Who Wrote Shakespeare?
• May 3, 2012

There’s a class war going on.

It’s not being waged where you might think it is—in presidential primary debates, or on the streets of Occupied America.

It’s being waged in movie theaters where the nearly century-old debate about who wrote Shakespeare’s plays is being engaged anew in trash-epic director Roland Emmerich’s “Anonymous,” whose subject and hero is one Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, who’s being presented as the aristocratic author of the plays most, if not all of us, believe to have been written by William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon.

Shakespeare, in the movie, is a buffoonish, ambitious, drunken actor who declares himself to be the author of the plays. There’s also a lot of historical political intrigue centered around royal succession, Queen Elizabeth and the like.

I’m not here to argue the merits of the film, or the status of Mr. Emmerich as a director. He apparently sincerely believes that Oxford was indeed the author of the plays.

Good for him. He’s not the first person to think so. The authorship debate around Shakespeare’s plays has been debated for centuries, and the Oxford candidacy has attracted Supreme Court judges, learned scholars and not-so-learned scholars.

That’s where class comes in. The basic contention is that Shakespeare—with a minor education – was a would-be-actor from a small town who could not possibly have written the plays he did. He would be required to have an immense amount of knowledge, a superior education, an understanding of the ways of courts and geography.

That he probably didn’t—as is often pointed out he made big mistakes in geography and history. Here’s what Shakespeare did have a major understanding of—the human heart and mind, the psychology of being human. Just about all the plots are borrowed from other sources, including other plays, or ancient Roman texts, the bible, English history books. Shakespeare’s genius—that’s what it was—lies in his understanding of human nature, and his poetic abilities, his invention of free verse, his knowledge about how to put a play together.

A lot of the debate about authorship—the Queen herself, Francis Bacon, rival playwright Ben Johnson, have been held up as candidates—centers around a kind of intellectual snobbishness, an unwillingness to accept the idea that Shakespeare—a commoner, or son of the lower middle class at best, could be the greatest author who ever lived. If Oxford was the author, he hid it well. Trouble is that Shakespeare, too, hid himself, in some ways. Little, or not enough, is known about his life, although what we do know suggests that he was a man of the theater, a professional who kept books, ran a company, managed to know enough about the upper classes to become a favorite playwright of the queen.

Someone recently suggested to me that I can’t stand the idea that Shakespeare’s works might have been written by an aristocrat, by a member of the ruling class of England. I can stand the idea. What I can’t stand is the idea that the plays and the sonnets and the characters MUST have been written and created by an aristocrat.

The very definition of artistic genius is its mystery—it does not zero in on class, societal standing, education per se, or any other MUST factor other than it exists and it flowers in a particular person. Shrinks no doubt have had their say on this matter.

The plays of course contain many royal, aristocratic types—generals, kings and queens, lords and dukes and duchesses, even a few small business men and Shakespeare gave them speech that was understood by everyone. But he also created, to name one, Falstaff, a full-bodied man both vile and lecherous, outsized and full of bombast, a man who was more of a father to a prince than the king himself. He was the salt, and mud, and beer of the earth. It’s doubtful that Oxford would have imagined such a man, let alone hung out in bars with him. Aristocrats may have gone to the theater, but they did not admit going to the dogs.

I’m going to see the movie. Emmerich, if nothing else, makes movies that aren’t usually boring except when it’s “Godzilla” filmed entirely in grey rain, or so it seemed. His movies—“Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow” and “The Patriot” among them are not exercises in nuance, and I don’t expect “Anonymous” to be that either.

9 – 9 – 9, ridiculous or on the right path?
•

Tax reform is like birthdays. They come around every year with the promises of money and gifts.
The current flavor of the week is 9-9-9; a plain pizza with no toppings.

Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, proposed this catch phrase as his idea for tax reform, and it vaulted him to the top of the polls of Republican presidential candidates.

His proposal is to toss out the entire tax code, repeal the 16th Amendment and replace it with a simple new system that reduces the personal income tax rate to 9 percent, reduces the corporate tax rate to 9 percent, and imposes a new 9 percent sales tax on all “new” goods.

Like all new and bold ideas, it has pros and cons. But, like our nation’s problems, they are not simple.
Reforming the tax code is different than eliminating the 16th Amendment. Beginning with the Civil War, Congress adopted several income tax laws which touched only the rich and usually expired after the need – usually a war – passed.

When Congress passed a peacetime income tax in 1894, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional because it was not a “direct” tax requiring each state to pay its share based on its population. For example, suppose the federal government needed $100 million and California had 10 percent of the population. It would then owe $10 million, and if California had 1 million people, each person would owe $10 which clearly could not work. The 16th Amendment, passed in 1913, fixed that, and thus began the taxation of income and what are now millions of words of law and regulations.
All tax systems have three common elements: a taxpayer, a tax rate, and a tax base. For example, individuals and corporations are income taxpayers while partnerships and non-profits are not and pay no tax.

