The Republicans and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Republicans are long on theory; short on marketing their ideas.  It would be good for them to revisit Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from time to time – it might be a valuable wakeup call.  

You remember the pyramid?  With the most fundamental physiological needs at the bottom, then safety and security?  Higher levels of that pyramid – more “psychological” needs like  love/belonging, self-esteem and confidence, and self-actualization are important, but less so. 

Basic needs are most important.  This seems to be lost on Republican policy-makers and those tasked with winning elections for Republicans. 

Right now, Republicans too often focus on a 50,000-foot perspective and on the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy – morality and self-actualization – when they need to be closer to the ground and address fundamental needs.

If someone is out of work and looking for a job, they want a job, not a discourse on the role of “job creators”; they don’t connect their need for a job with giving tax breaks to businesses.  Regulations may be hurting small businesses, but the general public doesn’t see how that affects them directly – nor do they see how reducing regulations will help them.  

If people are having trouble paying for food, they want food prices to come down, not a tax cut.  And if gas prices are killing them, they want something to bring gas prices down, not a long-term plan for improving domestic energy security. 

The same goes for ObamaCare – it is going to restrict freedom and access to the best care, plus it’s already raising insurance rates.  But the public  wants to believe that  somehow they’re going to get healthcare they can afford, and insurance companies won’t be able to kick them out if they get really sick, which seems like a pretty good thing to most.   

Stable jobs, financial security and health fall into the two most important – and fundamental – needs of Maslow’s hierarchy. 

Yet Republicans addressed these … how?

Personal responsibility?  Restricting abortion?  Reducing burdensome regulations?  Fighting ObamaCare mandates on birth control coverage as an attack on religious freedom?  Promoting tax cuts?  Reducing the Federal debt?  Smaller government? 

Who cares about these things if you don’t have a job, worry about losing your job, or live in fear of being wiped out financially if you get sick?  

It’s been said that one reason America hasn’t been more successful in third-world nations is that we consistently promote things that have little immediate relevance.  We offer things like hydroelectric plants and democracy down the road, when what those people need is food, clean water and safety right now.  Yes, electricity and democracy can lead – over time – to more food, cleaner water and greater safety, but in the present you can’t eat electricity or democracy.  

In much the same way, the Republican Party is pitching the wrong stuff for today’s voters.  Sure, the Republicans have the right ideas about a lot of things, if you take a long view, especially when it comes to limiting the reach of government, cutting spending, and the need for people to be more focused on providing for themselves than relying on government. 

That said, Republicans will never win the culture wars.  That ship has sailed.    The best they can hope for is to moderate its course to a more responsible path.  Gently. 

The 1950s are gone; we’re never going to go back to Ward and June Cleaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Waltons as family models.  The nuclear family of Mom, Dad, Butch and Wendy still exists but is becoming rarer.  There are more households headed by single parents than ever before, and more children born to single mothers than ever before, too.  People don’t go to church as often.  Nor do they stay married as long.  Promiscuity doesn’t bear the baggage it once did.  What used to be considered porn and in bad taste is on cable TV.  Hardly anyone cares if someone is gay or not.  Hispanics are on their way to being an ethnic majority.  And white Christian males aren’t driving the agenda anymore. 

These are fundamental changes in America.  You may not like all of them, but they are reality.  You can either accept them and move on, or fight them and lose.

Still, Republicans can win other more important wars.  However, only if they win elections.  With enough House and Senate seats it makes little difference who the President is.  If Republicans want to cut the size of government, reduce profligate spending, wean the public off entitlements, and get the economy under control, they must play small-ball politics for a while. 

By that I mean focusing on the base of Maslow’s hierarchy.  Address basic needs in a meaningful way.  It’s about real jobs, with real paychecks, for doing real work.  It’s about making sure people have access to healthcare they can afford.  It’s about making people feel safe and secure about their present, and their future. 

Don’t fall on your sword for more tax cuts for everyone, including the wealthy – not now – but try to hold the line where it’s politically expedient on tax increases; there’s a difference. 

And get real about immigration – recognize that’s there’s no way in Hell we’re ever going to deport 12 million people, and if Republicans don’t find a realistic path to citizenship for these folks, the Democrats will.

Do that and you can get the support you need for the big things.  But not until then.  

More advice to the Republican Party – kick the loons to the curb.

