Just One More Day

I was reading a post that Elizabeth at A moon, worn as if it had been a shell wrote today about getting into an online Facebook tiff and I thought about how today I didn't want any negativity.

I intentionally shied away from blogs with any kind of sour grapes about the election. On Tuesday as we watched the returns come in, Scott and I drank champagne and I cried and then cried some more as we watched history happening and people celebrating all over the world and I didn't want anything to rain on that feeling. Every time I saw a clip of people in another country celebrating with us, I had that crazy Sally Field at the Oscars sensation of "they like us! they really like us!", unlike that uncomfortable -- I think I'll pretend I'm Canadian when I'm in Europe -- feeling I've had since 2003.

Paul Begala on CNN made a funny comment a few days ago as the McCain campaign seemed to be crumbling before our eyes. He said something to the effect that when liberals lose, they go off to a yurt somewhere, smoke a bunch of dope and ponder what went wrong. Conservatives get into a knife fight.

He's right. I can remember sort of quietly going off to a corner and licking my wounds when Bush won the last two elections and I don't remember lashing out. I think most of us just sighed, shrugged our shoulders and got on with it.

There has never been an election where the people -- we the people -- felt so empowered and celebrated the election of a leader the way we did Tuesday night. For each snarky comment I glimpsed and then refused to read or acknowledge on Wednesday, I had the image of that crabby old man at the end of every episode of Scooby Doo who'd shake his fist in angry frustration -- if it wasn't for those meddling kids!

People are bound to be disappointed as we enter this new and difficult era and mistakes are bound to be made, but I have faith unlike any I've ever had before and for the first time in my life as an American I feel like I'm finally part of a "we". An unprecedented number of us made this happen. I hope the people who are unhappy about the election results will eventually understand that they are a part of "us" and our collective arms are wide open.

Yeah, I sound pretty sappy right now, which isn't like me, but I'm going with it. It feels good to shed eight years of cynicism.

Ten Years Ago, I Wouldn't Have Believed You

I've always had a low tolerance for conspiracy theories, wild internet rumors and the idea that anyone would intentionally disrupt our democratic process. I didn't pay enough attention to what really happened after the 2000 election. This year, I've been following everything and there is no doubt in my mind that the record efforts to register new voters and to encourage maximum participation in this election are aggressively being countered by attempts to disenfranchise voters and purge the rolls.

It happened here in Colorado and it's happening in other battleground states.

Please vote and please be vigilant. Know your rights and understand that there are people out there who are working around the clock to impede our voting rights. This isn't paranoia, it's real.

Please Don't Turn Away From This

We have all been preoccupied with the recent disaster on Wall Street and in trying to second guess what our government will do to try to mitigate the damage. Prior to recent events, both candidates focused a great deal of time talking about alternative forms of energy and the need to break our dependence on oil, both foreign and domestic. The candidates have talked about the things that matter to us here. They've talked about health care, the unemployment rate and education.

I have been surprised that going into this election, the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not the greatest concern of Americans.

And with the exception of a brief exchange on the use of torture during the debate on Friday, I have been shocked that more Americans have not demanded a commitment from the Presidential Candidates to end all torture including water boarding, to end the practice of extraordinary rendition and the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center.

When I was stationed in Germany, I took a train ride to Dachau and I toured the Nazi concentration camp there. Most of the original structures had been destroyed, and a few replicas stood in their place. Some crematory ovens remain. The iron gates with the adage "Arbeit Macht Frei" remain. A memorial museum houses thousands of artifacts from the millions who were exterminated: prisoner uniforms, the clothing of men, women and children, and thousands of photographs documenting the incarceration and murder of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and others.

I gasped out loud and I cried the first time I saw the photographs from Abu Ghraib. My mind immediately went to the photographs I saw that day at the Nazi death camp. But these were Americans standing over the naked, beaten, humiliated bodies of other human beings. It was 2004.

None of us knew then what we know now.

When you think about all of the issues that are important to you before you cast your ballot, please think about what America once represented to the rest of the world. Think about the position of moral superiority we, as Americans have always felt when we looked at the inhuman practices and human rights violations we know exist in other, less civilized countries.

The America I was born into does not torture other human beings, nor does it incarcerate them indefinitely without charge.

Please review where your candidate stands on these issues before you cast your ballot.

