Briklyn Wuich

When "Yes We Can" tuns into "No I won't"

Briklyn Wuich — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:13:28 -0700

“Yes we can” and “Change we can believe in” has been the rallying cry of the Obama campaign from the start. Sen. Obama has inspired and energized millions with his campaign for change and promises to fix a polarized political system and government. He has positioned himself as a different type of politician, one who will put the needs of the country and people above his own political ambition. He has done this with words since he has he relatively little legislative experience.

In life, and in politics, timing is everything. Obama came on to the scene at just the right time when the electorate is ready for change and may be willing to bet on an inspiring yet inexperienced leader. His words have made a difference yet this last week we have been shown that he himself may not live up to his inspiring rhetoric. Late last week, he backtracked on an earlier promise to accept public financing during the general election. Had he accepted public financing like he said he would, Obama would have 84 million dollars to use for the general campaign- the same amount as McCain. Now he will be free to spend however much money he can raise- which will likely be hundreds of millions of dollars. If the elections are decided by the candidate who spends the most money, then Obama will surely be the next president.

The issue isn’t that he will outspend Sen. McCain, the issue is that this reversal shows that his words and promises may be empty, just like other politicians. Reversal on a promise is not indicative of the kind of change the electorate is hoping for. Had Obama kept his word and accepted public financing, in spite of the hundreds of millions he could have raised, just because he said he would- that would be the kind of change people would actually believe in. When the opportunity arose for Obama to show what he is made of, his actions showed the people that “No he won’t” while the chorus of his campaign continues with “Yes we can.”

It's Over

Briklyn Wuich — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:33:06 -0700

The campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States should be over Tuesday night after the results of the South Dakota and Montana primaries are tallied. At least it will be if Hillary has any sense. All eyes will be on Hillary to see if she gives a concession speech Tuesday night in New York or if she chooses to continue her campaign all the way to the convention in August. I can imagine that most of the Democratic Party is praying she’ll end her campaign with a gracious speech praising Obama and thanking the hard work of her supporters and staff. The sooner they have a unified party, the sooner they can get busy with the work of taking on McCain.

If she doesn’t give a concession speech and vows to press on until the convention she will essentially torpedo any chance she has of running for president again. I don’t think that people could endure another Clinton campaign if she continues the next few months in the same fashion of the last few weeks-making excuses for why she isn’t winning and vowing to continue her campaign in spite of what is best for the party.

A Hillary vow to keep fighting will confirm the worst thought that voters have of Hillary- that she’s a power hungry individual who will do anything to win. Just ask yourself what other politician would be willing to win the nomination of his or her party by convincing unelected delegates to overturn the will of the voters? There comes a point when you accept the reality that it is over. The sooner the Clinton campaigns realizes that and acknowledges that, the better off she and her party will be.

Survivor or the Presidential Election?

Briklyn Wuich — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:58:37 -0700

I’ve been trying to figure out the media’s role in the presidential election. Sure, the media’s job is to provide the electorate enough information to make an informed decision when voting but nowadays in our new media age, their role has become more than that. They’ve become much more involved. They influence things because it benefits them to stir the pot to make the race as interesting as possible, even in a year when the race is interesting enough without their help. An interesting race sells more papers and commercials.

For tv especially, the race has been a godsend. The almost weekly primaries have been the only thing new on tv for the last 3 months. Personally, I think that the media has treated the primary contest much like they would a reality TV show. Think of every reality based contest tv show out there…Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, etc. Every episode is the same. In the middle of the contest there is a “twist” thrown in by the show’s producer to even out the competition and make the show more interesting to watch. Obama goes on a primary winning streak and for Hillary it turns out to be a non-elimination round. Huckabee wins a couple of southern primaries and all of the sudden he is the Sanjia of the Republican Party- a candidate everyone knows can’t win the election but keeps in the race because he is entertaining to watch.

Just when the momentum and lead favors one candidate the media focuses on a comment made by a spouse, or advisor, or treats new polling data as a word from God to help keep the contest tight. The campaigns know that they do this so they feed the media anything that will benefit their campaign and the media reports on it giving them a hot new story. This system benefits every involved, except the voters who end up losing sight of the issues at hand and become absorbed by a presidential race that ends up looking like Survivor. The next big primary is Pennsylvania and no matter what the outcome is be sure that the media will do their part to make sure that no one is voted off the island. The race for the Democratic nominee needs to stay close until sweeps week which for the news media will be the Democratic Convention in August.