On this, you need to learn from the Democrats.  About 20% of the voting public is far left and about 20% is far right.  The far left are used to being a minority in American politics.  Since about 40% of the public claims to be conservative, the far left don’t expect to get everything they want every time.  However, for some reason, the far right think they should always get everything they want.   

When elections roll around, the far left of the Democrat party tends to be relatively quiet – they don’t want to screw up their chances for getting some of what they want.

Not so with the far right.  They crank it up.  It’s all or nothing. 

So most of the time the far right gets nothing.  Or sometimes a Pyrrhic victory that ultimately bites them in the butt when general elections come around.

In the primaries the far right pushes warriors for their causes.  In the general elections those warriors become martyrs.  They get crushed.  And who can blame the public for that?  When you have Republicans like Richard Mourdock claiming pregnancy from an act of rape is what “God intended,” or Todd Akin stating there’s such a thing as “legitimate rape” that prevents pregnancy, what do you expect? 

How stupid and insensitive can anyone be?  They may have thrilled the right-to-lifers, but their bone-headed comments exposed a dirty not-so-secret of the Republican Party – there are way too many nut jobs in their fold.  Nobody rational in the mainstream -- which includes a lot of Independents and otherwise conservative-leaning Democrats -- is going to take the Republican Party seriously until they clamp down on their loons. 

The Republican Party is always afraid to do this.  They seem incapable of parsing the differences among varying degrees of being a conservative.  In reality, a lot of people are conservative about some issues, and not so much on others. 

I’ll use myself as an example.  I am a registered Republican; have been for years.  I am generally conservative about a lot of things; somewhat liberal about other things, especially when it comes to social issues.  I vote in every election. 

And I’ll be completely honest with you – there are some folks in the Republican Party that scare the Hell out of me.  Some of them couldn’t lead me out of a burning building, much less get my vote. They embarrass me.   At the same time, they are embraced by some extremists in the Republican Party as “true conservatives,” and keepers of the legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Reagan must be rolling in his grave.  He was a fiscal conservative, but in truth also governed as a social moderate.  These latter-day Reagan wannabes have as much in common with Ronald Reagan as Mary Poppins did with Lizzie Borden.          

Still, too many Republican Party officials keep thinking their strength – their “base” – is the far right, the evangelicals, and the extreme social conservatives who want the red meat politicians to preach what they  already agree with.   No matter how off kilter that may be to what reality is, or, in the case of Akin, what actual science is.

Some prominent Democrat called that base the “flat earthers”; he’s pretty close to correct. 

Here’s the math Republicans need to understand:  yes, 40% of the public consider themselves to be conservative – but to different degrees, and that’s far short of a majority.  And majorities win elections.  Of that 40% conservative audience, no more than a quarter or a half of those are far right extremists; in fact, the number might be much lower than that. 

Given the numbers, why does the Republican Party pander to them?  Or even let them out of their cages? 

Every time an Akin or Mourdock speaks, they stab common sense in the heart.  Every time a Christine O’Donnell wins a primary you set yourselves up for failure. 

The real base of the Republican Party is made up of some of these folks, just some, but a lot more people who simply don’t believe that big government and wasteful spending are the answers to every problem.  They think their government should focus on what’s really important to them and their families – like keeping them safe, keeping them healthy, access to a good education, and getting and keeping a good job to provide for their family. 

They don’t need government to tell them what to do, what to think, who to hire, who to help, or who they should have a relationship with and what that relationship should be called. 

Are there enough of them in the Republican Party to win elections?  Not alone – you have to find more people like them outside the party to win.  The good news is they are there to be had. 

But as long as the party allows the loons to take center stage, and doesn’t muzzle the most extreme elements, Republicans don’t have a prayer. 

If you feed the squirrels, there will be more of them …

And they’ll expect more and more from you. 

That’s one lesson from the re-election of Obama to another four-year term. 

Those who want more free stuff voted for someone they thought would give it to them.  They didn’t want the other guy who might stop giving stuff away so freely. 

Screw who pays for it.  Like squirrels, they don’t care.  It’s free stuff and that’s all that matters. 

Giving away stuff – or merely appearing to be doing so – was a masterful stroke by the Democrats.  They made it seem that people could have anything they wanted, and never have to pay for it.  They treated the voting public like a bunch of spoiled brats and the public sucked it up.  Democrats were benevolent grandparents who doted on every whim their constituents desired – I’m surprised they didn’t promise everyone a pony and a bag of candy. 

