands? In Saranac Lake, there's a push to encourage more people to shop locally:

"With the economy on the downturn, it is more important than ever to support our downtown merchants", says Melinda Little, President of the SL Community Store Interim Board. She adds, "By thinking local first and by buying locally, we can make choices that have a dramatic impact on our community, our economy, and our environment."

Fresh Start: "Wall Street owes Main Street an apology"

Our Fresh Start series continues tomorrow when we talk with John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group of investment funds.

Bogle, who spends a big chunk of each year in Lake Placid, has long been an advocate of investor and corporate ethics.

"Introspection is the one prerequisite when you've gone through a hellish experience like this," Bogle says in an interview with NCPR. "You sit down and you say, 'What happened and why did it happen?' But I don't see introspection. Part of it is because a lot of the prime offenders are gone. They've helped to destroy their companies..."

Bogle's prediction: A two-year long DEEP recession. Tune in for the full conversation tomorrow during the 8 O'clock Hour and again during All Before Five.

And chime in - where do you think the economy is headed? And how will it affect Main Street commerce here in the North Country?

Observing the 'prison-industrial' complex

A couple of years ago, Conrad Black from Montreal was one of the biggest newspaper tycoons in the world.

Black is now serving time in the U.S., convicted on charges that he diverted funds from his company into his own pocket. Prosecutors accused him of running a "corporate kleptocracy."

The interesting twist from a North Country point of view is that Black has been penning editorials, some of which observe the state of criminal justice in the U.S.

His opinions are obviously to be viewed in context: he's a convicted felon, serving 78 months in a federal prison.

But it's still a point of view worth thinking about occasionally, given that prisons are the mainstay of our region's economy.

His comments first appeared in Spear's Wealth Management Survey magazine.

The US is now a carceral state that imprisons eight to 12 times more people (2.5m) per capita than the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan.

US justice has become a command economy based on the avarice of private prison companies, a gigantic prison service industry and politically influential correctional officers’ unions that agitate for an unlimited increase in the number of prosecutions and the length of sentences.

The entire “war on drugs”, by contrast, is a classic illustration of supply-side economics: a trillion taxpayers’ dollars squandered and 1m small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year; as supply of and demand for illegal drugs have increased, prices have fallen and product quality has improved.

What do you think? Is American justice unduly influenced by economics and politics? Comment below.

Defining victory, parsing defeat

The Washington Post ran a fascinating piece over the weekend about the battle to define the results of this month's election.

Obviously, Republicans lost by almost every measure -- but what does that mean? Was it a short-term reaction to President Bush's unpopularity? A wholesale realignment?

The nut of the article -- capturing both broad fronts in the debate -- reads like this:

Conservative analysts have insisted that although the Democrats achieved a sweeping victory, it does not indicate a fundamental change. "America is still a center-right country," as Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House Republican leader, insisted soon after the votes were counted.

Liberals call that argument nonsense. The election, wrote John B. Judis in the New Republic, heralds the arrival of "America the liberal," provided that the Democrats play their strong new hand effectively. This election was "the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election."

Labels are squirrely things. What's a conservative? Who's liberal?

And Americans seem caught on the horns of a dilemma: more people distrust government than ever before, pollsters say, but more people also want government to play a bigger role in their lives.

Go figure.
'
What makes this fascinating is that the question isn't merely academic. In the coming months, we'll learn what kind of government we've got -- New Deal liberal or New Democrat moderate.

We'll also learn whether that particular brand works or not. What seems clear, according to the Post article, is that most Americans seem willing to give big government a chance to lead the way on a whole range of huge problems.

Whatever the appropriate label, substantial majorities of the voters of 2008 want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible. Large majorities favor affordable health insurance for everyone, a fairer distribution of wealth and income, and higher taxes on the rich. They want to preserve traditional Social Security. They want more effective government regulation of the financial sector. On social issues, the country that elected Obama is tolerant of homosexuality and legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, less so of same-sex marriage. A post-election survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling firm, showed that 51 percent said "the government should do more to solve problems."

Another NY GOP district officially falls

Jonathan Brown forwards me this snippet from the Associated Press.

After spending all week on Capitol Hill for new lawmaker-orientation, Democrat Eric Massa has flown home to western New York to officially declare victory in a congressional district dominated by Republicans since the Civil War.

With all absentee ballots now counted, the retired Navy commander says Friday he beat two-term Republican incumbent Rep. Randy Kuhl by more than 5,000 votes.

Hillary's in at State? New York out?

UPDATE: This announcement just came from Clinton's office:

“We’re still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature.”

- Philippe Reines, Senior Advisor, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Some speculation today suggests that Hillary Clinton will be offered the Secretary of State post after Thanksgiving.

But the New York Times says it's already a done deal.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the nomination for secretary of state after further talks with President-elect Barack Obama about her role, two confidants said Friday.

A loss for New York? For the North Country? Clinton spent a lot of time up here and had relatively deep connections in the region.

If Clinton's out, will the region's influence diminish even further? Depends on her replacement pick, obviously.

Most speculation focuses on distinctly downstate figures: Andrew Cuomo tops the likely list.

What do you think?

Is Gov. Paterson Chicken Little or Cassandra?

Our editorial cartoonist, Marquil, had a great bit the other day showing state Sen. Betty Little as Chicken Little -- with a big economy-sized acorn about to crash on her head.

"We don't need to cut spending now," Little is saying. "Really. It's not like the sky is falling."

But really, the question we're all waiting to answer is whether Governor David Paterson is chicken little -- or Cassandra.

Remember her? She was the oracle cursed to know the future and be ignored. Because people blew off her prophecies, her city of Troy was crushed by the Greek invaders.

Paterson found himself ignored in Albany this week, his calls for swift and decisive action shelved by a quibbling legislature after a wave of opposition from unions, public employees, and other interest groups.

It's the same old game that has shaped Albany politics for decades. And those rules of engagement filter all the way down to local government and local school districts.

This week, NCPR reported on the town of Malone's heavy dependence on Albany spending. There seems to be very little effort underway to reduce that reliance.

A couple of days after that story aired, my son Nicholas trundled off to school in Saranac Lake -- for a two-hour day. The vast expenditure of salaries and fuel costs needed to rev up an entire school district...squandered.

The kids barely had time to get off the buses and get their winter coats off before they were suiting up and heading back out again.

A day or so after that, the Saranac Lake district announced that it had locked in multi-year pay raises for their teachers -- increases that locals will look to Albany to pay for.

There's nothing new here. This all fits the long-standing pattern, established when Wall Street was generating tax revenues so copious that state officials couldn't figure out how to spend it all.

(Okay, they did in the end figure out a way to spend it all.)

But if Paterson is right, the fundamental rules have changed. The well is dry. The state is so deeply in debt that our collective community is approaching junk-bond status.

Unless the economy pulls a stunning U-turn -- and Wall Street hires back tens of thousands of workers -- then the old habits, the old dependencies, the old expectations, will need to be re-examined.

Fast.

Unless the Governor is sorely mistaken, every month that we dither will make the needed cuts that much more painful.

We should know more by January when lawmakers return to Albany. For all our sakes, I hope Paterson really is Chicken Little.

New York Times slams the Electoral College

David Sommerstein forwarded me the New York Times' review of the Electoral College, which doesn't formally meet to select our next president for the next month.

The link is below and it's worth reading. I regularly deride the Electoral College when I talk about politics -- and I regularly hear a lot of loyalty to the institution.

