Debate Watch Event

I would like to invite everyone to join me in viewing the upcoming presidential debate this Wednesday and having a discussion afterward.  The Tulare County Democratic Central Committee has asked me to moderate their debate watch, and if you are in the area you are welcome to come.

The first of three debates between President Obama and Governor Romney will take place on Wednesday the third at 6:00 P.M. Pacific time.  The Central Committee's campaign office has a 60-inch flat screen set up for the debate which is scheduled to last 90 minutes.  When it ends at 7:30 I'll give my own recap and analysis and then invite questions or comments from the audience.  I plan to ask those who wish to contribute to keep the language clean and the demeanor appropriate for a gathering of respectable citizens.  I anticipate wrapping things up by 8:00.

The Central Committee's office is located at 1616 W. Mineral King Blvd. in Visalia, about two blocks east of Marie Callendar's Restaurant.  They have some free campaign materials and others (particularly the Obama items) for purchase, and will gladly accept donations.  There will be free hot dogs, and light refreshments for those like myself who will  be missing dinner to attend.  If you can make it I hope to see you there!

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Presidential Race: States to Watch

The average of recent national polls between President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney has the president ahead by four percent.  However, the national vote doesn't mean anything in an American presidential election.  What matters are the separate elections in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.  The winner of each state will win its electoral vote (EV), a number equal to the size of the state's congressional delegation, which includes the number of its members in the House of Representatives, plus its two Senators.  (D.C. gets three votes, the same as the smallest states.)

The total number of EVs at stake in the election is 538, and it will take 270 to win.  In this Electoral College election there are only eight states that really matter in 2012, and you will see the candidates and their running mates returning to them time and again in the next five and a half weeks.  Their residents will also be bombarded with broadcast advertising.   

The reason only eight states matter from here on is that 42 of the 50 states, along with Washington, D.C., are already safely in one or the other candidate's columns.  Obama has comfortable leads in 19 states plus D.C. worth a total of 247 EVs.  Romney has sewed up 23 states worth 191 EVs.  That leaves eight closely contested states worth exactly 100 EVs that are still up for grabs.  To win reelection Obama needs 23 of these remaining 100 EVs.  To unseat him Romney needs 79 of them.  This makes it clear that Obama has much the easier task.  Here are the close states and the pertinent statistics.

West
Colorado (9 EV) Obama leads in recent polls by an average of 3 percent. 
Nevada (6 EV) Obama is ahead by 4. 

Midwest
Ohio (18 EV) Obama leads by 5. 
Iowa (6 EV) Obama is up by 4.

East
New Hampshire (4 EV) has Obama ahead by 3. 

South
Florida (29 EV) Obama leads by 3.
North Carolina (15 EV) Obama is up by a slim 1 percent.   
Virginia (13 EV) Obama is ahead by 4.

All these states are close but you will notice that Obama leads in every one of them.  He can win the election by winning Florida alone, even if he loses the other seven.  Winning Ohio and any other state bigger than New Hampshire would also reelect the president.  Or he could take North Carolina and Virginia, or North Carolina and Colorado, Virginia and any two other states, in short, anything that adds up to 23 or more.  He has many paths to victory.

Romney, on the other hand, has less margin for error.  He has to win Florida, and more or less has to win Ohio too.  (If Romney loses Ohio and New Hampshire but wins the other six both candidates would wind up with 269 EVs.  The tie would be settled by the House of Representatives.)  In any case, Romney has to keep Obama from winning any combination of these states adding up to 23 EVs or more. 

Now you know what to look for in the coming weeks.  You can play around with the arithmetic yourself and try out the various combinations.  And remember, a survey that tells who is leading in Iowa, Colorado or any of these states is a lot more important than one indicating who has the most votes nationwide.

Who are Romney's 47 Percent?

In my last post I discussed how, earlier this month, Mitt Romney made big news when a video recording released by Mother Jones magazine showed him disdainfully dismissing the 47 percent of the American people who do not pay federal income tax.  Romney told a small gathering of wealthy donors he feels "it's not my job to worry about" such people who "think of themselves as victims" and who "have no concern for their own lives."  Romneys' remarks created a furor by expressing the commonly held conservative view that a huge proportion of the American people are lazy moochers living off the hard work of the rest.  Today in the blog I will present the numbers on who these 47 percent really are.

