The Bully-In-Chief and the Naked Empress

You would think that a society that has spent the past ten years wringing its communal hands over how to deal with school yard bullies and their consequences would recognize one in the man-child Donald Trump, and have a clue of how to deal with him.  Obviously not.

Most interesting is the self-inflicted dilemma of the Repugnantlan Party; those stalwart wearers of flag lapel pins,  supporters of our troops and police, champions of right to life until born, true believers that they have a monopoly on patriotism, self-appointed protectors of the constitution that they are systematically raping in the name of God, country and free enterprise….They stand trembling in the shadow of Trump.  Ironically, the shadow is less than the man, but the Repugnantlans are less still in their collective incapacity to confront this breathing amalgam of narcissism, arrogance, deceit and rank ignorance, and say to themselves and the society that they presume to lead “This man does not represent our values, and we will not lend our Party’s label to his twisted and destructive enterprise.”   Or something to that effect.  But that apparently demands more courage than they can collectively muster.

Nor were the alternatives all that attractive.  A party that has embraced a thinly disguised agenda of bigotry, religious zealotry, misogyny and elitism under the brand Conservatism, and thus done severe damage to the meaning of that term; that same party has looked desperately in its wings among the kooks and Hucksters, and mini-narcissists in waiting, for an alternative to the Enfant Terrible, to no apparent avail.  Short Form: they’re screwed.

The question before the Repugnantlans is: Do we face a firestorm at the convention in the effort to save the party?  Or do we face a firestorm at the voting booths and watch the party be bludgeoned into dust, at the possible tangible loss of Congressional majority.

Given the level of courage and integrity currently in evidence in the party leadership, it is conceivable that they would rather suffer the risk of defeat in the less frightening confrontation and anonymity of the voting booth, than to risk the physical, in-your-face, mano-a-mano confrontation that is promised by Thugs for Trump at the convention.

And as disturbing as all this is in what it says about the state of Party leadership, what is even more disturbing is that there is a constituency that is big enough to give Trump this power.  The question is: is this a constituency of mini-bullies supporting a master bully in their greatest fantasy of power, or as some observers suggest, are Trump’s followers mostly very angry people who see Trump not so much as their leader, but their hammer to render a failing system to the dustbin of history. A similar speculation has been rendered of Bernie Sanders, who is beginning to sound more like Trump in his prognostications for the coming Democratic Convention.

Then there’s the Demo-crass.  They have a different kind of fear, or should.  They face the risk that fewer people will turn out for Ms Inevitability, a.k.a ‘Hillary Don’t-Cry-For-Me-Argentina Rodham-Clinton’, than the die-hard crazies who will turn out for Trump.  On paper, she should have this thing licked.  She’s got ‘credential’s.  She’s engineered the back room of the Convention.  She’s got an enviable Rolodex ( because, as she acknowledged in the prvate computer server grillings, she’s not particularly tech savvy) and the financial backing.  What she lacks is credibility.  Not necessarily an insurmountable problem for a politician.  But she has such an incredible knack for shooting herself in the foot, that it’s totally reasonable for the average person to wonder if she can be trusted with nukes.

In one of her rare moments of candor, she acknowledged after the Florida primary that she is ‘not a natural politician’,  like her husband or Obama.  So why is she running for the position of Politician in Chief?  Is it because she’s a superb, wonky tactician like her husband?  Uh-huh!  When the press were battering her phalanx of flacks, she carefully sequestered behind her security wall.  When an attack was needed, she sent out Bill.  When credibility was needed, she grasped for Barack’s coat-tails, and when that was inconvenient as in the case of the Pacific Trade agreement, she let go.  She claims to fight for the underdog, but what has she ever won for the underdog of substance? Health care, voting rights, better treatment of women anywhere in the world?  She claims experience, but where is the wisdom?  Health care? Libya? the Russian Reset? Syria?  Is her wisdom and pragmatism possibly hidden in that gold-plated speech she gave to Goldman Sachs which remains more closely guarded than her official emails as Secretary of State.  Could it be that if that text ever saw the light of day, it would reveal her to be as shallow and vacuous as the Mitt-ster?