But I'm convinced that this is an organ of our government that atrophied a long time ago.
Here's a sample of the Times piece:

Voters in small states are favored because Electoral College votes are based on the number of senators and representatives a state has. Wyoming’s roughly 500,000 people get three electoral votes. California, which has about 70 times Wyoming’s population, gets only 55 electoral votes.

The Electoral College also makes America seem more divided along blue-red lines than it actually is. If you look at an Electoral College map, California appears solidly blue and Alabama solidly red. But if you look at a map of the popular votes, you see a more nuanced picture. More than 4.5 million Californians voted for Mr. McCain (roughly as many votes as he got in Texas), while about 40 percent of voters in Alabama cast a ballot for Mr. Obama.

One of the biggest problems with the Electoral College, of course, is that three times since the Civil War — most recently, with George W. Bush in 2000 — it has awarded the presidency to the loser of the popular vote. The president should be the candidate who wins the votes of the most Americans.

Amen, brother. Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/opinion/20thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Northern border stiffed again at Homeland Security?

President-elect Obama has tapped Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security.

She has a law-enforcement background -- she was Az-land's first female AG and also a US Attorney -- and she knows immigration.

(Anti-immigration forces might suggest that she knows it and loves it.)

But what about the US-Canada border? Study after study shows that significant security threats persist in Canada.

Will the Northern Frontier drop off the radar screen? Will there be a rethink of the "militarization" of the US-Can border?

In the shameless plug division, tune in Monday for the 8 O'clock Hour, when we'll talk with Dr. Christopher Kirkey at SUNY Plattsburgh about the future of US-Canada relations.

Gillibrand on the short list for US Senator?

The Associated Press is describing North Country congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand as among the top-three contenders for Senator Hillary Clinton's spot, should Clinton join the Obama administration.

As expectations continue to rise that Hillary Clinton will leave her Senate seat to become Barack Obama's Secretary of State, a trio of New Yorkers are tight-lipped about their chances to succeed her.

They are representatives Brian Higgins of Buffalo, Kirsten Gillibrand of Hudson, and Nita Lowey of Harrison. If Clinton does leave, Governor Paterson will appoint a successor who will hold herSenate seat until 2010, when a special election would be held.

The New York Times has also joined the speculation. They offered this quote from Rep. Gillibrand:

As Ms. Gillibrand was rushing out of the Capitol, she brushed off a question about whether she would accept the job if offered. “I think that’s highly premature,” she said.

Gillibrand has enjoyed close ties with Clinton. But she lacks the seniority of some of the other picks -- and her district is potentially more vulnerable to a Republican challenge if she were to depart.

Lame ducks in Albany & Washington

In Washington, it's all about kicking the can of the economy down the road. Bailouts for the big automakers seem to be stalled, possibly dead, until the new Congress and the new President take office.

In Albany, the outgoing Senate Republican leadership says No to Governor Paterson's budget cuts, which leaves Paterson in the position of being the biggest budget hawk in New York.

The bottom line? The Democrats will have to sort this out...and the Republicans get to play the role of critic.

The stakes are high. If the Dems come back next year and put the pieces back together, they'll be the grown-ups, the ones who could get things done.

But Obama and Paterson will also be holding the bag (and a very smelly, overstuffed bag it is) if things crater.

Hillary agonistes

Midstream in her second term as a New York Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent much of the last two years fighting fiercely - if sometimes clumsily - for a shot at the White House.

The question now: What next?

Somewhat shockingly, the Obama administration has floated the idea of Clinton as Secretary of State. According to some press accounts, the former First Lady has been offered the job and may have decided to accept.

Pundits on both sides of the matter are fierce.

Some advance her obvious intelligence and her long service to the Democratic cause; others deride her lack of experience and raise questions about her husband's entanglements.

My reservations are different: I would like to see what Clinton could accomplish as a fully engaged United States Senator.

As Barack Obama showed, it is difficult to be an activist lawmaker while also campaigning for the White House. Clinton's tenure so far has been similarly cautious.

This is her chance to put her stamp on the big issues of the day. What would an ambitious Clinton healthcare bill look like? Or a new proposal on rural revitalization?

How would her proposals on foreign trade differ from those of her husband? Would she "walk back" NAFTA and GATT?

Obviously, as Secretary of State, Clinton would add another impressive line to her already impressive resume. But she would also find herself once again in a supporting role.

Good Secretaries of State are cautious, team players. I, for one, would like to see New York's junior Senator play her own hand and play it daringly.

Agree? Disagree? Post your comment below.

Help! NCPR needs you to design our new blog!

We're ticking down the days to the end of the Ballot Box. (I still wake up in the morning and wonder what the overnight polls look like.)

NCPR's news team wants to maintain some kind of blog here on the home page, but it has to be something the North Country community will find useful, informative and entertaining.

In other words, something web guru Dale Hobson won't consign to the shadowy cupboard of our vast -- nay, Gormenghastian - website.

We're asking, begging for your input. Got an idea for a name? Any fantastic ideas that will trigger more comments, more on-line discussion?

Think of this as a desperate pledge-pitch-type situation...only instead of your dollars we need your clever suggestions, your wisdom, your opinions.

Think of the news blog sort of like Tinkerbell. If we can get enough people to believe in it, it will survive. Otherwise, not so much.

So hit the comment below and wax on.

Election Post-Op, Part Two: America's new status quo?

We've been reporting for a long time on America's remarkably divided political landscape. People debate whether the U.S. is center-left or center-right and the answer, obviously, is Yes.

In much of rural America, the values remain complexly but staunchly conservative. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported from Ochiltree County, Texas -- a place I've visited.

Some people here still can't quite believe that President-elect Barack Obama won the White House; they consider him inexperienced and too liberal. "I had one fellow ask me, 'Has the whole country gone slap dab crazy?," says Jim Hudson, publisher of the Perryton Herald.

But in many urban and suburban communities -- where 80% of Americans live -- the zeitgeist is remarkably progressive. Here's the take from conservative writer Tod Lindberg, writing for the Washington Post.

Nowadays, it's a fair bet that most of those calling themselves "liberal" support gay marriage. In 1980, those same liberals were, no doubt, cutting-edge supporters of gay rights, but the notion of same-sex marriage would have occurred only to the most avant-garde.

In 1980, having a teenage daughter who was pregnant out of wedlock would have ruled you out for the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket. This year, it turned out to be a humanizing addition to the conservative vice presidential nominee's résumé.

Normally, this sort of polarization would suggest changeability and the swinging of political pendulums. Not this time.

There's a sense in political circles that a new electoral map is hardening, with Democrats staking out a clear and perhaps durable advantage.

The trouble for Republicans is that they have effectively maximized their constituency.
Using aggressive redistricting and new marketing strategies, the GOP seized as many congressional districts (and Electoral College votes) as possible during the 1980s and 1990s.

They also spent a quarter-century gleefully converting Boll Weevil Democrats in the South into die-hard Republicans. But now those "easy" pick-ups have all been pocketed.

Democrats, too, have largely staked out their natural territory -- but at the end of the day the Dems enjoy a thirty-seat advantage in the House and at least a seven-vote margin in the US Senate.

They control far more state houses and governorships than the Republicans. And they appear to have captured the imagination of the next generation of voters.

"Here's the stark reality," writes Lindberg. "It is now harder for the Republican presidential candidate to get to 50.1 percent than for the Democrat."

What this means is that Republicans can no longer hope to activate an eager, silent majority out there. They can't "govern from their base."

Instead, they'll have to find ideas and arguments that speak compellingly to voters in center-center districts, places like upstate New York.

