Obama Masters Foreign Policy

The recent successful end of the rebellion in Libya marks another milestone in President Barack Obama's conduct of foreign policy.  This latest in a remarkable string of successes is all the more striking given the president's lack of international or defense credentials when he ran for office.  It says a lot about his basic outlook, validating a measured and principled approach to the world in contrast to the wasteful, unprincipled and ultimately counterproductive methodology of his predecessor in office. While Obama has certainly shown no aversion to the use of force when he considers it necessary, he has consistently shown an astute capacity to tailor the scale of the action to the need at hand.

On his third day in office, Obama fulfilled campaign promises by signing executive orders ending torture and closing secret CIA prisons.  These actions were met with relief around the world. Juxtaposed with this was his order three months later to kill Somali pirates holding American merchant sea captain Richard Phillips hostage.  The lesson seemed to be that the U.S. could and would stand firm against criminal thuggery and extortion while upholding its traditional principles--that it was not an either/or proposition as the Bush-Cheney administration had contended.  Why not both?

President Obama followed this up with the first visionary appeal by an American president to the people of the Middle East on their own soil with his landmark Cairo Speech of June 4, 2009.  In it he spoke out against the allure of violence by stating, "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity."  And in a passage that now sounds prophetic, he continued,

"But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose.  Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.  Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away...and we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments--provided they govern with respect for their people."

That these words were delivered in the Egypt of the corrupt and oppressive dictator Hosni Mubarak is not inconsequential.  To what extent these appeals contributed to later events may be revealed in  historical studies to come, but it cannot be denied that the American outreach Obama initiated in his early months culminated in the October 9, 2009 announcement that the new president had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.  In the words of the Nobel Committee, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy, and cooperation between peoples...Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics."

This climate was revealed in the Arab Spring of 2011, when the citizens of Tunisia and Egypt successfully agitated for freedom and democracy and ousted their authoritarian rulers.  Uprisings also took place in Libya, Syria and Bahrain.  Obama's adroit handling of the situation in Libya, focused on air support and enlisting the contributions of allies, ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the odious regime of Moammar Ghaddafi without a single American casualty at a cost of about $1.5 billion: a clear delineation from how the Bush Administration went about regime change in Iraq.  There, U.S. boots on the ground resulted in American losses of 4,481 dead and 32,195 wounded at a financial price tag of $757.8 billion in direct costs and possibly $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, including indirect costs.

Speaking of the inherited wars, Obama personally made the bold decision that killed Osama bin Laden in May despite potential diplomatic fallout with Pakistan, and also recently eliminated English-language Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen.  His stepped-up use of drone attacks has decimated the terror group's leadership in Pakistan.  Meanwhile, all American forces are scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of this year and Afghanistan by 2014. The Obama scalpel has proven to be a far more effective and economical strategy than the Bush-Cheney bludgeon.  While they excelled at braggadocio and posturing, Obama quietly shows good judgment and gets results.  The contrast could not be more refreshing nor more helpful to America's image and interests. 

Good Friends and Big Trees

It's been awhile since I posted.  I've been extremely busy with papers to grade and a visit from my good friends Tom and Jeff.  I also want to apologize to Ms. Cain, who posted a comment on my last blog entry on exercise.  I was trying to approve and publish the comment, but seem instead to have deleted it!  I always look forward to comments on my musings, so if any of you dear readers want to chime in please feel welcome.  I'll try not to delete the next one!

My topic today is friendship, occasioned by the wonderful visit of my friends Tom and Jeff.  These guys have been special friends since our days at Claremont McKenna College, which we all attended from 1972 to 1976.  It is humbling to think our acquaintance now goes back nearly 39 years.  Tom and I were room mates for several semesters.  Jeff is in charge of rural development loans for the US Department of Agriculture in Oregon.  Tom is a developmental economics professor at Michigan State University.  He spends a lot of time in Asia working on the economics of food distribution.  I teach history at College of the Sequoias.  All of us wanted to go into fields where we felt we could contribute to society and help people.   