But they were aided in this election by the Republicans, who once again showed an uncanny knack of refusing to recognize the blindingly obvious. So before the shooting inside the tent gets really started, here’s some less than subtle tips for the Republicans … 

Get off the abortion issue.  Roe v. Wade is the law of the land.  Get over it.  Now.  The Republican far right never seems to realize – or apparently care – that this is an immensely personal issue.  Government has no role to play, either for or against.  If you’re a Catholic or right-to-lifer opposed to abortion, that’s your right; but that does not allow you to decide what is right or wrong for other people.  You don’t know their circumstances, you don’t know their situation, and you are not in a position to act as God, nor remotely qualified to take on that role, despite what your priests or ministers may encourage you to believe. 

Most Americans already think abortion should be “legal, safe … and rare.”  You are never going to change their mind.  Ghastly photos, debates over the precise moment life begins, and screaming protests aren’t persuading anyone to your cause.   It’s done.   

If you persist in your efforts to ban all abortions, you will lose elections again and again.  Trying to backdoor the issue by incrementally banning abortions a procedure at a time, or making it so unbearably difficult and personally degrading to request one will have the same effect.  You may think you are morally right and doing God’s work, but God doesn’t vote in elections … everyday normal folk do.   You’ll lose. 

And if by chance you do make abortion illegal, it won’t stop abortions – it will just make them horrifyingly dangerous again, performed out of sight of medical supervision and standards, resulting in increased deaths of women. 

That’s not what the public wants.  And it’s probably not what your God wants.

About social issues in general … Most Americans simply want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit and not do harm to others. 

So take that cue – leave them alone.  You’re not the morality police.  Whenever you try to be it makes you look like a tool of small-minded, bigoted religious extremists. 

This is a democracy, not a theocracy; something the far right needs to remember. 

When you wander – or should I say blunder – around on issues that people feel are personal you come across as overbearing and insensitive.  And that costs you dearly at election time. 

You need to learn not to over-react.  You can’t let the most extreme social conservatives and religious fanatics in the party be in control and dictate what is or isn’t acceptable.  You need to view everything on social issues with a longer-term perspective, rather than rise to the bait on the cause du jour.  Taking the bait feeds the impression that Republicans are dangerous reactionaries, which, sadly, many times you seem to be. 

Not everything is a harbinger of the end of days. 

For example, Sandra Fluke is clearly an idiot.  Yet you made her a heroine by attacking her.   Forcing companies to pay for birth control may be over the top, and violate the beliefs of some Catholic institutions, but you should have let Catholics battle that out and not get involved.  Instead, you rose to take the bait too rapidly and aggressively and were soundly bludgeoned for seeming to oppose birth control in general. 

Planned Parenthood is a powerful organization, and yes, it does provide abortions, and yes, it does distribute birth control, and yes, Federal money does go to it.  However, Federal money – by law – cannot be used to fund abortions, and Planned Parenthood made a case that it was in compliance with that.  Anyway, without a lot of proof, you had to single out Planned Parenthood for cuts specifically to appease the far right.  And what did you gain? 

Then there’s your position on gay marriage.  Gay marriage has been going on for years abroad and here, and it’s not a big deal.  But you made it a big deal of it with stupid legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act – which will be ruled unconstitutional, as you well knew.  And even though everyone expects that to be overturned for any number of constitutional reasons, vocal members of the Republican Party keep waving the bloody shirt – like anyone really cares anymore

Your most radical elements may think promiscuity and homosexuality are sins.  Well here’s a wakeup call – neither of those “sins” are illegal between consenting adults, and you’re not going to make them illegal.  People are people and you can’t legislate morality any more than you can enforce the Ten Commandments.

And speaking of religion, people have the right to believe what they want, or believe in nothing at all.  What anyone believes is entirely their own business. 

Mind your own business before you start minding others’.   And pick your battles better

More to come in future postings …,

We need to stop over-protecting the stupid -- it’s threatening our species

The herd needs thinning and we’re getting in the way.  Every day there are new rules and regulations to protect the amazingly stupid among us. 

And you know what?  It’s a waste of time. 

It just prolongs the inevitable.  Plus it gives these astonishingly idiotic people time to reproduce, bringing more knuckleheads into this world, thus further degrading the gene pool.