They'll have to reshape the rural-white "Joe the Plumber" stuff in a form that crosses ethnic, gender and geographic boundaries.

Otherwise, the new status quo could be, well, static for a long time to come.

Some pundits paint rural America with broad brush

NCPR's Jonathan Brown writes:

In post-election analysis of voting trends, a lot of pundits are taking a second look at rural America. And the results aren’t always pretty. In the Sunday New York Times, columnist Frank Rich wrote:

Those occasional counties that tilted more Republican tended to be not only the least diverse, but also the most rural, least educated and slowest-growing in population.

If Rich’s tone sounds superior, that’s because it is. He’s using the term "rural" as a broad brush to paint regions like the North Country (and the Appalachians, the South and large swaths of Middle America and the Rocky mountain West as a monolithic voting bloc).

The thrust of Rich's column is neatly summed up by the pull quote in the Times print edition: "America's all-white party is still in denial."

(Here’s the link to his column. Even a cursory look at returns in the North Country shows the region doesn’t fit the picture he paints.

Here’s a (very) cursory look at a few counties (percentages of votes for Obama and mcCain only):
St Lawrence: Obama, 56%; mcCain, 41%
Jefferson: O, 46%; m, 53%
Clinton: O, 61%, m, 38%
Essex: O, 56%, m, 42%
Franklin: O, 60%, m, 39%

Still, Frank Rich’s column raises a question worth asking here: Did race affect North Country voters? How? Let us know what you think (click the “Comment” link at the lower right of this posting) and listen this week as Brian mann talks with J.W. Wiley, an African-American scholar and consultant who lives in the North Country and focuses on racial issues.

The interview is part of our on-going Fresh Start series, a look at big ideas and big challenges facing President-elect Obama.

For the GOP, there's just something about W

I spend a lot of time reading conservative blogs and news sites. In many ways, that's where the action is these days.

Sure, Barack Obama is being charged with saving the country from war, recession, and a general sense of malaise.

(Americans who think the nation is moving in the right direction could fit into a middle school gymnasium.)

But conservatives are trying to figure out how to save the venerable Republican Party. How do you pick up the pieces? Which pieces should be picked up or abandoned?

One theme is already apparent: It's tough saying good-bye to George W. Bush.

Columnist after columnist, they all offer nervous, uncertain apologias for our outgoing president. Surely, he is a man misunderstood. Surely he will be vindicated somehow, some way, by history.

They point to the fact that no new terror attack has struck Americans on American soil, while carefully side-stepping the fact that thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians have died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a column in today's New York Times, conservative William Kristol tries to confront this "I Can't Quit You, George W" syndrome head-on.

He compares Bush to Herbert Hoover and writes:

If Republicans and conservatives don’t come to grips with what’s happened, and can’t develop an economic agenda moving forward that seems to incorporate lessons learned from what’s happened — then they could be back, politically, in 1933.

Trust me, Republicans don't want to be back in 1933. They didn't land another president in the White House until 1953.

But then Kristol slips in the typical GOP dodge. "Fairly or unfairly," he writes, "this will be viewed as George Bush’s economic meltdown."

Fairly or unfairly?

In a way this kind of verbal dodge is understandable. Kristol and his tribe spent years defending Bush from what they perceived as a virulently hostile media culture. But that fight is over.

Sooner or later (maybe in the days after President Bush heads back to Texas?) Republican leaders will have to drop the hedging.

We now know that George W. Bush seriously damaged the country in ways that we are still struggling to understand. He also helped to decimate his own political party, one of the most important institutions in the country.

Rebuilding will mean first confronting, honestly and painfully, how things went so wrong. And that's a job, in large part, for the Republican Party.

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State?

Speculation about the new Obama Administration is understandably heated -- with a lot of names bouncing around. A new one popping up is New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This from NBC:

There's talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.

The pick of the former presidential contender and Senate Armed Services Committee member would go a long way toward healing any remaining divisions within the Democratic Party after the divisive primaries. Also, Clinton has long been known for her work on international women's issues and human rights. The former first lady could also enhance Obama's efforts to restore U.S. standing amongst allies worldwide.

And Obama could put her in his speed-dial for a 3 a.m. phone call every morning.

Post-election recap, Part One: It actually works!

The Ballot Box will phase out December 1st and the NCPR news team will launch a new shared blog that will cover a wider range of North Country topics.

We're looking for a name for the new blog: let us know if you have ideas.

Meanwhile, I plan to use the next couple of weeks to wrap up some thoughts about Election 2008.

My first big take-away is that our democratic system actually works pretty darn well.

After 2000, with Florida and the Supreme Court intervention, there were a lot of serious questions about the process.

Could it be fair -- and decisive? This election cycle a lot of conservative grumbled about ACORN and about Barack Obama walking away from the public financing system.

But everyone basically agrees that this time around we got the president most voters wanted.

Obviously, that's the first and highest function of the election system. But a close second is public involvement.

In other parts of the world, elections are brief, tepid affairs. Parties come and go. Technocrats swap offices.

In America, democracy is one part idealism and one part spectacle. There's plenty of PT Barnum mixed in with the policy debates. I say that's a good thing.

When my 12 year old son is going on-line to watch election-related Youtube videos, that means we've engaged our citizens in the business of self-governance.

That bodes well for the future.

I'll have more closing thoughts -- but I'd also like to hear yours. Any big take-aways from your experience of Election 2008?

Is Governor Paterson really talking about 250 layoffs statewide?

At his press conference yesterday, Governor David Paterson said something that led much of the news coverage that followed.

Despite deep and necessary budget cuts, he insisted, ""We're not going to schedule any layoffs" of state workers.

But then he added this -- which made it into very little of the reporting statewide (emphasis added):

"We are thinking of not having to have any reductions to the workforce OTHER THAN WHERE WE REDUCE AGENCIES OR HAVE CONSOLIDATIONS.

In those cases there may be a reduction of the workforce slightly."

It turns out, Gov. Paterson is proposing 24 lay-offs in Clinton County, with the closure of a special-needs boarding school run by the Office of Children and Family Services.

And buried within his press statement, issued shortly after his press conference, is this rather different message:

"Overall, these actions [mothballing facilities run by the Office of Children and Family
Services] will result in a 255 full-time equivalent reduction in the size of the OCFS
workforce.

The agency will make all possible efforts to ensure that this reduction is
achieved through attrition."

I spoke with an official in the state Budget Office, who made it clear that "all possible efforts" does not equal a guarantee. If other jobs are available, fine. If not, these workers are out.

With a hiring freeze in place statewide, it's hard to imagine how the system can absorb more than 250 displaced workers.

State Senator Betty Little put it this way: "In the Governor's talk this morning, he talked about no lay-offs in state jobs. 24 lay-offs in Clinton County is really difficult."

A Fresh Start for food and farm

A listener from Burlington writes:

I just wanted to say "thank you" for considering food and farming policy to be an important national issue -- one worthy of the attention of our president-elect. I have been disturbed at how little these topics are a part of obvious public policy discussion.

Roman Catholics vote for Obama - Bishops blast him

Roman Catholic Bishops meeting this week in Baltimore called out the new Democratic administration.

They accused President-elect Barack Obama and vice-president Joe Biden (a practicing Catholic) of pursuing "aggressively pro-abortion policies" that amount to "an attack on the church."

Their post-election summit represents a sharp divide with Roman Catholic voters. Here's the treatment in today's Washington Post, from religion writer Anthony Stevens-Arroyo.

Northeastern Pennsylvania is the most Catholic part of the United States. According to local experts, 80 percent of the population in the area around Scranton and Wilkes Barre identifies itself as Catholic. The region voted 63%-37% for Barack Obama and the Democrats on Nov. 4.