Hillary is nothing but an avatar of women’s and minorities aspirations, but without the substance and quite possibly the will to deliver more than pious platitudes. A candidate whose image quite likely has to be re-invented every two weeks by her army of ‘advisor’s who are still groping for a credible product, isn’t much of a vehicle for progress.  An individual who has struggled against as improbable opponent as Bernie Sanders, in spite of all the advantages she amassed for her presumed coronation, must be profoundly lacking in substance.  A person, whose chief praise in recent weeks is that she has broken many barriers, but always seems to do it the hard way, is not a strong credential for endorsement.  I can’t really picture myself pitching my wares to a prospective employer with the line:’I git it done, but always the hard way’.   Endurance is fine, but competence would be better. She is the Demo-crass equivalent of Jeb Bush.  They  could make an awesome fusion ticket of irrelevance and incompetence.

On any rigorous assessment of substance, Hillary is an empty suit.  Indeed, the Empress has no clothes.

Hillary’s only claim to viability as a candidate is that, next to Trump, she looks at least sufferable, and may almost pass for presidential.  But even that may not be enough to save her if the terminal boredom or revulsion of so many independents and many in her own party is enough to deny her the critical margin for victory.

And then there’s the wild card:  The Republican Convention is July 18 to 21.  The Democratic Convention is July 25 to 28.  What if the Repugnantlan Party finally found the testicular fortitude to deny Trump the nomination on merits (or lack thereof), and installed Romney as the plug-and-play answer?    A contest between two equally brittle avatars.  But on surface, it is conceivable that Romney, an executive in private and public enterprise, could appear to have more chops than Ms Inevitability.

The Demo-crass High Command would have to assess  very quickly which old horse has the better chance.  The Demo-crass will be in the same convention dilemma as the Repugnantlans of reconsidering the ‘presumptive’ nominee, but the Repugs will have gained first mover advantage, which Mitt, the consummate capitalist, knows is critical.  Could the Hillary Horde pivot quickly to a new opponent and a new strategy?  Not likely, if two presidential campaigns are compelling evidence. Could the Democratic Party?  Probably not a prayer.

Can Elizabeth Warren save the ticket?  She would likely carry the ticket.  But if I were her, I’d be extremely wary of signing on to the HIll ‘n Bill show.

Onward.

20160612

 

What Hath Business Wrought?

Or perhaps more precisely, what hath the Business Elite of the US wrought, specifically in the melt-down, (or is that conflagration?) of its political arm, the Republican Party, a.k.a the party of Business?

It is too early to write the obituary of the Republican Party. Remember, that has been done before; after the flame-out of Barry Goldwater, and the humiliation of Richard Nixon’s demise.  But what the Business Elite has unleashed through its political arm is more devastating to our national well-being than the collapse of a political party which can and likely will regenerate in a variety of ways.

It was supposed to be so simple.  After three decades of whittling away at government at all levels through various manipulations of elective and lobbying processes, covered by the benign visage of Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder, and finding that economic power alone was not sufficient to complete the task, the Business Elite decided to go to asymmetric guerrilla warfare.  Agents such as Dick Armey and Karl Rove incubated and unleashed what became the corporate arm of the Tea Party.

It was supposed to BE the Tea Party, except, as with the Stuxnet  computer virus, it metastasized beyond intent…and control.  It sought to rouse the deepening dissatisfaction and cynicism of the white middle class and vector it like an explosive shaped charge against The Government. The anger that was building over a system that was failing the Tea Partiers on all fronts was supposed to deliver the final ‘democratic’ blow to ‘take back the government’ by destroying the government.

Kind of reminds one of that famous line delivered by a military officer in the aftermath of the Tet offensive: “We had to destroy the city in order to save it”.  It is worth noting that that did not work either.  Nor will the act of destroying our governments at all levels and denuding our Constitution of its spirit and intent by straight-jacketing it with brittle meaning of a bygone era that doesn’t comport with today’s reality. (May Justice Scalia rest in peace, and the rest of us with his passing.)

But, back to Business. There is a double ruse at work here.  The Republican Party has mastered the meme of ‘perp as victim’, pretending to defend the Constitution against the ghost of the Warren court, while systematically disemboweling the very notion of a democratic society, aided and abetted by the Roberts court which, despite the best efforts of its liberal wing, has exceeded the alleged abuses of the Warren Court  in its interpretive manipulation of the spirit of that document.

It takes more than a flag lapel pin to be a patriot.  Eroding voter rights while championing Citizens United and Corporate participation are among the gems of their deceit.  Their rejoinder that Citizens United merely puts business influence on a level playing field with union influence ignores the success of the Business Elite in bludgeoning the union movement into irrelevance.  (In fairness, it must be noted that the union movement has done itself no favors in convincingly arguing its relevance, which should be self-evident in the asymmetrical warfare perpetrated by the Business Elite against workers at all levels of the food chain, but that’s a subject for another time.)