My friends came for a three-day weekend, flying in to the San Francisco Bay Area Friday morning and arriving here about noon.  They left early before dawn on Monday.  We had plenty of activities, most of it centered around nearby Sequoia National Park.  But of course the best thing about it was the camaraderie--the catching up, sharing ideas, views and advice.  It's uncanny how with very good friends it's easy to pick right up where you left off, filling the same roles in a group.  Tom even mentioned right away how it seems people's basic personality is formed early and persists throughout life.  Indeed it seems so.

The picture above shows the three of us taking a break on our hike along the Sugar Pine Trail at Sequoia.  That's me on the left, Jeff in the middle and Tom on the right.  We went about five hours at 6500 feet, a good workout.  I was able to go to the top of Moro Rock and get a gorgeous view of the high Sierras from there, as you can see from this closeup of Jeff.  Yes, the first snowfall of the year had taken place a couple of days before.  Our first quick visit up Friday afternoon had been shrouded in fog and cloud, but by the time we

 took this shot on Sunday it was clear and sunny.  The temperature was a comfortable (for hiking) 55 degrees.  At one point on the trail deep  in the woods we found ourselves about 20 yards from a bear!  Fortunately the critter was in a copse of bushes busily gnawing on something and paid us no mind. 

Saturday we visited Crystal Cave in the park, another first for me.  Tom had never been in a cave.  The hour-long tour was over almost before we knew it--a sure sign of time well spent.  The cave was noteworthy for its still-growing formations and its clear running water inside.  The guide was a fascinating young man.  He struck up a conversation with us after the tour about how to approach finding a college that fits his interests and goals.

We didn't spend a lot of time reminiscing about bygone days.  All of us, in our late fifties, are still focused on the present and future.  There was talk about handling job pressures and personal relations, and Jeff now has a grandchild to dote on.  Tom is on the verge of a major career advancement and was also encouraging me to branch out.  It felt so comfortable to be able to share intimacies so freely; such friends are one of the great blessings of life.

If you've never seen a giant sequoia, they are truly awesome. Here is a shot at the entrance to Circle  

Meadow in the Giant Forest Area of Sequoia.  One sign compared the size of these trees to a human, saying they are about the same relative size to us as we are to an ant.  The biggest are up to 275 feet tall and comprise 40,000 cubic feet of lumber, the largest living things ever on planet earth.  The Coast Redwoods along California's northwest shore are taller but much thinner and have less volume.  These giants can live up to 3,000 years!  

It was a great weekend.  Fresh air, the joys of good friends, stimulating conversation and humor, taking in the wonders of nature, and treating ourselves to Reimers ice cream on the way down after a good long walk reduced the relationship of life and happiness down to its essentials.  These are the true things of life to savor.

   

Keeping Healthy: Exercise

In my last post I described some of the nutrition steps I've been taking.  Now it's time to take a look at the exercise routine I've been following.  The main goals are to improve cardiovascular function and build tone and strength.  A side benefit is calorie consumption to take some of the pressure off diet in the business of weight control.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are cardio days.  Several years ago I bought a treadmill and customarily do my work on it.  I buy a service contract which gives it a yearly tuneup and free repair when it needs it.  I've found when you use a home treadmill as much as I do this winds up paying for itself.  When the treadmill is down for service I've used the odometer in my car to plot out a route around the neighborhood which I run instead.  I don't do that all the time because I feel the pavement is harder on my knees than the treadmill.  But by all means do whatever you find most enjoyable as long as you're exercising! 

I like to do my workout early in the morning.  When the alarm goes off I get out of bed and get right to it.  I drink about six ounces of water and put on my running shoes.  I moisten a washcloth and daub my face and neck with it during the run for comfort and to keep the sweat out of my eyes.  I have a TV set up so I can watch the morning news or whatever is interesting while I do my workout.  The routine is a six-minute warm up, a three-mile run and then a six-minute cool down.  I start out walking for three minutes at three miles per hour.  Then I move the speed up to 3.5 and walk for another three minutes.  After that I kick it up to five mph and run for thirty-six minutes.  It's a twelve-minute-mile pace and I cover three miles.  To make it interesting and begin working in some interval training, at the 36-minute mark (that's 30 minutes into the run, after the six-minute warm up walk) I increase the speed to six mph for one minute so I'm really running.  I go back to five mph until I hit the 40-minute mark and run at 6.5 mph for another minute.  That feels almost like a sprint.  The purpose of interval training is to prompt the body to continue to improve, which it naturally does when faced with varied challenges of different intensities.  At the 42-minute mark I go back down to a brisk walk at 3.5 mph for three minutes, then finish at a comfortable walking pace of 3 mph for the last three minutes. 

