TheMillerCircle.org

If you go to the Zogby electoral college polling data map , you can click on each state to see their polling numbers within that state, how tight the race is and the basis for putting the state’s electoral votes in one column or another. The Zogby approach to polling appeals to me because they generate more data, poll more people than most of the other popular polls, thus reducing their margin of error. Of course, these numbers can change dramatically in the weeks ahead and we will undoubtedly see a firmer trend line established after the conventions and particularly after Labor Day. Whether or not this is the last hurrah of the Reagan/Bush/Cheney/Rove/Faux News alignment that has so devastated this country, with its meaningless ideology and toxic corporatism, is largely in the hands of Obama. The Republicans have done almost everything they can to give the election to Obama and perhaps to also give political dominance to the Democrats if they can find their voice. That’s the question. If the Democrats spend their time trying to figure out how they can get back the people they lost before, like the Reagan Democrats, they will be lost, because if you posture yourself in the catch-up mode you expose yourself to ridicule and ineptitude of ideas. Winning politics is never a contest about catch-up. It’s a game about finding a vision to stir the country into an action. But the vision has to make sense. It has to resonate with what people feel is right or wrong about America. Yet, the one great thing about America that I am still hopeful about, is America’s capacity to re-invent itself, or at least to believe it is possible. This time around we can re-invent ourselves to save the planet we live on. That should work!

This election is obviously about very different views for America and about a very different set of attitudes towards government policies and public benefits. It will take an act of daringly bold political deftness to find the permanent fault line that can secure long-term stability. If we simply trade one party alternately with another, we will see the yo-yoing of America, with raveling and unraveling of government on alternate cycles, but with a firm trend which continues the road we have been on since Reagan: the highs get lower and the lows get lower. Somehow, the political leadership within the Democratic Party needs to find a way to break-up the red and blue state alignment. This can’t be subtle.

Perhaps Senator Jim Webb from Virginia has the right idea for political realignment. I think he might have a way to bring the vets, NASCAR types, hunters and former military people into the new fold. A bold idea to remake America, just as we had to do after the 1929 crash, but do so this time without a war and base it on an intelligent insight into what works best–affordable education and the elimination of Faux News: that should do for starters. Aren’t the NASCAR people suffering from high fuel prices? Shouldn’t their races of the future be structured to watch speeding solar-powered autos race around in a little circle, with little visuals showing the efficiency of the solar panels providing current to drive the little cars? Imagine the future NASCAR hero to be a nerd. Just a thought. But somewhere in there is a formula that should work. We have to find a way to get those that are on the outside of our culture to get pissed off and vote and then get an education that will get them somewhere. Right now, we have created a culture where a college education can just as easily be a bridge to nowhere as what Senator Stevens tried to build in Alaska.

RFM