By Mary MacElveen
November 4, 2009
Forget about the NY 23rd congressional race that Sarah Palin, Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Gov. George Pataki interjected themselves in backing the Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman over their fellow Republican, Dierdre Scozzafava. The true message of tonight’s Democratic Party slaughter can be found in the voice of the Nassau County, NY Democratic Party Chair, Jay Jacobs as reported by Newsday. He opined: "I just don't see Democrats coming out the way we would have liked," Jacobs said. "It doesn't mean anything terrible for the results, but it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling right now."
Let me correct, Jacobs having worked numerous campaigns; the results are everything in the course of the body politics. Coming in second means just that. Second!
Well the results were terrible as the county legislature’s control switched tonight from Democrat to Republican. That is a FAR greater number of voters over the 23rd congressional district of NY. A message was lost to the party faithful and now they (the party heads) must own this defeat. Those who came out in droves to elect President Barack Obama last year; stayed home. The question is why?
What generated the Obama win was the GOTV (Get out the vote) via the net-roots and minority vote and perhaps they were not as engaged in this election than the past year. Are some elections more important than others when it comes to the political hierarchy? Local elections are by far the most important ones that directly affect a populous and the populous spoke back tonight.
Citizens are not really paying attention to far-away wars or who this country helps, they are paying attention to their personal bills such as, mortgages, property taxes and utility bills. So, if you are an Internet writer concentrating on foreign events, your words are lost to your fellow citizen as these elections proved.
As of this writing; Newsday reports: “With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Suozzi, a Glen Cove Democrat, leads Edward Mangano, a Republican from Bethpage, by 313 votes, according to the Nassau Board of Elections.” Yes, every vote does count. The Democratic incumbent, Tom Suozzi was thought to be a strong gubernatorial candidate a few years back and now he is in a horse race with his Republican challenger, Mangano? Either this does not compute or the times have significantly changed. This is surely to be a nail-biter to the very end as each vote is counted and thankfully done on lever machines.
Is this a slap-back at the Obama administration and the Democratic controlled House of Representatives and Senate? Or is the failure here in turning out the Democratic vote? Perhaps a little of both.
As an ardent supporter of universal healthcare for all Americans, perhaps Americans were frightened by the sticker-shock. Maybe, just maybe those tea-party-baggers did resonate in tonight’s election results when Governor Jon Corzine lost to his Republican challenger, Chris Christie.
As progressives rail against Joe Lieberman for even daring to filibuster healthcare reform, maybe the voters spoke out tonight? It will be a long time to dissect this election.
While the Florida representative, Alan Grayson spoke of the numbers who died each year due to lack of healthcare, I do suspect that voters could not conceptualize those numbers and only looked upon the numbers of their family budgets. Or they looked upon whether or not they had a job or not.
The Republican Virginian candidate, Bob McDonnell ran on a motto “Bob’s 4 Jobs” and to me that is a campaign message in a nut-shell with the national unemployment rate running at close to 10 percent. America so wants to work!
While the Democratic controlled federal government is trying to push forth healthcare reform when it needs it: My question is, if a person is without a job, how can they afford to pay any premium to an insurance company or the government for that matter? They simply can’t. If they cannot afford to pay either two since they do not have a job, should they be penalized? People’s first need is to eat in order to survive and they need money to pay for their groceries.
Perhaps that is exactly what the voters were playing with in their minds as they entered the voting booths today. Maybe those who refused to show up showed a weakness in the Democratic Party machine over the Republican machine. I can attest to the strength of the Republican Party here locally on Long Island as a former Republican. It used to be when you were called to show up, you did just that. That has never been the strength of the Democratic Party here on Long Island and perhaps that is the way other Democratic Parties operate nationally.
In my new job as a cashier for a food store, I do speak with my customers and in the fore-front of their minds is the high-cost of living. Sorry for all that are pushing healthcare, I have not once heard that. I see customers sticking to a budget. That is the real economy. With the unemployment rate hovering at ten percent, the most powerful words in today’s economy are “I have a job” and sorry to say, not healthcare. Perhaps jobs not healthcare for all should be the issue of the day.
