Change We Can No Longer Believe In

June 22, 2008, 6:30 a.m.

And see further comment on the topic in Nicholas Johnson, "Holding Obama's Feet to the Fireside Chat," June 24, 2008.

Obama: No Longer "Change We Can Believe In"?
I really doubt that there will be many of Senator Barack Obama's supporters who will stay home, let alone vote for Senator John McCain, because of Obama's recent flip-flops on major issues. And apparently he's counting on that as well since he's just left $85 million of public money on the table.

But can he now continue to count on his supporters' continued financial support, and enthusiastic campaigning, between now and November? That has become more problematical.

As anecdotal evidence, a friend has shared with me an email she received from an Obama supporter in California that reported,

"Barack Obama owes me $600.43. I sent him my [federal government economic] stimulus rebate with the proviso that if he opted out of public finance he should return my contribution. I enclosed a self-addressed envelope with a 43 cent stamp attached."

Another friend who has been a nearly monthly contributor to Obama tells me she swears she's not sending him another dime -- as much because of Obama's switch on FISA as because of his switch on public finance.

At least a part of what brought out Obama's crowds of thousands, the new voters and contributors, and the enthusiasm of the young, was the Robert Kennedy-esque suggestion (some would say "promise") of a new kind of politics, "change we can believe in," the practical implementation of a bottom-up-community-organizing approach to national politics, a small-d democratic replacement for the "to-get-along-go-along" expediency, campaign-contributor-lobbyist-sub-government control, compromise-anything-and-everything-to-win, special privilege, and corporate welfare of which we've all grown cynical and disgusted.

The story is told of Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long that when asked by a staffer what he could tell some Baton Rouge constituents who had come to the governor's office to claim some of his campaign promises, he replied, "Tell them I lied."

Had Senator Obama presented himself as "just another conventional politician" he, too, could try telling his supporters that he lied, knowing that while they might be disappointed they could certainly not claim to be surprised.

After all, with Congress' approval ratings at an historic 18% low who could fairly claim to be surprised by anything a senator might have done?

But he has marketed himself as something more than that, something better than a conventional politician or manipulative "Pied Piper." So his every change in position, his every abandoned campaign promise, further alienates the supporters who are both disappointed and understandably surprised -- and when his behavior is repeated, ultimately discouraged, disaffected, distant and depressed.

After all, they were promised "Change We Can Believe In." In fact, you can still buy a fan with that message on it from the Obama "store" for $3.00. But the number of "fans" "buying" that slogan may be declining.

Because now, in the course of two or three days, Senator Obama's enthusiastic supporters are discovering that what he has been talking about is not "change we can believe in." We needn't characterize it with the "L" word; let's just say he "misspoke" when he pledged to use public financing to fund his campaign; when he said he opposed spying on Americans and granting immunity to the telephone companies which did so illegally; when he said he would eliminate taxes for the working poor and seniors earning under $50,000; when he said he opposed NAFTA.

If you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of other days between now and November 4. So stay tuned. Remain attentive.

And if you have been, or are still, an Obama supporter you might want to let him know how you feel about changes in the positions you thought you and he were supporting, positions that were important to you. Don't let him take your vote for granted. You know he's going to hear from the lobbyists and major campaign contributors -- regardless of what he says -- and he also needs to hear from you to keep it all in balance and remember who got him to where he is. You can email him here.

Meanwhile, here are brief excerpts from the media's reports regarding these four changes in which his supporters can no longer believe, plus excerpts from a David Brooks column, and my concluding thoughts along with a video of President Bush.

Public Financing of Campaigns

Sen. Barack Obama reversed his pledge to seek public financing in the general election yesterday, a move that drew criticism from adversaries and allies alike but could provide him with a significant spending advantage over Republican rival John McCain. . . .

"It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections," Obama said in a video message to supporters, circulated yesterday morning by his campaign. "But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system." . . .

In the hours after the announcement, McCain indicated he would consider forgoing public financing as well, but he later indicated that he will opt into the system. "We will take public financing," he said on the Straight Talk Express bus. Asked why, he said simply, "Because we decided to take public financing."