Tax rates are easy. Just move them up or down.

The big trouble lies in defining the tax base, that is, what the taxpayer pays tax on. Mr. Cain defines individual income as “gross income minus charitable deductions” though gross income doesn’t include capital gains. His idea is to exchange sacred cows such as the mortgage interest deduction and the exemptions for children for a lower rate.

Mr. Cain’s definition of business income is gross income minus purchases from U.S.-located businesses, capital investment, and net exports. So, if Ford builds a car and uses parts that it manufactures overseas, those parts aren’t deductible, but if it exports the car, that is deductible as is the cost of the new plant that will last 40 years.

Sales taxes are regressive, so lower income taxpayers will pay more tax and higher income taxpayers will pay less. Mr. Cain argues that it may not penalize lower income people since this tax only applies to “new” goods. They can avoid the tax by buying “used” goods. Move over Walmart. Here comes Goodwill. Every new car and new house will cost 9 percent more, so those industries may be mired in the doldrums for another decade. Accountants will surely have plenty of work keeping track of all this.

But, since Mr. Cain proposes eliminating the IRS, the calculations would be completely voluntary anyway.

To be fair, Mr. Cain’s underlying theory has serous merit because he is trying to wring tax incentives out of tax policy so that taxpayers make economic decisions without weighing tax consequences.
The U.S. tax code has become a vehicle for encouraging certain economic activities and discouraging others. Because the tax base is net income rather than gross income, taxpayers are rewarded with lower taxes by reducing net income. At the same time, taxpayers have little incentive to decrease gross income.

The most popular income reduction “loophole” is the home mortgage deduction. Theoretically, it encourages people to buy houses, but a larger percentage of people own homes Canada and Germany which have no mortgage interest tax incentive (and no lobbyists to protect it).

Corporate incentives are enormous. Last year, GE earned billions and paid no tax. In 2010, U.S. corporations generated about $30 trillion in revenues and paid $227 billion in tax, or less than 1 percent of total revenues. In other words, a 1 percent gross receipts tax would raise more revenue than the byzantine game of computing net income. A gross receipts tax would also dramatically reduce complexity and the cost of compliance. States, for example, spend substantially less collecting sales tax than they do collecting income tax.

Sales taxes, the source of most state government revenues, rarely impact consumer behavior. As much as consumers enjoy tax-free weekends and buying online to save sales tax, few go to the store and think, “I’m not going to buy that because the sales tax is too high.”

Mr. Cain knows that our tax code looks like pizza all the way. So, flawed as his idea is, and it is by no means simple, he knows how consumers behave and may be on the right track.

A Starving Artist’s Secret to Survival
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When I signed up for a PR/Marketing & Studio Art degree, I knew that I’d either become a master marketer or a starving artist. Which is all the more reason why I should get behind the Occupy Wall Street protests, but I just can’t. You see, when the housing market collapsed my company went down with it, I was left stuck in Pensacola, Fla. with no home, no job, and no hope of starting over. So I did what any self-respecting artist would do… I sold everything and went on tour.

I traveled mostly around the South East. Altanta, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington D.C., Pensacola twice and then finally I ended up in the Destin area of Florida. I was in my late 20’s with a degree and a skill-set and I would sell my talents to whoever would pay for them. If I wasn’t taking pictures of performing artists and rock bands I was working one-on-one with small business owners developing cost effective marketing strategies or orchestrating elaborate art parties as fundraisers for non-profits.

The biggest obstacle was my network. It’s true that it’s not what you know it’s who you know. After leaving seven years of networking in Pensacola, I found myself starting over again in Destin. Things were going great at first. The tourism market was the strongest it had been in years and I was living on the beach managing a seafood market in the morning and working as a food artist at night for a trendy restaurant, all the while shooting anyone I could with a camera in my free time…and then came the oil spill.

Fast forward through three months of “WTF do I do now?” I managed to work out a deal with the COO of a franchise based in the D.C. area. In exchange for watching the house, taking care of the cats, helping her pack, and some admin/office work I could stay rent-free for six months until she relocated to Colorado. I had six months to start over….again.

One year later, after spending the first six months barely surviving on $10/hour (through a staffing agency), I secured a full-time position as the Creative Director and Executive Assistant to a prominent D.C. psychotherapist and lecturer. Come December, my boss will retire to Florida and I’ll be looking for another similar position. My resume is exquisite, my references are mind-blowing, yet I’m confident that it will still take months to find a perfect match. In the meantime, instead of collecting unemployment, you’ll find me hustlin’ somewhere; selling art, doing photoshoots, writing for various D.C. papers and mags and organizing more art parties.

