The Larry Kane Report

After moderating five TV debates, and two debates before large crowds, I am ready for judgment day.

This has  not been the dirtiest campaign in American history, but I will say this: a lot of foolish decisions have been made , and the candidates for Pa. Governor take the blue ribbon prizes.

Everyone talks about the Philadelphia vote, and getting it out. Dan Onorato should have embraced Jonathan Saidel , the former City Controller, as his running mate. Saidel on the ballot would have ensured a powerful and passionate get out the vote effort by Philadelphia Democrats.

Tom Corbett should have closed his lips and not questioned the inability for people to find jobs. He should have not joined the nationwide law suit against the Health Care bill. He’s a moderate, and he should have stayed that way.

Joe Sestak, a vigorous and smart candidate, should have listened more to the “outside” input. He may still pull it off, but a family-run campaign can be insular. While Sestak relied on his own instincts and a group of hard working personal aides, Pat Toomey listened hard to advisers from every part of the GOP. Will Toomey or Sestak prevail? What about Corbett and Onorato?  You’re not going to get any forecasts here, except to say that the Governor’s race will be closer than you think.

Some questions: Why did Jon Adler and Bryan Lentz think that the public wouldn’t “get” the story that their campaigns helped third party candidates get in the race as spoilers? At least, Lentz fessed up. In that Delaware County , Lentz proved to be a formidable foe to the established and iconic and popular Pat Meehan.

In New Jersey,  Jon Runyan, the apparent leader in the struggle with Democrat Adler, has learned a lesson. Always pay your taxes, especially when you have the money to do so.

Some other bad decisions in this cycle : Bryan Lentz and Patrick Murphy should have stood by the President when he came to town. It’s still the President. You have to standby your party, especially with a few days to go.  These are hard days for President Obama, but President’s performance ratings can change in a flash.

A word about negative advertising. People say they are fed up with the ads. But not so fast! They seem to respond to them, as long as they don’t go too far, or are blatantly stupid. Worst ad of the campaign: Christine O”Donnell’s “I Am You” spot.  Weakest campaigner: Chris Coons, her opponent. Gutsiest politician in Delaware: Mike Castle. A victim of  history, he has taken his lumps like a man. and has refused to endorse anyone.

FINAL NOTE, FOR NOW.

I’ve covered my election map. I see a real threat that the Democrats could lose the Senate as well as the House. The critical races are in Washington State, Nevada, California, and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin appears lost, and West Virginia could also be a loss. Illinois could also go down. This election day may be even more troubling to the Democratic Party.

Comments(34)

It is rare that I reprint an essay in this spot. But there is one by Terry Madonna and Michael Young at Franklin and Marshall College that is too good to pass up.

I was very troubled by the way NPR fired Juan Williams. It’s not about what he said regarding a fear of Muslims, but the manner in which NPR acted. There is also an absolute truth: NPR for years has been strumming the beat of elitism, by almost force-feeding one point of view. It is notorious for its one-sided view of the conflict in the Middle East, and other stories. Yet, it produces a variety of fascinating non-news programs that are fair and unbiased.

The following is must-reading for people of all political persuasions.

Politically Uncorrected

By G. Terry Madonna & Michael L. Young

AMERICA’S GREAT DISCONNECT

National Public Radio has its critics and its champions. It’s likely, however, amidst NPR’s controversial firing of Juan Williams for commenting about Muslims on Fox News, that the champions are going to be busy for a while defending NPR’s cavalier action. For in truth, Williams told the truth as he saw it, and in doing so his words resonated with millions of Americans. And NPR fired him for telling the truth.

The ham-handed, even arrogant conduct of NPR management here is a tempting target. But NPR is but a small symptom of a much larger problem in contemporary American public policy today. And that is the large and increasing disconnect between political elites and the American public regarding Muslims and the Muslim religion.

Elites from Obama down know or think they know that the Muslim religion is not innately violent or warlike and that Muslims themselves are peace-loving peoples. And so we see regular pronouncements from both government and non-government elites to that point. President Obama assures us that “radical Muslims” are few, while “moderate Muslims” constitute the “vast majority” of the world’s one billion Muslims. He says moderate Muslims and Americans possess “shared values and common aspirations.”

Nor is this simply a liberal Democratic phenomenon. Republican elites back to the Bush administration echoed much of what Democratic elites are now saying. As far back as 2002, for example, President Bush stated, “Ours is a war not against a religion, not against the Muslim faith. But ours is a war against individuals who absolutely hate what America stands for.” Even earlier, he insisted that “terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.”

