Will Obama Score Landslide by Exploiting Tea Party?

Presidential political strategists find that the road to victory often stems from establishing tactics based on successful past paradigm results. When the Tea Party was given credit for helping Republicans score dramatic gains in the 2010 midterm elections that included winning control of the House of Representatives, many Washington watchers recognized that the way the victory was achieved was reminiscent of what happened in 1994 in the middle of President Bill Clinton's first term.
The shattering victory of the Republicans caused Clinton to initially experience crushing depression according to many on the D.C. presidential watch.  Meanwhile Republicans chortled at the prospect of winning the presidency in 1996.
There were many independent observers not influenced by GOP euphoria who also believed that the tide was running so strong that it would be difficult for Clinton and the Democrats to surmount it.

An important factor that the 1994 and 2010 Republican victories have in common is the ideological composition of the new faces on the Washington scene and how they would impact on the upcoming presidential races.  In 1994 House Speaker Newt Gingrich had in his ranks a group of incoming  rightist ideologues. After the wave of gloom passed from the sweeping 1994 defeat, strategist Clinton used Gingrich and the angry rightist forces in his ranks as foil.  He used the government shutdown to make the case to the American people that the Republicans should not be trusted with the executive branch of government.
Clinton sought to push Republicans away from the center ground where presidential elections are won and lost and onto a far right position outside the mainstream where most Americans reside.
The coup de grace came with  the triangulation strategy devised by then White House strategist and current Fox commentator Dick Morris.  The idea was simple -- you seek out positions embraced by middle America and incorporate them as your own, even if they were being articulated by Republicans.
The result was an easy victory for Clinton in the 1996 election over Republican nominee Robert Dole.  In fact, the election was a foregone conclusion from the major party conventions onward, so much so that certain voters, fearing a mammoth Clinton landslide and the political hubris that could result, opted to vote for Dole as a cautionary check.
Barack Obama realizes that he has an historic opportunity in 2012 comparable to Clinton's in 1996.  While Clinton used Gingrich as a Republican symbol as a means of heightening victory opportunity, Obama fired a preemptive shot across the bow at House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.
Mindful of the strong influence the Tea Party holds over House and Senate members based on the past election cycle, the previously passive, coolly reflective Obama was replaced by a tough talking tactician seeking to hold the opposition accountable for abandoning America's middle class.
Obama took a solid hit from progressives for accepting what he termed a compromise budget agreement with Republicans that included extending the controversial Bush tax cuts that largely benefited America's wealthiest citizens.  After this happened many predicted that he would be even more inclined to extend those cuts during the 2012 election year, fearing a Republican propaganda broadside if he did not.
Instead Obama is currently pursuing the strategy that progressives within his party urged on him initially.  They argued that a strong case could be made over the destructive impact such cuts had generated in the past and would continue to do so in the future.  The thrust would be emphasizing the damage that the cuts did to the middle class.
Embraced now in that argument is the issue of the future of Medicare.  The voucher system that Ryan proposes in his budget recommendation is perceived as a way to end Medicare and cause grave hardship for seniors  while opting for a system that would put more dollars into the coffers of mega rich corporate providers.
If Obama plays his hand correctly, a landside reelection victory could be the result.  Another historic election also beckons as an instructive example.
A nascent uprising from the Republican right aided by the John Birch Society, a rightist pressure force comparable to the Tea Party of today, enabled Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona to achieve the Republican presidential nomination.  It came after a rancorous and divisive primary battle with Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, leader of the party's progressive eastern wing.
Lyndon Johnson successfully labeled Goldwater and his party as extremist and outside the nation's mainstream.  The result was the most whopping presidential landslide since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1936 triumph over Governor Alf M. Landon of Kansas.            

Google Policy Fellowship

About the Google Policy Fellowship program

What is the Google Policy Fellowship program?
The Google Policy Fellowship program offers students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer working on these issues at public interest organizations in either Washington, DC, San Francisco, CA, Toronto, or Ottawa, Canada. Students will work for 10 weeks over the summer of 2010.
What organizations are participating in Google Policy Fellowship program 2010?

• American Library Association
• Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
• Cato Institute
• Center for Democracy and Technology
• The Citizen Lab
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Creative Commons
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Future of Music Coalition
• Internet Education Foundation
• Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
• Media Access Project
• National Hispanic Media Coalition
• New America Foundation
• Progress and Freedom Foundation
• Public Knowledge
• Technology Policy Institute

Important Dates

What is the program timeline?