See the pie chart below.  This is reprinted from BusinessInsider.com, though you can find it in many other reputable places as well.   As you can see, 46.4 percent do not pay federal income tax, making


Romney's 47 percent figure only a slight exaggeration.  Of that number, almost all of them were not paying income tax because they are either old or poor.  Most of the non payers (28.3%) are employed and are paying federal withholding tax for Social Security and Medicare.  The next largest group (10.3%) are senior citizens, most of them on Social Security.   A smaller slice (6.9%) is made up of people earning less than $20,000.  These working poor are frequently part of the Earned Income Tax Credit, a bipartisan program passed with considerable Republican support to make sure gainful employment pays more than "welfare" in order to get people off public assistance.  Only a tiny fraction (0.9%) are those who do not pay income taxes and are neither elderly nor poor.  And some of these, (an estimated 35,000 in 2009), were not stereotypical "poor moochers" but more like rich avoiders, people earning over $200,000 who took advantage of shelters and deductions to avoid paying.

As often occurs with conservative scapegoat references, the facts and numbers simply do not substantiate Mitt Romney's erroneously skewed stereotypical references.  Sadly, I have seldom seen the truth  persuade people of his world view to change their biased preconceptions.  For those of you amenable to reason, however, you now have the facts to refute the common plutocratic and Tea Party picture of what nearly half the American people are like.  

Romney's 47% Remarks

Mitt Romney's done it again.  I've commented before on the Republican nominee's tendency to let his plutocratic Thurston Howell III inner self show through in unguarded comments.  See my February 2, 2012 post "Romney's Not Very Concerned About the Poor."  You remember the kind of statements I'm talking about.  He "likes being able to fire people."  He's "not very concerned about the poor."  He thinks "corporations are people, too."  He offered to make a little friendly $10,000 bet on the stage in a nationally televised debate.  When asked about the jobless he quipped, "I am also unemployed!"  He characterized the $370,000 he made in speaking fees last year as "not very much."  He thinks those who believe the wealthy should pay a greater share in taxes are "motivated by envy."  He advises those who want to start a business to just ask their parents for the money.  Well, why not?  It worked for him.       

But this time he has really outdone himself.  He was captured on video telling a $50,000 a plate crowd at a Boca Raton fundraiser that 47 percent of the American people do not pay income tax and will vote for President Obama no matter what because they feel they are victims to whom the government owes a living.  He further opined that such people do not care about their own lives, and that, for himself, "My job is not to worry about those people."  Watch the actual recording here.  If you have not yet seen or heard it prepare to be dumbfounded. 

The disdain and contempt encapsulated in these remarks are delivered with feeling by a clearly energized and peeved Romney.  As with his earlier above-referenced series of "gaffes," he follows a well-trod path of condescension and contempt toward those below his socioeconomic level.  The arrogance and enmity of these attitudes are exceeded only by his lack of comprehension of how most people really live.  Americans are among the hardest working people on earth.  Most of those who pay no income tax are senior citizens on Social Security who did pay income taxes for forty to fifty years.  Most of the rest are the working poor, who already pay withholding taxes for Social Security and Medicare but who make too little to pay income tax.

Rather than try to explain he didn't mean to insult and demean nearly half the American people or call them all lazy parasites, today Gov. Romney doubled down on his rhetoric.  He admitted his words might have been "inartfully expressed" but he stands behind his characterization of nearly half the  population of the country.   To hear such remarks from a major party nominee is remarkable.  It's strange for such a high-profile candidate to be so politically clueless.  Even if one holds such views, an astute politician must always presume everything said will be recorded and reported on.  An astute politician would recognize the folly of demeaning nearly half the electorate.  A citizen who had rubbed elbows with everyday people would have understood how inaccurate and unfair a stereotype such pejorative attitudes are.  But Mitt Romney isn't, isn't and hasn't.  It is getting more and more difficult to identify a more poorly suited major party nominee for the office of president within living memory.    

Budget Woes Spark Challenges at Work

Here is a piece I submitted to our local newspaper yesterday.  In difficult budget times where I teach, how have contentious negotiations played out?  How will it affect students?  Here is my take.