The following analysis was taken from Citizens for Global Solutions:

ANALYSIS: Obama vs. McCain on Torture

Josh Rovenger
May 29, 2008

(This is the second in a series of papers analyzing the global and foreign policy views of the presumptive presidential nominees and how each candidate may govern as our nation’s next president.)

It’s become quite apparent that Senator Barack Obama is going to do whatever he can to link Senator John McCain to the Bush administration. Obama has labeled the Iraq War, the president’s economic policies, and the president’s foreign policy perspective as the ‘Bush-McCain War’, the ‘Bush-McCain tax cuts’ and the ‘Bush-McCain worldview’, respectively. However, given McCain’s history as a legislature on the issue of torture, and his experience in Vietnam, conventional wisdom would suggest that Obama is going to have a much harder time tying McCain and Bush together on this issue.

The past seven years have been marked by an administration willing to depart from long-standing precedents. While torture has been continuously condemned in this country, the president has virtually sanctioned it. The Bush administration has denied basic legal rights and treatment to detainees at Guantanamo, has approved tougher interrogation techniques towards suspected terrorists and has overseen the brutal treatment of prisoners at prisons such as Abu Ghraib. The administration has also initiated an extraordinary rendition program in which suspected terrorists are sent to countries specifically known for their harsher interrogation techniques. In fact, Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog organization, recently released a scathing report criticizing the administration for not closing down Guantanamo and its failure to ban all torture.

Although Obama and McCain may be closer to one another on the issue than either is to the president, upon further analysis it becomes clear that Obama is going to have a much easier time framing the issue in his favor. Thus far, he has targeted the current president’s policies as fundamentally unacceptable, while McCain has had to walk a fine line, balancing his loyalty to the GOP, his party’s current president and his own personal views and experiences.

On one hand, Barack Obama has consistently made clear that if he’s elected, “we’ll reject torture-without exception or equivocation.” This includes “ending the practice of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.” If his rhetoric is any indication of his policies, he is likely to reverse the actions of the Bush administration. He would reject the practice of torture as policy, and his “administration will close down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.” The only question that arises on Obama’s position is what his reaction would be in a highly pressured situation. “Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals and emergency situations that I will make that judgment at that time.” Ultimately though, he argues “what we cannot do is have the President of the United States state, as a matter of policy, that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture.”

On the other hand, McCain has historically been one of the staunchest advocates against torture. Although he can claim some success, as of late he’s been placed on the defensive. For instance, in 2005, he spear-headed a successful challenge to President Bush by garnering support for the Detainee Treatment Act. The amendment ensured that “no person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.” Although the legislation does not mention water boarding specifically, McCain has continuously indicated his belief that it is an illegal interrogation method for any governmental agency.

His position seemed even clearer in the 2007 primary debate season when he was the sole dissenter who claimed that, “We do not torture people. It’s not about the terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are.” On a practical level he added, “The more physical pain you inflict on someone, the more they’re going to tell you what they think you want to know.” As for Guantanamo Bay he has said, “I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.”

Questions about his position have arisen because of his decision this February to vote against, and support the President’s veto of, legislation that would have applied the army field manual standards to the CIA. This legislation would have limited the CIA’s ability to use controversial interrogation techniques. “I believe that our energies are better directed at ensuring that all techniques, whether used by the military or the CIA, are in full compliance with out international obligations and in accordance with our deepest values. What we need is not to tie the CIA to the army field manual but rather to have a good faith interpretation of the statutes that guide what is permissible in the CIA program.”

McCain should reconsider his position on this issue. Regardless of whether McCain was correct in his analysis, the real meaning of the vote was its potential symbolism as a challenge to the president’s position on torture. The bill arose after mounting criticism towards the president’s stance on water boarding and acted as a manifestation of this criticism. A vote for the legislation represented a rejection of the president’s position, while a vote against it represented nothing more than a capitulation. While McCain’s position may be coherent and quite nuanced, he would serve his values better by reconsidering the decision he made and incorporating the policy into his platform.