While many progressives tried to paint the ‘tea baggers’ as a crazy bunch, there may have been something simmering just below the surface which delivered today’s off-year election results.
To close out this piece the difference between Nassau County Executive, Tom Suozzi and his Republican, Edward Mangano challenger is 237 votes. If you are a Democrat in Nassau County, this does not bode well. If you are a Republican, it gives you energy to fight another day.
Author’s email address is, xmjmac@optonline.net
Copyrighted material: Should you wish to use any portion of this column, please contact the author.
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
GOP complain about the stimulus package: How much has the Iraq War cost we the people so far?
By Mary MacElveen
January 27, 2009
As President Barack Obama made his way to The Hill on Tuesday to meet with House and Senate Republicans to gain their support for the $825 billion dollar stimulus bill, it was met by all of them with the frost that remains days after Pres. Obama was sworn in. In the spirit of bipartisanship that Pres. Obama is trying to instill in Washington, the Republicans would have none of that. I would first like to add, weren’t they listening to the American voters on November 4th, 2008 as they swept Pres. Obama into office with a greater amount of Democrats in both houses of congress? Wasn’t that a clear signal to all of them, their leadership in D.C. was a failure? I guess they were still wearing the ear-muffs they wore on Inauguration Day.
In the first six years of the former Bush administration, the GOP was in power of both the executive and legislative branches and they expected Democrats to capitulate to their will all in the name of patriotism. America is staring down a different yet still devastating threat today that cannot be seen and it is up to the GOP to rise to the occasion to show how patriotic they really are in the face of this crisis which has equally imperiled the American people.
I would say that this economic threat is far more devastating than Al Qaeda, since it tentacles reach from sea to shining sea. I would also love to remind the GOP that former President Bush lied to the American people as to why we invaded Iraq. Yet the GOP expected not only congress, but the American people to fall for that hook, line and sinker.
As people have lost their jobs, and have continued to lose their jobs along with that are the health benefits they had and their ability to put food on the table as well as keep a roof over their head. This economic threat does not reside in terror cells, but in corporations that are no longer able to sustain the ability to employ these workers or states which are no longer able to meet their citizens needs. It was reported on Tuesday in The L.A. Times, “The budget deficit is $40 billion and growing. The state is so short of cash that, within days, it may issue IOUs, rather than checks, to pay its bills. The Legislature, bitterly divided, seems unable to agree on a way out. The governor warns of "financial Armageddon."
Yet, the GOP squawk at the amount it will take to get America working again in order to rebuild this economy, but no squawking took place when it came to the price tag of the Iraq War. To me, the Iraq War was the ultimate earmark and it did not get as much in-depth discussion of it and its price tag by former Pres. Bush, the congress and the media.
Since I chose California to prove the dire straights they are in economically, so far this war in Iraq has cost the American tax payer as a whole, over $591 billion dollars and counting by the second. Listed below is what the State of California could have used their portion of the funds for.
Taxpayers in California will pay $83.1 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
34,208,306 People with Health Care for One Year
OR
148,087,070 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year
OR
1,484,827 Public Safety Officers for One year
OR
1,174,122 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year
OR
12,490,710 Scholarships for University Students for One Year
OR
248,783 Affordable Housing Units
OR
31,068,375 Children with Health Care for One Year
OR
9,941,768 Head Start Places for Children for One Year
OR
1,193,726 Elementary School Teachers for One Year
OR
1,049,740 Port Container Inspectors for One year
If I were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, I would have an up-close meeting with these House and Senate Republicans and no using that phrase, “I’ll be back”, but stay there until they listened to reason as his state is in fiscal chaos. Without the Iraq War, they would have been in the black.