After reading two recent pieces in the Times-Delta’s Opinion section, I felt the need to set the record straight on how things really are at College of the Sequoias.  One was an editorial urging the Board of Trustees to implement a benefits cap on faculty to save money.  The other was a letter imploring faculty and administration to work together for the good of the students rather than let difficult contract negotiations get in the way.

I am currently in my thirtieth year of full time teaching and my fourteenth at College of the Sequoias.  Counting a couple of years as a substitute when I was starting out, it adds up to thirty-two years of teaching.  That includes time at adult school, high school, middle school and community college.  I bring this up to underscore the point that although I have found a high level of dedication and professionalism in all the levels and settings of education I have been in, none exceeds my experience here at COS. 

Whenever there are money problems in a school system there will be disagreements between employees, administration and boards.  I have seen them before in other districts and here, and I expect to see them again.  When revenues are reduced at the college level it means fewer students can be served.  COS is serving some 3,000 fewer students now than when finances were better.  Summer school has been eliminated the past two years.  Programs and people have to do with less.  Sometimes people are financially hurt.  Where and whom to cut are contentious issues.  I have served on the teachers association bargaining team for the past two years and can attest that at COS, contract negotiations between the District and the employee unions representing both the faculty and the classified staff have been long and trying for all concerned.  

As far as the health, vision and dental benefits cap goes, as reported in this newspaper, the Board acted to impose such a cap at their last public meeting.  The faculty and classified associations have been willing to and have proposed many ways of saving the District substantial funds, including salary and other concessions in the amounts management felt were necessary.  For tax and other reasons, their members have preferred these savings come out of things other than benefits.  At one point, faculty even ratified a tentative agreement in which they would have agreed to teach extra classes for free.  This would, if ratified by the Board, have saved the District over half a million dollars a year.  The amount of savings to achieve was never the point of contention; the manner in which they would be exacted has been the issue.  It is clear the Board’s judgment has been that only the benefits cap was acceptable as a way to achieve these savings.  The employee associations have believed there are other ways to accomplish the same goal.  I personally feel that everyone involved has been sincere in their views, and concerned with the financial condition of the District in trying times.  Unfortunately, the District’s insistence on the cap has indeed caused exasperation and been a source of frustration among employees at the college.         

Yet on the other topic, despite such disagreements, the parties have continued to work together to serve students in a highly professional manner.  Community members who have taken courses at COS, or those whose children have, will confirm what I have seen since I arrived here: the quality of the faculty and their dedication to students is exceptional.  As Academic Senate president I got to know and work with most of them, not only teaching faculty but also counselors, work experience technicians, technology and curriculum specialists and librarians.  And I extend this to include the adjunct, or part-time faculty as well, many of whom are experienced local high school teachers or highly skilled professional and vocational practitioners presently in business in the area.

But in a larger sense, I have found this same standard of responsibility across all the staff at COS.  The truth is, the COS family is full of good people who take seriously their service to students and the institution and work collegially to get things done.  That includes the classified staff who do their part to keep things running smoothly in such fields as maintenance, computer services, registration, financial aid, food services, the bookstore, student life, payroll, copy and mail, our police officers, secretaries and many others too numerous to name.  Our administrators have the often thankless task of monitoring and leading programs that are expected to achieve consistently improving results with shrinking budgets and fewer personnel.  They are highly competent people.  Our Trustees are all respected community members strongly interested in expanding the educational opportunities COS offers but keenly aware of their fiduciary responsibility to the financial condition of the District in these challenging times.  They are conscientious public servants.   

I know practically all the people behind the titles I’ve mentioned on a first name basis and believe all are working sincerely to help the school.  The advice to stop bickering and help the students misses the point.  The fact that contract talks have been tough has not stopped the COS family from working together and putting students first.  For example, I recently served on a committee working on the Accreditation process the college goes through every six years.  A fine administrator and I jointly chaired our part of this effort.  Our committee included not only administrators and faculty, but classified (non-teaching) staff, students, and one member of the Board of Trustees.  Everyone worked as a team for the good of the school.  In another example, the Teachers Association recently got together with the Academic Senate to ask faculty to expedite a number of curriculum issues critical to students meeting their program and graduation requirements.  To teachers, students are not just enrollment figures or names on a sheet.  They are people whose names and faces we know, people who, though often contending with numerous obstacles, inspire us with their personal stories and dreams and the efforts they are putting forth to achieve them.  We will not let them down.

