CAR CHASED; GREYHOUND CAUGHT

One has to wonder, given the the weakness in the financial sector, the miasma of the ever widening banking collapse, the economy's rapid swirl around the bowl, one has to wonder if, sometime in last two months, President-elect Barack Obama didn't have second thoughts about actually serving as President, instead of walking the fashion runway we call political primaries.

After all, this was not what he signed up for on May 2, 2007 when he announced his candidacy to the cheering crowd in Springfield, Illinois. These were the issues he named as priorities in that speech: Poor schools, economic hardships, oil dependence and Iraq.

Nobody knew what the the TED spread was. Anybody who had an ARM mortgage knew there was something called LIBOR, but most probably didn't know what the acronym stood for. The fortunate few of us who have hair were pulling it out over the fact that gasoline prices were averaging just bit above $3.00 a gallon. And what in Hades is a Credit Default Swap, and why is it saying bad things about our MBA and PhD programs?

Nowhere on the horizon were the disasters that have exploded like cluster bombs day after day in the recent months, changing, I mean REALLY changing this country and the world forever. The good old days were defenestrating themselves faster than sparks jumping of a sparkler.

On May 2, 2007 the Dow closed at 13136, and the bull was running wild. There were some signs the troubled financial pot-a-feu was starting to simmer, but few indications that a bull market correction would turn into the stampede we now see. The subprime mortgage industry was in the headlines. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke castigated Congress for criticizing the Fed for not doing more to regulate the industry.

Bernanke's speech to the Chicago Fed's 43rd Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition shows just how hidden the seriousness of the financial issues were to the keeper of the castle's keys. Reading his speech (like there's anybody even reading this blog) makes even this dim blogger wonder just what in the intercourse was going through his head.

Those were relatively rosy times. The cliche says ignorance is bliss. Bliss may not have been the prevailing emotion in May of 2007, but it is a far cry from the edge of the abyss mind state of today.

Somewhere along the old lonesome trail, now President-elect Obama must have asked the candidate Obama if he really, really wanted this job.

Today he must feel a little like the dog who chased a car but caught a Greyhound.

Continuing the metaphors, the dance is over. Now somebody has to clean up the mess left behind.  In this case, however, it is not the janitor, but the homecoming King himself trying to find the broom.

Pray people. Pray hard.

Afterthought: How long will it take the spell check code writers to include Barack and Obama in their dictionary? And for that matter, one would think that both blog and blogger would pass muster, at least on posting page.

Something Serious For A Change

If there is ever to be any real change in American politics, Barack Obama's mind-numbing, sci-fi like mantra aside, it will have to begin with campaign time limits. The limiting of campaign funds would be hugely helpful, but that idea will remain forever on the wish list.

What is a real possibility however, and REAL change indeed, is to shorten the time period anyone is allowed to actively campaign for the office of President of the United States.

I can hear the screaming now, but I'll say it anyway. The idea that caucuses and elections in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, whose combined populations of 8,711,083 or 3% of the nation, should exert as much influence as they do over digital and traditional media is ridiculous.

The plan currently under consideration calls for just one primary, a national primary for each political party, to choose its candidate. Campaigning in that primary is limited to six months, beginning twelve months before the presidential election is to be held.

After the selection of candidates in the National primary, campaigns for the actual office itself begins immediately and last for another six months culminating on election day, the Tuesday following the first Monday of the upcoming November.

Put differently, the entire Presidential election campaign period last from November to November beginning one year prior to the election. There are no Constitutional objections to this plan. In fact the only thing the Constitution addresses with respect to Presidential elections is that hide-bound holdover, the Electoral College.

Remember these primaries were designed to reduce the influence of party political conventions and to give the average Jo/Joe a shot at registering their opinion, are held at the pleasure of the respective parties themselves. The only constitutional item in play here is the election date itself.

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In the home stretch of an interminably long and thoroughly boring Presidential race, truth will be the greatest casualty. The best arbiter of truth and misleading spin in politics is The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and is unbiased in its appraisal of candidate's ads, speeches, claims and statements.

Those few of us who seek the veritas in politics will appreciate this effort.