The Larry Kane Report

Priorities. Do we have them?

Congress, your Congress is obsessed with steroid use in pro sports. The scandals are big news and Congress loves big news. Congress should be obsessed with steroid use. It’s more than just Roger Clemens and the rest. Steroids are dangerous and the fact that professionals may be using them can easily have a trickle-down effect to our young people. It’s more than sports records being broken -its our whole system of condoning cheating, which Major League Baseball has done for years. What hypocrites!

But I have a question. Why is Congress so obsessed with steroids when it has little of the same passion to end hunger in America? It has few members who care about the genocide in Darfur, or the aids mess in other sections of Africa. There are few members of Congress obsessed with finding cancer cures, or finally finding real alternate sources of energy. Congress is lame on investigating kickbacks in Iraq, or working hard to prevent real global warming. Where are the hearings on millions of Americans trapped in such poverty, that on some days, they don’t eat?

Congress holds urgent hearings on baseball steroid use but ignores warnings about the economy till it’s too late.

Frankly, I don’t give a hoot about Roger Clemens, or about George Mitchell who is God, Judge and Jury in a senseless witch hunt that smears people openly. He’s just an apologist for baseball’s looking the other way, that’s all. I care more about youthful drug use, the deterioration of libraries, and the murder rate in America.

What a joke when a Congressional committee holds urgent hearings on steroid use in baseball, and ignores a dramatic increase in crime, possible price gouging on oil, and the lack of health care for millions.

Shame on Congress for taking on a cause that affects a few, and by jumping on the headline bandwagon, and ignoring urgent action on life and death issues that affect America and the world.

Steroid use? It is a problem, but hardly the biggest one facing us.

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The Republican have picked their flavor of the week – Mitt Romney. The President promises a stimulus package to get us out of a near-recession. Nancy Pelosi says the Democrats are ready to work with Mr. Bush on a plan.

The candidates, who want to be your Commander, have very few ideas. Honestly, only Hillary Clinton  has a stimulus plan, and if it has to wait till the next President takes office, we might need more stimulation than that.

Once again, Washington waits till its too late. Washington REacts, instead of being PROactive. EVERY EXIT POLL IN EVERY PRIMARY SHOWS THAT PEOPLE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE ECONOMY.

The head of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, seems like a nice fellow, but where is the scolding that is necessary to the big banks and credit card companies that are interested in sending out those mailers for loans and mortgages, the same companies that were so cocksure about giving out mortages to people who really couldn’t afford them? The Treasury Secretary should give hell to the companies that exceeded their reach.

In the midst of this vast incompetence, Michael Bloomberg watches and waits. Will he run? Who knows. But the guy has a record of competence and catching problems before they get worse. A window of opportunity is opening up for the guy, made much easier by our politicians and fed members who have been asleep at the wheel.

From my perspective, the window is open now. And the next two or three weeks will be decision time for the Mayor of New York.

You can’t win unless you run. And you can’t forever to make that decision, lest the voters believe you are indecisive.

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Like all, or most area fans, I will be rooting for the Giants to lose this weekend, or rather, I should say, for the Packers to win. I mean, Brett Favre is an amazing player who has defied age (38 is old for a QB), crushing hits and tons of sports writers who had him done before the season began. Favre has got the rugged face of a hardened professional, but most of all, he loves the game,  just for the game.

John McCain has also been to hell and back. Serving 5 years in a North Vietnamese hell hole of a prison, coming back and serving your country, and fighting back to the front of the pack, despite national pundits declaring your demise. That is a Brett Favre moment in politics. I am not rooting for John McCain. I don’t do that in print or otherwise. But I am impressed by his comeback and his national poll rankings. The guy is in  his seventies, has the stamina of a 40 year old, and is on  a dramatic role.  We don’t know yet if he’ll win in Michigan, but he’s looking good in Florida which has become Rudy’s first and maybe last stand.

So there you have it. Favre has never missed a game as a starter. His body must be aching all the time. McCain was the victim of harsh personal attack by the Bushies in 2000, but lived for another day. Both of them defy age and wear and tear to fight on.