Whatever happened to that entrepreneurial character that America used to be so proud of? In the panhandle of Florida—where the rednecks and the private money meet on the shores of paradise—there are hundreds of independently owned businesses. I should also add that the commercial rent on the seafood market I used to manage is less than the rent for my studio in Mt. Pleasant.

Taking into account that prices in D.C. are much higher than Florida and that the majority of people who seem to own any of the shops that we visit on a daily basis (coffee shops, dry cleaning, grocery, gas, food/restaurant) are all immigrants, I’m left confused on a level I can’t really even put into words. Explain to me how an immigrant couple can immigrate to the United States, open and operate a business (often unable to communicate efficiently in English), have enough money to feed themselves and their families, and yet there are thousands of home-grown Americans losing their homes, their savings, and their minds?

I understand that not everyone can just create a business out of scratch and make it be successful, but many of us could. And in doing so, we could hire those who can’t do it all on their own. I understand the OWS argument. But if you want them to stop trashing your money, then stop giving it to them! Vote better. Raise your voices in opposition to fraud. But if you’re upset that you can’t “find” a job, then maybe you should take a page from the book of Starving Artists and find better way to create your own income rather than waiting for someone else to give it to you.

Deklan is a writer and photographer living in D.C. by way of the BP oil spill.

From the Publisher’s Desk
•

I often say this is not only the nation’s capital, but the fundraising capital of the world. With every advocacy group and association represented in some capacity here, it may at times be difficult to garner recognition for each individual cause. But some causes and people have touched our hearts more than others. For me, one such person Michele Conley, founder of Living in Pink. Michele, a two-time breast cancer survivor, mother of five, successful business owner, health enthusiast and advocate for cancer research, generated $50,000 for Georgetown University Hospital through Living in Pink. I feel privileged to be a part of this noble contribution to combat a disease that has affected so many of us in this day and age. Thank you, Michele.

The Nomination Conflagration
•

The weekly scramble that is the Republican Party’s race to the presidential candidate nomination is as muddled as ever, with yet another new face leading in at least one poll.

That would be Herman Cain, the African American pizza company executive, who leads the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll with a nifty 27 percent of Republican voters favoring his candidacy. Mitt Romney, steady as a shy but relentless suitor, was at 23 percent, although he led in another poll.
What all this means is anybody’s guess, so I’ll take one: even though the first primary (Florida, can you believe it?) isn’t until Jan. 31, and the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, the traditional bellwethers of any presidential political season, are even further off, is it possible to think that the race is already over?

Mind you, there’s only been a few debates, a handful of round-table discussions, a couple of straw votes and likely some undisclosed arguments in an Iowa cornfield. But much has happened, most of it not pretty. Some people never showed up, others dropped out, some jumped in and got toasted and others, like Newt Gingrich, plugged on, unmindful that nobody was talking about them, let alone casting them any sort of vote.

This GOP presidential nomination race isn’t so much a competition as it is a circus or reality show, resembling the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s On First?”

Well, who is on first this week? Cain and his 9-9-9 plan for reinventing the tax code appear to have caught fire in certain quarters, but is he really on first, and can he round the bases as the first semi-serious national African American Republican candidate of any sort? 

So who’s on first? Well, for just a little while it was good old Rick Perry, who had never lost at anything in his political life, being a three-term governor of Texas. He was largely credited for the miracle in Texas, which, it is often asserted, sailed through the Great Recession almost unscathed thanks to conservative economic policies. He also OK’d a record number of executions. Perry, seeing Michele Bachmann win the Iowa straw poll followed by Ron Paul, and thinking he was at least as smart as his predecessor, probably figured he could take the whole enchilada, being a big, strapping fellow from Texas who looked like a guy that could lead a country, by God—and a prayer meeting too.

On his way to mortal combat with Mitt Romney, Perry tripped on a rock that hadn’t been quite painted over enough to hide the “N” word it sported on a piece of his property. Perry got caught in a messy routine of having to perpetually explain whatever he said the night before, like a sailor coming back from shore leave.

So now Perry is a fading, a distant third, and his taillights are fading from view.

So, who’s on first? Well, how about Sarah Palin? Palin understands that first base is a lonely place, an exposed area where people will take pot shots at you.  Better to wait for the next season of “Dancing with the Stars,” or pontificate at Tea Party rallies, or have nasty books written about you. Or write one yourself and sing a few rounds of “Money, Money, Money.”

How about Chris Christie, a tea party favorite and the governor of New Jersey, rich in charisma and a few extra pounds. You wish. People in the media practically cried when he finally said a final and resounding “No,” even after GOP stalwarts effectively got on their knees and begged him to run. Christie said it was not his time. But it just might be time for him to be a vice-president—and therefore president in waiting—given his grand and gushing endorsement of Romney.