The elite message has been clear and consistent. Muslims are not the problem; radical terrorists hijacking their own faith are the problem. Islam the religion is in fact not violent; it’s the Islamic terrorists who are.

The difficulty is that regular “Joe Six-Pack” Americans see a different reality. The country was attacked by violent Muslims and is daily threatened by warlike Muslims. Since 9/11, most attackers or would-be attackers have been Muslim, most major threats have been issued by Muslims, and most plotters or alleged plotters have been Muslim. America has waged two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslim countries and is waging a third “secret war” in Pakistan against another.

That is the reality most Americans experience. And so, as Juan Williams pointed out, when he and other Americans see Muslims boarding a plane, yes, they get a little nervous.

Now there is an important point here, one Williams himself made in subsequent interviews after he was fired. The concern about Muslims is irrational. No terrorist, even a stupid one (and there are more than a few of them), is going to “dress up” Muslim to blow up a plane. More to the point, the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

Sadly, average Americans have really been left to shift for themselves on this point. Moderate Muslims have largely been AWOL in aggressively condemning the extremists among their co-religionists. Moreover, some of them have used questionable judgment telling their story. The dubious decision to locate a mosque near ground zero, albeit a legal right, showed an almost complete lack of common sense and sensibility about American public opinion.

Meanwhile, American political leaders, both Democratic and Republican, have been largely ineffective explaining to Americans much about the Muslim faith, or in using much common sense themselves. President Obama, for example, recently displayed some poor judgment by weighing in on the ground zero mosques plans, uninvited and unrequited.

The consequence here—and the Juan Williams fiasco illustrates the point—is a huge disconnect between American political elites and most Americans. Moderate Muslims have a job to do here and they haven’t done it very well. They have allowed the radicals to monopolize the public discourse to such an extent that millions of Americans will respond to Williams’s plight with a sympathetic “me too.”

But American political elites have been equally guilty of mouthing politically correct shibboleths about Islam, rather than tackling the tougher task of explaining how terrorists have perverted Islam for their own religious and political purposes.

It’s time for American elites, both governmental and non-governmental, to realize they have largely been talking to themselves about the Muslim threat. Most Americans simply don’t believe what they have been told or don’t know what to believe.

This not so incidentally is exactly what the terrorists expect, and we aren’t disappointing them. Clearly it’s time for us to be honest with ourselves just as Juan Williams was with himself. NPR can’t fire everybody.

——————

Politically Uncorrected™ is published twice monthly, and previous columns can be viewed at http://politics.fandm.edu. Dr. G. Terry Madonna is Professor of Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, and Dr. Michael Young is a former Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Penn State University and Managing Partner at Michael Young Strategic Research. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any institution or organization with which they are affiliated. This article may be used in whole or part only with appropriate attribution. Copyright © 2010 Terry Madonna and Michael Young.

Comments(37)

President Obama won election in 2008 on the campaign of change. Now that he’s facing a political dilemma, he and some of the sad sack Republicans and Democrats who run our country might be better off concentrating on hope.

One of my news buddies and I were talking today about the fact that Washington, from the White House to the Capitol, is full of unrepentant pessimism these days. During the days of FDR and the Gipper, depression and recession scattered through the land. But both of these gifted politicians were able to rouse the people with words and actions of hope. The President needs to become a source of inspiration and the weak field of Republican Presidential hopefuls should understand that this country is still the greatest place on earth, not the declining power that many politicians portray.

Maybe it’s just the negative messages we receive on TV ads, and campaign rhetoric. Hope should be the message these days, hope that America is strong enough to cope with anything, and make a dramatic economic comeback.

And something is very clear. Leadership is less about arrogance and more about communication and inspiration. Leadership is about the ability to inspire people to do better. Barack Obama needs to do better at being more passionate about the potential and beauty of America and its people.

In tough times, the tough look forward. And with hope.

WHERE IS CLINTON?

During the political friction still unraveling in America, Hillary Clinton has remained beneath the political radar, doing her job, and not seeking headlines. How good is that?

WE WANT THE YANKEES

Getting a little ahead of myself, but I’m hoping the Yankees win the ALCS. I am not a Yankees fan. I just want the Yankees back in the series so we can finish the job. I think most of you in the region feel the same way. Did you know by the way that the World Series, if it goes to seven games, would end on November 5th?