Oh and last but not least as the Republicans haggle over the cost of that family planning portion of the bill which was taken out, let me remind my readers that all of us as tax payers paid for an American Embassy to be built in Baghdad which cost over $500 million dollars. Yet, another earmark and of no use to we the people as we face this economic firestorm.
To the Republicans on the Hill, just how are you the conservators of the people’s tax dollars? I just do not see it since no example has been proven to we the people.
Author’s email address is, xmjmac@optonline.net
January 27, 2009
As President Barack Obama made his way to The Hill on Tuesday to meet with House and Senate Republicans to gain their support for the $825 billion dollar stimulus bill, it was met by all of them with the frost that remains days after Pres. Obama was sworn in. In the spirit of bipartisanship that Pres. Obama is trying to instill in Washington, the Republicans would have none of that. I would first like to add, weren’t they listening to the American voters on November 4th, 2008 as they swept Pres. Obama into office with a greater amount of Democrats in both houses of congress? Wasn’t that a clear signal to all of them, their leadership in D.C. was a failure? I guess they were still wearing the ear-muffs they wore on Inauguration Day.
In the first six years of the former Bush administration, the GOP was in power of both the executive and legislative branches and they expected Democrats to capitulate to their will all in the name of patriotism. America is staring down a different yet still devastating threat today that cannot be seen and it is up to the GOP to rise to the occasion to show how patriotic they really are in the face of this crisis which has equally imperiled the American people.
I would say that this economic threat is far more devastating than Al Qaeda, since it tentacles reach from sea to shining sea. I would also love to remind the GOP that former President Bush lied to the American people as to why we invaded Iraq. Yet the GOP expected not only congress, but the American people to fall for that hook, line and sinker.
As people have lost their jobs, and have continued to lose their jobs along with that are the health benefits they had and their ability to put food on the table as well as keep a roof over their head. This economic threat does not reside in terror cells, but in corporations that are no longer able to sustain the ability to employ these workers or states which are no longer able to meet their citizens needs. It was reported on Tuesday in The L.A. Times, “The budget deficit is $40 billion and growing. The state is so short of cash that, within days, it may issue IOUs, rather than checks, to pay its bills. The Legislature, bitterly divided, seems unable to agree on a way out. The governor warns of "financial Armageddon."
Yet, the GOP squawk at the amount it will take to get America working again in order to rebuild this economy, but no squawking took place when it came to the price tag of the Iraq War. To me, the Iraq War was the ultimate earmark and it did not get as much in-depth discussion of it and its price tag by former Pres. Bush, the congress and the media.
Since I chose California to prove the dire straights they are in economically, so far this war in Iraq has cost the American tax payer as a whole, over $591 billion dollars and counting by the second. Listed below is what the State of California could have used their portion of the funds for.
Taxpayers in California will pay $83.1 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
34,208,306 People with Health Care for One Year
OR
148,087,070 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year
OR
1,484,827 Public Safety Officers for One year
OR
1,174,122 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year
OR
12,490,710 Scholarships for University Students for One Year
OR
248,783 Affordable Housing Units
OR
31,068,375 Children with Health Care for One Year
OR
9,941,768 Head Start Places for Children for One Year
OR
1,193,726 Elementary School Teachers for One Year
OR
1,049,740 Port Container Inspectors for One year
If I were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, I would have an up-close meeting with these House and Senate Republicans and no using that phrase, “I’ll be back”, but stay there until they listened to reason as his state is in fiscal chaos. Without the Iraq War, they would have been in the black.
Oh and last but not least as the Republicans haggle over the cost of that family planning portion of the bill which was taken out, let me remind my readers that all of us as tax payers paid for an American Embassy to be built in Baghdad which cost over $500 million dollars. Yet, another earmark and of no use to we the people as we face this economic firestorm.
To the Republicans on the Hill, just how are you the conservators of the people’s tax dollars? I just do not see it since no example has been proven to we the people.
Author’s email address is, xmjmac@optonline.net
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