The Future of American Politics

Waiver:  This blog is not for the faint hearted dyed in the wool Republicans.  Read this at your own risk.

Rich Convoy, a retired Lake Superior State University Professor, gave a presentation to the Lake Superior Elders on January 9, 2013 covering the future of American politics.  He started the presentation with distributing sheets of paper and asking the elders to put the numbers 1 to 4 on the page.  He asked the group to put the first word that comes to mind when they think of Republicans and most mentioned wealth, and riches.  The second question involved what the first word they thought about when they thought about Democrats and most stated things like middle class, working people, and for the people.  The third question was what do Republicans hate and the response was Democrats.  The forth as you guessed it was what do Democrats hate and the response was Republicans, and poverty.  Then Mr. Convoy stated that a week is a long time in politics.  I am not sure why that was mentioned.

He explained that why the election was lost by the Republicans in 2012 was for several reasons one being that Florida with a population of 53% Cubans decided to vote Democratic for this election. The Cubans gave up on the Republicans. If Nixon was still running for president they would still vote for him. They were primarily in support of Republicans in the past.

The intensity of the public feelings about Obama Care is dwindling.  An elder stated that Romney said what he was going to do; but didn’t describe how he was going to accomplish these goals.  Romney told us what we needed to hear, just provided us with lip service. This lead into the discussion about what the public wants which is authenticity.  Republicans are losing ground and are soul searching to find their platforms.

It was noted that presidential campaigns cost about $2 billion; however, Mr. Convoy stated that it is more like $6 billion.

Another point that I didn’t realize was that national security was not addressed during the last election. The issues that Congress is facing are gun control; immigration policies; and the federal budget and deficit. Joseph Biden has been in support of gun control since he filled the seat as vice president. Congress has placed gun control on their agenda for February of this year.  The national debt is being brought up in March.  In March, Congress will be sequestering the defense budget. 

The average age of the people in Congress are from 37 to 51 years of age. A national poll was conducted and Congress was compared to head lice and the people would prefer head lice at 67% to Congress; the people would prefer a root canal to Congress by 56%; and a colonoscopy to Congress by 58%.  One of the issues that the public is struggling with is that the Republicans and Democrats cannot see eye to eye on anything.  In 2009 and 2010 there were approximately 70 filibusters and in 2012 alone there were 58 filibusters. They can’t play nice together obviously. 

Mr. Convoy  usually creates a lot of interest concerning his political presentations.  He is very knowledgeable about what is up in the national political arena.  Usually the presentations are held for approximately one hour; but this presentation lasted almost one and half hours.  We learned a lot about what Congress is up to and what the public considers to be of great importance.