The Bishops, obviously, see this very differently. Here's the treatment today from Fox News.

"I cannot have a vice president-elect coming to Scranton to say he's learned his values there when those values are utterly against the teachings of the Catholic Church," [Bishop Joseph] Martino said. The Obama-Biden press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Diocese of Kansas City in Kansas said politicians "can't check your principles at the door of the legislature."

Naumann has said repeatedly that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic Democrat who supports abortion rights, should stop taking Holy Communion until she changes her stance.

"They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn," Naumann said Tuesday.

This same clergy-laymember divide affects the heavily Roman Catholic North Country. Bishop Robert Cunningham attended this week's conference in Baltimore. But much of his region -- including St. Lawrence County, where the Diocese of Ogdensburg is headquartered -- voted for Barack Obama.

Paterson blasts feuding Senate Democrats

The turmoil continues among Democrats trying to sort out leadership of New York's vastly altered legislature.

Governor Paterson, also a Democrat, portrayed it as a sort of food-fight aboard the Titanic. Here's the Albany Times-Union's transcript of his comments:

What I would say is this is the time, if there’s any dispute, (that it should) be a dispute over who can govern better. But I’m not hearing that in these conversations.

I’m hearing who’s going to get a better deal, who’s going to get a better committee assignment. One of [the Gang of Four] said they want to be the Majority Leader.

Not the Republican or the Democrat, just them.

And I would say that this is the sort of superfluous type of selfishness that’s gotten us into this mess in the first place. Right now, we need serious people who are ready to address this budget deficit.

Conservative voters redefine "conservative"

A mantra among Republicans -- especially within the right-leaning world of think-tanks and talk radio -- is that America remains a "center-right" country.

As Exhibit A in their argument, they point to a CNN exit poll conducted during last Tuesday's general election.

The survey found that 34% of Americans define themselves as conservative. By contrast, only 22% of voters say they're liberal.

Sounds pretty definitive, right? I mean, that still looks like a huge conservative advantage. Perhaps Tuesday's election was an anomaly?

Unfortunately for Republicans, the picture is far more treacherous.

For one thing, Americans who describe themselves as "conservative" have grown increasingly comfortable with things that card-carrying "movement conservatives" despise.

Things like increased government aid for the poor, more Federal involvement in the economy, universal health care, and robust environmental programs.

They also engage in private social behaviors that The Right opposes, ranging from divorce to abortion to same-sex relationships.

These self-identifying conservatives are so wayward, in fact, that one out of five actually voted for Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate.

(By contrast, only one in ten "liberals" voted for John McCain.)

Give conservatives credit. They succeeded in making the label "conservative" attractive. People like to describe themselves that way.

But the movement has failed to convince those same voters to share much of their agenda.

And there's a bigger problem.

Conservatives prefer to side-step the fact that the biggest chunk of voters in that exit survey (44%) describe themselves as moderates.

A whopping 60% of those voters chose Obama, an African American candidate described by Republicans as a "socialist" and the "most liberal Democrat in the Senate."

"I think this begs the question as to what self-described 'moderates' mean when they label themselves that way," wrote Andrew Stuttaford, in the conservative National Review.

"My guess is that the very idea of what a 'moderate' is has shifted quite some way to the left of late. In many respects, the right's key job over the next four years will be to push it back again."

This Big Push is made more difficult by the fact that Democrats are winning decisively among every demographic group -- young people, educated professionals, Hispanics, and Asian Americans -- that is growing in numbers.

Republicans are leading in only two demographics, both of which are dwindling in clout: rural and elderly voters.

It may be time for conservative leaders to stop talking and start listening.

Listen first to Americans who describe themselves as conservative. What do those 34% of voters think the Right's agenda should be? What issues matter to them?

And why did a big chunk of them vote for a Democrat in 2008?

Has Pelosi shattered Clinton's glass ceiling?

Politico has an interesting think-piece today about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is described as "the most powerful woman in U.S. political history."

With another 20-seat pick-up last week, Pelosi's Democratic caucus is poised to wield more influence than any Speaker -- male or female -- in a generation.

Even former Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution, pales in comparison. Pelosi is being mentioned by observers in the same breath as the legendary Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill, although she has yet to assemble a legislative record to match theirs.

“I think you’d have to compare her to the great people we’ve seen in the past,” said former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), who served as both majority and minority leader during his 28-year congressional career.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), no fan of Pelosi, said during a recent MSNBC appearance that she is “the most powerful speaker in a generation — she will be able to do anything she wants.”

Here's the full article.

Is the rural South different from, say, rural New York?

For years, I've been reporting on and writing about the remarkable congruities between rural voters across the U.S.

A small town voter in Alabama has frequently cast his ballot more like his rural counterparts in faraway Tupper Lake than he has like a voter in nearby cities and suburbs.

Similarly, a Malone voter looked more like a rural Idaho voter than a voter in New York City.

The 2008 election may have changed all that.

The New York Times has developed a fascinating graphic that shows much of rural America trending sharply Democratic.

Most rural counties still voted Republican, but the GOP's share of those small-town voters declined by as much as 20% in many areas.

(View that map here.)

In electoral terms, that's a huge shift -- a kind of earthquake in rural politics.

But in the rural South, many counties actually trended in the opposite direction, voting MORE Republican in 2008 than in 2004.

According to the Times, the distinction appears to be race. The rest of small-town America -- in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania -- seems to have worked through this issue.

Not the South:

Several Southern states, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, have voted for the winner in presidential elections for decades. No more. And Mr. Obama’s race appears to have been the critical deciding factor in pushing ever greater numbers of white Southerners away from the Democrats.

Here in Alabama, where Mr. McCain won 60.4 percent of the vote in his best Southern showing, he had the support of nearly 9 in 10 whites, according to exit polls, a figure comparable to other Southern states. Alabama analysts pointed to the persistence of traditional white Southern attitudes on race as the deciding factor in Mr. McCain’s strong margin.

The problem for conservatives, of course, is that rural voters are only a significant coalition when they vote with unity.

If rural Southerners are breaking away from, say, small town New Englanders, then the voting bloc is effectively neutralized.

The Times puts it this way:

What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics.

By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say.

Who gets the credit for Obama's win?

NCPR's David Sommerstein writes:

We’ve talked (and you’ve written) a lot about the GOP searching for its identity in the ashes of the election. The corresponding soul-searching in the Democratic Party is over who’s responsible for the big victory (and therefore who should get a bigger piece of the power pie). For example, Latinos point to big wins in Florida, Colorado, and Nevada (http://www.mlive.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2008/11/latinos_push_for_cabinet_posts.html).

Vermont's Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is claiming credit due to his “50 State Strategy”. Dean pushed Democrats deeper into rural America the last four years than they had been in a long time. Still, today the New York Times considers whether the Dean strategy was a cause or just a parallel phenomenon to the Obama machine. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/us/politics/12web-nagourney.html?hp

What do you think? Who led and who followed? And what does that say about how Obama should govern?

Can America (or the North Country) afford a FRESH START?

We're talking this week about new directions for the country and the North Country following last week's historic elections.

A recurrent question is: Can we afford it? With the economic crisis apparently deepening, can our society think big about its future?

That's what Bill McKibben asks in today's interview on NCPR. And here's a comment left by a reader here on The Ballot Box:

I am wondering what impact the "fresh start" in the State Senate, and resulting Democratic Party dominance of state government, will have on the North Country.