And so the Repugnantlan Party finds itself with a choice:

‘Do we play by the rules (a novel concept, don’t you think?) and let the ‘democratic’ primary process choose the nominee; or

do we trump Trump in the convention and engineer the coronation of a ‘true’ conservative;

or do we ditch this rusting hulk of a party and run a third-party candidate who is a true ‘conservative’.’

Note that in any case we’re talking about the vestiges of a party that is defined only in terms of which brand of ‘take-no-prisoners, no-compromise, Christian caliphate’ flavor of conservatism that The Force might choose.  It’s Trump (wing-nut conservatism); Cruz (Christian Caliphate Conservatism-Dark), Kasich (Christian Caliphate Conservatism Light with a smily face), or god only knows whom else can be dredged up.  The Huckster? Jeb, the Repugnantlan equivalent to Hillary’s political ineptitude and entitlement?  Marco, the flame-out hope of the Establishment that couldn’t sell the electorate on youthful Kennedyesque charm alone? (fill in the blank).

And who is the Force?  It is the widely reported groups of ‘Big Donors’ who have been meeting this past week to determine the Repugnantlan Party’s fate. And who are The Big Donors?  Well, they ain’t Joe and Jane Six-Pack of Union Local 13.  Safe bet?

They are the Adelsons, and the Koch Brothers  and Big Oil, and Big Hedge Funds, and Big Banks and other Big Corpocracies through various intermediaries to conceal their identity from the Little People where disclosure might be bad for the ‘Business Model’.

In one sense,  nothing has changed.  As in Watergate, Deep Throat’s advice still holds: ‘Follow the money‘.  But today, the stakes are so much greater; and the mechanisms so much more blatant; and the arrogance, insufferable, as evidenced in Trump who merely distinguishes himself from the rest of the Republican clown circus in his galactic audacity (because Earth alone could not possibly contain his ego).

The Business Elite have, as a group, succeeded in corrupting both parties so as to appear ‘impartial’ and politically neutral.  But the flow of money, to the extent that it can be determined, tells the truth.   It would be both unfair and myopic to suggest that the Democratic Party is less corrupt.  It is less dangerous merely because it is less organized and focused in its intent.  Democrats in Congress seem more concerned with saving their own individual hides than with submitting to a party discipline.  This is as much the cause of Obama’s troubles, post-2010, as is the treasonous Mitch McConnell and his minions in the opposition party.

But, perhaps this rant is missing the fundamental point.  What’s really bad in all of this?  Isn’t what’s good for business good for America?  Don’t our job creators know what’s best?  Aren’t we safer than we’ve ever been, thanks to the very same Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about?  Don’t we have the best health care that money can buy in the world, thanks to the Medical Industrial Complex?  Don’t we have the safest food in the world thanks to the Agricultural-Industrial Complex that also gives hope to so many undocumented workers? Aren’t our pensions and other investments secure in the best free market system known to mankind? And wouldn’t all of this be so much better if business were just taxed and regulated less so that it could invest more in turning West Virginia coal miners into high-tech coders (which it would surely want to do because full employment makes for more robust consumer markets for cheap Chinese stuff sold at everyday high prices and lowest possible cost and quality (because quality is unnecessary cost))?

And besides, who’s really complaining about the role of business, besides some spoiled little brats who are too incompetent to find a good job and don’t want to pay off their college loans accumulated while taking gender studies and lit classes?   Most people are happy.  They’ve got the newest technology.  They can  watch Hunger Games and Game of Thrones on a big screen at home or in their car, or on a mobile device.

Access to Hunger Games and Game of Thrones and House of Cards on mobile devices is particularly useful in the migration from foreclosed McMansion to homeless shelters.  It maintains continuity of distraction from the real hunger games and games of thrones and house of cards going on around us as our infrastructure crumbles, our rule of law crumbles, our way of life crumbles, our civic institutions and sense of shared destiny crumble, our self-esteem disintegrates.

I suspect that at some point, Tea Partiers and Occupiers will converge by necessity if not by desire, in homeless shelters and other venues of need.  Circumstances will force them to look at each other as people, and not caricatures of The Opposition.  They will discover that they have more in common than they ever imagined; that is, they’ve both been screwed by the same forces.  And when The Government has been reduced to a point of institutional incompetence and impotence as to be rendered irrelevant and no longer a plausible ‘enemy of the people’, they will begin to ask the questions that should have been asked thirty years earlier: Who is the real enemy of the people? And why?