Citizens for Global Solutions believes that torture, in any situation, is fundamentally averse to this country’s deeply rooted values and to the fundamental rights of all humans. It also tremendously weakens our standing and leadership capabilities in the international community. As such, both candidates should continue to speak out against the status quo, and should agree to create an independent bipartisan commission on torture and U.S. interrogation policy to fully dissect and ameliorate the current problems. Obama has said that he would consider such a commission but believes, “we already know how detention and interrogation policy should be handled.” He voted favorably in the 109th Congress to an amendment that would have created a national commission on policies and practices on the treatment of detainees since September 11th, 2001. McCain’s position is not as clear, as he did not vote on the measure, nor has he signified his desire for the creation of such a commission. While the two candidates may not agree on everything in regards to this issue, they come a lot closer to one another than either does to the current president."

Great Tool for Comparing Health Care Plans and a Chance to Help a Stranger

For those of you who are trying to research the issues related to the upcoming Presidential election, I've stumbled on tool that you may find helpful. The web site Health08.org has a wealth of data including each candidate's positions, speeches, videos, podcasts and news as they relate to health care.

Most useful, there is an interactive tool that allows a side by side comparison of the Presidential candidates on key health care issues.

Whatever your views are and whichever candidate you favor, please be informed and take the time to make sure your candidate's views represent you.

Campaign ads and sound bites on television aren't enough.

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While I'm on the subject of health care, everyone's favorite anonymous New York editor, Moonrat of Editorial Ass is sponsoring a very important raffle. Read more here:

"Dear Beloved Blogging Fellows,

Recently, a friend of mine was diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma. She is only 28 and is fighting back hard, but her valor is frustrated by the fact that she has no insurance. Medicaid will be kicking in for her in about a month, but in the meantime there are some hurdles that nothing will help her get over but money.

Of course, there are lots of benefits and pots for me to throw money in. Alas... I work in publishing and have no money. I was bemoaning this to my darling Ello, and she thought of this fantastic idea: I should raffle off my editorial services. So that's what we're going to try here.

Raffle!!

Prizes available:

-One winner: A full manuscript evaluation (up to 120,000 words)*
-One winner: A partial manuscript evaluation (up to 50 page)*
-One winner: A query letter and revised query letter critique*
-Five winners: A choice from select titles in Moonrat's library, which will be mailed with a love letter from Moonrat, who enjoys writing love letters
I've started this new, temporary blog to host a raffle for my friend. You can buy tickets, check the donation log, and see how much progress has been made on each of the raffled lots here.

*please note: these are critiques with an eye toward editorial suggestions, and will in no way be considered submissions to me or my company

General Guidelines (and my very best attempts to make the whole process honest and transparent)

-The raffle will run between now, Tuesday, September 30th, and 8 pm on Tuesday, October 7th, when lots will be drawn.

-Winners will be announced (or their anonymous IDs, if they prefer) on Editorial Ass no later than 11:59 pm on Tuesday, October 7th.

-Prizes have no expiration date--you can ask for your prize redemption anytime between now and, well, I guess 2020.

-Turnaround time for prize redemption is 2 weeks (i.e. if you send me your manuscript on the 1st of November, I'll need until the 15th to get you my comments).

-All prizes are transferable. If you do not have a query letter that needs critiquing but you have a friend who does, you can gift your winning prize on your friend.

-On top of the instant confirmation email from PayPal, you will receive a confirmation email from me by midnight on the calendar day on which you purchased your raffle ticket. My email to you will include your lot number(s).

-On my end, lot numbers will be written on highly scientific bits of paper, which will be dropped into one of four of the rally monkey's highly scientific baseball hats. Lots will be drawn from each hat at 8 pm on Tuesday, October 7.

-You will have the option to purchase raffle tickets under your real name or an anonymous ID. You may specify a code name or number upon receiving my confirmation email.

-I've opened a PayPal account, which will allow you and me both to maintain our identities. PayPal is free for you and only charges me $.30 and 3% off each transaction.

-All raffle ticket purchasers will be fully and publicly disclosed for accountability purposes. At midnight each day the raffle is active, the names (or anonymous IDs, if you choose not to have your name listed) of all the people who purchased raffle tickets for a particular lot will be listed in separate recorded posts. When you buy a raffle ticket, please check the name roster the next day to make sure your name is up. If it's not, email me ASAP at moonratty@gmail.com and we'll straighten it out.

-Again, for accountability, I have opened up a separate bank account that will receive nothing but PayPal payments for this one raffle. A record of the balance will be available for anyone who requests it. The entire account will be emptied at the end of the raffle, and our proud balance will be prominently displayed on Ed Ass.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything. If I have left any stones unturned, please drop me a note or comment and I will amend this record ASAP.