You have discussed speculation on this before, but now that the Dems are in control, how likely are resources we once received to diverted downstate, and with what results?

This especially worrying in view of the current economic crisis in NYS government. Sorry to be a bummer, but regionally, that is the big issue with me.

I think these are fair questions. This is a hopeful time for many people, but it's also a frightening time.

What do you think? Are there new ideas that can move our communities forward? Leave a comment.

More talk of North Country's Ray Meier as state GOP party chair

Associated Press political writer Michael Gormley scans the wreckage of New York's Republican Party and finds former state Senator Ray Meier -- described in a new article as "a leading candidate to be the next state Republican chairman."

Meier thinks Republicans need some new ideas:

"One of the things I learned after losing my congressional race is you need to step back and reflect," he said. "And this party needs to develop a message and we need to talk to people about things that are relevant."

He said that means reviving the upstate economy, lowering property taxes, making health care affordable and accessible, and improving the quality of schools, even if politicians have to cross powerful lobbies.

"Unless you have something interesting to say, you don't have a future," he said. "Successful political movements are about ideas."

Meier adds this cheerful rallying cry: "And look around -- there's nothing to lose."

Can the GOP rebuild in NY?

That's the question the Times is asking. Some pundits say we're going the way of Massachusetts -- where Republicans are simply no longer viable.

There's still some conviction within New York's GOP that the old upstate-downstate divide could spark a resurgence.

Many upstate lawmakers believe geography could become a more potent issue going forward, now that New York City lawmakers will control the governor’s office, the Senate and the Assembly.

“Over the next two years, there will be a report card on whether the needs of the upstate are being addressed,” said Senator Joseph A. Griffo, a Republican from Rome, N.Y.

“The concern I have is that one-party, one-region dominance is unhealthy. It doesn’t truly reflect the state.”

Not to dwell on the obvious, but the problem with this formulation is sheer demographics. The population of NYC is growing. The rest of the state is stagnant or shrinking.

If you define your party as the party Not From New York City, then you effectively write off the lion's share of votes.

Read the full Times treatment here.

(Thanks to Jonathan Brown for bringing this article to my attention.)

Time for a FRESH START? Tell us what you think.

During the next week, North Country Public Radio is airing a series of interviews with prominent regional thinkers -- physician John Rugge, environmentalist Bill McKibben, farm policy guru Wes Jackson, and others.

The theme: A "fresh start" for America.

According to the New York Times, Team Obama is thinking along the same lines.

Aides said the question was whether they could tackle health care, climate change and energy independence at once or needed to stagger these initiatives over time.

Over the next week, I'll also focus most of my blog entries on this topic, searching for interesting thinking that's percolating up out there in the web-o-sphere.

So here's your invitation to be a part of the conversation. What do you think the big new ideas should be? What can we do nationally, regionally, and locally to move our community forward?

And what other areas need attention: the arts? immigration?

Enter your comments below and be sure to listen all week to the Eight O'clock Hour and All Before Five.

SUNY Plattsburgh student draws Secret Service attention for anti-Obama cartoon

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican is reporting that a student at SUNY Plattsburgh is under scrutiny after he published an edgy cartoon on his Facebook page.

Here's P-R reporter Stephen Bartlett's take-away.

Sources told the Press-Republican that Thursday evening a student posted on his Facebook site a cartoon of Obama. It depicted Obama with a gun sight over his head and the caption, “Change is in Sight.”

Ouch. According to Bartlett, the Secret Service is reportedly investigating and has sent an agent to campus.

The article didn't name the student, but said that his Facebook site had received "hate mail" after posting the cartoon. Read the full article:
http://www.pressrepublican.com/archivesearch/local_story_312214543.html

Ralph Nader manages to be relevant again, sort of

Ralph Nader continued his personal and political disintegration this week.

He suggested in interviews with Fox News that America's first black president, Barack Obama, could turn out to be an "Uncle Tom."

Most pundits have observed that Nader has already slouched into irrelevancy, following his dramatic spoiler role in the 2000 elections.

But it now appears that Nader did give manage to give some very real aid and comfort on Tuesday -- once again to the Republican ticket.

In the battleground state of Missouri, John McCain won 1,442,673 votes, a scant 5,800 more than Barack Obama.

Ralph Nader's role? He stripped away 17,769 votes from the Democrat, apparently costing Obama the state. (Missouri hasn't been officially called yet.)

Of course, it turns out that this is a bit of election night trivia.

But imagine a different (and entirely plausible) scenario, where Missouri had turned out to be the Ohio of 2008.

If Obama had needed the Show-Me State's 11 electoral votes to put him over the top, then Nader would have been the spoiler once again.

Well played, Ralph -- well played.

North Country enviros love Kennedy for EPA chief

There's talk that environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, could take over as EPA chief under the new President Barack Obama.

North Country greenies love the idea. Here's Lake George waterkeeper Chris Navitsky's tongue-in-cheek reaction, in the Albany Times-Union:

"One waterkeeper I won't name was even joking what it could be like to file a lawsuit against EPA in the future, and have to put Kennedy's name on it," said Navitsky. There are 10 waterkeeper programs in New York.

He wondered if Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with a long history of suing polluters, would face spirited opposition from some past adversaries during potential confirmation hearings.

"It will be interesting to see how influential some businesses might be in this. Bobby is despised by some sectors, like coal and power plants," said Navitsky.

Kennedy, a New Yorker, is the son of slain Democratic leader Bobby Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968.

Read the T-U's full treatment here.

What the election map REALLY looks like

Even after Barack Obama's landslide win on Tuesday, America's electoral map looks pretty red. Vast oceans of conservatism sprawl through the South and Midwest.

But one cartographer at the University of Michigan has tweaked that image, to better reflect the election's outcome based not on square miles (there's a lot of empty terrain out in conservative country) but on population.

As you can see, Obama won the vast majority of states with big populations -- and lost in many states with small, rural populations.

See the full array of maps -- including a fascinating tapestry that shifts from red through purple to blue here.

What does "Conservative" mean?

Some Republicans are arguing that voters rejected their candidates this week because they weren't conservative enough.

NY Assembly Republican minority leader Jim Tedisco told our Albany correspondent, Karen DeWitt, that it's time to return to core principles.

There is a tendency when there is that much pressure from the other side to suggest, well, maybe we have to move a little bit to that direction, moderate, move to the left. I think just the opposite is the case.

We've got to dig and show that our core values can be effective in taking us out of this economic situation we're in.

Some Republicans are taking heart from surveys showing that more Americans describe themselves as "conservative" (34%) than "liberal" (22%).

The trouble, however, is that by far the biggest chunk of voters describe themselves as "moderates" (44%) and it seems that those folks favor Democratic policies by wide margins.

Here's an observation from the conservative National Review, penned by columnist Andrew Stuttaford:

I think this begs the question as to what self-described 'moderates' mean when they label themselves that way.

My guess is that the very idea of what a 'moderate' is has shifted quite some way to the left of late.

In many respects, the right's key job over the next four years will be to push it back again.

I think that's a tough assignment, for a party and a movement that are increasingly in disarray.

Especially in the Northeast, there's little evidence that Goldwater-Reagan-Gringrich axis of Republicanism has much traction.

So what can the "new" conservatism look like? Comments welcome.

Thanks, Gang of Four!

Those of us who've been covering Democratic Party politics all these years feel slightly disoriented at the image of a political movement that's unified, flush with cash, and confident.

Okay - more than slightly. It's flat-out weird to see Dems acting like grown-ups. So I say thank Heavens for the Gang of Four!