And when they begin to ask those questions, the Business Elite will learn belatedly that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were the least of their concerns.  It will be a bad day for Business. It will reap what it has sewn.

*     *     *

There will be voices in the business community who will object to this rant and protest that its observations are not reflective of all people in ‘business’.  That is of course true.  No generalization is ever universally applicable.

But it is also true as in many movements that an assertive minority that presumes to speak for the majority, in effect speaks for all in the majority’s silence (remember Nixon’s Great Silent Majority?) .  In a majority’s silence, the majority has made a decision, be it subliminal or conscious; be it for agreement or fear of consequences or apathy.

If the Business Majority chooses to remain silent to the actions of the Business Elite for whatever reasons, it is an endorsement.  If significant members of the business community or the Republican party are troubled by the course of their institutions toward regressive and repressive government in  the perverted guise of ‘conservatism’, and choose not to speak and act in opposition, then they are accomplices to the consequences.

Or to borrow a line from the Sixties protests, ‘if you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem’.

Onward.

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Timing Isn’t Everything, But It’s Critical

One of the critical elements in defining a controlled process is to specify the performance standards under which it will be judged. Among the basic performance standards are:

–  Quantity (how much to produce, how many transactions to process)

–  Quality (how good)

–  Cost (at what value)

–  Time (due date, elapsed time to completion, incurred time to completion)

These all play off one another. They do not exist in isolation.  You want it now? It’ll cost you more.  You want it now? I can’t make that many. You want it now? Not at the requested quality.  The imperative of ‘now’ has important ramifications for any process.  And today, more than ever, the constraint of time and the imperative of ‘now’ is the performance criterion that seems to trump all others.

*   *   *

Obama clearly understood the strategic imperative of time with respect to health care reform, but not the tactical implications of time in system implementation.  He understood that to avoid the long-term debt threat (not the faux short-term one) he must bend the health care cost curve, and he must begin now.  To improve the economy, he must get people back to work, and to do that, he must bend the health care cost curve, and he must begin now.  To avoid erosion of his initiative from relentless political attacks, he must advance it into reality so that it cannot easily be undone, and he must do that before he leaves office, and he must do that sooner before its intangible promise fades from public commitment under the withering fire of political assault; and the passage of time is not his friend.

What he and his team obviously did not understand, or would not acknowledge, was the tactical reality of producing a systemic platform to quality and quantitative standards within the time constraint of strategic considerations.  And here we are.  In such cases, time is not a destination, but a marker on a journey.  Best understood and communicated in that perspective. Too many CEOs fail to understand the limits of compressing time in the real world.

*  *  *

Meredith Whitney misunderstood time in her failed prediction of collapse of the municipal bond market.  She may yet be right for all the wrong reasons, but she blew it by being specific about timing, and without caveating the prediction on critical collateral factors that would be necessary for the result. Two factors which probably contributed to blowing her timing were the ARRA program which pumped money into municipalities and in many cases did more to prop up sagging budgets than prime the economic recovery; and Quantitative Easing (QE) which propped up the stock markets and inflated pension portfolios that might otherwise have sunk further in value and forced more municipalities to the wall sooner.  The imperative of continuing QE likely has less to do with keeping Wall Street happy than with keeping fresh lipstick on the pig of state and municipal finances.  In this case, the injection of value has ‘bought’ time, but not necessarily results.  It may only delay the inevitable.

*  *  *

I have previously written about timing and Clim-Ergy, the interplay of climate and energy issues. CO2 emissions and their consequences are moving on one time line.  Energy resources relative to economic and demographic drivers are moving on another time line. Renewable energy deployment is moving on a third timeline that needs to bend the first timeline before the second drives it beyond tolerable standards, and before the second plateaus and drives cost beyond tolerable standards.  Currently, there is no credible prospect that the third timeline will meet quantitative, qualitative and cost/benefit  performance standards within the necessary time standards, although that could change, but at the moment and in the foreseeable future, the odds are somewhere between slim and none.

*  *  *

I recently convened a meeting in my community on the subject of affordable housing. A private developer has stated that a new apartment complex he is completing could never offer rentals at the comparatively low prices he is offering if he had to buy the land at today’s prices rather than its cost thirty years ago.  Interestingly, while he is attuned to the influence of inflation over time, he is apparently unaware of the time value of his sunk invested dollars over that same period of time, particularly at market rates of return.  That proves to be a major impediment in attracting private investors to affordable housing projects, because their need for return is greater within a specified time frame.  An alternative that I proposed is for the Town to buy the land and lease it, because it can be ‘patient capital’, and enhance the economics of the overall project, bringing in much-needed diversity to the Town’s demographics and economy.  That idea is a bit foreign in our community, but again it speaks to different perceptions of time and its value in monetary terms and collateral benefits.