It also enriches trial lawyers who find juries of equally stupid people eager to grant jackpot verdicts to some of the dumbest among us.   

Face it: some people are just too stupid to live.  We see examples every day. 

That doesn’t mean we start rounding them up and turning them into fertilizer.  However, we certainly shouldn’t be protecting them; we should stand aside and let nature take its course. 

Look, some people are brighter than others.  But some people are clearly much dumber than the norm, not because they are mentally challenged, but because they don’t have the good sense God gave a sweet potato. 

You can put all the warnings you like in front of them – in flashing 72pt. type and with graphics – and they still go off on their merry, stupid way and do things that put their lives and health in serious jeopardy.  And then seem honestly surprised when bad things happen. 

Somewhere along the way, our government decided we needed to protect these people from their own boneheaded actions.  It mandated all kinds of rules and labels that have absolutely no effect on those too stupid, or thoughtless, to pay attention.  You can't fix stupid.  

So I say “Give Up.”  Let nature take its course. 

Stop wasting time and money on postponing the nasty ends the awesomely stupid are destined for by their own hands.  Oh, and while we’re at it, find some way of preventing trial lawyers from making millions off the stupidity of others. 

Do you understand electricity?  Apparently a lot of Americans don’t.  That’s why there’s a cartoon on your blow dryer that shows you not to use it in the tub or while taking a shower. 

Do you need to be warned not to iron your clothes while you’re wearing them?  Apparently some people need to be … because your iron carries that warning.

Do you need to be told that the plastic bags your laundry comes in should not be placed over your face? Or that coffee is hot?  Or that you shouldn’t hold lit fireworks in your hand?  Or that you shouldn’t eat the desiccant pack included in some products?  That knives are sharp, you shouldn’t swallow mouthwash or drink rubbing alcohol, and that some microwaved foods can be very hot – especially the steam part?   

It’s not just product labels.  In their continuing effort to protect the stupid from becoming extinct by their own hands, there’s a constant barrage of nanny-state rules being promulgated. 

One of the first I can remember was about wearing seatbelts.  Now you can be fined for not wearing a seatbelt while driving; some states fine passengers not wearing seatbelts, too.  Yet most of us wear seatbelts anyway, not because of the fine, but because we think they’ll help keep us alive in a crash.

Today most cars also come equipped with air bags.  While those certainly cut down traffic fatalities, I’ll just bet that air bags also encourage the stupid to drive more recklessly.  

That's because I think the more you lessen the risk for the dumbasses, the more they’ll push the envelope.  Give them Lipitor and they'll eat more crap foods.  Come up with the HPV vaccine and they'll engage in even more risky behavior.  Morning after pill -- why worry about condoms anymore?       

You can't legislate common sense.  New York banned big sugary soft drinks.  Before long they – and others – will try to ban greasy foods.  Salty foods.  Fatty foods.  High calorie foods.  All to save the stupid from eating themselves to death.  They’ve now required restaurants to post nutritional statements so people will know how bad certain foods are for them.

Like that’s going to make a difference.  The stupid won’t pay any attention. 

When they have a massive coronary they’ll find some lawyer to help them sue McDonalds for making their food so irresistible.  They’ll sue Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, because they’ll claim they never knew donuts weren’t health foods. 

And the bizarre thing is, they’ll find some equally numbskull jury that agrees with them. 

Listen, if you eat a dozen donuts for breakfast, two Big Macs with large fries for lunch, drink a six pack with a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken – and you do this every day, you’re going to get fat.  Unless you won the luck of the draw in the gene pool, you’re also going to have high cholesterol and a whole host of other health issues.  Cause and effect. 

The problem is, the stupid don’t believe in a causal universe.  They don’t associate bad behavior and bad habits with potentially bad outcomes, the way the rest of us do, no matter how much you try to educate them. 

You might as well try to teach physics to parakeets, or your dog to play the bagpipes.  They simply aren’t interested. 

Want more proof?  Let’s take a very recent example. 

When you are told to evacuate an area because of fire, flood, or a hurricane, most normal people would.   But not the stupid among us. 

Well in advance of hurricane Sandy, there were dire warnings of catastrophic storm surges and repeated calls by officials to evacuate the Delaware, New Jersey and New York coastlines. 

Yet at the height of the storm I saw news clips of people wave boarding in those areas.  I saw people nearly blown off piers as they took pictures of themselves in front of the waves.  I saw people happily driving their cars on clearly flooded streets in more than foot-deep water. 

