Quigley in Exile (annex)

Thursday, December 07, 2006

How Many Electoral Votes Does Oprah Have?

by Bernie Quigley for The Free Market News Network on 12/07/06

I see the life force rising in Virginia with Jim Webb. And it was announced this week that Wes Clark will publish a book called America's Son in the fall of 2007. He asks not to make too much of it. The book announcement isn't evidence that he'll run for President in 2008.

''I just want to participate in the American dialogue about where we are as a nation,'' he said.

I am all but certain that he will run in '08. He is an American for all seasons, and his candidacy will appeal to red and blue states alike. He is the rare, truly federal candidate and federal as Jefferson intended it to be. He belongs to Arkansas first and last as its native son. Like Jefferson, he is not made provincial by his native place but deepened and wizened by it.

In a way, Jim Webb, who just won election to the Senate in Virginia, is prelude to Clark. What voters sought and found in Webb lives in Clark as well. In Virginia today they are wearing bumper stickers which read, “My Senator is Fearless.” So is Wes Clark. And both are smart as paint. As an editor for the Fighting Dems News Service points out, “In opting for an all-encompassing “strategic” approach to Iraq and the Middle East, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) released recommendations that are far closer to those proposed by retired Gen. Wesley Clark than plans offered up by many other Democrats and Republicans.”

Nevertheless, the Democrats face chaos directly ahead, brought to you by the Senator from New York. Now this is federalism at its fullest in Hamilton’s corporate vision: the world is not made up of varied places and peoples, each with its own soul and distinct culture and sensibility, but of ideas and money. Somebody else’s ideas and somebody else’s money. When her undergraduate egotism crashes in '07 in blame and acrimony and she accepts the Chaired Professorship, Eric Massa might consider running for her Senate seat.

‘Tis the Hamiltonian curse that like the Dixie Chicks’ Queen of Whatever, many people today are not from actual places but from economic zones. They hesitate or have to think about it for a minute when you ask them where they are from. Or ask an advisor. But there are still New Yorkers who know how to find their way on the A train at 14^th St. to the D train to Bensonhurst without getting shot and one of them is the mayor, Mike Bloomberg. “A great, visionary mayor,” says Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff in a cover story in New York Magazine this month. “There’s just no question,” says the investor Steve Rattner, “that he is the greatest mayor of New York since Fiorella La Guardia.” His approval numbers, which hovered around 70% for most of the past year, would suggest so.

The New York article reports that Bloomberg is serious about running for President in 2008. But he asks, "“What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming President?”

Every chance, as his imagination is as vast as his cash flow.

Bloomberg senses that if Senator Clinton runs it will mark a descent into mayhem and irresponsibility on behalf of the Democrats. He said long ago that he would put up a half billion of his own money to start a third Independent Party if the Democrats send up someone “unelectable.” But it appears that the Democrats, or some of them, are hell bent on doing so, and leading the pack today are Senator Clinton and Senator Barak Obama, the freshman Senator from Illinois. He came to the Senate almost in a walk, as he ran against the perennial pundit of the Has-Been Right, Alan Keyes. Yet he is today tied for first place in the first Daily Kos straw poll for 2008. To his credit? He’s got more “friends” on MySpace than any other politician, says Kos. And, he’s got Oprah.

How many electoral votes does Oprah have?

Across the river in Vermont, there is near hysterical pitch as he comes to visit this weekend: Obama is the new Howard Dean they are saying.

Last I checked, Howard Dean finished third in Iowa and that was largely the end of his political career. But Dr. Dean wasn’t looking to be President and he actually became terrified at the possibility when his popularity briefly rose in the New Hampshire primary. He had just lost his job and was looking for a new one and he got it. He was one of those who enter the Presidential race for other reasons, which is unfortunate. In years past, it has caused the Democrats to be called the Silly Party, and led them into derision. Obama says he hopes no one votes for him just because he's black. Would it be the legislative record then? As scholar/pundit Stanley Fish said, Liberals don’t take anything seriously.

It is the same impulse of "irrational exuberance" which calls forth Senators Clinton and Obama that sent this same generation to invest in undercapitalized but trendy DOT.com stocks in the salad days of the Clinton Administration. Silicon Valley was sure to be the Yuppie nirvana before the crash. This is a political manifestation of this same, apparently inherent, immature and unchecked yearning.