*  *  *

How soon do you need that ‘special something’?  The Big Box wants you to have it right now, if it’s worth your time and gas.  Jeff Bezos wants you to have anything in two days.    Why wait til Black Friday for those once-a-year Christmas sales when you can be thankful for them on Thanksgiving Day, assuming of course that you’re not a ‘sales associate’. In these instances, how much does time really matter, and what is it worth?

*  *  *

How long is a ‘long’ war? Some would say any war is too long. The US public seems to think ten years is too much in Vietnam and Iraq-istan (a.k.a. Vietnam Too) . The Taliban thinks it’s just another day in Paradise. It’s more than willing to let the clock run out.  For the US military, the calendar has run out between those two competing perspectives.  Job not done.

*  *  *

Time and education is a critical issue. Think about it. We have in our children a product that takes from 13 to 23 years to manufacture through formal education factories to a productive ‘resource’, depending on application. If one is preparing for a forty-year career, that is a reasonable investment, with hopefully a beneficial return on investment.  But if technological and economic and social uncertainties significantly truncate that timeline of application, it has significant impact on the choices and wisdom of the investment.

*  *  *

Should Elizabeth Warren run for President and in possible primary opposition to Hillary Clinton?  For Hillary, time is running out.  For Liz, as for Barach before her, the time might not be right because she may not be ready with a broad enough portfolio or a sufficiently diverse and competent team to make ALL the right moves. But also, as with Barach, she faces a window of opportunity for her perceived critical issues that might not afford her the luxury of time to ‘ripen on the vine’ until ready.  Alternatively, she might be able to ‘borrow time’ by running with the ripened Joe Biden as his VP, pressing her finance issues while broadening her portfolio for a subsequent run.  Can women wait til 2020 for the first woman president in our exceptional society which has taken longer than most to advance a qualified woman to that position?  Or is it more important to sacrifice quality for time?

*  *  *

Do you want to live to be 100?  It’s not just a question of time, but also a question of quality of life and cost/benefit (to me, not to the medical-insurance complex).  Maybe in twenty years my perspective on those two factors will change, but right now I’m gunning for 85 and out!

*  *  *

And let’s not forget time and love.  Diana Ross sang that you can’t hurry it.  Mike Jagger (the taliban-ista of love) opined that it was on his side. The Outsiders sang it won’t let them wait that long. It’s all a matter of perspective.

*  *  *

The value of time is not the same for everyone, but it must be understood, and the understanding must be communicated clearly, whether it is with an employer, a client, an investor, a society, a lover, or one’s self.

Thank you for giving me your time.

Onward

20131115

Halt the Hillary Hype….Pleeeeese!

It is time for Hillary to stand up, or stand down.  But she cannot stand still. And if she isn’t prepared to stand up, she should sequester her self-promoting hype machine.

I appreciate that women yearn to be affirmed of their role in US society with the ascendance of one of their number to the highest office in the land. It is a blemish on our national record that a nation which professes to be democratic, a nation which has made many advances in equality for women prior to this century, has yet to elevate a competent woman through its political processes to this pinnacle.  It is not for shortage for competent women.

But Hillary is not that woman. Not when you strip her down to substance. And women do themselves no favors by heaping their aspirations for recognition and advancement on a less-than-capable standard-bearer who will not likely deliver results, partly for reasons of her own, and partly for circumstances beyond her control.

Why Not Hillary?

Viewing her through gender-neutral eyes, my main question is: what has she accomplished of substance in her various roles?

As First Lady?

I would rank her below Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Laura Bush in representing that position with its inherent limits but high visibility.

As US Senator?

Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention, but I do not recall any significant legislation, or any significant policy stance that distinguished her, beyond her effort to prove that she could ‘work across the aisle’, get along with the boys, and be acceptably hawkish.  And this recognizes that as a freshman senator her options are inherently limited, but not non-existent for a person of her stature.  Others have done more with less.

As Presidential Candidate?

Not the best job in staff selection or management.  May the Fates have mercy if the same competence is brought to the Oval Office.

As Secretary of State?

Accomplishment 1. She put a friendlier and more rational face on US diplomacy, but that was a very low hurdle to clear from the prior administration.