At Battery Park in New York, again with orders to evacuate, I saw people taking pictures of the news reporters and then two guys stripped off their shirts and jumped in the water laughing.    

Great fun.  Reminds me of my favorite short joke:

            What’s the last thing a redneck ever says? 

            “Watch this …” 

It also applies to the hopelessly stupid. 

So what are we to do? 

For once, there is a simple solution. 

We don’t have to do anything.  We just need to stop doing some things.  Like rescuing the clueless when they've put their own lives in danger through their own stupidity.  Or rewarding – through ridiculous lawsuits – incredibly stupid behavior. 

Let’s let nature take its course for a change.  The species might be better off. 

Democrats are out of control – and getting worse

Perhaps you’ve noticed that Democrats are getting increasingly shrill. 

This is what happens to the left when they think they’re about to lose.  They start name calling and fear mongering.  

Romney’s a liar.  Ryan’s a liar.  They and their Republican supporters want to:

·         Outlaw abortion and restrict access to contraceptives

·         Let the poor and elderly die from lack of healthcare

·         Take away all government benefits for seniors, vets and the poor

·         Stop feeding poor children

·         Cut funding for police, firefighters and teachers

·         Raise taxes on the poor and middle class

·         Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction

·         Stop student loans

·         Cut back on education

·         “Put y’all back in chains” (Thanks, Joe Biden)

And of course, kill Big Bird. 

Why do Romney, Ryan and Republicans want to do all this?  The left has a simple answer – it’s all about giving more money to the rich, and appeasing fanatics on the far right. 

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing the connection.  I can’t seem to connect the dots between all of the above and the rich and/or right-wing fanatics the way the left apparently can. 

But it must be true – or they wish it were – because the left just keeps repeating all this.   Oh, and that Romney and Ryan are pathological liars.   Talk about the pot calling the kettle black …

To them, Romney, Ryan and Republicans are the personification of true evil. 

They’d call them satanic, but that would imply a belief in God – which is politically incorrect on the left, I suppose.  So they’ll just settle for evil. 

The only thing the left hasn’t – so far – accused Romney, Ryan and the Republicans of is drowning baskets of cute little puppies.  (They probably have an attack ad on that already, but just haven’t found the right time to air it.)

Right now they are trying to find anything – and I do mean anything – to make Romney and Ryan unacceptable.   No matter how silly or petty. 

Maybe Axelrod is having a meltdown. 

How else can you explain the dust up over “binders of women.”  Did anyone else find Romney’s remark offensive?  Did anyone else who is rational think he was being literal about having women in binders? 

Only the left was offended.  Outraged, in fact. 

And when John Sununu called Obama “lazy,” well that was a racist remark; up there with the “N” word apparently.  That’s something I never knew before the left pointed it out.  

I was astonished.   I’ve been using the “lazy” word for years to describe my cats, some former colleagues, people who park in handicap spots but aren’t disabled at all, and others.  I had no idea what a racist I was.  How thoughtless and prejudiced I must be.   

Thanks lefties for educating me.   

It’s all more than just a little bizarre.    

Democrats have belabored the “dog on the car roof” story time and again to paint Romney as heartless.  Which is kind of ironic since their candidate actually ate a dog. 

Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse – but I’m leaning toward making an entrée out of a pet as perhaps more disturbing. 

Look, there’s a reason for all this nonsense.  Democrats are truly worried that they could lose.  They are pulling out all the stops.  Shoveling BS is all directions.  They only hope they can scare enough people to make Romney and Ryan an unacceptable alternative. 

It’s not working.  Bereft of any concrete plans – except for four more years of the same – they have nothing to run on except a dismal record.   They can attack all they want, but as Romney said last night in the third and final debate: “attacking me is not an agenda.” 

The polls reflect this.  The polls are showing that a lot of people aren’t buying the Democrats’ demonization of Romney – they have seen Romney up close and personal now in three debates and he’s not some wild-eyed radical, nor does he have horns and a tail. 

Which is what the Obama campaign spent more than $150 million in ads prior to the debates to position Romney as.  So all those negative ads were wasted; when confronted with reality they failed to hold up. 

Expect the Democrats to become even more crazed as the election draws near, and the momentum continues to shift toward Romney.  There’s no telling what they’ll try next.  

