Back Story: Love Letters in the Sand

Here we go! The day after the local elections, the Obama attack ads have hit the airways full force, led by, of all people, Pat Boone. All of a sudden Boone is everywhere, not just in political ads, but in just about anything that might appeal to the AARP set. He is rapidly becoming the face of seniors in this country, right-wing Christian seniors, that is. And I used to like Pat Boone back in the fifties, when I was about twelve-years-old… I still like to grab the mike at karaoke parties to sing a wobbly version of “Love Letters in the Sand.” Well, maybe not anymore… Think of the symbolism, Boone sending us seniors these love letters that are full of promises that will vanish in the oncoming tide. It doesn’t get any better.

The attack ads, of course, are designed to frighten us with regard to what the right likes to call “Obama care.” They are pointed directly at Ohio and Senator Sherrod Brown. I met Brown when he was campaigning in Yellow Springs a few years ago. We had a few minutes to chat about other things than politics. I told him how I was a transplanted New Yorker and he talked about his daughter attending Columbia University. He seemed like a decent sort and I voted for him. As a Democrat, I would have voted for him anyway. Reasoning that as Ohio goes, so goes the nation, the right sees him as public enemy number one. It’s like my dog and the mailman.

I considered State Issue 2 on the Nov. 8 ballot to be a referendum on our current Governor’s policies in an even broader sense than just his dealings with labor unions. Most of us have mixed feelings about unions. But I see his efforts to limit collective bargaining for teachers as just a first step in his plan to get rid of public education altogether. Anything to save a buck..? Not really. Just another move in the direction of privatization; another way for the rich to get richer; another way to bolster his version of feudalism… I also see Kasich as aiming on the 2016 Presidential election. While not perfect, public education is the backbone of this country. It was heartening to see that voters rejected the Governor’s vision by a two-to-one margin. Undaunted, however, he is back on TV talking about revising his plan to make it more palatable to voters. "I hear you," he says. Who believes that?

State Issue 3 is, on its face, illegal, unconstitutional and ineffective. Imagine if states were free to opt out of any federal law they wanted to. What’s next, secession for Ohio? While I never had a personal chat with our President, I voted for him too. I even contributed to his campaign. And, like many Obama supporters, I am disappointed in the results. I expect some campaign promises to be broken once a new President gets in office and has to deal with reality. Unfortunately, reality for Obama is a bunch of new Congressmen who have no intent to govern, but are there solely to resist him in anything he does, the purpose being to be sure he is only a one-term President. Some of it is racism, but most of it is just the classic battle between the left and the right, which seem to be farther apart than ever. And some of Obama’s failings, even beyond not knowing how to deal with such staunch opposition, are his own, like not being able to deal with the deficit that he inherited from eight years of Republican spending on wars without an exit strategy.

Issue 3 was a referendum on that part of Obama’s healthcare law that requires all people to have health insurance coverage, even to the extent that they will have to purchase it themselves, if they have no other source. That’s a far cry from the single-payer system candidate Obama promised and sounds just about as unconstitutional as the state referendum to opt out of it. Of course, Issue 3 won by an overwhelming margin. Americans, me included, don’t like the Federal Government telling us how to spend our money. But now the right is going to claim it as an even broader referendum on our President’s policies. What are the taxpayers left with? Most likely a big legal bill when the U.S. Attorney General sues in Federal Court to have it thrown out.

“On a day like today, we passed the time away, writing love letters in the sand.”