I will leave this post floating at the top of my blog for the next week. New posts will appear below it. All regularly scheduled publication will carry on as it always does!

Please, please tell your friends.

The Mischief Fights Cancer"

The direct link to The Mischief Fights Cancer is here. For readers and writers alike, this is an excellent opportunity to enter a raffle and help a very young woman who has no health insurance and who could be any one of us. At the same time, this is an opportunity to win some very valuable prizes.

For those of you who believe in the power of prayer, please include this young lady in yours.

A Question on the Bailout

Just out of curiosity -- do you think Congress should vote to pass the $700B bailout? I have my own opinion on this and apparently there is a great deal of disagreement among the constituents and elected officials. What do you think? If you think yes, why and if you think no, why?

This has is a totally non-election related, non-partisan question.

Demand the Debate -- Please?

And an update to the post -- the debate will take place as scheduled, according to an announcement from John McCain's campaign: http://tinyurl.com/4shldm

We interrupt my obsession with books other people write and the collection of words I call my work in progress for this plea from Democracy in Action. This is actually the second such petition I've received in so many days about the debate scheduled to take place tomorrow (Friday). Regardless of which candidate you support and in particular, for those who are undecided, the Presidential debates are a long-standing part of our democratic process and I urge everyone to watch them. The debates are the first real opportunity we get to see the candidates address the issues and express their similarities and differences in an environment that's arguably controlled and where the playing field is level. I'm passing on this petition to demand (well, I'd request but that's just the way I am) that the debate take place tomorrow, as scheduled:

In the last 24 hours, more than 6,500 people have signed "Demand the Debate," asking the Commission on Presidential Debates and both Senators Obama and McCain to commence with Friday's scheduled debate. Can you tell everyone you know to join you and sign this petition?

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5583/t/3369/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=241

Tomorrow we're going to deliver your petition to the Commission on Presidential Debates in person (and to the Obama and McCain campaigns electronically), but we need to get as many signatures as we can.

Please ask your friends, family, and neighbors and co-workers to sign our petition by 11am on Friday. Click here to use our tell-a-friend tool to send our petition to people you know:

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5583/t/3369/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=241

Scott and I plan to go to Scott's Dad's house tomorrow night, order some pizza and watch the action.

How about you? How many people plan to watch? Does anyone plan to watch with other people?

Odds and Ends:

On the subject of debate, there is a great HBO documentary on high school debating, called "Resolved". Scott and I saw this a couple of months ago. From HBO's website:

"Through the stories of two debate teams, the fascinating intricacies of high school debate give way to a portrait of the equally complex racial and class divide in American education in Resolved. As Matt and Sam, gifted debaters from an affluent Texas suburb, rise to the semifinals in their bid to win the national Tournament of Champions, Richard and Louis, talented inner-city debaters from Long Beach, CA, mount a successful challenge to modern debate by refocusing on personal experience and dialogue in their own quest for the championship. This 90-minute film offers a verité, behind-the-scenes look at the stresses and pressures of this highly competitive pursuit, while serving as a primer on the idiosyncratic techniques that have evolved over the years in high-school policy debate. Inspiring and enlightening, Resolved reveals a constantly shifting sport that is as much philosophy as it is a competition."

It's an incredible piece of film work, and high school debate has evolved into something I had no idea existed. Watch it if you get a chance. Watch the trailer here.

HBO is on a roll with good documentaries. Airing now is The Black List. Here's the HBO synopsis:

"Part of a multimedia initiative, The Black List: Volume One is the brainchild of renowned portrait photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and acclaimed NPR radio host, journalist and former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, with Greenfield-Sanders directing and Mitchell conducting the interviews. Mitchell, by design, is never seen on camera or heard, a strategy that allows the subjects' own voices to remain the focus. The actual title of the film itself, The Black List, was first conceived by Mitchell as an answer to the persistent taint that western culture has applied to the word 'black.'