But the damage to their cause has already been done.  They tried to portray Romney as a monster.  They went all in to make him appear to be a thoughtless, heartless and cruel person who cared far more for the rich than for ordinary people.

Turns out he’s a decent guy.  A smart guy.  A humble guy.  Actually, a very likeable guy. 

And someone who has given of himself and his fortune to help others many times, without ever expecting anything in return.   

Plus, he’s got a successful record of working across the aisle and getting things done, both as a governor and a businessman. 

A lot of voters – especially independents – are now deciding that the country could do much worse than electing Romney to be President, and might in fact be much better off with him in the White House.  

After all the negative ads, they frankly expected Romney to be the boogeyman.   When the lights went on and he turned out to be a good guy who seemed fully capable of being President, they swung 180 degrees away from Obama.   

You can thank the Democrats for this.  And that makes them even crazier. 

Well of course the media is biased

It’s impossible to be completely without bias when reporting the news.  Every first-year J-school class used to teach that. 

However, they taught that news reporters and editors needed to be ever vigilant against allowing their own bias to color the presentation of the facts.

In short, those reporting the news needed to separate their opinions from the facts.  If they wanted to incorporate their opinions into a story, it ceased to be “news.”  If they inserted other’s opinions into a story, they needed to strictly attribute and verify those, and whenever possible find counterpoints.

That’s what real news journalism was supposed to be – a rigorous search for the truth, supported by facts, and presenting a balanced reporting of the results, as objectively as possible, to allow the reader or viewer to draw their own informed conclusion.

Well clearly that ship has sailed …

We now have more propaganda than hard, objective news.  The growth of the Internet – which should have increased access to facts – has been largely co-opted to reflect agendas more than facts, and to shape public opinion rather than inform. 

Talk radio is largely conservative.  Broadcast news is largely liberal.  Cable news networks are as well, except for Fox News which in fairness is pretty straight up on its news shows.  (Not to be confused with its opinion/commentary shows like O’Reilly and Hannity).   Newspapers are also largely liberal, except for the Wall Street Journal which seems to be the last bastion of objective news reporting.  And most online media is overwhelmingly liberal.

None of this would be cause for concern except a lot of people think when they see or hear something reported as news that it’s actually true and without bias. 

That’s sad.  And dangerous.  Especially when some in the media aren’t even trying to be honest about what they’re reporting. 

Unfortunately, that’s what we have today.  Most of the liberal media are unabashedly in the tank for Obama and the Democrats; they apparently have no reservations about skewing the news, or tampering with the facts, to advance their agenda.

A perfect case is the recent whoopla over the jobless rate dipping below 8%.  The liberal media used that as proof that Obama’s plans were working.   Obama and Michelle went on talk shows and gave interviews to anyone and everyone to take credit.  It was banner headlines in print, online, and the lead story on major networks.

Only one problem.  It wasn’t true.  Worse yet, everybody knew it, except the general public. 

Policy wonks in the Obama administration knew it was an error because California – the 8^th largest economy in the world – had missed a week in reporting its figures. The media knew that fact.  Hell, even Jack Welch made a point of telling everyone the 7.8% number was bogus. 

Today, the “seasonally adjusted” number came in.  Claims jumped from the previously reported 46,000 up to 388,000, almost entirely because of the hiccup in California everybody knew about.  This wiped out the “biggest drop in 4 months” story and then some. 

Do you think that’s going to get a lot of coverage? 

Also, a new Gallup poll was released yesterday showing Romney with now a 6 point lead over Obama among likely voters nationwide. 

If you watched Fox News, you already knew this.  But if you didn’t … well that’s because it didn’t fit someone else’s agenda.  A swing of about 11 or more points over a few weeks?  You’d think that would be news – but guess again.    

As to Tuesday’s debate – if you watched it as I did – you probably concluded that at worst it was a draw.  Both scored some points, but there were no knockouts. 

Nonetheless, the lead story in most of the media the next day was that Obama “won” among surveyed “undecideds.”   However, on some sites there was additional detail from those surveys that drilled down on who won on certain topics. 

Net/net, in most cases Romney won decisively on all the key issues such as jobs, the economy and other things of interest to most voters – sometimes by a margin of 10-11 points.   Obama won on seeming to be more interested in the person asking the question, and he certainly seemed a lot more energized, and aggressive, than in the first debate.   

So, in the last debate among the surveyed undecideds, Romney actually “won” on substance; Obama “won” on style. 