Steve Natoli

Democrats Win Battle of the Conventions

Now that both major party conventions are over, it's time for a bit of reflection on how they did.  Nowadays a convention rarely chooses the party's nominee.  That is what the grueling primary process is for, and it usually does its job of winnowing things down to one candidate who will bear the standard.

There are two true purposes of the modern convention, one internal and the other external.  The internal purpose is to excite and energize delegates from all over the country to go back home and work hard for the party in the campaign.  The external purpose is to showcase the party's members, views,  leadership, and most of all its presidential and vice presidential candidates in the most favorable light possible for the nation's voters.  And in this most crucial contest there can be no doubt the Democrats at their convention gave President Obama a huge boost going forward into the home stretch of the campaign.

The Republican Convention in Tampa was certainly presentable, but it wasn't electrifying.  When it was all over, Mitt Romney got a one percent "bounce" in the polls.  Keynote Speaker New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was flat.  Florida Senator Marco Rubio, speaking to introduce Governor Romney's acceptance speech, impressed me as an excellent speaker, the best I saw in the GOP fold.   Both, however, unfortunately talked more about themselves than their party's nominee.  It seemed more they were positioning themselves for 2016 than addressing themselves wholeheartedly to the full-throated support of the 2012 ticket.  Vice Presidential pick Paul Ryan came across as a regular guy, but his remarks included so many factual inaccuracies they became the focus of the coverage.  Prospective first lady Ann Romney did a good job with a weak speech.  See for yourself.  Clint Eastwood embarrassed himself and the party with a rambling conversation with an empty chair meant to symbolize President Obama.  It derailed things right before the nominee himself took the floor.  Finally came Mitt Romney himself.  I felt he gave the best delivery of a speech I have even seen from him.  That means it was average.  See Romney's speech here.  It was not memorable, however, and included, like most of the other speakers' remarks, hardly anything of firm substance that he would do as president.  He made quick reference to a 5-point plan for the country in about fifteen seconds, then went back to generalities.

The Democratic Convention in Charlotte was, in the eyes of most longtime observers, the best in memory.  The clearest evidence for this is President Obama polling a post-convention seven percent bump in his approval rating.  Michelle Obama easily out duelled her counterpart talking about her man in her First Lady speech.  Bill Clinton gave what was likely the strongest address in either convention, taking on virtually every Republican objection to Obama's outlook and policies in impressive fashion.  He made the kinds of defenses of Democratic policies the Obama administration has been largely fumbling with during most of its tenure.  This was followed on the final night by Obama's acceptance speech, one of his customary stem winders that had the audience in tears and on its feet throughout.  It definitely helped the Democrats to go second, as they had clearly tailored their remarks to rebut earlier GOP points and pounce on Republican missteps.  Obama came off as confident yet caring, immersed in policy yet still imbued with the optimism and idealism that launched his election four years ago. 

This time it was the Democrats who put their social issues (gay rights, immigration, women's issues) front and center while the Republicans tried to avoid discussing them.  This time it was the Democrats who were on top of foreign policy while their rivals scarcely brought it up.  Obama gave detailed solutions while Romney avoided specifics altogether.  There are still eight weeks left in the campaign and a lot can happen.  But the strong edge the Democrats gained in the Battle of the Conventions puts Obama in the driver seat at this point.  To win, Team Romney will have to come from behind to make up a good deal of lost ground.      

10,000 Milestone Reached

Dear Readers:

I started this blog in December, 2007.  This week, 495 posts and four years and seven months later, Brave Gnu Whirled passed its ten thousandth page view!  I sincerely thank everyone who subscribes or just checks in and looks around, either regularly or just every once in awhile.

Whether it's a comment on politics, society, the news, or a personal item, this blog is an outlet for me.  I hope it's also a diversion for you.  Whether it informs, amuses or exasperates, my object is that it always at least interests.

After the United States, the next most popular areas of readership are France, Russia and China.  So,  thank you, merci, spasiba and sheishei to everyone! 

Steve Natoli