How about Mr. Pawlenty, the early dropout. Now I imagine he wishes he hadn’t.

There are, of course, others: Ron Paul, who actually says more outrageous things than Rick Perry, but nobody complains because, truthfully, nobody cares. There is also Rick Santorum, a social and every-other-kind-of conservative who somehow comes across as a whiner.

There’s Bachmann and her zealots and her straw poll win in Iowa, which lasted for all the time it took Perry to make up his mind to run. There is John Huntsman, the second Mormon in the race and former governor of Utah. But then he said that he might be happy to take the VP spot on a Bachmann ticket. That’s not going to happen. I mean the Bachmann ticket.

What’s most notable about this race is who decided not to run: the budget whiz kid Paul Ryan; the aforementioned Chris Christie; Mike Huckabee, the very Christian right former governor of Arkansas who ran nobly in the last competition; Bobby Jindal, a GOP star for one shining moment until he gave a rebuttal address to a State of the Union speech by Obama; Palin, of course.

There is also Virginia’s rising star governor Bob McDowell; the hot, hot, tea party senator from Florida, Marco Rubio; and, lest we forget, Donald Trump, who Trumped himself before voters had the chance.

To end the baseball analogy: game over. Romney has been there before and appears to have won the race simply because nobody has really been able to knock him off his steady-as-he-goes performances in the debates. He’s a terrific debater, mildly humorous, not too mean but mean enough, good with the Obama knocks, a business man who knows something about economics, (so much that Perry practically conceded his smarts). He’s a guy who looks presidential—whatever that means—unruffled and unperturbed. He was governor of Massachusetts, and how many Republicans can say that, or even want to? He passed a version of a health care bill that much resembles Obama’s, the one that’s headed straight for the Supreme Court. When a Christian Evangelist preacher called Mormonism a cult, it gained sympathy for Romney.

Tea Party stalwarts don’t like Romney, which may yet be a problem. The Tea Party is a little like the Georgetowner slogan, “It’s influence far exceeds its size,” but not in a good way.

In any poll, Romney is by far the only GOP candidate who looks like he could win the general election and beat Obama. He’s close enough—two percentage points—to take a swipe at the president.

The questions remains: why not get rid of the primaries altogether this year and have the election early. The suspense is killing us.

Joseph Robert: A Victorious Life
•

By John Fenzel

On Wednesday, Dec. 7, Joseph E. Robert Jr., one of the Washington area’s great philanthropists, passed away after a battle with Glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer that also afflicted Senator Edward Kennedy. News of Robert’s death quickly spread throughout Washington’s circles in quiet, almost reverential tones among the many who knew him.

At Cafe Milano, Steve Delonga pointed at the table against the wall where Robert frequently dined. “Joe was a fighter, a businessman, and friend who left an enduring legacy. He was always busy, always grateful, and always surrounded by people. But across the room, he would see you, smile, and give you a ‘thumbs-up’ sign.”

Robert grew up in a Catholic, middle class family in Silver Spring, Md. And yet in 1970, his penchant for fistfights and ill-advised pranks at St. John’s College High School nearly caused him to drop out altogether. An accomplished athlete, Robert won a regional kickboxing championship in 1973. That same year, while attending Mount Saint Mary’s College, he came forcefully to the aid of a dog being abused, and was promptly expelled for fighting. “While college didn’t exactly work out for Joe,” a high school friend recalled, “the dog he saved stayed with him. That was pretty typical—Joe didn’t stop at ‘rescue.’”

“He always focused on the end game and didn’t get distracted by the tactics involved in getting there,” Michela English, the president and CEO of Robert’s foundation, Fight For Children, said. “He was even more passionate about his charitable causes than business.”

In 1981, Robert began canvassing banks to loan him money to purchase distressed real estate. Most turned him away.

“It was a hard sell, because it was the beginning of the S&L Crisis,” Yankel Ginzburg said. “When conventional wisdom was to stay out of the market, Joe had a different idea.”

Robert ultimately convinced Riggs Bank to agree to the loan.

His first condominiums were in the Beltsville, Md. area. “Joe would come by in person to pick up the rent checks,” Pamela Ginzburg, one of his first tenants, remembered. “He was involved in all aspects of his business. He had an unrivaled work ethic, and he never forgot his first tenants.”

In 1989, when the S&L crisis was at a critical stage, Congress appropriated billions to create the Resolution Trust Corporation. Recognizing an opportunity, Robert formed a parallel association to ensure a role for the private sector.

Several years later, Robert had begun a private equity real estate fund business that ultimately became known as JER Partners, managing assets around the world worth nearly $30 billion.

