Jobs

 

By Bill Kraus


The good news is that almost everyone who is planning to run for office in 2014 has said that he or she will focus on one issue: jobs.

Does this mean that we will be spared the personal demonization and negative attack advertising that has become a staple of 21st century political campaigning? Nobody is promising that, but we can hope.

In any event the subject of this discourse is jobs not smash mouth politics, and the good news is not as good as one may hoped.

Jobs were on everyone's short agenda in 2012 and 2010.

I quickly concluded that talk about jobs was just that. Talk.

Fixing the unfixable

 

By Bill Kraus


My list has three categories. None of them are easy. Too many are impossible.

Hard

Gerrymandering. The maps reveal everything about the Legislature’s over-reaching to make more and more legislative districts safe. Legislatures in some 20 states have passed laws which are the equivalent of “stop me before I do this again.” Iowa’s law is the best. All that needs to be done is to overcome the opposition of the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader to do what Iowa has done. Hard.

Disclosure. The theory is that if the voters know who pays for the ads run by third parties for and against candidates, the ads would be less effective. That’s the theory. It might be more than a theory if those running the ads had to identify their organizations or causes up front the way candidates do. The legislators who would have to pass a law to force disclosure are safe enough to be almost fearless, except they are afraid of or beholden to the big money sources who prefer not to be revealed. Hard.

Harder

Whatever were they thinking?

 

By Bill Kraus


I am assembling stories from near and far for "Whatever Were They Thinking? Awards" along the lines of the Darwin Awards.

There will be no strict rules, but I expect the entries will be about serious missteps (or over-reaching) by those in power who are important enough to attract press attention.

The antics of the likes of New York City’s Andrew Wiener and Madison’s Brett Hulsey, which seem to me to be in a different category--Not Thinking perhaps--will not be eligible.

A few examples of what I consider eligible follow.