Nature calls Bloomberg forth, and he is a right honorable American, even a patriot, to come forth. But a third party will bring disaster to our country. If a competent guy like Bloomberg runs it will divide the votes in '08 into three parts and the election will be thrown into the House. Bloomberg has no support in the House. As the House is controlled by Democrats as per the November election, the House will give it to Hillary. With Hillary as President with only 33% of the vote, the red states will buck, and rightly so.

The South will not tolerate governance by a Clinton with only 33% of the vote and one considered by many to be a Bitch on Wheels, Chopped and Channeled, Rolled and Pleated with Lakers and Moon Disks. Richard Viguerie of the Christian Coalition and Michael Hill of The League of the South could call for a Constitutional Convention – Robert Novak has already reported rumors of a Constitutional Convention. And if the South and the mid states wanted to secede today, who would stop them?

But as these modern-day Whigs spiral out of control and into the ozone, back in the Old Dominion comes a new awakening. Raising Kaine, the Virginia Governor’s blog, did a straw poll awhile back featuring ten potentials in 2008. Clark was the leader with 37% and John Edwards was next with 27%. Senator Clinton received 1.7%. They followed up this week with a new straw poll of only the top three: Clark received 61% and Edwards 30%. Barak Obama received 8%. Perhaps this is the way of all things: the first snake to shed its skin will survive and flourish.

Now that Rumsfeld is out, Gates in and the Iraq Study Group’s report is in the hands of the thoughtful, we can begin to look forward. Wes Clark is awakening in the heartland and the awakening begins in Virginia.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Note to Noel at Fighting Dems website, to be a Diary on Daily Kos - Draft:

Noel - The Fighting Dems has a future, I believe which will begin to hatch with the "new Democrats" growing in the new Congress. We see now since the November election the rise of red state Democrats. I see the life force rising in Virginia with Jim Webb. It was announced this morning that Wes Clark will publish a book called America's Son in Fall, 2007. I am all but certain that he will run in '08 and I plan to help him in any way I can. Wes is an Ameican for all seasons, and as a Presidential candidate will appeal to red states and right now that heart is beating in Virginia. I go to the Raising Kaine web site every morning as it has a life force akin to WesPAC's. The Mark Warner campaign and the Jim Webb campaign are both connected. Steve Jarding, who with Dave Mudcat" Saunders wrote the book, Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the Henhouse and what the Democrats Need to do to Run 'Em Out ran both of those campaigns. Jarding is supporting Wes now I believe. The Fighting Dems can be a conduit between these events just past and the future.

We face chaos in Democratic politics directly ahead, brought to you by the Senator from NY (when her egotism crashes in '07 and the Clintons resolve in blame and acrimony, Eric Massa might run for her Senate seat). Mike Bloomberg, mayor of NY, senses that if she runs it will mark a descent into mayhem and irresponsibility on behalf of the Democrats and he will put up a half billion of his own money to start a third Independent Party.

An article this month in New York Magazine reports that Bloomberg is serious about running. But he asks, "“What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming President?”

Every chance, as his imagination is as vast as his cash flow.

It is the same impulse of "irrational exuberance" which calls forth Senator Clinton who was misguided from the beginning on Iraq and remains so, and Obama, who says he hopes no one votes for him just because he's black (would it be the legislative record then?) that sent this same generation to invest in undercapitalized DOT.com stocks in the salad days of the Clinton Administration. Silicon Valley was sure to be the Yuppie nirvana before the crash.

Nature calls Bloomberg forth, and he is a right honorable and competent American, even a patriot to put up his own cash to do this. But a third party will bring disaster to our country. If a competent guy like Bloomberg runs it will divide the votes in '08 into three thirds and the election will be thrown into the House. As the House is controlled by Democrats as per the November election, the House will give it to Hillary (Bloomberg has no support in the House). With Hillary as President with only 33% of the vote, the red states will buck. Red state alienation is caused to some large degree by northern yuppie pretensions.

“The Democrats must get off this cultural high ground they have been living on for the past twenty-five years,” write Jarding and Saunders in Foxes . . . . “When you want to represent people, you have to talk to them where they live. Talk to them about what they like to do for fun, what makes life enjoyable for them, what their fears are. And when you find out that they like NASCAR races, that they like country or bluegrass music, that they like to hunt or fish, don’t pass judgment on them. Embrace them.”

The South will not tolerate governance by a Clinton with only 33% of the vote (or a Clinton again with any percentage of the vote). Richard Viguerie of the Christian Coalition and Michael Hill of The League of the South will call for a Constitutional Convention – Robert Novak has already reported rumors of a Constitutional Convention. And if the South and the mid states wanted to secede today, who would stop them? Howard Dean?