Accomplishment 2.  Gave greater visibility to women’s issues on the international stage.

Accomplishment 3.  Most frequent flier miles of any secretary of state since the Wright Brothers.

Work-in-Progress 1.  China.  Neither better nor worse

Work-in-Progress 2.  Af-Pak-istan  No further comment needed.

Work-in-Progress 3.  Israel-Palestine – No worse, no better, no fault of hers, but no cigar

Work-in-Progress 4.  The Middle East – We don’t control it, we don’t even influence it any more, but we don’t have a clue either.

Fail Number 1   Benghazi – before the attack.  We should have anticipated the level of risk and planned security accordingly.

Fail Number 2   Benghazi – during the attack – What was the Ambassador doing in such a vulnerable location virtually unprotected? Never adequately explained.  Maybe not her personal responsibility, but it was her organization’s fail, and we know where the buck must stop.

Fail Number 3  Benghazi – the aftermath.  The job of a leader is to lead. Susan Rice shouldn’t have had to take the heat as long as she did. Where was Hillary?  No doubt there was in-fighting among various agencies with exposures to cover, but where was Hillary? Benghazi was her 3:00 a.m. call, and by all external appearances, she blew it.  Most importantly, whether or not that is true, if she runs for President, the opposition will hammer her with insinuations that will be presented as fact, and will have the ring, if not the substance, of truth.

As President?

On a good day, Hillary will likely have a Congress as capable and congenial as her predecessor, and her options to govern will be as robust.

If Not Hillary, Who?

Tough question.  I don’t have the answer.  I think the first woman president most likely must come from a State governorship with a proven track record of accomplishment.  Alternatively, she must be a leader of another venue with substantive accomplishment, not merely advocacy, and not merely an accomplished triangulator.

When I consider Hillary, I compare her to women in public life that I respect:

Kathleen Sebelius – Field General for Obamacare.  Quiet, determined, hasn’t yet blown an incredibly complex assignment in spite of all the carping and sabotage from the usual suspects.

Sheila Bair – former head of the FDIC.  Provided sound leadership of a critical institution at a critical time and apparently could stand toe-to-toe with the Boys’ Club and not flinch.  Could be a team player when required, and speak her mind when needed.

Lisa Murkowski – Senator from Alaska – makes Sara Palin look like the wanna-be Momma Grizzly that she is.  Has more testicular fortitude than most Republicans and Democrats.  I may not agree with all of her positions, but I respect her independence of thought in a political neighborhood where that trait is generally fatal.

Elisabeth Warren – Fought for consumer rights before it was cool, and long before the systemic abuses became so blatant that her position could no longer be rationally denied.  Green to the Senate, she has nonetheless wasted no time in bringing some moral indignation to an institution that otherwise seems grossly short on moral compass. Needs to ripen on the vine a bit, and achieve the kind of solid accomplishment she was capable of but denied in her role forming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It may be that none of the above ladies would have all the necessary attributes of an effective president, but they each reflect qualities and a level of attainment that I find lacking in Hillary. If women in the US are to achieve the next milestone of political advancement in the coming or some future presidential race, they must pick the best horse, and not the one that can prance with the greatest flair.

Redemption

But Hillary, for all that she has invested in her aspirations, should not be denied an opportunity to earn what she believes is her destiny, and she still has an opportunity.

First, she needs to mount a concerted advocacy against the anti-women, anti-family agendas of the current US Congress and many state legislatures. She needs to rally and LEAD women and the men who value them to get off their apathy and demonstrate that they are a philosophical and electoral force to be reckoned with.

Second, she needs to lead the charge to create in 2014 and maintain in 2016 a Congress that she can work with.  If she fails that, she will be no more successful than her predecessor, and possibly not as effective. Her own party is her second biggest obstacle to the White House.

Third, she needs to articulate, not triangulate, some clear and compelling policy initiatives that she is prepared to stand or fall on.

*  *  *

Leadership requires clarity of purpose and courage. While I empathize with Obama’s circumstance, we must move beyond it in the next presidential term. We have critical issues that cannot be deferred due to deception and political destruction by a minority Taliban of the radical right, or the dithering and diffusion of energies and purpose by a narcissistic Left.

If women are to advance their cause, they must first unify around a core agenda that can bring them together in critical mass, and then choose the best candidate, male or female, to advance that cause.  If Hillary is to earn that opportunity, she must do it with more than a well oiled PR machine.

The time to act is now. The clock is ticking.

Onward

20130627