Love me or leave em, you have to admire the courage of the comeback.  The comeback is not easy especially when millions of people are watching.

Two Americans. Two games. Will Favre stop the Brady bunch? And will McCain  roll into the Sunshine state on January 29th and end Rudy’s powerful hold on Florida?

For a cold winter, these are great spectator sports, both of them one for the ages, or the ageless .

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I’ve always been in awe (most of the time) watching the political skills of Bill Clinton. I mean, the man is so good, he even managed to survive a sex scandal and alot of non-scandals that were thrown at him during his eight years in office.

But his statements on the campaign trail, in behalf of Hillary, are enough to make the Obama campaign strategists celebrate. He has made comments like, “I can’t make Hillary any younger. ” He has referred to Barack Obama’s campaigh as a “fairy tale”, something that powerful African-American voters in South Carolina and elsewhere, may really wonder about. President #42 seems to delight in walking the rope lines and staying near the cameras.

Now, it’s not that he needs this. Like him or not, the guy is one of the most famous and admired men in the world. But his need for attention is kind of weird, isn’t it? His place in this campaign should be offstage and out of the spotlight, except when he is needed during the heat of the battle. His attacks on Obama have been very non-presidential. Does he think the Senator can’t defend herself. The record shows that she’s doing a very good job of fighting her fights.

It is very hard to judge what’s going in. But I like to observe nuances in the campaigns. And what I see so far is disconcerting.

The more Bill Clinton tries to discredit the “hope” and inspiration of Barack Obama, the more he gives the young political phenomenon super credibility.

Do you think I’m correct, or just overreacting? I pose that question because few of you are reluctant to let me have it when you disagree.

In the meantime, “He-said, She-said” has taken over the campaign. Charges of using race in the campaign have been leveled between Clinton and Obama. It all started with s statement made in New Hampshire by Hillary that Martin Luther King’s dream was actually realized by President Johnson’s civil rights legislation. She claims that the Obama campaign attacked those remarks as a slight against Dr. King.  Barack says that’s not so. And so it goes, the inevitable issue of race surfaces, but in a strange way. Who started the nastiness, and who will be the first to put a stop to it?

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There is a reason why Mike Huckabee is on the map. There is a reason that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are running so well. And there is a good reason that John McCain is standing strong.

It is all about the one thing that consultants and pollsters really can’t give you: a feel for contemporary society and what  the people are feeling.

Frankly, you cannot run for President and wait for every trend to capture YOU.
You’ve got to feel the pain, feel what it is like to be a contemporary American and understand that the real deal is when you’re out in front on the issues.

John McCain, who I predicted ( In December) would be the last Republican standing, is a man who can read moods. Americans want decisive leaders. He looks decisive and has the independent record to back it up. Mike Huckabee feels the undercurrent of the distress of the middle class. Give him credit. The guy can draw fans like a down home rock star.

Senator Clinton knows when to hold em and when to fold em. She folded her frontrunner status for one near tearful day, came up with a stimulus plan to fight a possible recession and she took New Hampshire and regained her sense of humility at the same time. Barack Obama, Mr. Charisma,  knows people are ready for a more hopeful conciliatory time. He is sharp and sensitive.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

Mitt Romney, with so much class and style, has sabotaged his campaign by changing his mind a bit too much, wouldn’t you say? John Edwards is a very attractive candidate, but he has one theme – modern day populism. In a country run by the middle class, attacking greed is not enough. Although by the looks of the conduct of some banks and brokerage houses in the mortgage, meltdown, fighting greed may be in fashion again.

And where is Rudy? Ceding the early primaries, the always potent New Yorker seems to be giving it away. What’s up with his cash-starved campaign?

Fred Thompson seems to be running in place. Whose advising the guy?

There is a real irony to this campaign. Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, now out of the race, probably were the two finest prospects in terms of understanding the people of America today. Unfortunately, neither had the money to keep it going.

And money still talks today, unless you are Mitt Romney.

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