We are at the beginning of a historical turning and the Fighting Dems, which started with Wes Clark's strong support, initiates a new direction in American politics marked by duty and responsibly. Those of us who went to war in Asia might have learned the phrase dharma; those of us with Virginia kin were weaned on it. ("Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less." -Robert E. Lee. This is Dharma.)

Dharma awakens today in Virginia where in a poll this week featuring the three Virginia frontrunners, Wes Clark, John Edwards and Barack Obama, General Clark received 62% (Edwards, 29%). In an earlier poll featuring ten potentials Clark was the leader with 37%. Edwards was next with 27%. Senator Clinton received 1.7%.

Now that Rumsfeld is out, Gates in and the Baker Panel's commission in the hands of the thoughtful, we can begin to look forward. Wes Clark is awakening in the heartland and awakening begins in Virginia.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Division in the Middle East

Thomas E. Ricks of The Washington Post reported last week some egregious rumors of how the Pentagon is considering “stabilizing” the situation in Iraq. As it has been in the process since the conceptualization of this war or lack thereof, some of these ideas are beyond belief. It is perhaps related to the Administration’s newest turns, lost at sea, that Nawaf Obaid, advisor to the Saudi government, writes this week in the Post that if Bush prematurely withdraws a significant number of American troops from Iraq, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.

“As this economic powerhouse of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam and the de facto leader of the world’s Sunni community (which comprises 85 percent of all Muslims), Saudi Arabia has both the means and the religious responsibility to intervene.”

“Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni Brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias.”

Thus, the “civil war” in Iraq is enlarged to a regional war between Iranian and Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi and Saudi Sunnis.

For anyone interested, below is a thought from Quigley in Exile about how cultures divide into binary parts, which resembles a division of “heart” and “mind.” The Middle East appears to potentially be at the crossroads of such a bifurcation. If this seems complicated, consider the price of simple minded, which we are paying the price for now in Iraq.

Particles and Waves - Countries divide into binary chakra orientations & so does the individual & so does the family & so does the world

This is essentially, an edited out section of the last episode on the Six Grandfathers and American history.

Current research shows that on the day of birth a baby boy will look at a mobile hanging above his bead. A baby girl will look at a face. The one is a techomatrix orientation and inate fascination with technicality (head), the other empathy (heart). Head and heart are biological divisions and they are binary yang and yin orientations in

the world. All societies divide between head and heart. Paris (above, Ile de la Cite and Left and Right Banks with Notre Dame's Rose Glass superimposed on the Ile de la Cite) gives a perfect example: the bankers and burgers live on the Right Bank of the river Seine (in red) and the artists, writers, hippies and mystics live on the Left Bank (in blue). The two halves are divided by a river connected by the Pont Neuf and held together by a perfect jewel: The Notre Dame Cathedral with its rose glass on the Ile de la Cite. Europe likewise divided between Roman (head) and Greek (heart) in Imperial, Christian and Cold War spheres, but unfortunately has no Ile de la Cite to unify and absorb its opposites today in a mandala.

A distinct binary relationship can be seen extending across Asia as well from India to Japan. Vedic (yin) Asia has its source in India but extends to areas that were once Vedic and are now Buddhist, like Thailand and its neighbors. The Vedic influence is palatable in Thailand and Laos. With Taoist (yang) Asia, China, Korea and Japan (Japanese zen owes itself to Taoism and is an extension to Taoism: See Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen), a binary relationship can be seen. The Vedic/yin regions feature yoga and graceful dancing, while the Taoist/yang regions express themselves in cerebral discussions (or non-discussion discussions as in Japanese Zen) marshal arts, stick fighting and in the farthest corner, Samurai swordsmanship, none of which are prominent in the Vedic areas. Tibet has influences of both; archetypal deities that resemble the Hindu pantheon, and the Taoism’s tai chi (yin/yang symbol) sits in the center of the Tibetan flag. Tibet, which calls the center of consciousness the Jewel Heart is in itself the Jewel Heart of the extended mandala of the East. The destruction of Tibet as a sacred center and its occupation by communist China will likely upset and destroy the ancient, balanced symmetries between China and India and those within the entire Asian continent.