Didn’t see a lot of reporting on that either, did you? 

Look, there’s only so much anybody can spin stuff before it unravels.  We’re getting to that point very quickly.  Between the misreporting, under-reporting, and conscious withholding of critical information, the media in general is starting to lose control.  The more flagrant they act – such as Candy Crowley’s mishandling of the last debate to give Obama more time, shut down Romney, and then introduce a misstatement to support Obama (an error she later publicly conceded) – the more obvious their bias becomes to everyone. 

So right now you have Obama and most of the media running against Romney.  That’s no secret.  They are fully on the Obama bandwagon and aren’t even pretending to be fair. 

The good news is that Romney appears to be winning so far. 

So maybe the public is indeed a lot smarter – and less gullible – than most of the media thinks they are. 

Where are the yard signs?

Someone brought this up the other day.

I admit I’m puzzled. 

With the election less than a month away – and with partisan fervor at a fever pitch – you would expect a plethora of yard signs for Obama or for Romney. 

Normally, by this time, every median strip would be a sea of yard signs.  People would have signs in their front yards.  There’d be bumper stickers all over the place.    

But I’m not seeing many for the election for President.  At least not in my travels through suburban Philadelphia and New Jersey.  Nor have I seen that many Obama or Romney bumper stickers. 

A friend in Florida told me the other day that there are yard signs everywhere there.  I also saw a lot of signs in northern New Hampshire when I was there in August.  Yet in Pennsylvania, in my neighborhood, I’ve seen just one for Romney/Ryan and a few are now popping up for a guy running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate. 

Maybe it’s different where you live;  here it’s like some eerie Twilight Zone episode.

What gives?

Has the divisiveness been ratcheted up so high that people fear letting their neighbors know how they really feel?   Are they afraid of retribution from one side or another?  Or the loss of friendships because they come out for Obama or Romney? 

Quite honestly, I can’t remember a time in recent years when peoples’ feelings about an election were running so hot, or the sides so polarized.

We’re not talking about people simply being in favor of Republicans or Democrats.  We’re talking about an almost visceral hatred by many of Obama or Romney.   The ranting about how the Republicans or Democrats are Hell-bent on destroying the country is nonstop. 

The hard left of the Democrats has Republicans pushing granny over the cliff, stealing food from the poor, waging war on women, unions, gays and the middle class, and selling out the country to rich fat cats.  The hard right of the Republicans has the Democrats attacking the Constitution, waging war on religion, business, the economy and American values, and selling out America’s defense and prestige to make some foreign leaders happy. 

Both sides generally blame the other for the ballooning deficit – Republicans blame Obama’s failed economic policies and profligate spending; Democrats still pretty much blame George W. Bush for the deficit, through his wars and tax cuts.   

To extreme Democrats, Republicans are heartless monsters who only care about themselves and their rich friends.  To extreme Republicans, Democrats care too deeply about what everybody else in the world thinks of us, but don’t give a damn about this country and its values.   

With so much vitriol being spewed in blogs, and posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, why oh why aren't there more yard signs and bumper stickers?

Maybe it’s just political correctness run amuck.  Or it could be fear.  

In a Philadelphia-area high school – actually, based on its racial make-up, a model school for diversity – a student who wore a Romney/Ryan t-shirt on a dress-down day was told to take it off or cover it up by a teacher.  A teaching assistant told the girl it was like wearing a shirt with KKK on it.  When the girl’s family protested, they received threats.  When they went to school for a meeting, they were met with hostility and jeers from students and others.

Isn’t this out of control?  I mean … a t-shirt caused all this? 

I suspect that people really are afraid to show their political preferences this time around, especially if they support Romney/Ryan in a traditionally Democrat-dominated state like Pennsylvania.  

But that doesn't explain the lack of Obama signs and bumper stickers here – you’d expect, by now, to see them plastered everywhere.

So what does that mean? 

Maybe, just maybe, people aren't as gung-ho for Obama here as everyone thinks.   Maybe they are telling their friends – and pollsters – that yeah, sure, they’re voting for Obama, yet when the election rolls around they either don’t vote, or pull the lever for someone else. 

We know enthusiasm for Obama has waned; people still like him but a lot of the supporters who swept him in in 2008 aren't as fired up about voting this time as the Republicans are.

We won’t know until the polls close.  You shouldn't be surprised  at any result.