The entire routine takes 48 minutes.  I allow close to an hour, considering the call of nature, donning shoes, getting a drink of water and a little cool down afterward.  I shave after the run and then like to spend a few minutes outside to cool off before I get in the shower.  Otherwise I'll still be perspiring when I get out of the shower and try to dry off!  The treadmill readout says this routine burns about 540 calories.  I worked up to the three miles incrementally, starting at a half mile.  

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are strength training days.  I get up at the same time and run through my calisthenics and weights for a pattern that takes a little less than half an hour.  Then I get on the treadmill or bicycle for another half hour.  I start on my back with legs straight and clench the quadriceps ten times for a five-count.  I do ten more while raising the legs and ten more while raising the legs over a pillow.  While still on the floor I do ten kegel exercises, which is clenching the sphincter muscles for bladder control.  That's important for me as someone who's had a prostatectomy.  I get up and do twelve five-count toe stands.  After that I sit on the side of the bed and try to push my knees together ten times with my fists holding the legs apart.  Then I try to move the knees apart with my hands trying to press them together.  Back on the floor, I do 50 five-count abdominal crunches followed by twenty half sit ups where I alternate driving the left elbow toward the right knee and the right elbow toward the left knee.  Next come the push ups.  I do at least 50; after that I go until I can't do any more.  Today I did 56.  My tops so far is 61.  When I started my workouts I could not do one push up!  While doing the push ups I stop going down when my elbows are bent 90 degrees.  Going farther risks injury.  Now it's time for the weights.

For a couple of years I used one ten-pound dumbbell.  I recently bought an adjustable pair at a sporting goods store.  By working both arms at the same time I'm saving time.  I started with 11 pounds in each arm and just this week went up to 13.5 pounds each.  The next increment will be 16.5 pounds apiece.  When I went from 11 pounds to 13.5 I cut the reps by 20%, the approximate amount of the weight gain.  I'll stay at this level until it gets easy.  Then I'll add the weight and work on increasing the reps as strength builds.  At present, with the 13.5 pounds I start by sitting in a chair and lay my forearms on the chair's arms.  I do 80 wrist curls palms up and 80 more palms down.  I stand up and do 25 like the military press, extending both arms all the way up.  Then I lay on my back on the floor and do 25 like a bench press, extending both arms up from the chest.  Then I stand up and do 40 biceps curls.  That concludes the calisthenics and weights, at least until I get in the car to drive to work.  I have a hand gripper there.  I hold it down for a 100-count with each hand, then do 100 squeezes with each hand.  I do them with the index finger off the grip.

But before that, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I do half an hour of treadmill walking.  To warm up I go 3 mph for two and a half minutes and 3.5 mph for another two and a half minutes.  Then I push the incline up to 6% and go for twenty minutes.  I warm down at the end by taking the incline back to zero and going another two and a half minutes at 3.5 mph and then at 3.0 mph.  The treadmill readout says this routine burns about 250 calories.

On Saturdays instead of walking the slope I bicycle, weather permitting.  I ride 6.5 miles through town and get done in thirty minutes.   To get done in 30 minutes or less I'm pedaling hard all the way; maybe not all-out, but hard.  Early in the morning on Saturday traffic is light.  When I began it took me 45 minutes.  I wear a helmet and use front and rear lights before sunrise, but the bike is nothing fancy.  It's a girl's bike one of my daughters used to ride: one-speed (no gears) and with the pedal brakes instead of hand brakes.  I don't have the neon bike-racing togs either.  Serious cyclists with fancy bikes I encounter on the road go past me with little effort, but that's OK.  I'm not out to set the land speed record or go fast at minimal effort.  I'm out to work hard and get my heart rate up for half an hour.  I don't work out on Sunday.  I figure the body needs some recuperation time.    