In 1990, channeling his love for boxing and his desire to help children, Robert started “Fight Night” to help disadvantaged youth. Leveraging his close personal friendships with Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie, Billy Dee Williams and others, Robert grew his Fight Night and the annual charity event came to attract world renowned boxers to the Washington Hilton Hotel and Towers. Boxing legends like Sugar Ray Leonard, Gerry Cooney, Roberto Duran and Joe Frazier could often be seen ringside with Robert—along with city mayors, Joint Chiefs of Staff, business leaders, and Hollywood celebrities.

The Fight Night event was a formal “men-only” event. Later, Robert began a separate “sister” women-only venue to fight domestic violence called “Knock Out Abuse” at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. A tradition soon developed for the “Fight Night” men and the “Knock Out Abuse” ladies to convene immediately after the festivities.

“Fight Night” continues to be the premier event for Robert’s signature cause, “Fight For Children,” a foundation he established to improve education and health care opportunities for low income children in Washington, D.C. Since he founded the organization, Fight For Children has directly raised $100 million.

“He didn’t just write checks. He got personally involved so he could really make a difference,” English, said. “No matter how hard we have all tried to prepare for his passing, it is still very difficult to believe that he is no longer with us. It’s not an overstatement to say that tens of thousands of kids in D.C. are better off because of Joe.”

For those who knew him well, Joe Robert’s authenticity was a defining trait. As the chairman of Business Executives for National Security, he once left a White House luncheon for a visiting Chinese president early, so he could read to his son’s kindergarten class. “He had a great sense of humor and never took himself or anyone else too seriously,” English said.

Joe Robert will always be a hero to his family, his friends and to the children who benefited from his generous leadership and positive vision. In his final hours, Robert reportedly could not speak to those who came to see him at his home. “So he smiled and gave everyone a ‘thumbs up’ sign instead,” a close friend said.

John Fenzel is an Army Special Forces Officer stationed in Washington, D.C. [gallery ids="100426,114107,114125,114117" nav="thumbs"]

The Romney Machine
•

By the time anyone reads this, the New Hampshire Primary for the Republican Presidential Nomination will be over, unless its closer than the Iowa Caucus, in which eight votes separated winner Mitt Romney and runner-up Rick Santorum.

Romney should come out on top, on the way to his seemingly obligatory nomination—unless the quirky New Hampshire political Gods decided to intervene. Romney had a 20-point lead over his rivals and was rolling.
And yet, something seems to be sticking in the collective Republican craw. There is no joy in the GOP version of Mudville. Mighty Romney has failed to strike a chord, even though the words ‘inevitable,’ ‘easy to understand,’ and ‘hard to stomach,’ seem to be attaching themselves to him.

Consider the recent GOP doubleheader, the two debates before the primary within ten hours of each other.
The first, on prime time television on Saturday night with only an NFL playoff game for real competition, offered national viewers of all political stripes a chance to look at what’s left of the slowly winnowing and wavering GOP presidential field. (Michelle Bachman, once the tea party’s darling, conceded that the Iowa voters had spoken and they weren’t talking about her, and dropped out without so much as a tearful farewell).
The two debates—the first a Hound of Baskerville type of occasion in which the anti-Romney dogs didn’t bark—offered some thumbnail pictures of the candidates, and what appears to be of concern to GOP voters, even though almost every prospective voter interviewed by the army of media types covering New Hampshire indicated their main concern was jobs.

Did any of the candidates talk about a secret, previously undisclosed plan to create jobs? Did the candidates trailing the front-runner set on him like a pack of wolves? No to either case.

They talked about gay marriage, they talked about Iran—sort of—they talked about service in the military, they talked about abortion, they talked about contraception. The trailing candidates took swipes at each other but, strangely, not at Romney. That changed the next morning, possibly because Newt Gingrich, Santorum, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry suddenly realized that they were in the 11th hour of the New Hampshire primary.

The thing about Romney on both occasion, and almost any occasion, is that he looks presidential. Sometimes he’s doing his Reagan-in-blue-jeans thing, but most often he’s smiling in a suit. He looks like a man who is used to wealth and success, a businessman and a seasoned politician, always smiling, not a hair out of place.
With Herman Cain and Bachman out of the race, the party on the podium retains a certain one-dimensionality. Scanning the audience during the ABC debate, managed by George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer, you’d never get a hint of American diversity.

