What would have happened in Ferguson on that hot August afternoon had a social worker come upon Michael Brown on Canfield Avenue? What if a social worker saw Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island? My hunch is that they’d both be alive today. [NOTE: This is an updated version of a post from December 14, 2014.

Among those who want reform, there is considerable talk about community policing. The Department of Justice defines community policing as:

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.

I went to the Occasional Planet’s Director of Plain Speaking who said that what it means is a cop with a heart. Well, there’s probably more to it than that and we don’t wish to imply that most cops do not have a heart. An effective community police officer has much the knowledge of a social worker such as what approach to take when an individual or a group of people are truly upset about something. He or she is also someone who can brainstorm solutions to seemingly difficult situations. Whether they are on the “mean streets” of the inner city or closeted away in the hidden lanes of the farthest suburbs, there is essential work that community police officers can do.

Several days ago I was working with a group of inner city student about to enter high school. We were talking about the recent events in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas and elsewhere in the United States. One of the questions we asked was whether any of them had had any positive experiences with police officers. About a quarter of the class raised their hands and had encouraging stories to tell. One boy spoke of a day when he was playing catch with himself with a football. The ball got away from him and rolled out into the street. The boy said that a police officer drove up, and naturally he was scared. What ensued was that the officer stopped his car, got out, retrieved the ball, and tossed it back to him. The policeman did not reprimand him, rather he urged the boy to enjoy his play and to be safe.

We do have numerous examples of community policing, in both our actual history and fictional history. Remember the beat cop that actor Sean Connery played in The Untouchables. He was a guy who would befriend you on the street, but when necessary bop you upside the head with his night stick.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, many police forces made efforts to hire an “Officer Friendly.” While much of the work of these officers was visiting pre-school and kindergarten classes, they also were present at a number of events where they could mingle with the public. But one Officer Friendly does not make a friendly police force.

Why is it difficult for some police officers and many of their supporters to pick up the nuanced meaning of Black Lives Matter? It’s easy for anyone to say that all lives matter, but it becomes a throwaway line when intended to imply that everyone’s life is in equal jeopardy. Police officers are aware of the statistics showing that African-Americans are much more likely to die from gunshots, from disease, even from the hands of police. But if those officers’ only engagement with the African-American community is with a criminal element, then it can easily follow that they have a lower regard for African-American lives.

On the other hand, when officers are on the streets in both good times and bad times, they get to see a more realistic picture of the community. When they can informally interact with citizens, they get to know people in a way that goes beyond stereotypes. And if officers were to get to know individuals and families in a way that social workers do, the officers might see their roles entirely differently. They would become problem-solvers in a much broader way than they are under the current definitions of their jobs.

In a perfect world, we would neither need police officers nor social workers. But people have problems. Sometimes they can be addressed with love and compassion; other times they require physical restraint. The way out society is currently structured, we have different professions to address different problems. But who determines under what category a problem falls? Really there is no one. What we need are individuals who have skill sets of both police officers and social workers. The fact that this is currently possible in only a few locales does not make it an unworthy goal. We need to put our efforts towards creating a new group of community police officers who are resourceful, compassionate, and also firm when needed.

Consider what President Obama had to say about community policing in a speech last year in Camden, New Jersey:

So I’ve come here to Camden to do something that might have been unthinkable just a few years ago — and that’s to hold you up as a symbol of promise for the nation.  (Applause.)  Now, I don’t want to overstate it.  Obviously Camden has gone through tough times and there are still tough times for a lot of folks here in Camden.  But just a few years ago, this city was written off as dangerous beyond redemption — a city trapped in a downward spiral.  Parents were afraid to let their children play outside.  Drug dealers operated in broad daylight.  There weren’t enough cops to patrol the streets.

So two years ago, the police department was overhauled to implement a new model of community policing.  They doubled the size of the force — while keeping it unionized.  They cut desk jobs in favor of getting more officers out into the streets.  Not just to walk the beat, but to actually get to know the residents — to set up basketball games, to volunteer in schools, to participate in reading programs, to get to know the small businesses in the area.