January 17, 2011:	Student application deadline; applications must be received by midnight Pacific time.
February 28, 2011:	Student applicants are notified of the status of their applications.
June 2011:	Students begin fellowship with host organization (start date to be determined by student and host organization); Google issues initial student stipends (see more information on stipends in the payments here).
July 2011:	Mid-term evaluations; Google issues mid-term stipends.
August 2011:	Final evaluations; Google issues final stipends.

Eligibility

Are there any age restrictions on participating?
Yes. You must be 18 years of age or older by January 1, 2011 to be eligible to participate in Google Policy Fellowship program in 2011.
Are there citizenship requirements for the Fellowship?
For the time being, we are only accepting students eligible to work in the United States, if your host organization is located in the U.S. (e.g. U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, and individuals with a current U.S.student visa) and students eligible to work in Canada, if your host organization is located in Canada (e.g. Canadian citizens, Canadian permanent residents, and individuals with a current Canadian student visa). Google can not provide guidance or assistance on obtaining the necessary documentation to meet this criteria.
Who is eligible to participate as a student in Google Policy Fellowship program?
In order to participate in the program, you must be a student. Google defines a student as an individual enrolled in or accepted into an accredited institution including (but not necessarily limited to) colleges, universities, masters programs, PhD programs and undergraduate programs. Eligibility is based on enrollment in an accredited university by January 1, 2011.
You may be enrolled as a full-time or part-time student. You must also be eligible to work in the United States, if your host organization is located in the U.S. (e.g. U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, and individuals with a current U.S.student visa) and students eligible to work in Canada, if your host organization is located in Canada (e.g. Canadian citizens, Canadian permanent residents, and individuals with a current Canadian student visa). Google can not provide guidance or assistance on obtaining the necessary documentation to meet this criteria.
I am a International student can I apply and participate in the program?
In order to participate in the program, you must be a student (see Google's definition of a student above). You must also be eligible to work in the United States or in Canada (see citizen requirements for fellowship above). Google can not provide guidance or assistance on obtaining the necessary documentation to meet this criteria.
I have been accepted into an accredited post-secondary school program, but have not yet begun attending. Can I still take part in the program?
As long as you are enrolled in a college or university program as of January 1st, 2011, you are eligible to participate in the program.
I graduate in the middle of the program. Can I still participate?
As long as you are enrolled in a college or university program as of January 1st, 2011, you are eligible to participate in the program.

Payments, Forms, and Other Administrative Stuff

How do payments work?
Google will provide a stipend of $7,500 USD to each Fellow for the summer.

• Accepted students in good standing with their host organization will receive a $3,500 USD stipend payable shortly after they begin the Fellowship in June 2011.
• Students who receive passing mid-term evaluations by their host organization will receive a $2,000 USD stipend shortly after the mid-term evaluation in July 2011.
• Students who receive passing final evaluations by their host organization and who have submitted their final program evaluations will receive a $2,000 USD stipend shortly after final evaluations in August 2011.
• Please note: payments will be made by prepaid debit card or checks; payments are contingent upon satisfactory evaluations by host organizations and completion of all required forms; and fellows are responsible for payment of any state or federal taxes associated with their receipt of the Fellowship stipend.

What documentation is required from students?
Students should be prepared, upon request, to provide Google or host organization with transcripts from their accredited institution as proof of enrollment or admission status. Transcripts do not need to be official (photo copy of original will be sufficient).
I would like to use the work I did for my Google Policy Fellowship to obtain course credit from my university. Is this acceptable?
Absolutely. If you need documentation from Google to provide to your school for course credit, you can contact Google. We will not provide documentation until we have received a final evaluation from your mentoring organization.

Host Organizations

What is Google's relationship with the host organizations?
Google provides the funding and administrative support for the program. Google and the host organizations are not partners or affiliates. The host organizations do not represent the views or opinions of Google and cannot bind Google legally.