The Black List's interviewees come from a diverse collection of disciplines from the worlds of the arts, sports, politics, business and government, and include, in order of appearance: Slash, former Guns N' Roses guitarist; Toni Morrison, author and Nobel laureate; Keenen Ivory Wayans, film writer/director, creator of TV's In Living Color; Vernon Jordan, lawyer and former president of the National Urban League; Faye Wattleton, current President of the Center for the Advancement of Women and former President of Planned Parenthood; Marc Morial, former Mayor of New Orleans and current National Urban League president; Serena Williams, eight-time Grand Slam tennis champion; Lou Gossett Jr., Oscar®-winning actor; Lorna Simpson, artist and photographer; Mahlon Duckett, former Negro League Baseball star; Zane, best-selling erotic author and publisher; Al Sharpton, pastor, activist and 2004 Presidential candidate; Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, Hall of Fame basketball great; Thelma Golden, art curator at the Whitney Museum and now the Studio Museum in Harlem; Sean Combs, mogul, actor and music producer; Susan Rice, former Assistant Secretary of State and Barack Obama's senior campaign advisor; Chris Rock, comedian, producer and director; Suzan-Lori Parks, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; Richard Parsons, former Time Warner CEO; Dawn Staley, 3- time Olympic gold medalist, WNBA All-Star and current Temple University women's basketball head coach; and Bill T. Jones, Tony Award-winning dancer and director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. "

The Black List had a profound impact on me. We're still struggling to deal with race in America. White America doesn't much discuss it outside of close knit circles. It makes us uncomfortable. The prevailing attitudes are either that it's not a problem anymore and we're past it, we're in denial and claim to be "color blind", or we want race to no longer be an issue, but we know it is and we don't know what, if anything we can do about it. I suppose there are other conversations that go on that I don't have any insight into. Racists tend to keep to themselves with their views, unless they're part of extremist groups that like to go public.

These short vignettes from well-known African Americans shed some light into the African American experience in a way that's rarely seen by the average white American or maybe in a way that's rarely been seen by anyone. My cable company has The Black List available "on demand" right now. See the clip in the Making of the Black List here. Video out-takes, including one from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison are here.

Let me know if you've seen either of these excellent documentaries. What did you think?

And here's an amazing thing called The Wisdom Project. Watch it. You'll be glad you did.

I'll end by sharing Leo Kottke Radio, one of my Pandora radio stations. I'd give anything to see how he does what he does with only two hands.

We Want to Drill, Why?

When I saw the throngs at the RNC chanting "drill, baby drill", I thought maybe somebody had slipped some acid in my bottled water and I was hallucinating. There was a lot of talk about new domestic drilling, but somehow I'd missed the punchline and I wasn't able to fathom what the motivation was.

I think we all agree on three things about our use of oil:

1. We'd like to end our dependence on the import of foreign oil for geo-political reasons
2. We'd like to end our dependence on oil in order to minimize the effect on the environment of both carbon emissions and the ecological damage that new drilling may cause
3. Petroleum based products have gotten very expensive

So what do people think that new offshore drilling projects will accomplish in the same amount of time that the pursuit of cleaner, more efficient sources of energy won't? All I can imagine is that there is a large group of people who think domestic drilling will decrease the price of gas at the pump. I hope that's not what they think, but here's an article from Time Business and Technology from back in June of this year on the subject:

"On Wednesday morning President George W. Bush urged Congress to overturn a 26-year ban on offshore oil drilling in the U.S. and open a part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to petroleum exploration. Flanked by the secretaries of Energy and the Interior, Bush also proposed streamlining the construction process for new oil refineries, and explained that these moves would 'take pressure off gas prices over time by expanding the amount of American-made oil and gasoline.' Coming a day after Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain made a similar appeal to enhance domestic oil exploration, Bush was sending an unsubtle election-year message to the American public: I care about the economic toll of $4-a-gallon gas, and Democrats in Congress, who have opposed such an expansion, don't.

But there's a flaw in that logic: even if tomorrow we opened up every square mile of the outer continental shelf to offshore rigs, even if we drilled the entire state of Alaska and pulled new refineries out of thin air, the impact on gas prices would be minimal and delayed at best. A 2004 study by the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that drilling in ANWR would trim the price of gas by 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027. (If oil prices continue to skyrocket, the savings would be greater, but not by much.) Opening up offshore areas to oil exploration — currently all coastal areas save a section of the Gulf of Mexico are off-limits, thanks to a congressional ban enacted in 1982 and supplemented by an executive order from the first President Bush — might cut the price of gas by 3 to 4 cents a gallon at most, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. And the relief at the pump, such as it is, wouldn't be immediate — it would take several years, at least, for the oil to begin to flow, which is time enough for increased demand from China, India and the rest of the world to outpace those relatively meager savings. 'Right now the price of oil is set on the global market,' says Kevin Lindemer, executive managing director of the energy markets group for the research firm Global Insight. President Bush's move 'would not have an impact.'"Continue reading here.