Back Room Dealin'

Briklyn Wuich — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:58:56 -0800

After Hillary’s comeback win on Tuesday night, it actually looks like a presidential candidate just might be picked in some sort of backroom deal at the nominating convention. I’m not old enough to remember the time when backroom deals were the preferred method presidential candidates were chosen. I always pictured the scene as a bunch of overweight men chomping on cigars in tiny smoke-filled rooms swapping favors and blackmailing each other into the wee hours of the morning. A white cigar smoke signal floating out the back room signaled to the party faithful that their candidate had been chosen and it was time to rally around him.

If the race for democratic nomination continues at the current pace, the nominee will be chosen at the convention by the increasingly important group of super-delegates. The democratic super-delegates are basically the party powerful- current and former elected officials, party leaders, and those appointed by the chairman of the Democratic Party. There are 842 of these unelected super-delegates and they comprise nearly 40% of the delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Personally, I think it is slightly odd that the “Democratic Party” could pick a leader so un-democratically. If Sen. Obama comes into the convention ahead in the delegate count and Sen. Clinton actually wins the nomination via the super-delegate vote, it could ultimately come back to bite her. I imagine that many of Obama’s supporters will feel cheated, and rightly so. In protest, Barak’s supporters may stay home in November to get back at Hillary, which will help McCain and could ultimately result in Hillary losing the race for the presidency. That would be very Shakesperian. No matter what the outcome, it will make for great drama and is sure to play out in a way no one expects. The only thing for sure is that cigar smoke will not be the signal to the party faithful. Over-weight cigar smoking party leaders are a thing of the past, however, favor swapping and blackmailing will never go away.

Scratching The Itch

Briklyn Wuich — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:41:46 -0800

As I’ve watched the ascendancy of the Obama candidacy the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out how he did it. I stumbled upon an article written by Michael Barone which I think may just explain how Obama has done the impossible- unseating a Clinton as the frontrunner in the Democratic Party. According to Barone, voters are suffering from the 16 year itch. Pointing to 1976, 1992, and the early signs of 2008, Barone highlights a pattern which tends to happen every 16 years with presidential elections- the country gets sick of the people they’ve put in office and develop “an unusual preference for outside-the-system candidates with less top level experience than voters usually want in a president.” Essentially, Obama is riding the same wave that put Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both governors of small southern states with relatively little experience, into the highest office in the land. It’s slightly poetic that the same force that swept Bill into office is keeping Hillary away from it.

According to Barone’s theory, the key to Obama’s success is that he has relatively little experience making him a political outsider. If the theory is true, then each time Hillary attacks Barack’s lack of experience she’s actually doing him a favor by reminding the voters he is not part of the political establishment. Each time Bill goes out of the stump for Hillary, he’s reminding voters she is part of the establishment which just hurts her chances of winning the nomination. This theory may also help to explain Obamamania (and Obama girl) and why people are so passionately attracted to such an inexperienced candidate.

So why every 16 years? I’ll leave that to Mr. Barone:

"My thought is that, over a period of 16 years, there is enough turnover in the electorate to stimulate an itch that produces a willingness to take a chance on something new. Over time, the median-age voter in American elections has been about 45 years old. This means that the median-age voter in 1976 was born around 1931--old enough to have experienced post-World War II prosperity and foreign policy success, and then to have been disgusted by Vietnam and Watergate.

The median-age voter in 1992 was born around 1947 (the same year as Dan Quayle and Hillary Clinton, one year after Messrs. Clinton and Bush, one year before Mr. Gore). These voters came of age in the culture wars of the 1960s. They experienced stagflation and gas lines of the 1970s, and the prosperity and foreign policy successes of the 1980s. Mr. Clinton persuaded these voters to take a chance on change by promising not to radically alter policy. They rebuked him when he tried to break that promise, then for 14 years remained closely divided along culture lines as if the '60s never ended.

The median-age voter in 2008 was born around 1963, so he or she missed out on the culture wars of the '60s, and on the economic disasters and foreign policy reverses of the 1970s. These voters have experienced low-inflation economic growth something like 95% of their adult lives--something true of no other generation in history. They are weary of the cultural polarization of our politics, relatively unconcerned about the downside risks of big government programs, and largely unaware of America's historic foreign policy successes. They are ready, it seems, to take a chance on an outside-the-system candidate."

I don’t know about you but his theory makes pretty good sense to me. Ultimately, time will tell if his theory holds out to be true this year. If Obama wins his party’s nomination and beats McCain in the general election, it might just be a 16 year itch being scratched.

Is this the beginning of the end for Clinton?

Briklyn Wuich — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:29:18 -0800

Have you ever been underwater a second or two too long and your body starts to panic before you have time to think about what is going on? In that moment all you know is that you need air and you will do anything to get it. I get a sense that a similar sense of panic is beginning to permeate throughout the Clinton campaign. In the last week, Clinton has loaned her campaign $5 million dollars, replaced her campaign manager, lost the last 8 state primaries by a wide margin, and had her deputy campaign manager resign. That is a bad week for the candidate nearly everyone thought was a sure bet to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president just months ago.