I'm not really finding it difficult to maintain my regimen or to force myself to do the work.  I just set the alarm and get going when it rings.  In truth, I rarely get awakened by the alarm anymore.  My internal clock knows when it's time and I'm usually up and turn off the alarm off before it rings.  I have had to curtail my previous night owl tendencies.  I'm lights out now before 10:00 and up at 5:00 and enjoying it.  Habit and routine are powerful.  So is the feeling of strength and stamina these workouts engender.  I understand they release plenty of good hormones into the blood that help give a positive mental outlook, too.  My doctor tells me the blood samples from my physicals since instituting this program have been textbook perfect.  These six hours of exertion are also burning at least 3,000 calories and building muscle that burns more even when I'm at rest.  That allows me to eat more when I want without packing on the pounds.  If you're interested in getting started with your own routine, I'd advise doing things you enjoy, and remember to build into it.  If you are looking for some exercises to get started with, here's a link to an article by noted Visalia trainer Justin Levine.  Get active!   





                 

Keeping Healthy: Diet

In a few days I'll be celebrating my fifty-seventh birthday.  As the years go by it has become more and more important to counteract the effects of aging with good diet and exercise.  I'll share some of the practices I've developed and am currently following, starting with diet in this piece and exercise in the next.

The three goals I have with diet are focused on getting results concerning the issues of weight, cholesterol and antioxidants.  The means to get good results have to be realistic for me, meaning that I can't set a regimen so restrictive I can't follow it.  That means I have had to commit most of it to habit, and I have to allow myself some exceptions and treats from time to time to stay sane.  I am 5'8" tall and weigh 160 pounds.

Let's start with breakfast.  I eat after my morning exercise and shower.  My typical breakfast Monday through Saturday includes a bowl of cereal with 1% milk.  I like some variety, so I have a rotation of six cereals that I rotate from day to day.  I buy cereals without high fructose corn syrup and added sugar.  Yes, I have had to read the ingredient labels.  I look for ones that have higher fiber content.  To save you some time, those criteria eliminate Kellogg's products!  My rotation includes Shredded Wheat, Kashi Go Lean, Raisin Bran, Grape Nuts, Wheat Chex and Cream of Wheat.  The Chex are a little marginal nutritionally, but as I said, I get a bit of a treat now and then!  I heat up the Cream of Wheat on Saturday because I have more time that day, not having to go to work. 

I throw six to eight blueberries, three to four blackberries or raspberries and half a banana, cut up into bite-sized slices in there.   The berries are great for innumerable vitamins and powerful antioxidant effects.  Antioxidants work to prevent the basic biochemical deterioration that is at the heart of the aging process itself.  I also have a 12-ounce glass of water and eight ounces of prune juice and another fruit juice.  I know that's a lot of hydration, but remember I have breakfast after a good workout.  Most of us don't get enough fluids as it is.  I'm careful with the fruit juices.  I drink 100% prune juice and Healthy Balance fruit juices or 100% orange juice.  The Trim brand is good too, but our market doesn't carry it anymore.  It's easy to buy junk fruit juices that are full of sugar and calories.  I read the labels and avoid those.

I also take supplements with my breakfast.  The list includes Vitamin C, a B-Complex, Fish Oil for good antioxidant and cholesterol-fighting properties, Oscal with D and Calcium, Glucosamine, and a Centrum Silver multivitamin.  Yep, that's six tablets.    

On Sunday I typically splurge and have eggs and toast with canola margarine.  Sometimes I'll fry some lean turkey to go with the eggs.  I continue with the fruit and vitamins.

Lunch at work has become a consistent routine.  I have an apple or orange, a 4-ounce Activia lowfat yogurt, a couple of cherry tomatoes, about a dozen almonds and a handful of walnut halves with water to drink.  It's low-cal yet high in energy, vitamins and minerals, and promotes the good cholesterol.  If I need an afternoon snack I'll have some peanut butter, sometimes on soda crackers (unsalted tops!).  Breakfast and lunch have really come to be comfortable and ingrained as habits.  That makes the pattern easy to follow.