But earlier in the day the senator from Arizona lashed out at Obama. "This is a big, big deal," McCain told reporters . . .. "He has completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people." . . .

Yesterday, government watchdog groups expressed disappointment with Obama's move. Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook called $85 million "plenty of money" and warned that private funding -- even in the mostly small sums that Obama relies on -- "comes with the expectations of special access or favors." . . .

"Senator Obama knew the circumstances surrounding the presidential general election when he made his public pledge to use the system," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a co-sponsor of the [campaign finance reform] bill, called Obama's decision "a mistake" but added: "I look forward to working on this and a wide range of other reform issues with him when he becomes president." . . .

Although campaign finance issues rank low on lists of voter concerns, the McCain team pounced on Obama's move, along with his rejection of the 10 town hall meetings that McCain has proposed, as evidence that his claim to represent a "new politics" is empty rhetoric. The campaign circulated Obama quotes praising public financing and accused him of breaking his pledge to negotiate the issue with the GOP nominee. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers dismissed an account by Obama aides of recent talks between the two camps on the issue, saying it was "flat-out false."

"He's broken his word," said Charles R. Black Jr., a top McCain adviser. "He said he believes in the new politics; to me it sounds like the old politics. If you're going to change politics in America, that's a step backward." . . .

Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon Jr., "Obama to Reject Public Funds for Election," Washington Post, June 20, 2008, p. A1.

Spying on Americans: FISA

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Obama sought to walk the fine political line between GOP accusations that he is weak on foreign policy -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called passing the legislation a "vital national security matter" -- and alienating his base.

"Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program," Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.

This marks something of a reversal of Obama's position from an earlier version of the bill, which was approved by the Senate Feb. 12, when Obama was locked in a fight for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries," but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty."

Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) continue to oppose the new legislation, as does Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). All Obama backers in the primary, those senior lawmakers contend that the new version of the FISA law -- crafted after four months of intense negotiations between White House aides and congressional leaders -- provides insufficient court review of the pending 40 lawsuits against the telecommunications companies alleging privacy invasion for their participation in a warrantless wiretapping program after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. . . .

Paul Kane, "Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left," The Trail/Washington Post, June 20, 2008.

Tax Cuts

On the presidential campaign trail, Democrat Barack Obama promises to "completely eliminate" income taxes for millions of Americans, from low-income working families to senior citizens who earn less than $50,000 a year. . . .

To which the folks who monitor the nation's financial situation can only say: Good luck. Because, back in Washington, tax collections are slowing, the budget deficit is rising, and the national debt is approaching $10 trillion. Whoever wins the White House this fall, fiscal experts say, is likely to have a tough time enacting expensive new initiatives, be they tax cuts or health care reform. . . .

Meanwhile, the first baby boomers started receiving Social Security checks in January. Without major policy changes, Medicare and Medicaid are projected to devour half of all federal spending by 2050. But the more immediate problem is the depletion of excess cash in the Social Security trust fund, which has been used for years to cover a portion of the annual budget deficit. Government economists predict that the Social Security surplus will start shrinking in 2011 and dry up completely by the end of the next decade, exposing government-wide budget deficits of a magnitude not seen since Bush's first term.

In a new paper titled "Facing the Music: The Fiscal Outlook at the End of the Bush Administration," University of California at Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach and two co-authors from the Brookings Institution conclude that, if spending grows at historic rates, simply keeping the Bush tax cuts and halting the spread of the AMT [alternative minimum tax] would drive the budget deficit to $481 billion by the end of the next president's first term, or 2.7 percent of the economy. Subtract the cash borrowed from Social Security and other retirement funds, and it would be $796 billion, or 4.4 percent of GDP.

"It's a train wreck," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), a member of the House Budget Committee. "The government is making promises to people right now it knows it can't keep. And you have some candidates piling more promises on top, which are clearly unfulfillable."

Former House Budget Committee chairman Leon Panetta, who served as President Bill Clinton's first budget director, said the financial situation is "much worse" than it was in 1993, when Clinton was forced to abandon promises of a middle-class tax cut before he took office. Instead, Clinton wound up devoting his first State of the Union address to a plan that aimed to tame rising deficits with one of the largest tax hikes in history.