If you haven't heard, these are four Democratic Senators who've announced suddenly that they won't accept Malcolm Smith's leadership in the state Senate -- at least not without some serious coaxing.

Their rebellion could flip control back to the GOP.

According to the NY Times treatment, the feud has broken down on largely racial lines.

Three of the four holdouts are Latino legislators who feel Latinos have been underrepresented in leadership roles in city and state government and want to press the issue in the Senate.

Mr. Díaz said the four men, who have formed an independent political caucus, may put off making a decision on whom to back for leader until the new legislative session begins in January.

“There’s a concern that we have a black president, a black governor and we have a concern that we have to be sharing power,” said Mr. Díaz.

It's worth asking why Senator Smith and the Gang of Four didn't hold this conversation before voters gave Democrats a majority in the state Senate?

Didn't they know that there was at least a small chance that they would face the question of leadership in the Senate?

But I for one welcome a touch of familiarity.

It's good to know that in the midst of all this change -- with Wall Street still on life support and the state budget in dire need of attention -- the comfortable old dysfunctional Democratic Party is still alive and well.

Hamilton County the most Republican place in New York

Hamilton County -- smack in the heart of the Adirondacks -- is the most Republican county in all of New York state.

Voters there went for John McCain and Sarah Palin by landslide numbers, giving the GOP ticket nearly 64% of the vote. (Four years ago, George Bush took 67% of the vote.)

How unique are folks in Hamilton?

Just across the line in Franklin County, nearly 60% of voters embraced Democrat Barack Obama.

Drive two hours and you find a twenty point swing. New York state as a whole voted 62% for Obama.

A historic day, flawed

On Tuesday, Americans elected the country's first African American president. I wasn't sure it was possible.

When I was a kid in rural Kansas, my grandfather talked openly and frankly of blacks as monkeys, as tar-babies, as flatly inhuman.

He had a favorite story -- one he loved to tell the grandkids -- about seeing a truckload of black farmworkers crash and spill. He claimed that the men bounced, as if made of rubber.

From bias and hatred so deep that we viewed our neighbors as inferior to a tolerance so expansive that we embrace Sen. Obama as our Commander In Chief -- that's a hell of a journey.

America should be proud. But the journey's not over.

I was struck that on the same day we turned a corner on race, voters in California also chose to revoke equal marriage rights for millions of gay and lesbian couples.

I couldn't help but wonder what stories were being told to grandkids in this country now.

Not about black men bouncing like tar-babies but about "abnormal" gays, about lesbians who flaunt "traditional" values.

I wince when I see TV shows and stand-up comics using "queer" stereotypes (the mincing queen, the tough dike) as regular fodder for their jokes.

It's a kind of societally accepted minstrel show.

I happen to be heterosexual. I'm happily married, a father. I am deeply devoted to the institution of marriage. It really is the cornerstone of our society.

Which is why Americans should think long and hard about the moral dimensions of denying that right to millions of our neighbors.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

Is the GOP too white and too rural?

the post-mortem is underway for the Republican Party. As frequent visitors know, this is a particular obsession of mine, so we'll dip into this thread occasionally. What's wrong with the GOP, what's right, and what needs to change?

Here's Politico's take:

Most ominously for Republicans, the GOP is increasingly becoming less grand than old – and outdated.

As reflected in Tuesday’s results and exit polls, it’s a party that is overwhelmingly white, rural and aged in a country that is rapidly becoming racially mixed, suburban and dominated by a post-baby boomer generation with no memory of Vietnam or the familiar culture wars of the past.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment.

Fox News airs Palin laundry (yes, that $150,000 laundry)

Fox News's Carl Cameron and Bill O'Reilly uncorked on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in this lengthy, gossipy interview which aired the day after the election.

The take-away? John McCain's Veep choice may have been more bizarre than anyone understood.

Go here and then scroll down for the video clip.

Here's the kick-while-down treatment from Newsweek.

An angry [McCain] aide characterized the shopping spree [for Palin's wardrobe] as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Politico smacks down Rudy, praises Hillary

Politico -- the influential on-line politics mag -- doles out the "winners" and "losers" labels following Tuesday's election.

They single out former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for some Big L.

America’s mayor began the year as the Republican front-runner by making the case for the big-tent GOP approach. He ended it as a caustic Republican attack dog at a time when GOP partisanship has turned off the very independents Giuliani initially attracted.

There are rumors he’s mulling a gubernatorial run, but his national reputation has taken a major hit, and his once-thriving consulting business is said to be in trouble.

Hillary Clinton, perhaps the ultimate survivor in American politics (if not quite the ultimate winner) draws some guarded praise.

[S]he has erased most doubts about her commitment to the Obama cause and now enjoys a level of popularity she hasn’t seen since her White House days.

A Northeastern bloodbath for moderate Republicans

Republican Sandy Treadwell spent roughly $72 per vote out of his own wallet trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.

The millions he spent must have looked like a good investment a year ago. The 20th CD has been a GOP stronghold since the GOP was created.

Surely a moderate, well-funded Republican candidate -- with strong credentials and decent name recognition -- could threaten a first-term Democrat who slipped into office on the strength of a scandal?

Uh, no. In percentage terms, Treadwell barely outpolled Democrat Mike Oot, a political neophyte who challenged Rep. John McHugh in the other North Country House district.

So what's the deal?

Fred Barnes, conservative writer with the Weekly Standard, sings the blues of the Northeastern moderate.

With the defeat of Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut, Republicans now have no House members in New England. Before the 2006 election, they had five--three in Connecticut and two in New Hampshire.

And Republican trouble continued as well in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and extended into Ohio and Michigan. Republicans thought 2006 was a bad year in New York, but their losing streak continued with the three more House seats going to Democrats.

What triggered the bloodbath, in Barnes' view?

Two things. The first is the party's image, which has suffered because of an unpopular Republican president, scandals in Congress, and a party the media claims is too conservative. The other is the sour political mood in the country caused by a weak economy, the financial meltdown, and the feeling the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

Barnes suggests that Republicans place some moderates in national leadership positions, in an effort to help candidates like Treadwell. The problem? As he writes today, "there are no longer many [Republican centrists] to choose from."

Last night was President Bush's legacy

For Americans who understand how important a healthy Republican Party is to our nation, last night's polling should give pause.

The GOP is crippled, divided, uncertain and largely leaderless.

Clearly, Barack Obama won the race by virtue of his talents and steadiness under pressure. But his victory -- and the humiliation of the GOP -- also reflected the last eight years of George W. Bush.

John McCain ran as a sort of quasi-anti-Bush, tentatively trying to move the party's faithful away from the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis.

His selection of Sarah Palin clearly blunted that message. At a time when Americans demanded competence, McCain blinked and chose another Bush-like figure.

Palin is now a major force in the GOP. But her fate will largely be decided by the monumental question now facing Republicans:

What do we do with W?

There is already a movement afoot to recast President Bush as a good man who was misunderstood or maligned. A man of principle who will be vindicated by history.

His brand of politician - small town folksy, charismatic populist, ideological - has strong appeal among conservatives. Which is why Governor Palin will linger as a presence.

But last night's outcome suggests that the GOP needs a new direction, one that breaks cleanly with the era defined by Mr. Bush.

Barack and the Press

Barack Obama just uncorked a little shock-and-awe on America's political establishment. First African American president. Stunning landslide victory. Massive legislative majorities.

I say, congratulations.

But I also find myself hoping that journalists -- myself included -- will keep our feet firmly planted on the ground, declining the urge to hop on the bandwagon.