The Clinton campaign has downplayed the recent losses saying that they were expected. They put everything on the line by publicly announcing that they have to win Texas and Ohio on March 4^th. I think that is evidence of the panic going on throughout the campaign. When months ago you were unbeatable and now you are suddenly behind, things get scary and campaigns can do desperate things, especially when new people are brought on board. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of weeks- if the panic becomes palpable. If it does, that will be the end of her campaign. People don’t vote for candidates that are panicky and desperate plus they tend to do stupid or vicious things. People vote for candidates who are confident and cool. They want to know that they can handle the stress when things aren’t going their way and can show humility when things are.

Obama’s victories have given his campaign a sense of legitimacy. They’ve shown that the Clinton machine is beatable and that his message of change clicks with voters. Subconsciously, people may not be hungry just for “change” in Washington (whatever that means) but from a change in the families that have ran this country the last 20 years, 28 years if you count when George H.W. Bush was Vice President. It is hard to believe that two families have run this country for so long in a nation that prides itself on democracy. It’s like we’ve become a democratic monarchy. It’s the perfect time for someone fresh and new with eloquent promises of change to make it big. If that is the case, that is bad news for Clinton because she has staked her campaign on the premise that she is the only experienced and capable leader ready for the job which translates to many people to be more of the same of what they are used to. If democrats truly are ready for change in the cycle of modern presidential politics, then Obama has entered the political scene at the perfect time.

So is it over for Hillary? In this election year, nothing is for certain. Her campaign could pull out the victories that she needs and we are back to a neck and neck race to finish, which is exactly what John McCain should be praying for.

Presidential Commercials and C.S. Lewis

Briklyn Wuich — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:03:02 -0800

Yesterday I reached the point of presidential commercial overdose. It seemed like every other commercial was an ad for a presidential candidate- Thank God for Tivo. I reached a point where I didn’t want to hear another promise of what a candidate is going to do for me when elected. Going by their commercials, I don’t know if there is anything left for the gang to promise me. I’ve heard how they are going to end our reliance on foreign oil, stimulate a depressed economy, cut taxes for the middle class, raise taxes on companies that send jobs overseas, provide universal health insurance, make college affordable, etc., etc., etc.

As a Clinton commercial played in the background offering me more promises of what she would do for my vote, I came across this statement from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects-military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden-that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.

I tried picturing a candidate whose only promise is to promote and protect my ability to “chat” with my wife over a fire or read a book in my own room. It just doesn’t work nowadays does it? It doesn’t seem right. We couldn’t handle that. We’ve become far too soft, far too dependent. We want politicians to promise us the maximum when maybe what is needed is only the promise of the minimum. Personally, I think that is more of a commentary on the voters than our politicians. We expect far too much, needing someone to do many of the things we should be doing for ourselves. One thing is for sure, a candidate who promised us a government that only did the simple things would be the real candidate for change.

Super Tuesday

Briklyn Wuich — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:37:34 -0800

With 3 days to go before “Super Tuesday” here is how I see the race playing out. For the Republicans, McCain is the odds on favorite to win. He comes into Tuesday with endorsements from Giuliani and Schwarzenegger, the delegate lead, and momentum. If he is able to win a strong majority of the 22 states that are voting on Tuesday, he could potentially lock up the Republican nomination. The only chance Romney has of beating McCain is if the social conservative/tax-cutting base of the party rallies around Romney which is going to be difficult to do with Huckabee in the race. Huckabee’s support comes from Christian values voters who would most likely support Romney if Huckabee wasn’t running. Since Huckabee does not have a realistic chance of winning, I think he is staying in the race to increase his appeal as a possible running mate for John McCain or to bump up his appeal for a career in radio or tv when the presidential race is over. Look for McCain to come out of Super Tuesday with a big lead in delegates and the momentum to lock up the nomination. For the Democrats, the race is much closer. Clinton is polling ahead of Obama in the big states like New York and California, while Obama is pollling ahead of Clinton in southern and midwest states like Illinois, Missouri, and Georgia. On average, national polls show Clinton with an 8 point lead over Obama. The good news for Obama is that Clinton’s lead has been cut in half since the Jan. 3^rd Iowa Caucus and he seems to have the most momentum heading into Tuesday. He also has an influx of cash. In January alone he raised 32 million dollars and is spending money as quick as he can. Look for a lot of Obama ads on television in the next couple of days. For the Democrats, Super Tuesday is less likely to produce a clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. That fight will go on.