If the system that we have elsewhere for policing is flawed, then perhaps it has to do with those whom we recruit to become police officers and how we define their jobs.  We need to recruit individuals who have more of a holistic view of society rather than one limited to dividing us into “good guys” and “bad guys.” We need people who see their role as being arbiters on the streets of their community. We need people who represent the best of our societal values to the many varied kinds of people whom they encounter.

In order to do this, we are going to have to pay community police officers more. We’re also going to have to improve their working conditions so that there is more joy and less trauma. We’re going to have to set expectations so that they receive high regard from the public when they earn it; not just because they wear a badge.

These ideas are not particularly new; they’re just ones that were frequently thrown in the trash heap during the era of a singular focus on law and order. When the primary representatives of “we the people” who interact with citizens are solely hell-bent on keeping law and order, we should expect more than occasional miscarriage of justice. If Ferguson, Baton Rouge and St. Paul have taught us anything about policing, it’s that we need to thoroughly re-think it. Let’s start with community policing.

The post We need police officers who are also social workers appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Which two of the following characteristics best describes the kind of leader that you would want for the country? [You must select two]:

1. A warrior, fearless and strong
2. An intellectual who is knowledgeable and who reasons well
3. A person who is thoughtful and caring with who he or she is
4. Someone who will not back down to anyone.

Once you’ve selected your answers, then think about which two Donald Trump might select. Then try Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

In Occasional Planet’s on-line survey of 550 respondents*, the answers came out like this:

Our thinking was that the top and the bottom choices would be more Trump-like; in fact, more reflective of the Republican Party. Similarly, our hypothesis was that the middle two options would be more representative of progressive thinking. These two characteristics seem to characterize several recent Democratic presidents, most particularly John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

There are six different pairs of combinations that any one respondent could choose. We wanted to see what the difference was between what Republicans and Democrats chose. Figure 2 shows the percentages of different groups that selected the pair of “comfortable with self” and “reasons well:”

Democrats (in blue) selected these two options 81% of the time; five times as often as random selection would be. Republicans (in red) selected them only 30% of the time. Republicans generally favored at least one of the two more “macho” choices.

As you look at the current debate among 2016 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to focus much more on issues than do the Republicans. Clinton and Sanders both come across as “thoughtful and caring; comfortable with themselves” as well as “knowledgeable and capable of reasoning well.” The GOP candidates reflect more of the warrior mentality (particularly with Rand Paul having dropped out) and as individuals who will not back down, especially Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.

We asked respondents the same questions about what characteristics they would like in their boss. The graph below shows the comparisons of different groups in terms of what they want for a leader of the country vs. a boss. The red bar reflects what they want in a leader; the blue bars are what they want in a boss.

When it comes to the “thoughtful, rational, caring, comfortable” options, all groups think that is more important in their boss than in a leader for their nation. But the biggest spread among them is with members of the GOP. Republicans seem to want what might be called the “integrated personality” for their boss, but not nearly as much in their national leader.

What do we learn from this? This is very subjective, but there are a few takeaways:

1. Democrats favor more a person who is “comfortable with who he or she is.” This is why Democrats generally have the good sense to reject uncomfortable individuals for president like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. The question remains, do Republicans seem to prefer someone who is not comfortable with him or herself, or do they just not notice?
2. Democrats seem to reject the one-dimensional thinking of “someone who will not back down” or a “warrior, fearless and strong.” Does this mean that they have favored “weak presidents?’ It is interesting that during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, no American soldiers were killed in combat. and during Bill Clinton’s presidency, only one American soldier was killed in combat. Were they weak? Doubtful. But they were judicious.

*Occasional Planet interviewed 550 Americans on January 14-15, 2016, using the services of the online-site Survey Monkey. The sample size is reliable +/- 4.5%, 95% of the time. It is demographically balanced by gender, ethnicity, age, income and geographic region.

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The revelation that the federal government has been secretly gathering records on the phone calls and online activities of millions of Americans and foreigners seems not to have alarmed most Americans. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center over the four days immediately after the news first broke found that just 41 percent of Americans deemed it unacceptable that the Security Agency “has been getting secret court orders to track telephone calls of millions of Americans to investigate terrorism.”