"It's worse because there are a huge number of crises out there that are going to confront the new president," Panetta said, . . .. The likelihood is that it's going to get worse. And the fundamental problem has been that there's very little willpower by Republicans or Democrats to confront the issue." . . .

Obama has not made balanced budgets a priority. Instead, he promises numerous tax cuts likely to make the situation worse, including subsidies for education, child care, homeownership, "savers" and people who work. Obama also vows to extend the Bush tax cuts for families who earn less than $250,000 a year. According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of Brookings and the Urban Institute, his tax plans would deprive the Treasury of nearly $900 billion in his first term, and increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion by 2018. . . .

The analysis also excludes a possible reduction in corporate tax rates, which Obama first mentioned in an interview this week with the Wall Street Journal. . . .

"They're promising the world with ways to pay for it that are really suspect," Bob Williams, one of the authors of the Tax Policy Center study, said . . ..

Lori Montgomery, "Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities; New President Won't Have an Easy Time Paying for New Initiatives, Fiscal Experts Say," Washington Post, June 21, 2008, p. A1.

NAFTA

OTTAWA — American presidential hopeful Barack Obama appears to have moderated his opposition to NAFTA just ahead of Republican rival John McCain’s extraordinary visit to Canada to praise the trade pact.

Obama, who said in March he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement if he’s elected, said he might have gone too far.

"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," the Democratic nominee told Fortune magazine in an interview.

Were his attacks on NAFTA a product of that brand of campaign posturing?

"Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself," he answered.

The admission was published shortly before McCain was expected to pour unvarnished praise on NAFTA, drawing a clear distinction between America’s two combatants for the White House. . . .

North American free trade and Canada played a pivotal role in at least one state — Ohio — during the U.S. primaries.

A Canadian government memo written after a meeting with an Obama adviser suggested the Democrat’s biting opposition to the pact was rooted in politics that would not blossom into policy if Obama becomes president.

That memo was leak to The Associated Press and many of Obama’s own supporters believe it cost him the Ohio primary, which was won by Hillary Clinton.

The Canadian Press, "Obama Softens Stance on NAFTA," The ChronicleHerald [Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada], June 20, 2008.

David Brooks

Although you may find it hard to believe, it really is the case that it was only after I had written and assembled the material above that I came upon David Brooks column of June 20. You should read the entirety of it. It makes what I wrote look like the chants of an Obama cheerleader by contrast. Brooks may be a conservative, but he's my kind of conservative: normally much more both "fair" and "balanced," as well as reasonable, informed and soft spoken, than the network that markets itself with that claim. Here are some excerpts:

Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside. . . .

[O]n Thursday [June 19], Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now. . . .

If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? . . .

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades.

David Brooks, "The Two Obamas," New York Times, June 20, 2008.

Concluding Thoughts

Senator Obama and his staff should reflect on these reactions -- and the fact that Senator Clinton has only "suspended" her campaign. He's not yet the nominee, and super delegates can change their votes at any time.

Nor is the only rational response for Obama supporters to suddenly drop him like last week's moldy pizza as a result of these recent flip-flops. He may not be all they thought -- and he promised -- and still be head and shoulders above the mediocre, far better than merely the "least-worst" alternative.

But meanwhile, what are voters in general, and Senator Obama supporters in particular, to make of this behavior? Should they assume that these will be the only four shifts in position, that he is really, deep down inside, the same person he represented himself to be, the same person they believed in? Or should they ask, with David Brooks, "If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out?"

Or is the lesson a much more serious and depressing one? Should they listen much more closely to the lyrics from the 1951 film, Royal Wedding (starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell), "How Could You Believe Me When I Told You that I Loved You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life." Not because of Senator Obama, but because of politics and life in general. Will it always (or virtually always) be the case that offerings of "hope" and promises of "change" -- regardless of context -- are, like the enticement of winning the lottery, as ephemeral and short-lived as the morning fog on a hot summer's day?

There are many contexts and stories leading to the punch line, or "lesson," "Don't ever trust anyone, not even your own father." Is that the great lesson of the Obama campaign? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Or, as President George Bush puts it, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."