You can read about John McCain's Energy Plan here and Barack Obama's Energy Plan here.

To drill or not to drill really depends on how committed the country is to conservation and to a transition to renewable energy. Today, 20% of our electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. There are already something like 120 of them in operation in the United States. In the thirty years since the last nuclear power plant was built, there have been a lot of improvements to the technology and to safety. Nuclear power is in widespread use around the world and the technology already exists. Other types of energy are in various stages of development, but by focusing on sustainable forms of energy, we not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil and our dangerous emissions, but we create new jobs and industry.

Can we agree that we need to take action now, and if so, what do you think we should do to address this problem? Is there a point I'm missing about drilling?

* * *

Okay, it's Monday evening and I've let myself become obsessed with the election issues. Tomorrow, I will not Twitter, I will not blog, I will not surf the headlines or conduct any more research. I will not return until I've hit at least 53,000 words on my manuscript.

I hope those of you who are more accustomed to hearing me blather about books and writing and other miscellaneous neuroses will weather this period with me and I hope you're talking about these issues too, whether online or in the privacy of your own homes.

I hope to be back by Thursday with another 2,200 words of gibberish completed. Wish me luck.

Over and out.

"It's the economy, stupid"

From Wikipedia:

"'It's the economy, stupid' was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush. For a time, Bush was considered unbeatable because of foreign policy developments such as the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War. The phrase, coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville, refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession."

This phrase has been running through my mind, and I understand the context, but I've never understood the economy, which makes me feel just a little stupid since it's the issue that pollsters believe matters most in the election.

To me, and I suspect to most Americans, "the economy", how it all works, how tax cuts, increases, subsidies, rebates, interest rates, new jobs, productivity, the unemployment rate, etc. all factor into how financially secure we all feel is a big black hole of voodoo. Consequently, the surface level sound bites on what each candidate plans to do don't mean much without a little education.

Last night I read an article by David Leonhardt wrote for New York Times Magazine, called How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on Economy. It was published on August 24th and it's fourteen printed pages long, but it's the best primer I've found on the economy, the history of how recent administrations have approached and impacted it and Barack Obama's economic plan. The author discussed Obama's plan with the candidate at length and consulted with leading economists. The McCain plan is also addressed, although the author felt it didn't have a sufficient level of detail for an in-depth analysis, beyond stating that it will be a fairly similar approach to the current administration's.

"As Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic nomination this week, it is clear that the economic policies of the next president are going to be hugely important. Ever since Wall Street bankers were called back from their vacations last summer to deal with the convulsions in the mortgage market, the economy has been lurching from one crisis to the next. The International Monetary Fund has described the situation as “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression.” The details are too technical for most of us to understand. (They’re too technical for many bankers to understand, which is part of the problem.) But the root cause is simple enough. In some fundamental ways, the American economy has stopped working.

The fact that the economy grows — that it produces more goods and services one year than it did in the previous one — no longer ensures that most families will benefit from its growth. For the first time on record, an economic expansion seems to have ended without family income having risen substantially. Most families are still making less, after accounting for inflation, than they were in 2000. For these workers, roughly the bottom 60 percent of the income ladder, economic growth has become a theoretical concept rather than the wellspring of better medical care, a new car, a nicer house — a better life than their parents had.

Americans have still been buying such things, but they have been doing so with debt. A big chunk of that debt will never be repaid, which is the most basic explanation for the financial crisis. Even after the crisis has passed, the larger problem of income stagnation will remain. It’s hardly the economy’s only serious problem either. There is also the slow unraveling of the employer-based health-insurance system and the fact that, come 2011, the baby boomers will start to turn 65, setting off an enormous rise in the government’s Medicare and Social Security obligations.