So writes James B. Rule in an op-ed in the New York Times.

One can extrapolate from the 41 percent in the poll that Americans are essentially split over the issue of the NSA’s collection of data from telephone and internet records. Perhaps this is a good time for a public issue to be settled by the courts. It certainly seems as if it will be, as the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) will be challenging the NSA (National Security Agency) and/or whoever is most responsible for the data-mining decision.

President Obama has said that he supports the work of the NSA, and his actions have certainly affirmed that support. In light of Edward Snowden’s leaking of the existence and extent of the program, he may well want to trim his sails and take a position more in support of preserving human rights. This is clearly a tough issue for President Obama, and for many Americans. The president is not unfamiliar with how to acknowledge his reluctance to take a definitive decision on a difficult issue. During his 2008 campaign, he was asked at what point a baby gets “human rights.”  While supporting a woman’s right to choose, he said that an answer to that question was “above his pay grade.” Some will say that he was punting on the issue, but others will agree with him that the question is too difficult for any human being to answer, and that to try to do so is foolish.

So it is with the current issue involving “dueling rights” of security and privacy. Like many on the left, I am queasy about this kind of collection of data by the federal government. On the other hand, if it is true that dozens of plots have been foiled by NSA data-mining, then I would be more willing to forfeit some privacy. The person who probably has the best bird’s-eye view of the situation is the President. While I trust him to make sound macro-decisions, I shudder at the thought of another Richard Nixon or George W. Bush being in a position to set broad policy for the NSA and related agencies. My one wish, as the dialogue continues on the issue, is that all participants step back from the vice of certainty. It’s really important to listen to opposing points of view.

The post NSA vs. ACLU: Split Decision appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, I was quite disappointed that he had virtually no substantive written material about his campaign to provide to voters.  The policy positions that he made available on his campaign web site were extremely general and minimally informative.  It was a campaign that in many ways was based primarily on slogans, and it worked quite well that way.  At the very least it worked well enough for him to win the election, and that’s a big part of what he wanted to accomplish.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel talks about the two types of followers that a politician has: (a) political hacks who are primarily concerned about winning elections, and (b) policy wonks who want to see implemented the policies that they support.  During a campaign, the wonks and near-wonks are looking for whatever information they can get in order to provide some clarity and certainty as to what candidate stands for.

In 2008 I found very little information from the Obama campaign that helped me determine what his views were on certain issues and what his style of governance would be.  However, I had enough confidence in him to try to engage in some “educated speculation,” or at least “hopeful wishing” as to who he really was.  I chose to put my contribution to his campaign into a special account that I established.  It was not legally connected with the “Obama for America” campaign organization.  It was essentially a one-person PAC.

I created a flyer that spelled out the key wishes that I had; had over 6,000 of them printed; and had them mailed to households in swing districts in St. Louis County, MO. You can see a somewhat unclear copy of the flyer by clicking here for Side A and here for Side B (unfortunately I did not keep track of the digital copy from which the prints were made).

Five years later, we can look back on my “wonky wishes” and examine how well Barack Obama satisfied this particular progressive.  Here is a list of the stated wishes in the flyer and an assessment of how well the President has fulfilled them:

1. “I hope that he is still an idealist with a primary concern for those less fortunate.
   1. I would give him a ‘B-.’  He could have done more with less obstinacy from the Republicans.  He also has been cozier to the bankers than I would like, but he could have his reasons that will eventually work to the benefit of the less poor.
2. “I hope that Barack Obama bases his decision-making on logic and compassion.”
   1. I would give him an “A” on this.
3. “I hope that Barack Obama favors the strictest possible gun control laws.”
   1. I give him a “B” on gun control.  It sure took him a while; it would have been great if he could have started this campaign in Tucson after Gabby Giffords was shot.  But the timing was probably better with Newtown and once he embraced the issue, he became a relentless fighter.
4. “I hope that despite what he has said, Barack Obama opposes the death penalty.”
   1. “D-.”  It’s been very disappointing to not hear the president say a word about abolishing the death penalty.  It’s particularly difficult to hear his almost glee when he talks about killing terrorists.  However, his position is probably politically wise.  I’m holding out hope that when he writes his memoirs he will express significant reservations about the death penalty.
5. “I hope that Barack Obama is genuinely committed to providing an effective economic and social safety net for disadvantaged or disenfranchised citizens – in fact for all of us.”
   1. “B. “ With Barack Obama, it’s no longer just the suffering middle class; it’s also the poor amongst us.  He has not turned his back on those with whom he worked when he was a community organizer.  However, we do have to wonder about what he is willing to sacrifice in Social Security and Medicare.  I’ m hoping that’s just a talking point with him.
6. I hope that Barack Obama could mock himself; the office that he occupies; and the absurd nature of the political game – much as Robert Redford did in the movie The Candidate.
   1. “A.”  Just watch one of his White House Correspondents’ dinners.
7. “Have a ‘B.S.’ detector similar to Jon Stewart’s on the Daily Show.
   1. “A-.” It took him a while to learn that “Boehner-talk” and “McConnell-talk” were B.S., but once he learned it in late 2010, he has not forgotten it.

Overall I am quite satisfied with the job that President Barack Obama has done.  Most of what I wanted that he has not accomplished is because of the recalcitrance of the Republicans and the ugly influence of money in politics.  But he’s doing about as well as can be expected.  I’ll give him a B+.  This is not the average of the grades above, but I have to give him extra credit because he has had to deal with the political realities and I need to modify some of my wishes because of those same realities.

I have already taken the liberty to express my advance wishes for what President Obama writes in his memoirs to truly clarify his progressive ideas.  You can read them here.

The post Your wish for Barack Obama may become his thought appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The presidency seems to becoming more and more of a burden for Barack Obama, even though we are only halfway into the first year of his second term. Regrettably, the Republicans have him right where they want him, mired in the gridlock of partisan politics. In all likelihood, conditions will remain the same for the remaining three and a half years of his presidency. This is why it may be wise for many progressives to trim their hopes for the next few years and look forward to the time when Barack Obama can more freely speak his mind and then tell us in his memoirs what he can’t now tell us now.

An example would be the president’s thinking about election reform. It would be my hope that his real beliefs include:

1. Federalizing all rules, regulations, and procedures that relate to national elections (e.g. president/vice-president; senators, members of the House of Representatives).
2. Explore new ways of reducing the length of campaigns and reducing the amount of money in campaigns. He might suggest that, ultimately, this would require a little tweaking of the First Amendment, though that has obvious risks.
3. Ensure, through the strength of the federal government, easy registration for voting, and election times that are convenient for all voters.

On health reform, I would hope that he would make it clear that his preference would be a single-payer or “Medicare for all” program. Many Republicans suspect that’s what he wants, and many progressives hope that’s true. The imperfections in the Affordable Care Act may be best solved by moving toward a more unified and efficient system that would lead to single-payer. President Obama may have been crazy like a fox in accepting the current law and the anticipated improvements that may be made in the future.

President Obama may favor dramatic reforms to improve the lives of the working poor and those without employment. This may include a doubling of the federal minimum wage to make it an affordable wage. He may also support a new stimulus program of several trillion dollars, with much of the money being used to rebuild and expand our infrastructure. The infusion of funds could also be used to provide additional jobs for people in the fields of education, health care, child care, and care for the elderly.

He might also support real reforms with teeth to curb the runaway powers of Wall Street bankers and investment moguls. To have a former president strongly siding with the 99% would give the movement a considerable boost.

The value added to the progressive movement by the former president announcing his support of such policies could be incalculable. This is especially true if in 2016, the country elects another Democratic president. Barack Obama would be able to advocate policies that are truly progressive, which hopefully are the ones in which he truly believes. He would not have to face the same sort of Republican and right-wing media opposition that he currently does.

The true conservative agenda is unabashedly advocated by many members of the GOP. What progressives really want is still somewhat of a secret. If upon his retirement, Barack Obama advocated a progressive agenda, he could do so with no political risk to himself and considerable benefit to the movement and many of his fellow Democrats.