The Asian regions developed these relationships over thousands of years, but the entire region will lose its internal yin/yang features as East and West adjoin in our times and a new global relationship develops a new Jewel Heart between East and West, founding a new benign mandala vortex around the Chicago/Toronto area thereabouts. This is a new world picture which has been moving to this one point since the beginning of civilization. It is the Aquarian mandala.

There is a well-known analysis in psychiatric lore about "Henry’s dreams" (picture here from Man and His Symbols, edited by C.G. Jung), which refers to a long series of archetypal dreams that brought a psychiatric patient of C.G. Jung associate Jolande Jacobi to face deep and irrational powers within himself. During analysis, Henry drew a picture with a blue field on the right with a Madonna-like woman standing in it and a red field on the left with a wolf-like black monster in it. The picture suggests that the forces within Henry are dangerously incompatible, but in the center of the picture is a mandala-like flower which links the opposite sides.

This personal dream of Henry's classically illustrates the situation described in the illustration above on the banks of the Seine in Paris, the left bank (artists and writers), the yin side, and the right side (bankers and business people), the yang side, united by the cathedral on the Ile de Cite. Further investigation reveals that this is the same pattern on the flag of France; a left field blue and a right field red, connected by a white field, meant to suggest the lilies of the field.

Many flags, particularly in mature countries, have this same balance; the blue sometimes green and the red sometimes orange, and with a flower or an icon of some type in the center holding them together. (The icon stashed up in the corner and with only one color suggests a transitional phase or a country out of balance.)

Many towns, cities and countries are thus divided, very often like New York into artsy (hippies, poets) “downtowns” and business-like “uptowns” (Madison Avenue). And the beautiful city of Washington, D.C. serves as a center-most mandala for North and South prior to the Civil War. And the Mississippi River divides the world today with Chicago at top and New Orleans at bottom uniting the U.S. east and west and all of the Eastern world and the Western world into one world. So far, like Europe, it has no mandala. But maybe it will one day. At center is the Lakes Region, which forms a water star - maybe a world mandala in the new center of the world will feature the Sea Serpent in the Great Lakes known to First People as the Manitou - the Primary Spirit of the Earth.)

Friday, December 01, 2006

Tom Vilsack’s Wonderful Life

by Bernie Quigley - for The Free Market News Network, 12/01/2006

Tom Vilsack, Governor of Iowa, gave a confident speech in his native place yesterday to a beautiful heartland crowd which might have come from a Frank Capra movie. It will come to mind again this Christmas when we watch the Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, as the Vilsacks seem to live in George Bailey’s mythical town and Tom appears to be its mayor.

Like Longfellow Deeds, Jefferson Smith, George Bailey and all of Capra’s heroes, Vilsack sees himself as the underdog Democrat running for President in 2008.

“I have always been an underdog and a long shot,” he said. “I’ve always been inspired by the stories of ordinary citizens who worked hard, overcame adversity and succeeded.”

Pure Capra. But I don’t think he planned it like that. It’s just like that in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Vilsack’s adopted hometown. It’s a church supper, college football crowd of unpretentious farm folk. The kind of town which Capra saw to be the American nirvana – the core of the country’s spiritual sensibilities and the wellspring of its inner life. Vilsack’s life in fact, reads like a Capra script: Born an orphan in Pittsburg and adopted by a loving but alcoholic mother and raised by a single father who grew deeper and deeper into poverty.

“I know what it means to be alone,” he told the crowd.

But for Vilsack, alone was only a starting point. Fate brought him to his father-in-law’s law office in small-town Iowa and he was suddenly called to service when a disturbed citizen busted into a City Council session and killed the mayor. From there he almost inexplicably ended up as Governor; and a Democratic governor in the reddest of states. When he turns over the keys to the new Governor next month Democrats will control Iowa’s legislature and the Governor’s office for the first time in four decades.

The press and pundits waiting for him in Washington also see Vilsack as a long shot. But they yearn for the return of a season past rather than the day ahead. They need to watch Frank Capra this Christmas to see where America comes from and where it is restored. And they need to learn how to count.

That’s the advise of Steve Jarding and Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, who ran Mark Warner’s race for Governor of Virginia in 2001, the first indication of a paradigm change in politics when a Connecticut-reared, Harvard-educated Nextel entrepreneur turned the tide of heartland Republicanism simply by treating country people as his equals. They also had a hand in Jim Webb’s significant victory this past month in Virginia and have written a book on their strategy called Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run ‘em Out. It is virtually a manual for running for political office here at the burgeoning Third Millennium.

First off, they tell Democrats: Learn How to Count.