Romney won by default—nobody laid a glove on him—as the irrepressible Paul, who is about as much a Republican as I am, laid into Gingrich for backing foreign wars when he never served himself. Paul remembered serving even though he was married with children at the time. But the dais was strangely quiet when Gingrich rambled on with great passion about the defense of marriage act, about the “sacrament of marriage” and the Obama administration’s attack on Christianity and religion. This devotion to the sanctity of marriage as defined by a man and a woman was stated with a straight face—for a moment some of us thought he might sniffle again—but coming from the oft-married Gingrich, this was a farcical performance.
Romney never answered a question directly and pursued what’s beginning to sound like a general campaign theme—GOP meritocracy vs. Obama entitlements. This campaign, he said, is a “battle for the soul of America,” which could be a tough fight for the smooth, polished, slick Romney machine. Let’s face it, Romney is running a rather soulless campaign.

The following day, after his pious baloney rant on the sanctity of marriage, Gingrich went after Romney with a demand to “cut this pious baloney.”

Romney had actually attacked Huntsman, the highly successful former Utah governor and fellow Mormon, for working with Obama as Ambassador to China. Huntsman who refused to attack Romney even when invited by Sawyer to take a shot, finally took it the next morning, saying Romney’s attack was the kind of thing that divided America.

Those early-morning back-and-forths may not change things. For the trailing candidates, survivability was the issue in New Hampshire—finish second or in double digits so you can carry on the fight. For Santorum, the hope is that the next stop in South Carolina, where social conservatives and Evangelist Christians are strong, will prove a more fertile ground for him.

Governor Nikki Haley, another tea party fave, has already endorsed Romney, thus entering the VP sweepstakes with the increasingly omnipresent New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Christie, popular with the media and the tea party, made another campaign appearance for Romney in New Hampshire, this time not trying to joke like Tony Soprano.

Can anybody stop Romney? Not in the GOP. But out there in the coming general election, where the volatility of the economy and the great wide world are daily factors, the outcome is up in the air.

Aye for Newt Spells Double Toil and Trouble for GOP
•

The GOP primary race remains a wacky brew, although one with fewer fixins.  Gone is the amazing pizza king and his hazy harem.  Long gone is the man from Minnesota whom nobody knew.  Gone, too, is the prom queen of the Tea Party along with the Texas cowboy who couldn’t speak straight.  This week, four remain, and the man at the top is not Mitt Romney.

Newt Gingrich scored a somewhat remarkable upset in South Carolina — I throw in the caveat because South Carolina is, well, South Carolina, first in war (the Civil War, that is), a place where Yahoo is a state of mind as well as a search engine. He won the primary with 40 percent of the vote to Romney’s 28, with Rick Santorum, who didn’t light the evangelist fire and seems to have only one sweater vest to his name, finishing third, and the sweetly sunny Ron Paul fourth. Rick Perry had already dropped out earlier and endorsed Gingrich.

In South Carolina, the Evangelists and the Tea Party are strong factors, much stronger than in the Republican party at large. It’s a state where — among the GOP faithful — Barack Obama is not just the Democratic president, incumbent and opponent, he is reviled, hated and perhaps a socialist and perhaps not even a citizen of the United States. 

It’s a place, where Romney — not a moderate, not really a conservative, a nobody-knows-what — probably shouldn’t have expected to do well and where John McCain’s candidacy was derailed in 2000 and didn’t exactly rock and roll four years ago.  But Romney had a double-digit lead over what remained of the field—Gingrich, Santorum and the increasingly Yoda-like Ron Paul — as late as mid-week last week. That was before a surge toward Gingrich, mysterious but real, was detected. His surge was driven by tough debate performances, and his response in the last debate to ABC’s airing of an interview with his ex-wife in which he reportedly had asked her for an “open marriage.”

The CNN debate moderator, John King, made the mistake in bringing up the subject right off the top, giving Gingrich an open-ended question.  As all observers noted, Newt knocked it out of the park.  He railed against the establishment media, he questioned the appropriateness of the questions and railed against the media some more, all of which the audience cheered. Bashing the media in South Carolina — except for Fox News and Rush—is a no-brainer, like taking lunch money from a kid who is half your size with no karate experience.

The CNN moderate was entirely right to bring the subject up, but he asked the wrong question. It should have been, when Gingrich starts sputtering about fairness, privacy and the sanctity and sacrament of matrimony, whether Christian theology has room for open marriage and about the hypocrisy in his constant talk about family values and marriage. But, then, Gingrich thinks he’s as wise as Solomon.

Gingrich has admitted that he has made mistakes, but he’s never acknowledged what they might be. He says that he is a changed man from the bruiser, bullying Speaker of the House of yore, who led the impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton, but he never says how he’s changed. 

Romney, in his clashes with Gingrich, has steadily shrunk to the size of the rest of the field, which was generally considered weak, if not downright mediocre or worse.  Once the steady front-runner, even when the rest of the field was doing the dance of the seven minutes of fame, Romney is slowly emerging as that guy behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz.” He’s made some interesting comments, all of them indicating that he appears to have no clue how most Americans live, which is to say the 99 percent, in hard times.