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It may be one of those times when President Obama is not receiving the support that he wishes he could have from either liberals or conservatives. He certainly learned during the first two years of his presidency that Republicans were not going to support him, even if he went to the extent of adopting their ideas (e.g. the individual mandate in his Affordable Care Act). During those two years, liberals were somewhat disenchanted as he distanced himself from truly progressive legislation such as Medicare for All or any form of gun control.

The president is currently at odds with conservatives over sequestration. This issue is one that President Obama hoped to avoid because he doubted that the Republicans would call his bluff on drastic spending cuts which would hit the Pentagon most and wouldn’t touch any entitlements. But the Republicans, who still seem to have a primary goal of doing harm to anything that has President Obama’s fingerprints on it, are quite content with weakening the country’s defense and leaving millions of lower and middle income citizens at a loss.

It seems that liberals are currently wondering about the president’s support of principles that he has previously espoused and which are central to a progressive platform. After having truly stirred his base with a rousing Inaugural Address and an equally forward-looking State of the Union Address, the President seems to be mired in his effort to reach some sort of common ground with regard to sequestration.

Two important issues come to mind, both having to do with how our democracy chooses its leaders. The first relates to Section Five of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is currently being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court by conservative and possibly racist groups. Section Five empowered the U.S. Department of Justice to “preclear” any attempt to change “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting…” in any “covered jurisdiction.” These “covered jurisdictions” were southern states that had an ugly history of clearly discriminating against minorities, particularly African-Americans, as well as a few counties in other states that also engaged in voting irregularities that prevented qualified citizens from voting. While President Obama’s Justice Department is joining most litigants in asserting that Section Five is clearly constitutional, it has not taken the truly progressive view that voting irregularities currently occur in many of the remaining 39 states and hundreds of jurisdictions.

First, Florida was not among the southern states cited for discriminatory practices and we’re all aware of the transgressions that occurred there in 2000 and every presidential election since. More recently, northern states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have had gross irregularities. Ever since winning re-election last November 6, President Obama has been talking about putting an end to the voting transgressions across the country. Many progressives are currently suggesting that the Section Five challenge to the Supreme Court provides an opportunity for the Court to rule in favor of “expanded equality.”  This would entitle every U.S. citizen, regardless of where he or she might live, to be protected from voting irregularities. So far, the president and his Justice Department have not joined to contest to advocate on behalf of broader protection for all voters.

In the case of the 1965 Voting Rights court challenge, President Obama has not been as reactive as many progressives would like him to be. And in a second area related to improving our democracy, the President and his political aides have been pro-active in a fashion that makes our democracy all the more dependent on money, particularly from large donors.

Shortly after the election, President Obama and his inner political circle put together a plan to create a group to help rally public support for his second term agenda. He did create such an organization after winning in 2008 and it hurt him, as he had difficulty rallying support for proposals such as the Affordable Care Act and the economic stimulus. So after winning in 2012, the president authorized the establishment of Organizing for Action. This was met with considerable enthusiasm by millions of progressives as we envisioned a semi-united (about as united as Democrats could get) effort to advance much of the “unfinished business” that remained from the first term. President Obama had spoken numerous times about a “people’s democracy;” one that was not characterized by inside lobbyist and big financial supporters. True, he had backed off from these words more than once, particularly in 2008 when he eschewed public financing for his campaign so that he could raise enough money to fund the vigorous campaign that he wanted. But it seemed that now that he was into his second term, he could proceed without as much worry about support from the large and powerful financial interests.

Such has not been the case with Organizing for Action. As Nicholas Confessore wrote in the New York Times:

President Obama’s political team is fanning out across the country in pursuit of an ambitious goal: raising $50 million to convert his re-election campaign into a powerhouse national advocacy network, a sum that would rank the new group as one of Washington’s biggest lobbying operations.

But the rebooted campaign, known as Organizing for Action, has plunged the president and his aides into a campaign finance limbo with few clear rules, ample potential for influence-peddling, and no real precedent in national politics.

Organizing for America is headed by Jim Messina who was Obama’s campaign coordinator in 2012. While it will bear some of the grass-roots characteristics of Obama campaigns, it will also include the presence of big donors who will have special access to the president and other major figures in the administration.