My keys at dinner are not as regimented, but incorporate some basic principles.  I have red meat no more than once a week.  Frozen or otherwise pre-prepared meals are as rare as hen's teeth, since they're usually full of fats and preservatives, often including way too much salt.  Speaking of which, I do not put salt on anything other than corn on the cob, which I love but have maybe twice a year during the summer.  In order to fill up before the high-calorie items I always start with the salad and/or vegetables and always drink plenty of water.  In fact, one dinner a week is customarily a salad meal.  Potatoes and other starch like rice are OK as long as they're not smothered in stuff like butter and gravy, other than once in awhile as a treat.

Stuff like chips and sodas have disappeared altogether.  When they're not around they're not even a temptation anymore, and I don't miss them, even though I used to be a Diet Coke junkie.  I confess I have taken lately to frequently having a little square of dark chocolate after dinner.  It does have antioxidant effects, and that's all the rationalization I need, there!  And it helps to allow yourself to go out at least monthly or have a splurge meal once on the weekend.  Few can stick to a fairly strict pattern without a break now and then without getting frustrated and chucking the whole thing, and I feel that's a main reason most diets fail.  I've been doing this for a few years though, and am very happy with it.  I feel better, get sick less, and have seen improved blood tests and energy longer at work.           

Local Election Endorsements for November 8

After extending invitations and holding candidate interviews, the Tulare County Democratic Central Committee has made its local candidate endorsements for the November 8 election.  The recommended candidates for Visalia City Council are Amy Shuklian and Raymond Macareno.  The recommended candidates for Visalia Unified School District Governing Board are Lucia Vazquez in Area 6 and Lita Reid in Area 7.   

Visalia City Council members are elected at large throughout the whole city.  Since three seats are up for election, voters will be able to cast three votes, and the top three vote getters in the six-candidate field will  be elected to four-year terms on the Council.

Amy Shuklian is an incumbent council member and the Vice Mayor of Visalia.  She has a deserved reputaton as an extremely hard worker and is known for her openness.  Amy got her start advocating for a dog park and recreational facilities, and has helped bring both to fruition.  She has never missed a Council meeting, and is known throughout the area for her accessibility and effectiveness in working together with city, county, state and federal agencies and electeds to get things done for Visalia.  Always attentive to the voice and concerns of the people, she intiated a monthly open house where she makes appointments and meets with citizens to hear and help with their issues.  Amy well deserves a second four-year term.

Raymond Macareno is currently a service center Director and the former Executive Director of the Tulare County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  Raymond combines a strong service ethic with a knowledge of the needs of small business.  As such, Raymond would provide a voice and sounding board for communities that currently are not represented on the Council, particularly in the Hispanic community.  Raymond's multifacted talents and experience merit his election to the Council.

Lucia Vazquez is running unopposed in Visalia Unified School District Area 6.  The School Board has for the first time gone to area elections, and Lucia will be representing a heavily Hispanic and low-income area that has not had representation before.  A Consultant and Researcher for Proteus, Inc., Lucia is not content to rest on her laurels as an unopposed candidate.  She is running a vigorous campaign to get her name out and meet her constituents.  She believes that education is the means up the ladder for today's youth as it was for her, and feels that parent outreach and involvement is a key to fostering an attitude of success.  That is something she intends to work hard on.

Lita Reid is our choice for the School Board in Area 7.  Lita has a proven record of community involvement and the commitment to make a difference.  She is a practicing attorney and was a longtime newspaper editor.  She realizes the constraints current budgetary realities impose, but has a systematic approach to keeping funding where it will have the most impact, in the classroom.  Her dedication to the education of the whole child, rather than simply teaching to standaridized tests, marks Lita as worthy of support.          
  

In Observance of Labor Day

Happy Labor Day, everyone! We celebrate Labor Day both to pay tribute to the dedicated work done by American workers and to commemorate the improvements in our quality of life won by the steadfast efforts of the American Labor Movement.  The first Labor Day was celebrated on September 5, 1882 by the Central Labor Union in New York City.  By the time Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894, it was already being celebrated in thirty states.  As you enjoy the day off today, don't forget to think a moment or two about the sacrifices made throughout the years to win the pay, rights and benefits that even non unionized workers today enjoy.