After 9/11, reporters bought into the notion that a complacent, compliant media is a sign of patriotism and national unity. We were intimidated then by President Bush's apparent mandate.

As a consequence, we failed in our duty to inform our audiences about the war on terror and the build-up to the Iraq War. That cannot happen again.

(I sometimes wonder if President Bush would have been a less disastrous leader if we reporters had done our jobs better, forcing him to confront tough and complicated questions.)

Barack Obama deserves respect and even-handed treatment, of course.

But the press will serve him and the American people best by remaining skeptical, critical, and independent.

AP: Dems take NY Senate

The Associated Press is reporting that Democrats have taken control of the New York state Senate.

If confirmed, the results shift the basic structure of New York politics. Democrats control the entire governing apparatus of New York state for the first time since 1935.

Perhaps more significantly, Democrats will now control the redistricting process after the 2010 Census.

Because Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 ration in New York, they'll have a legitimate argument for reshaping state Senate districts across the state -- endangering even more Republicans.

It's also possible that they could reshape the remaining House districts to make life tough for Republican members of Congress.

In short, a devastating night for NY Republicans.

Our better history?

In the weeks after 9/11, when America was terrified and girding for war, I traveled on assignment to New York City.

I found that a couple of the major museums there were mounting exhibitions of Persian and Islamic art. I remember the surge of hope that I felt.

We have the capacity, I thought, deep within our culture, to think in complex and hopeful ways about the difficult and morally ambiguous times ahead.

In the short term, it didn't turn out that way.

America detoured into a voluntary war which most Americans -- and most foreign policy experts -- now see as a horrendous blunder.

But seven years later, voters have decisively elected a man named Barack Hussein Obama, our first African-American president.

It's a remarkable act of courage and imagination. Perhaps even an act of healing.

I remember marveling at those amazing sculptures of glass and clay in New York's museums.

I remember thinking, How fragile they look -- but how tough they must be to have survived all these hard centuries.

That's America all over again. A fragile, diverse and beautiful community. And tough enough, I think, for whatever lies ahead.

Election's legitimacy lauded, questioned

For Obama supporters, this seems to be a day of celebration, with huge turn-out suggesting a groundswell for change.

For McCain supporters, the message is very different: Are these new voters legitimate? Who are they? Are they legal? Where are they taking the country?

I listened to a lot of conservative talk radio as I drove down from Saranac Lake to Saratoga Springs.

The take-away from Hannity, Rush, and Coulter - as well as many local conservatives - is simple:

Republican losses, should they occur, won't be the fault of George Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq War, or the economic crisis.

Here's a transcript from Limbaugh's show:

"How long is it going to be before the average Obama voter gets mad and says, 'What's this? We didn't vote for this!'" You know, I could be wrong, too. I don't know but I think there are a lot of guilty white people voting today for Obama, just to make themselves feel better, thinking they're ending a period in history.

The culprits are media bias, a corrupt voting system, and foolish voters tricked by Barack Obama.

What do you think? Comments welcome.

Open thread: Tell us your voting experience

I'll be on the road the next few hours, traveling to Saratoga Springs where I'll be covering the Treadwell-Gillibrand race and the fight for control of the state Senate.

Meanwhile, we'd love to hear your experiences voting today. Click "Comments" below and tell us how it went, how it felt -- and share any other thoughts.

Keep it civil, folks. We're all Americans today.

I'll be back blogging this afternoon.

NY Times highlights the urban-rural divide

In most of the big battleground states, the battle today will be a classic urban-rural match-up.

Democratic cities in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia will attempt to overwhelm the Republican votes of rural folks in those states.

In a great, short video on the Times home page, reporter Ford Fessenden lays out this metro-homelander clash in stark detail.

http://nytimes.com/

Will urbanites prevail in 2008 -- or will this be a repeat of 2000 and 2004, when baffled left-leaning metros find themselves trumped by unified small-town conservatives?

Saranac Lake district students strawpoll for Obama

Democrat Barack Obama has dominated the youth vote this election cycle. That momentum carried him through the strawpoll balloting at Bloomingdale and Petrova Elementary Schools in the Saranac Lake district.

Some of the students' opinions were surprisingly, well, down-to-earth:

"He said he would cut taxes, and for me, that means my parents will give me more money on pay day," Matthew Loso, 9, a fourth-grader at Bloomingdale, said of Obama.

Caleb Alford, 10, a fifth-grader at Petrova, said he voted for Obama "because he wanted the war to end and he believed in health insurance. He also believes in a lot of education."

According to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Obama polled 314 votes to John McCain's 127.

Nine-year-old Brittany Shumway, a fourth-grader at Bloomingdale, was among the 66-student minority there that cast a ballot for McCain.

"I voted for him because it's a Republican and because of my parents," she said.

Read the full Adirondack Daily Enterprise article here:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/503319.html?nav=5008

Utica pollster Zogby: 54% Obama - 42.7% McCain

In his final, election-day poll, Utica-based pollster John Zogby delivers tough news to the McCain campaign.

Politico reported this week that the McCain camp waits eagerly for the latest poll numbers, looking for signs of a tightening race.

Zogby says that hasn't happened.

"Obviously anything can happen on Election Day, but Americans want change and it seems very clear that the historic candidacy of Sen. Obama defines that change."

Zogby raises the possibility of a "stunning victory" for Obama. If that happens, the pollster says it will be driven by four key groups:

Independents - Obama leads by 24%.
Women - the Democrat up by 20%
Moderates - a 32% advantage for the Dem
Newly registered voters - 30% Obama tilt

(Zogby doesn't mention African American or Hispanic voters, but those demographics also have a heavy Obama lean.)

McCain holds some advantages, leading the 55-69 age group by half a percentage point and holding a 7% advantage among white voters.

Read Zogby's full election day treatment here:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1633

Courting the reluctant Amish and Native American vote

The North Country -- like much of rural America -- has a population that's gradually shrinking.

The exception are the Amish and the Mohawk communities, both of which have seen a rapid expansion the last decade.

That could bring bigger clout in local and regional elections.

But both groups see themselves as distinctly apart from the rest of the U.S. The Mohawk are literally a different nation.

As a consequence, many Mohawks and many Amish simply abstain from voting.

But this year for the first time, Democrats have been openly courting Native American votes.

Here's a taste of a recent Politico.com article.

“I would like to believe these efforts reaching into Indian Country are truly altruistic — and for the large part, they are — but these candidates know that in order to win, Indian Country can be a deciding factor,” said Kalyn Free, an Oklahoma superdelegate and founder of the Indigenous Democratic Network’s List, a political organization that mobilizes the Indian vote and recruits, trains and funds Native American candidates.

Read the full article here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10676.html

Meanwhile, the on-line magazine "Slate" has a fascinating profile of Amish residents in Pennsylvania, who've been courted heavily by Republican politicians.

Here's a sample:

Egg-selling Verna Miller, for instance, wreathed by five blond High German-speaking children like a bonneted Lady Madonna, explained to me that although her parents received a daily newspaper, since marrying her husband she'd stopped reading one.

She didn't have the time, and from what she could see, little in the outside world affected her. Even if the election came down to just a few votes in Pennsylvania, she, like others, assured me that "God will make sure it's the right candidate."

This frustrating explanation that a prayer is equal to a vote was offered up over and over.

Read the article here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2203700/

A small town leads them?

Tiny Dixville Notch, NH, votes every year just after midnight. Typically, the rural New Hampshire town goes Republican.

Not this year. The first official balloting of the day went 15-6 in favor of Democrat Barack Obama.