From the $10,000 bet, to saying that his speaking fees of more than $300,000 are not a lot of money, to claiming that he feared getting the pink slip, to the blue jeans, Romney reveals himself to be out of touch with common human beings like the rest of us. He may soon release his tax information, but we already know he’s a 15 percenter.

Gingrich, on the other hand, scares the bejesus out of the regular Republican establishment types. This allows Gingrich to claim the status of fighter, rebel and Captain America, although he needs to get into the gym to get into that costume. It’s an odd thing — he’s a populist, a Reaganite and a pugnacious intellectual who presents himself as someone who can beat Obama . . . at least in a debate or in a dark alley, whichever works.

Lo and behold, here is Newt Gingrich, the Washington outsider, after years as an insider, including Speaker of the House.  This Newt is confident — always a danger for him—he’s ready to fight the long fight and lead the American people out of socialism. He’s already had a remarkable career.  As speaker, he orchestrated an amazing comeback for the GOP after it lost the presidency to Clinton.  In two years — much as was the case with Obama — he had the GOP in control of both the House and the Senate, a feat he frittered away through high-handedness and arrogance, making lots of enemies in the party, a fact which is starting to become clear now.

Old timers are starting to fret about the possibility of a Newt victory. They’re casting rumors about third parties. A Washington Post headline hyped: “A New Twist in the Search for Mr. Right.”  The GOP fears that it will get Mr. Goodbar instead.

The Opposite Ways the GOP and Dems Choose a Nominee
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Since Franklin Roosevelt was president, Republicans and Democrats have created diametrically opposite methods for choosing their presidential nominees.

Republicans pick a nominee with deep roots in the party, usually a man who previously lost an a run for the presidency. Democrats pick a nominee with virtually no name recognition, shallow roots and who is running for the presidency for the first time.

Republicans know whom they are going to nominate. They go through the motions, but they select one of their own, a proven commodity, a person who has been running since before the previous election. Democrats nominees are a surprise to their own party, to their own voters, to the public and to the Republicans.

Republicans don’t emerge. They run, lose, run again and win. It’s called paying dues. Democratic nominees seem to emerge out of nowhere and have to battle “no experience” charges which continue even if they are elected.

Before Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, the parties’ conventions selected their nominees, so all candidates had deep roots and internal party allegiances. Roosevelt had been Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York. Entering his fourth election for president, however, Roosevelt changed vice presidents and selected a former clothing store operator, a political pawn, a little known senator. Harry Truman became president a month into Roosevelt’s fourth term, having spent very little time with Roosevelt and was completely unaware that an atomic bomb – that he would order dropped a few months later – was being produced.

Since then, the parties have followed their unique paths to the presidency.

In 1948, the Republicans anointed New York Governor Thomas Dewey, a presumable shoo-in. He was so far ahead, the pollsters quit taking the public pulse in September. Truman prevailed.

In 1952, both parties knew World War II hero, Dwight Eisenhower, would win and begged him to join their party. (Remember both parties pursuing Colin Powell?) Eisenhower picked the Republicans and cruised into the White House. Richard Nixon was his vice president.

In 1960, Nixon moved into position as the Republican nominee. The Democrats selected the little known, little accomplished, junior, but wealthy, Senator John Kennedy. Kennedy defeated his Senate boss, the inside-the-party favorite, Lyndon Johnson. Nixon lost, but he won the nomination – and the presidency – in 1968.

In 1976, President Ford, the country’s only non-elected president, faced a challenge for the Republican nomination. Ronald Reagan was a famous movie star, TV commentator and a popular governor of California, the largest and typically Democratic state. Ford beat him but lost to Jimmy Carter.

Four years later in 1980, Reagan returned and defeated George H. W. Bush for the nomination. George H. W. Bush was a Texas Republican whose father had been a U.S. senator. Bush had been a congressman, had lost a run for the Senate, and had been U.S. Ambassador to China. Reagan picked Bush as his vice president and defeated the sitting President Carter.

In 1988, George H. W. Bush was Mr. Republican Establishment, won the nomination and the election against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Again, Michael Who?

In 2000, the Republicans nominated Texas Governor George W. Bush, who had defeated a popular Democratic governor in 1994. Had his name been George Walker instead of George Walker Bush, he would never have gone to Yale or Harvard, been given an ownership interest and the CEO position of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team and never have run for office. His last name was Bush, and his dad had been President. George W. Bush didn’t have to lose to win, but how establishment can a candidate be?

Since Roosevelt, the Democrats have selected Jimmy Who?, Bill Who? and Barack Huh?