One of the earliest focuses of Labor was workplace safety.  In 1904, 27,000 American workers were killed on the job just in transportation, manufacturing and agriculture.  In 1914 35,000 died in industrial accidents and 700,000 were injured--and that was in a population only one-third that of the United States today.  Particular incidents such as the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911 galvanized the people and finally moved protective legislation.  In that disaster 146 workers, mostly women, burned or leaped to their deaths from the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a New York high rise.  Without running water, fire escapes or fire extinguishers, with the doors locked and the fire department's ladders not reaching past the seventh floor, the tragedy was inevitable.  100,000 marched in support of workplace safety regulations and the politicians finally had the courage to overcome employer resistance.

The Populist and Progressive Parties of the 1890s and early 1900s stood for the rights of union membership and collective bargaining.  They campaigned for the 8-hour day, railroad, banking and telecommunications regulation, health and safety protections and a minimum wage.  Though both parties eventually went defunct, virtually their entire programs were eventually adopted, much of them co-opted by the Democrats and Republicans.  They endured violent assaults that killed many workers in such strikes as that at the Homestead Steel Mill and Pullman Sleeping Car Company.  

Such standard practices as lunch breaks, weekends, overtime and holiday pay, vacations, health benefits, worker's compensation, health and safety standards and enforcement and even the concept of national immigration restrictions owe their existence to the organized labor movement, which is nothing less than the democratic action of workers banding together to support humane treatment, due process and a just compensation in repayment for the value they add to their employer's bottom line.

In these times when once again large employers and conservative politicians are trying to roll back the benefits common people have won through years of struggle, give a thought or two on this Labor Day to the workers down through the years who risked their jobs, safety and sometimes even gave their lives for the pay and working conditions most of us now enjoy.

Perry's Extremism on Full Display

A few days on the campaign trail have served notice that Texas Governor Rick Perry is about as extreme a right winger as it is possible to be. Since he is the current leader for his party's nomination in the polls it also shows how far toward the nutty fringe a Republican has to go these days to win the GOP primary electorate. One would think that some of these positions ought to make it exceedingly difficult for him to win a general election should he be the Republican standard bearer in 2012, as I believe he is likely to be.

Perry shows his antipathy to modern science by characterizing evolution as, "just a theory with a lot of gaps in it," and pollution-caused global warming as a "hoax" ginned up by a worldwide conspiracy of meteorology nerds. Rejection of the fact and data-based universe is apparently an article of faith in Republican ranks these days. It's hard not to wonder what such a stance would have on America's ability to compete in global technology should this latter-day know-nothingism penetrate into the pinnacle of leadership of the nation itself. Either Perry does not believe in science when it conflicts with his prejudices or he is prepared to babble nonsense in order to tell the ignorant what they want to hear. Neither alternative provides much comfort to the prospect of a Perry presidency.

The Governor is also adept at reading things into the Constitution that are not there. He has written in his book "Fed Up," published in 2010, that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional--not just that he disagrees with them, but that the Framers in 1787 somehow banned these programs. To refer to these most popular of federal programs as "scams" and "Ponzi schemes" does take guts. One can only imagine the effect on the senior citizen vote after a few months of publicity of these views.

He repeats the conservative canard that the Constitution was written to "limit government," and protect "states rights" when any eighth-grader can tell you it was to increase federal power over the states after the weakness and disunity of the former Articles of Confederation. His statement, referring to Texas, that, "When we came into the union in 1845 one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that" has exposed either his revanchist Confederate sympathies or a willingness to play to a constituency disposed to dismember the United States--a rather blatant violation of the Presidential oath of office, by which he would, if elected, swear to defend the Constitution "against all enemies."

He has topped these antics off by threatening Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, (originally a Bush appointee, by the way) with accusations of treason and veiled intimations of violence "we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," if he should deign to differ with Perry on monetary policy. This bull in the china shop buffoonery is what apparently captures the imagination of Republican voters these days, as Perry stands at the head of the current opinion polls. It is not, however, what will win a majority of voting Americans in a national election.