Most of these problems aren’t immediate, which helps explain why they have gone unaddressed for so long. And the United States remains a fabulously prosperous country, relative to almost any other country, at any point in history. Yet Americans seem to realize that something has gone wrong. In recent polls, about 80 percent of respondents say the economy is in bad shape, and almost 70 percent say it’s going to get worse. Together, these answers make for the most downbeat assessment since at least the early 1980s, and underscore that the next president will be inheriting a set of domestic problems as serious as any the country has faced in a long time.

John McCain’s economic vision, as he has laid it out during the campaign, amounts to a slightly altered version of Republican orthodoxy, with tax cuts at the core. Obama, on the other hand, has more-detailed proposals but a less obvious ideology.

Well before this point on the presidential calendar, it’s usually clear where a candidate fits within the political spectrum of his party. With Obama, there is vast disagreement about just how liberal he is, especially on the economy. My favorite example came in mid-June, shortly after Obama named Jason Furman, a protégé of Robert Rubin, the centrist former Treasury secretary, as his lead economic adviser. Labor leaders recoiled, and John Sweeney, the head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., worried aloud about “corporate influence on the Democratic Party.” Then, the following week, Kimberley Strassel, a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, wrote a column titled, “Farewell, New Democrats,” concluding that Obama’s economic policies amounted to the end of Clintonian centrism and a reversion to old liberal ways.

Some of the confusion stems from Obama’s own strategy of presenting himself as a postpartisan figure. A few weeks ago, I joined him on a flight from Orlando to Chicago and began our conversation by asking about his economic approach. He started to answer, but then interrupted himself. “My core economic theory is pragmatism,” he said, “figuring out what works.”

This, of course, is not the whole story. Invoking pragmatism doesn’t help the average voter much; ideology, though it often gets a bad name, matters, because it offers insight into how a candidate might actually behave as president. I have spent much of this year trying to get a handle on what is sometimes called Obamanomics and have come away thinking that Obama does have an economic ideology. It’s just not a completely familiar one. Depending on how you look at it, he is both more left-wing and more right-wing than many people realize."

You may need to subscribe to the NYT online to read the article in its entirety, but it's well sourced and it was well-received by experts who commented on it.

Since the economy is arguably the most critical issue facing all of us, I hope all of us try to become as informed about the subject as possible.

Am I alone in feeling ignorant about economics? Please tell me I'm not!

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I've resigned myself to including posts about the election and the issues on this formerly apolitical blog, but my intent is to share information I believe is worthy of discussion, not to preach to the unconverted.

This week, the sum total of writing I managed to get done was only about 700 words, and I didn't read (for pleasure) nearly as much as I usually do. Finding a way to refocus on my writing is proving to be newly difficult. I had almost found a way to divorce myself periodically from the internet, but ever since the conventions, I have been sucked into the vortex of election news.

How many of you are in this quandry? As important as my writing is to me, I almost feel self-indulgent when I abandon research on where the candidates stand on human rights, health care or foreign policy in order to sink back into my own world. How does my obligation as a citizen to be an informed voter weigh against my obligation to myself not to lose momentum on my novel?

How Do You Decide?

After reading all of the comments on my post the other day, Can't We Agree to Disagree?, it's clear most of us feel strongly about this election and its outcome.

Shauna made a really interesting comment when she speculated that Americans may not be as far apart as we may think. She said:

"From what I've read in the paper, poll after poll shows that most Americans support the platform and ideas of the Democratic party (when they are presented as ideas and not linked to Democrats). So most of us are in general agreement about what we want for the country."

I think there's something to that point. The words "Democrat" and "liberal" have had such negative connotations for so many for such a long time that I think people often refuse to hear or consider anything coming from that camp.

I found an interesting website, called MyElectionChoices and I can't vouch for how recently it's been updated, but it does provide a fair measure for how much you agree with each candidate on the issues. There is a long list of topics ranging from the 2nd Amendment/Gun Control, Abortion, Education, the Environment and Energy, Iraq, Social Security, Stem Cell Research, the War on Terror and the Department of Homeland Security and a number of others. There are 4-6 statements listed for each topic and you select each statement that you agree with. Each statement was made by either Senator McCain or Senator Obama. The survey keeps a running tally of how many of each candidate's statements you're in agreement with.

My survey results indicate I agree with 40 of Barack Obama's statements and 22 of John McCain's. That doesn't surprise me. Keep in mind, there is a limited set of specific quotes, so this merely provides a very high level indication of how aligned you are with each candidate's statements on each issue.