In the fifty states, they remind us, there are 535 Electoral College votes; adding 3 for D.C. and there are 538 total Electoral College votes. Divide 538 by 2 and you get 269 votes. Thus, to win the White House, a candidate has to get 269 plus 1 to have a majority of Electoral College votes.

But Democrats don’t seem to get this math, they say, and simply write off 20 primarily southern and rural states and their total 164 electoral votes. In the last Presidential election the Democrats conceded 227 electoral votes in twenty-seven states to Bush before any votes were actually cast.

The Democrats cannot win this way. If they want to be taken seriously again in Presidential politics they have to find a candidate who will appeal to the heartland. They make the point that most rural and heartland states began their political destiny as Democratic.

Today, influential Democratic strategists still look to the cities and the suburbs in hopes that the Electoral College will just go away. Press people as well, being city folk, share this delusion and continually project candidates more suited to the salad bar and the wine and cheese tasting rather than the NASCAR track. How many rural and red states are proposed Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama likely to win today? In Iowa, John Edwards leads the unannounced pack, but not by much. And as Jarding said in a recent newspaper article, not by enough.

But that was last week and this is now. Iowans are not going to give him a free pass, Vilsack told The New York Times, assessing his chances in the caucuses to be held in 13 months, “And they shouldn’t.”

Good spirit. Nevertheless, I think Vilsack just won the Iowa caucus. And as those of us who worked for Wesley Clark in the New Hampshire primary learned at the very beginning of the curve in 2004, it was all about Iowa. As Frank Capra suggests, maybe it should be.

“The Democrats must get off this cultural high ground they have been living on for the past twenty-five years,” write Jarding and Saunders. “When you want to represent people, you have to talk to them where they live. Talk to them about what they like to do for fun, what makes life enjoyable for them, what their fears are. And when you find out that they like NASCAR races, that they like country or bluegrass music, that they like to hunt or fish, don’t pass judgment on them. Embrace them.”

Some I can’t see at the NASCAR track, but others I can. Mark Warner I can, Jim Webb I can, Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas, I can, Wes Clark I can, and Tom Vilsack I can. It should be the everyman stop as Pat’s Steaks in Philly was or as the Irish pub in South Boston was in industrial days now past. And if candidates feel uncomfortable there then perhaps they don’t belong in Presidential politics. They will be writing off 227 electoral votes. Anyway, watching Vilsack’s speech last night on C Span I think he’s already got those votes. And he doesn’t need to hire Mudcat to seem regular.

“Three weeks ago, Americans courageously voted to create change,” Vilsack said. “We sent a clear message that we wanted our country led in a new and better direction. But our job is not done. We have more work to do . . . That is why I am here today - to continue our work, and to bring the courage to create change to America. It will take leadership to create this change. But it also will take an active sense of community.

“Together, with the courage to create change, let us build a 21^st Century economy of cutting-edge companies and technologies that lead us to energy security. Energy security will revitalize rural America, re-establish our moral leadership on global warming and climate security and eliminate our addiction to foreign oil.

“Together, with the courage to create change let us embrace a new foreign policy that renews friendships, develops alliances and isolates enemies. In Iraq, we must act, take our troops out of harm's way and allow Iraqis to begin providing their own security.”

This last phrase blends well with those elsewhere today in The Washington Post, as Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks report that James A. Baker’s bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces.

"Everybody understands that we're at the end of the road here,” one of the sources told the reporters.

The country people in places like Tobaccoville, North Carolina, Haverhill, New Hampshire and Mount Pleasant, Iowa, say that when the Lord closes one door, He opens another.

Profile

Bernie Quigley is a prize-winning magazine writer and has worked more than 30 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and book, movie, music and art reviewer. His essays on politics and world affairs have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News and other newspapers and magazines. He has published poetry in Painted Bride Quarterly and has written dozens of magazine articles. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He has written hundreds of columns for "Pundits Blog" in "The Hill" a political journal in Washington, D.C. He lives in the White Mountains with his wife and four children.

Email Bernie Quigley at quigleydude@yahoo.com


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Monday, December 11, 2006

This is a live-blogging session on Daily Kos, 12/11/06

A Rising Blue Tide in Virginia – Bernie Quigley live blogging

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Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 10:09:02 AM PST

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Thursday, December 07, 2006

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Monday, December 04, 2006

Particles and Waves - Countries divide into binary chakra orientations & so does the individual & so does the family & so does the world

Friday, December 01, 2006