WATER–

I’ve been talking for years about the water shortages in the world, and especially the western U.S.. This week Newsweek magazine has a cover story on the universal struggle over water. It is shocking, and worth reading. It’s been my view, from personal research and years of watching water shortfalls, that water will be the new oil. All the bottled water in the world can never save nations that could be strangled by water shortages in the not-too-distant future.

Comments(60)

The 70th birthday remembrance of John Lennon is an around-the-world event, one that continues in Liverpool, his birthplace, through December. I’ll be part of that, at the invitation of that community.

People always ask me, “What was he like?”

Well, the truth about John Lennon is the truth. More than anyone I’ve ever met, outside of family, John was a man who lived his tightrope-walk of a life, never giving in to the superficial nature that surrounds the lives of well known people. From his early days as a teenager, to the Beatle years and beyond, John Lennon was a truth teller, uncomfortable with the aspects of celebrity, but at ease with the platform he embraced as he became more successful.

Some examples.

He protested war, but not just our American wars. His anti-war crusade was aimed at every conflict in the world. A self-made millionaire, John was more at ease fighting the wars of the underclass of society. All the while, until the final five years of his life, he lived a private existence flawed by personal failures, including drug abuse, infidelities, and assorted acts of personal selfishness. Yet, he rose above the personal shortcomings to serve as the public face of several new movements. He was the first very public stay-at-home father. He refused to bow down to government pressure to shut up. He argued his case against deportation with the passion of a man possessed by ideology. He wrote music that shook up the establishment. And he didn’t care about the repercussions.

Up close, he was a man immersed in constant debate about the world. The talks he and I had about the state of the world were as vibrant as any conversations in my life. He could be rude, but only if incited. He wondered and cherished contact with real people. He loved strangers, and enjoyed the company of decent reporters.

He was a man who respected cops, raising lots of money for bullet-proof vests around the nation. In person, he always seemed either happy or a bit agitated, perhaps covering up the vast insecurities that his splintered family fostered in hs early life.

I always found him to be considerate and thoughtful, although some biographers portrayed him as a man hungry for conquests, and socially immoral, and violent. The latter claim is absurd.

John never knew what an icon he would become, but he did understand that he was destined to have a role to play. In life and in death, he remains part of our conscience , driving us to ask more questions, to seek honest answers and to try and love people who are different from us.

He was, then, and now, the most powerful cultural force of his time.

I miss him, but I am proud that he remains, even in death, an immortal messenger in the search for the truth, which is so very hard to find in a world divided by leaders who prey on fear, and choose hate over love, and division over unity.

Comments(35)

Can it really get more exciting or dramatic? I’ve been around these parts going on 45 years, an eternity in broadcasting and journalism, and I’ve never seen this community so revved up. People talk about being “in the moment.” Well, we’re in it now. A no hitter in the post season debut of Roy Halladay? What was that expression used back in the day? Believe! Can you believe.  You gotta believe. Clip the newspapers. Save the DVD’s. Print the stories on the web. Put them in a binder, and don’t ever throw them out. If you’re young enough, you’ll be telling the stories of these special autumn nights for years. Just see it now. Thanksgiving 2035. The family is gathered, and you start telling stories of past glories. You run to a file cabinet, and you pull out the folder of those photos and articles and web postings of what happened in 2008, 2009, and 2010. You pass them around. The kids and maybe grandchildren look at them, and they sit staring at you, as you tell the stories of the Phillies in the first decade of the 21st century. They wonder what it must have been like. And you tell them.

If you’re young, don’t ever let your Mom or Dad throw away those clippings. But even if they do when it comes time to clean up some day, you’ll always have the memories of the team, the players, the stadium and the the breathless moments of post-season play.

Savor it. You’re in the moment right now.

And save every single memento.

SOME NEWS NOTES –

Are Democrats coming home, as they say, in the final weeks of the campaign. That’s hard to say. But I was surprised by the results of a CBS survey on the mood of the electorate. Key findings about the future: 48 percent of the people do not approve of Sarah Palin, including 44 percent of Republicans. Two thirds of the people have no idea what the Tea Party is all about. No surprise on that one. The Tea Party is hardly a party, but actually several hundred undisciplined groups around the country.

Back in the City of Champions: The President comes to town Sunday to pump up the Democrats. The whole idea is to get the vote out. The party leaders in the suburbs are miffed that the President will appear in Germantown. They need him more in Delco, Montco and Bucks, where the statewide races will be decided. Philadelphia is a key, but in the Sestak-Toomey, and Onorato-Corbett battles, the suburbs of Philadelphia will decide the winner.

Comments(26)