In 2004, George Bush won. In fact, Republicans had won a majority of the town's voters as far back as 1988, when Michael Dukakis polled only three votes.

Only a few million more votes left to count!

Two big North Country political questions we'll be answering Tuesday

Voters will answer at least two big questions for the North Country on Tuesday.

Question One: Is the region still a bright red Republican stronghold?

Voter registration numbers say yes, but recent voting patterns suggest a shift. If Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand walks away from Sandy Treadwell -- despite his $5+million investment -- then it would be official.

The region would be purple, trending toward light blue.

Question Two: Which North Country state Senator is in the majority in Albany?

Right now, Republican Senator Betty Little is a major player in Albany -- after suffering for years as an Assemblywoman in the minority.

Democratic Senator Darrel Aubertine, meanwhile, has complained recently about his mistreatment at the hands of majority Republican leaders.

If control of the Senate flips, these two lawmakers also see their fortunes flip.

Little's influence -- already diminished somewhat by the departure of George Pataki -- will take a big hit. Aubertine's will grow.

VT kicks NY butt in earmark/pork money

A new analysis of earmark spending finds that Vermont is outpacing New York state in Congressional earmark spending -- pork, some call it -- by epic margins.

New York's congressional delegation has a reputation as liberal tax-and-spenders, but they bring home an average of $24 per capita in earmark spending.

Vermont's delegation, on the other hand, brings home a whopping $123 per person.

In fact, 9 of the top 10 states bringing home tons of pork are rural -- and most are Republican red states.

Alaska -- home of Governor Sarah Palin -- is tops in the nation. Get this: $451 per person in earmark money for folks in Alaska.

Washington DC came in second, with $244 per person.

Vermont ranked seventh in the country.

Fort Drum's hometown paper supports Obama

Here's a blog dispatch from David Sommerstein, who reports on military and Fort Drum issues for NCPR:

The Watertown Daily Times kept up the suspense nearly until the last minute.

Yesterday, the family-owned paper endorsed Barak Obama for president. The WDT is pretty conservative – it endorsed Republicans for all the big local/regional races.

And it’s the hometown paper for Fort Drum and its 16,000 soldiers.

Which is why this quote is pretty telling about how the WDT editorial board feels about the break-neck pace of deployments from Fort Drum to Iraq and Afghanistan:

“Mr. Obama will rely on a more diplomatic approach to the global challenges America faces than the administration exhibited in its early years. Presumably, he would not allow national security needs to override individual freedoms. A more open, less secretive White House would be appreciated.”

Seems like the pace of war and issues like Guantanamo and wire-tapping played a big role in the Times decision.

Watertown Daily Times endorses Republican Renzi

The Watertown Daily Times is endorsing Republican challenger David Renzi in his bid to top Democratic incumbent Darrel Aubertine.

The editorial points to the geographic as well as the party divide in NY state politics.

New York state will be best represented if Republicans and Democrats divide the houses of the Legislature, thus providing a natural balance of power which will prevent either side from excessive political action.

The political reality of today in New York is that upstate interests are the domain of Republicans and downstate interests are dominated by Democrats. To have both houses of the Legislature controlled by the same party is unhealthy.

Aubertine currently leads the contest by 11% according to a Siena College poll over the weekend.

Glens Falls Post-Star endorses Dem. Gillibrand

The Post-Star has endorsed Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand for a second term.
Here's how their editorial board sees the race:

Kirsten Gillibrand has had a solid freshman term in Congress, staying close to her constituents and taking positions that reflect their interests and needs. Despite spending millions of dollars of his personal fortune on this campaign, Mr. Treadwell simply hasn't made a strong enough case for voters to replace her.

In his separate blog on-line, managing editor Ken Tingley said the endorsement had generated a lot of heat on the newspaper's message boards:

There was a lot of good back and forth and there was also a lot of anger out there too. Some people said they would never buy or read our newspaper again.

That’s sad to hear. I would hope that our readers would always want us to base our decisions on what we truly believe and not make it a business decision. Registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats 2 to 1 in these parts, but we don’t base our endorsements on demographics. We base them on who we think will be the best for the job.

Siena Poll: Aubertine up by 11% - GOP control of state Senate in question

First the North Country headline:

State Senator Darrel Aubertine (D) still leads his Republican challenger, David Renzi, by 11%.

But Aubertine's down below 50% (okay, just at 49%) and the poll finds a pool of 13% still undecided.

According to Siena's numbers, the Republican has closed the gap by 9%.

Still, it's hard to see him making up the remaining difference in 24 hours.

Also, Aubertine still holds a 54% to 40% favorability advantage, which makes any last minute surges by Renzi particularly unlikely.

Now the statewide picture:

Democrats need just one net seat pick-up to tie the Republicans in the state Senate -- and two seats to gain control.

Siena now says that one Republican Senator, Caesar Trunzo, is trailing his Democratic opponent by a stunning 22%.

Another Republican Senator, Serf Maltese, is trailing his Democratic opponent by a much closer 2%.

An open Republican seat -- vacated by Mary Lou Rath -- is leaning toward the GOP, with Republican Michael Razenhofer holding a 5% advantage.

The Democrats also seem to have stabilized their own Sen. Bill Stachowski, who is now leading his Republican opponent by 4%.

The bottom line? In a year when Barack Obama and John McCain are both expected to drive heavy voter turn-out, state Senate races could be volatile.

Here's the bottom line, as reported by 810 WGY radio.

SIENA'S STEVE GREENBERG SAYS ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. HE SAYS HE WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED TO SEE EITHER PARTY TAKE POWER [IN THE STATE SENATE]...AND ALSO WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF BOTH PARTIES SPLIT POWER.

The irony of Election 2008

Here's a thought for the final days of this historic, and seemingly endless, presidential campaign.

The only force that can stop John McCain is the Republican Party.

And the only thing that can trip up Barack Obama is Democratic voters.

What do I mean?

Let's take John McCain first. He's managed to chase Barack Obama almost to the finish line, despite his ties to the least popular president in modern American history.

The Republican movement in general is at a painfully low ebb, as evidenced by polling, by lackluster fundraising, and by the GOP's challenges in congressional races.

If McCain loses, he can fairly say that he was beaten by George Bush twice: first in 2000 and then in 2008.

Now for Barack Obama.

Every political pundit in America agrees that if Democratic voters turned out in proportional numbers to Republican voters, he would win by a landslide.

There are simply a heck of a lot more people in the U.S. who prefer Democratic policies.

But the truth is that many Democratic sympathizers either a) don't vote or b) won't vote for an African American.

There are already signs that young voters and Hispanics are "underperforming" in early voting.

And an Obama collapse in Ohio and Pennsylvania would almost certainly be triggered by Democrats leery of Obama's race defecting to McCain.

In the end, the man who overcomes the limitations of his own party will be the next president of the United States.

Saranac Lake's Gary Trudeau calls election for Obama

In his nationally syndicated Doonesbury strip, Saranac Lake native Garry Trudeau is assuming a win by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The cartoonist has drawn four strips already, slated to be published next week across the U.S., that assume John McCain will lose.

In an email sent to the St. Petersburg Times, in Florida, Trudeau wrote:

“I never considered NOT writing about the election, but to avoid lameness, I had to predicate it on an outcome."

Trudeau went on to say that an Obama loss would be such big news that his inaccurate cartoons would be largely ignored.

"If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a genuine phenomenon. If I'm wrong, there'll be such a global uproar that a goofy call in a comic strip isn't going to be much noticed.”

Still, some newspapers are balking at printing the comic strip in its usual slot.

Read more here:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2008/10/st-pete-times-t.html