I for one am most interested in helping President Obama advance progressive tenets of his agenda. However, I’m reluctant to do so because I don’t want to be part of an organization that is structured in a fashion that I think should be illegal because it grants disproportionate power to an elite few.

I realize that it’s difficult for the president to back off from the rich and the powerful. This is evident from his playing golf with Tiger Woods and two oil executives. It’s evident when Michelle Obama acts as part of the “Hollywood cabal” in presenting the Academy Award for the best motion picture of 2012. They live in a glass bubble. Yet they’re both very aware of where most Americans live. Like any people who are cloistered, they need to be reminded of that. Let’s hope that truly popular support is what progressives can give to President Obama.

The post Where President Obama’s actions seem to differ from his words appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In his January 14, 2013 press conference, President Obama was asked whether he is too insular and does not socialize enough.  The question and his casual response drew laughs, but partisans in both parties say that it is a serious issue.  Ostensibly they say that he is unwilling to do the kind of schmoozing necessary to secure a big bi-partisan deal.  It’s possible that what they mean is that they’re not comfortable with someone who is comfortable in his own skin.  The president can easily talk with those to whom he is close; he has a wide variety of friends ranging from historians to scientists to artists to street basketball players.  He’s easy to friend with because he can poke fun at himself and gently rib those with whom he is socializing.  He is comfortable on the irony channel, being able to see a set of circumstances through a prism that gives several different perspectives.

As President Obama said in the press conference, many Republicans choose to decline his invitations to White House events.  He hypothesizes that the Republicans don’t like “the optics.”  In other words they don’t want photos going back home showing them in the company of a Democrat.  While he didn’t say it, it’s possible that they don’t like looking stiff and awkward in the presence of the president who is almost always at ease with himself.

Citing the resistance of Republicans to socialize with him, he says:

“I think there are a lot of Republicans at this point that feel that given how much energy has been devoted in some of the media that’s preferred by Republican constituencies to demonize me, that it doesn’t look real good socializing with me.”.

He cited former Florida Gov. Charles Crist, who has now left the Republican Party, as an example. Crist’s fortunes as a Republican never recovered from a hug he gave Obama in early 2009. (Crist also embraced Obama’s economic stimulus bill.)

It’s not just Republicans who find that President Obama’s style of socializing is different from their own.

Neera Tanden, a former aide to both Obama and former President Clinton, complained last year to New York magazine that Obama “doesn’t call anyone” because “he’s not close to almost anyone.”

“It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people,” Tanden said in a remark for which she later apologized.

One of the real perks of the job to President Obama is that he gets to work from home.  It’s doubtful that he would have run for president had he not been able to do so.  He is well aware of how miserable he made his life for himself as well as his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha when he was serving as an Illinois state senator in Springfield.   Often times he would leave their Hyde Park home before sunrise and take the train to the Capitol.  Many nights he didn’t return until 2:00 AM.  As president, he is able to have dinner with his family far more frequently than he ever was before.  He’s able to host parties for the girls.  And in what would be treat for virtually anyone, he’s able to pick and choose with whom he wants to be friend.

He is very open to others who either (a) liven up a gathering with wisdom and wit, or (b) is willing to make a social occasion a productive work time.  That means working out the details of an agreement; not pontificating just to be heard.

There is so much that we can all learn from President Obama.  His social skills may be near the top of the list.  He is truly a politician who is a human being first.  If we watch him socialize, or watch him choose not to socialize, we can learn a great deal about leadership.

The post Republicans have trouble connecting with a pretty good guy appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are certain thoughts that are de rigueur in every State of the Union Address. Honor is paid to our men and women in uniform. American values, particularly those of the middle class and of entrepreneurs are praised. Our founding fathers, and sometimes our mothers as well, are recognized for their outstanding ideas and hard work.

On February 12, President Barack Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union Address. He will have more political capital to spend than will remain in any of his final three. How should he allocate this precious capital?

Current conversation focuses on four areas. While he is certainly free to pass on any of the topics listed below, chances are that he will directly or indirectly address each.