Sadly, we can get fooled again -- and again, and again, and again.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli's famous works, The Prince and The Discourses, were published in 1531, four years after his death, and have been read -- and to some extent followed -- by most politicians since. Is it perhaps the case that politics can't be changed? That it has always been thus? Do we have nearly 500 years of history to warn us that the "change we can believe in" was inherently unbelievable?

No, there have been changes, some improvements, and there can be more. But we must work for them -- with or without a President Obama. The changes will only, can only, have only, come from the peoples' sustained efforts.

"When the people lead, their leaders will follow." It's up to us to lead, not to look to the rear of our marching ranks in search of our "leader."

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State29; CEOs, Toys and Trade

August 15, 2007, 10:10, 11:30 a.m.

Welcome Back State29!

You have no idea how lonesome it can get trying to protect the taxpayers from public officials' gifts of our money, ostensibly collected for public projects, being given away to the wealthy owners of for-profit private enterprises (or, like the rain forest, for contributors' pet projects). I've already announced my intention to campaign against the election or re-election of any Iowa City City Council candidates who have voted for such giveaways, or who indicate they intend to persist in this practice. Nicholas Johnson, "They're Back: The Terrible TIFs" in "The Terrible TIFs," July 26, 2007.

For the past month, while State29 was taking a well-deserved breather from this tough life we lead as bloggers, I was going it alone. Now he (or she?; "he's" still anonymous) is back at it. Check it out: http://state29.blogspot.com.

(You -- and he -- might also want to read, in this connection, Nicholas Johnson, "Copyright, Fair Use, and Blogging" in "Copyright, Fair Use, Blogging & Other Items," July 13, 2007.)

CEOs, Toys and Trade

Yesterday I suggested that one of the reasons for paying CEOs some 450 times what is paid their employees is that we are hiring their valuable ability to anticipate risks and rewards long before they arrive. Under the category of employee and customer "safety" comes the exploration, in advance, of the range of imaginable harms. It's not enough that they wait for the damage to occur first and then appoint a committee, or otherwise then decide to address the problem. When an institution is blindsided with unanticipated damage it is, in my judgment, a reflection of the CEO's failure to earn his or her pay. They haven't done what they were hired to do.

I contrasted this with a CEO's failure to act, to remove a safety hazard, once the damage has already once occurred. And I used as examples the Utah coal miners (in a stretch of the mine that had already once collapsed), the bridge in Minneapolis (identified as having problems over 10 years ago), and the broken tiles on the NASA shuttle (following a prior occurrence of similar damage that led to the death of seven astronauts). As a friend suggested to me after that blog entry, that's not just nonfeasance, that should be treated as criminal behavior.

Nicholas Johnson, "Failure to Learn from Our Mistakes" in "Mason's Home Run," August 14, 2007.

What I should have included in my list, but didn't (my only excuse is that the best story is in today's New York Times) is the Mattel toy story: 19 million toys recalled. Louise Story and David Barboza, "Mattel Recalls 19 Million Toys Sent from China," New York Times, August 15, 2007.

"Quality control" is not a new concept. Manufacturers use it in all their factories, wherever they are. It's especially important in the toy business -- for precisely the reasons the industry is now confronting: wary parents may be more reluctant to buy toys this coming holiday season. It's a double psychological whammy when you spend more than you should for a toy for your kid -- because you love and care for him or her and are hoping to increase their happiness (or education) -- and it ends up killing or injuring him or her.

You've got to hand it to Mattel. Their public relations firms are really doing a job for them -- up to and including pro-Mattel statements from the negligent, pro-business "Consumer Product Safety Commission." Few tell the story without adding what a wonderful company Mattel is and how confident parents can be when they continue to buy Mattel's toys. (Even the Times story quotes S. Prakash Sethi, a professor at Baruch College, “If Mattel, with all of its emphasis on quality and testing, found such a widespread problem, what do you think is happening in the rest of the toy industry. . .?")

