Are you an optimist? Maybe you shouldn't be!

I read about two-thirds of the way through "This used to be us by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum and felt a bit pessimistic about our future. We have too many jingoistic, short-sighted politicians and citizens.

Then I read the little blurb to accompany the interview with Slavoj Zizek, "Now the field is open" in which he thinks that "the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over".

Consider that China, an autocratic regime, is growing faster than most other countries in the world, and that the United States, a supposedly democratic government, is all tied up in petty squabbles how to unstick a somewhat anemic economy.

China has a government rife with corruption that is trying to define the common good, and the U.S. has a government rife with corruption that is trying to maximize the profits of a few, claiming that it will promote the common good.

Until each of these two countries has a sound understanding of the "civic virtue" called for by the writers of the Federalist Papers, our planet is doomed to be "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" as described by Thomas Friedman in the book of the same title.

Thomas Friedman for Secretary of State

I sent the following to Barack Obama's transition web site at

http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

Thomas Friedman for Secretary of State. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew; he spent years in both Lebanon and Israel; and he has contacts all over the world. He also has a realistic view of the difficulty of bringing people together. See
"Show me the money", New York Times, 2008-11-09

Candidates are not apples and oranges

Comparing candidates is not like comparing apples and oranges. There are distinct differences in candidates' styles, history, knowledge, and skills. Candidates strengths and weaknesses are not a product of their politically parties.

I'm led to these thoughts by newspaper comparisons of the 2004 and the 2008 elections, generally about how various areas of the country went for Bush or for Kerry in 2004. Party affiliation is the wrong measure of future success.

In the 2004 debates, George Bush often came across as folksy and engaged with his audience. John Kerry was often wooden and detached. He also was a bit self-centered. I groaned each time he said, "In my plan" or "I have a plan..."

In 2008, John McCain is exciting people with narrow interests that they perceive he supports, but Barack Obama is exciting people with a larger vision of what our problems are and of where we should be headed.

One might say both the 2004 and the 2008 elections hinged on vision versus me-first.