To learn more about what each candidate says on the issues, Barack Obama's Blueprint for America is here and John McCain's webpage on the issues is here. Another useful resource I've found to compare the candidates is the On the Issues website. It provides specific quotes and voting records. You can find Barack Obama on the issues and John McCain on the issues.

If all things were equal, determining where the candidates stand on the issues would be enough to base a decision on. But all things aren't equal and there are potentially dozens of other factors to look at and those factors will be different for each of us. We're all different and some people base their voting decisions on a single issue or a personal value.

For me, where the candidates stand on the issues determines at least 55% of my decision. Other factors include:

1. Education and intelligence. In the arena of world leaders, I believe our President is daily being asked to engage in a battle of wits. My opinion is that it's best if he's armed. Regular "folks" are great, people you'd like to have a beer with are great, but I don't want someone who's just average responsible for our national security. I'm in favor of electing leaders who are the best and the brightest. It is significant to me that Barack Obama attended Columbia and went on to Harvard Law School. It is significant to me that he was President of Harvard Law Review and that prior to becoming a US Senator, he taught Constitutional Law. It tells me he has a very grounded understanding of our government.

2. How does the rest of the world see the candidates? Prior to both conventions this summer, the BBC commissioned a poll in 22 countries to assess whether US relations with the world would improve, stay the same or deteriorate under Barack Obama or under John McCain. The results indicate almost unilaterally that the world view of the United States and our relationships with the countries surveyed would improve under an Obama Presidency. Some people may not consider this pertinent to their decision making, but for me, it's very important.

3. How does the candidate come across during interviews? When a candidate is interviewed, and particularly when the interviewer is tough or adversarial, we get a good indication of how well the candidate responds under pressure and we have an excellent of idea of how well versed he is on the issues and how well he responds to opposing views. Presidents frequently take private meetings with heads of state and need to be capable of doing so without advisors. Presidents should be accessible to the Washington Press Corps and should be able to appropriately answer difficult questions.

Barack Obama appeared in a multi-part interview with Bill O"Reilly on Fox News in early September. Watch Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 and analyze how you think Obama does. O'Reilly hits just about every hot button issue, so there are some great insights here.

John McCain also appeared in a multi-part interview with Bill O'Reilly back in May. Although O'Reilly obviously has a conservative bias, I thought it was important to show McCain with the same interviewer, addressing the same issues. Watch Part 1, 2, and 3. Since the O'Reilly interview is six months old, I'm including links from his appearance Friday on The View. Here are Parts 1, 2 and 3. Admittedly, sitting on that couch would be a bit overwhelming, but I think some important things come out here.

Obama and McCain are who I'm focused on, but with the possibility that a President can die or resign, the VP candidates warrant attention too.

Here's an interview with Joe Biden on CSPAN from August, Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, here is the ABC interview of Sarah Palin by Charlie Gibson. Here are parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

4. What are the candidate's religious views? With each subsequent election, religion seems to play a greater part. I want a candidate who believes in maintaining the separation of church and state.

5. How consistent is the candidate's stated vision with his actions? I can allow some leeway in the case of a candidate who alters his original position over time, based on new information or changes in circumstance, but I am suspicious of sudden reversals that appear to be entirely motivated by politics.

6. What does the candidate's choice of a running mate indicate about him?

7. The supreme court is comprised of seven appointees by Republican administrations and two from Democratic administrations. The party that gets in office will likely have the opportunity to make an appointment that could lead to reversals of prior decisions, Roe v. Wade being the most likely.

8. Does the candidate's race matter? Does his age?

9. Does the candidate appear to have the knowledge, intellect, experience and judgment to be President?

10. Does he have integrity and honor and truly want the best for this country? Does he make you feel confident, or does he make you feel uneasy? This question is one that comes down strictly to personal gut feel, but our intuition about who the person really is may be the most powerful part of our decision.

If you decide to check out MyElectionChoices, let me know if your answers surprise you. Which of these questions are important to you? Are there factors you'd add or take away from this list? Do you have issues that are "deal breakers"? What about the negative ads? I'm turned off by those who initiate them, not by their targets. Do you have a decision making process? What do you base your choice on?

For non-American visitors, who would you like to see us elect, based on what you've seen?