Mattel's CEO, Robert A. Eckert, should have had procedures in place to check for such problems long before there were toy recalls on toys from China. At some point, it was a new source of supply. Any business, but especially a toy company, using a new source of supply would want to give special attention not only to costs, and consistency of quality, but also the safety of the products. Why did Mattel not do so?

Nor did the inspections need to rely on really creative brainstorming as to possible problems to look for (although that also should have been done). The dangers to children from lead, and the presence of lead in paints, has long been known. The dangers to children from small objects in toys (in this case small magnets, which are even worse -- especially when a child swallows two that hold together in the intestine) are also well known.

The publicists are pushing this as a "China" story -- clearly suggesting there is something immoral or unethical about their manufacturing processes. Mattel -- and other American corporations -- can't get off that easily.

1. As the Times also quotes Professor Sethi as saying, “there is something to be said about the pressure that American and European and multinational companies put on Chinese companies to supply cheap products. The operating margins are razor thin, so you really should not be surprised that there is pressure to cut corners.”

2. The Times reports that "About 65 percent of Mattel’s toys are made in China, some in five factories the company owns and operates there." Clearly, if Mattel "owns and operates" the factories -- regardless of where they are located -- it cannot blame "the Chinese" for defective and dangerous toys. I can't imagine Toyota excusing some defect in its cars because they were manufactured in an auto plant which, though owned by the Japanese firm, was located in the United States.

3. As for the hazardous little magnets, as the the Times reports, yes "The magnetized toys were also made in China, but they followed a Mattel design specification." The firm sure can't blame the Chinese for dangerous hazards to children from toys designed by Mattel and manufactured by a Chinese firm strictly complying with those designs and directions. That's one that Mattel sure should have caught -- right here in the good old U.S. of A.

Knowing that 80 percent or more of the world's toys are manufactured in China (65 percent of those sold by Mattel) American toy wholesalers and retailers should have taken, at a minimum, the same proactive, preventative steps they would have applied to a new American manufacturing plant. Given that this was a supply from another country, operating under a different culture, laws and regulations, those efforts should have been at least doubled.

But in fact this did not require any really creative thinking prior to any warnings.

We have already had case after case of problems with the safety of products imported from China: tires, pet food, human food and drugs. But that's not all. There were prior cases of unsafe toys as well.

And so it is that, alas, we must consider the possibility that the CEO's failure in this instance is not mere nonfeasance -- a failure to do the anticipation for which he is being paid the big bucks -- but a criminal malfeasance, a failure to act, knowing of the potential safety risks, after having been put on notice of the risk. It is, in short, another example to be listed along with the Minneapolis bridge, Utah coal mine, and NASA's defective heat shield tiles.

But there are bigger issues here as well involving foreign trade and offshore operations.

One of the objections raised to the WTO and NAFTA is that while they take very good care of American corporations' opportunities for ever-greater profits, they did so while ignoring the rights and needs of employees (e.g., low wages, long hours, abusive conditions, child labor, and so forth) -- abroad as well as here -- and the adverse impact on the environment in other countries (ultimately affecting us as well) of their use of practices that would have violated U.S. law.

Offshore corporations and banking enabled them to avoid U.S. taxes (not that corporate taxes amounted to much after their lobbyists had worked over Congress). Offshore manufacturing enabled them to avoid U.S. labor and environmental laws.

And now, it turns out, offshore manufacturing has also enabled them to avoid U.S. consumer protection standards (in this case for rather small and defenseless consumers).

In the case of the Mattel toys, many were manufactured in plants in China owned by Mattel. Clearly, the company should be responsible for the quality of the products manufactured in their own plants and then marketed to American children (fully capable of manipulating their parents into purchasing them).

But I think we should look behind mere ownership. Whether you call it "ownership," "outsourcing" or Tom Friedman's "in-sourcing," in practical effect these Chinese manufacturing firms -- of whatever product -- are essentially subsidiary corporations of American corporations and should be treated as such for purposes of complying with American law.

Talk all you want about "marketplace regulation" and "self-regulation," the responsibilities of parents, and caveat emptor, we are now talking about dangers to American children for which virtually no American parent, however much they apply a caveat, can test and prevent. There are some points at which ever-escalating profits must stop and public responsibility must start. This is one of them.

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