In 1976, Jimmy Carter, better known as Jimmy Who, was a little known, peanut farmer who had served one term as Georgia’s governor. No one on the national scene had ever heard of him. He had a 1-percent name recognition rating going into the Iowa caucuses and defeated a slew of established Democrats for the nomination.

In 1992, establishment Democrats were afraid to run against George H. W. Bush’s 91-percent approval rating. Bill Clinton, another small-state governor who had given an awful speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, took the plunge. Most Americans probably cannot find Arkansas on a map. He faced ongoing charges of immoral behavior during the election (and during his presidency).

In 2008, Hilary Clinton had the nomination locked up, but Barak Obama who had served as a U.S. senator for a mere four years, surprised her, the nation and is now president.

When Democrats nominate mainstream candidates, they lose. Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore couldn’t get to the finish line.

What does this mean? The only Republicans running now who have a chance to win are Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney ran in 2004 and lost. He’s ripe. Gingrich talks about being a Washington outsider, but he lives there and is trying to ride President Reagan’s coattails.

Rick Santorum is not and Jon Huntsman was not really running this year. They are running for the Republican nomination in 2016. Whom will they run against? Some Democrat who has a 1-percent name recognition right now.

Does the President Really Matter?
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From now until November, all of us will be bombarded in print and on the airwaves with political campaign ads, polling numbers, social media advocacy, vitriol and validation.  All focused on the election of one individual to a single office, the President of the United States.  

But in the grand scheme of things, as you watch these campaign commercials, ask yourself this simple question:  Does the president really matter? 

Think about it for just a second. 

There are those who are reasonably certain that the president they elect will be their personal salvation — rendering their household bills suddenly affordable, putting cheap gas in the tanks of their SUVs, reducing crime in their neighborhoods and taking them off the unemployment rolls. 

The perception of the president as having absolute power over one’s life is nothing new.  But it is a naive and polarizing view. 

In the 1840s, Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.”  Writing about men like Muhammad, Luther and Napoleon, Carlyle theorized that heroic men shape history through both their personal attributes and via divine inspiration — that all great events turned on the great decisions of great men. 

If the entire country defines the chief executive’s span of responsibility, can a president be held accountable for everything that the nation does or fails to do? 

Credit or blame, in their cumulative form, generally define a presidency.  Both are spun wildly by pundits in countless venues with countless agendas.  But the reality is that a president actually has far less influence on our daily lives than we may give him credit.  The president is routinely described as the most powerful person in the world.  It is, after all, the president who creates budgets, develops domestic policy, energy policy and conducts foreign policy.  The president nominates Supreme Court and Federal judges.  He sets legislative agendas and has veto power over congressionally passed bills. 

But they never do so in a vacuum.  There are countless countervailing, equalizing forces that face every presidential decision — from sending troops into a war zone to submitting a budget resolution.  He must face congressional opposition, media scrutiny, lobbyists, foreign leaders and Supreme Court decisions. 

We routinely elect our presidents under the promise of “change.”  But presidents are seldom the sole catalysts for change.  They get plenty of help along the way.  They can help set the conditions for progress, but they rarely directly cause it to occur.  If a president goes too far with a policy, opposition sets in, and the intended action is voted down or modified in some way.  In the longer term, if he goes way too far or doesn’t do enough, he’s not re-elected.  The president submits a budget for the nation, but Congress must pass it.  When Congress passes a budget resolution, even when he opposes it, the president has no choice but to spend the money. 

What was the last presidential decision that affected you?  Most of us will be hard-pressed to think of even one. 

Certainly, for our servicemen and women and their families, the question will be readily answered with whatever theater of war to which they or their loved ones have deployed.  For those who have been injured or killed, the loss of life or limb cannot be reversed or changed.  And so, for the 1 percent of our nation who serve, the president and the decisions he makes as commander-in-chief, matter a great deal. 

For everyone else, whoever is president affects our lives to a far lesser extent than we may believe.  We may agree or disagree with a president’s policies, but precious few of those policies represent original thought.  Chances are, for each policy cited, other presidents before them have espoused something very similar.  Agendas may matter far more than the president himself. 

So, here’s a quick drill for you.  Answer this quickly:  Who are the truly great presidents? 

Maybe you answered with names like Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR.  Those Americans born before 1963 may point to President John F. Kennedy, based on the decisions he made during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that played a principal role in averting a global nuclear war. Whomever you picked, chances are, those presidents likely did indeed do great things — created the conditions for our democracy, preserved the Union, averted nuclear war, etc.  But whoever were your top picks, it’s likely that your list represents only a fraction of the 44 U. S. presidents.    

That’s why leadership matters, above all else. 

As politics becomes more and more polarizing, and as Americans are moved further and further to extremes, there will be many who attempt to attach the “Great Man” theory to the Office of the President. 

But don’t fall for it.  For even a second.