1. Gun control. The reason why this will be included is the answer to the simple question: “if not now, then when?” The scope of the proposals will likely be modest, defined in large part by Vice-President Joe Biden who has spent the past several weeks soliciting ideas from and negotiating with various interest groups involved in gun-related issues.
2. Election reform. Once again, the reason is that the timing couldn’t be better. The images of Americans standing in lines to vote for over seven hours are still indelibly imprinted in our minds. The arbitrary and capricious regulations that many Republicans, particularly in Ohio and Florida, imposed upon the least enfranchised of our voters offended most Americans, including a majority of the GOP. The federal government has always been the true enforcer of democratic values. The federal government can and must act on those rare occasions when the American people actually feel that their civil liberties are at risk. Now is such a time.
3. Making education affordable. In recent years most education reform has focused on establishing so-called achievement standards and implementing a system of measuring students and teachers against these standards. The finances of education have become increasingly important to President Obama; it may be one of those rare issues where a politician develops a refined sense of the “mood of the country” while on the campaign trail. The costs of college tuition and associated expenses have continued to rise while Republicans have tried to cut funding for Pell Grants. In a move unparalleled in recent times, a number of colleges, both private and public, have scaled back tuition increases. The value of a college education is being questioned in an unprecedented way in the post-World War II era. President Obama does not want to preside over a decrease in the number of high school graduates who go on to college. He will seek more aid to collegiate education. With many states and localities scaling back their funding of elementary and secondary education, he may well advocate increased federal funding for pre-collegiate education.
4. Entitlement reform. The president succeeded in keeping the country from going over the “fiscal cliff.” Republicans wisely agreed to rescind a good portion of the Bush tax cuts. Democrats recognize that they need to cut spending and meaningful reduction cannot occur without reforming entitlements. As much as Republicans embrace the general idea of reducing entitlement spending, they are reluctant to advocate specifics which will alienate some of their constituents. It will behoove President Obama to take the lead in this reform and force the Republicans to have to play defense. In all likelihood he will work to develop a consensus for fundamental reform with Congressional Democrats and introduce it to the American people in the State of the Union.

House Speaker John Boehner and Congress in general have given President Obama a special gift. By operating in a fashion that garners only a 17% positive rating from the American people, they have given the president the moral and the tactical high ground. President Obama cannot count on that lasting forever. In recent months he has indicated that he is comfortable “seizing the moment.” It is more than a hope; indeed it is a likelihood that he will set a clear national agenda in his State of the Union Address.

The post Putting a special stamp on the State of the Union appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you dig deep enough into a CNN story called, “Obama and Romney: Middle class promises will be hard to keep,” you’ll run across a video entitled “The debate in 99 seconds.” It represents one of the better exchanges about the economy.

It’s a far cry from the way MSNBC’s pundit Chris Matthews and many other progressive observers have described the debate. I recall being in a room of fifteen while watching the debate. Most were surprised that the president did not score a clear victory. However, that does not mean that he didn’t show up or that he was the clear loser. Someone in the room said that Romney was able to go toe-to-toe with the president. That became the consensus among the group until Matthews’ tirade turned the focus from the debate to the punditry.

In many ways, the fact that the progressive media was so critical of the president gave a green light to the mainstream press to also interpret the debate as a knockout blow for Romney. The interpretation of the debate then became the primary event; the debate itself was an afterthought.  This is what trickled down to the public in general.

I wish that American citizens had been able to see the debate and not have their minds addled by the pundits. It’s quite possible that the electorate would have felt that Romney acquitted himself well, better than might have been expected. It’s also possible that some would have been disturbed by the times when the president seemed to have a lack of engagement or energy. But if one looks at “The debate in 99 seconds,” one can tell that the president had fine moments. He was far better than many described him. He did indeed go toe-to-toe with Romney.

Watching the pundits is somewhat like an addictive drug; we continue to be lured back. What’s important is that we are interpreters of the pundits. They really did a number on President Obama in Debate #1. If we’re going to watch the post-debate commentary in the future, let’s do it with a jaundiced eye and not forget to think for ourselves.

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