The Republican Right's California Racism

Marilyn Davenport's recent journey into the ugly world of racism exposed the under belly of a county, party and state with a tragic history of ugly racist conduct. An important strategic aspect of the 74-year-old Orange County Republican Central Committee member's conduct relates to her angry counter punch embodying a familiar "the best defense is a good offense" strategy.
Rather than permit the onus to reside on a tasteless act depicting President Barack Obama as a descendant of chimpanzees, Davenport denounced the revelation of her e-mail as "cowardly".
Even the "apology" of sorts that Davenport delivered was conditional as well as decidedly lukewarm.  Davenport explained that the e-mail was sent to a selective few people she knew who could presumably "understand" her intent.

Davenport stated that the exercise was meant as nothing more than a joke and apologized to anyone who found the e-mail offensive.  For those who did not find it offensive there was no need for an apology and her carefully crafted statement acknowledged this. Orange County Republican reactionaries were in the forefront of the John Birch Society revolution of the sixties.  Its culmination was helping supply foot soldiers who aided in Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona's defeat of eastern establishment archrival Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York in the 1964 Republican presidential primary.  The pivotal victory secured Goldwater's nomination.
The ensuing Republican National Convention in San Francisco was more of a bloodletting than a serious discussion of major political issues.  Badly outnumbered African American delegates were bullied by racist delegation members.  One African American delegate was set on fire.
Anti-media antipathy was so strong that popular NBC television reporter  John Chancellor was taken into custody and forcibly removed from the convention floor.
Buoyed by the Goldwater success California Republicans, with Orange County in the forefront, operated in tandem with the California Real Estate Association to achieve a major success in the November election.  While Goldwater sustained a landslide loss in California, an initiative repealing the recently passed Rumford Fair Housing Initiative won by a solid margin.
The "rationale" embraced by those backing the initiative, which was ultimately overturned as unconstitutional, was that there was no racism involved in the effort.  Pro-initiative backers explained that even if one deplores racism that citizens should have the right to practice it.  That, after all, embodies freedom, and isn't freedom part and parcel the American way?
During the fall campaign California's Democratic Senator Pierre Salinger on a whistle stop train campaign junket across the state had the misfortune to stop in Orange County.  Hoodlumism was the disorder of the day as he was hooted down.  Salinger sought to impose reason by stating that it was the American way to listen and not to engage in the tactics of Nazis by shutting off speech.
An indignant Republican woman used the best defense is a good offense tactic in a letter to the editor that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.  She noted that Salinger referred to "Nazis" rather than "Communists" and accordingly had revealed himself for what he was.
A Goldwater alternate delegate from California at the San Francisco convention who watched the proceedings with great interest was a veteran motion picture and television actor named Ronald Reagan.  His acting career was on the wane and politics provided a promising new venue to exercise his communicative skills.
After two terms as California governor and two unsuccessful attempts to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee, the brass ring was finally his in 1980.  When Reagan launched his ultimately successful fall campaign against President Jimmy Carter his choice of venue was eerie.
Reagan's campaign opened in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a small town that as of the 2000 census was home to 7,303 people.  To the uninitiated the choice was confounding.  Shouldn't a major party nominee select a major city of a large state containing a large bloc of electoral votes?
To the initiated the choice was chilling and tragically racist in its implications.  Philadelphia, Mississippi was a town with the stench of death, an embodiment of racism at its ugliest.  It was the location where in June 1964 three young civil rights workers seeking to help integrate Mississippi were brutally killed.
Reagan's kickoff speech in Philadelphia could in any realistic political context mean but one thing.  The good old boy southern network was being reassured that the uppity Lyndon Johnson civil rights initiative was a thing of the past and that a new age was dawning.

Osama Uncertainty Akin to JFK

Peter Dale Scott, who has written so much about what is presented as government fact and the realities that lie hidden often well beneath the surface, coined the term Deep Politics to encompass this realm. The powers that be that reside in the highest echelons of government have sought to squelch any such inquiry as falling under the heading of conspiracy theory.  To be a conspiracy theorist is to live in a wild world devoid of reality.
Initially using the conspiracy theory pejorative worked superbly as a means of denouncing anyone who dared suggest that the official theory of the John F. Kennedy assassination that a troubled former Marine loner holding presumably strong Marxist leanings was responsible for the assassination of a popular American president.
Initially any questioning of official dogma was considered crackpot theorizing by a substantial majority of Americans.  Eventually as the white heat of analysis was put to  the lone gunman theory more Americans, ultimately encompassing a majority, doubted an official theory that was embraced in the Warren Commission Report, the government's investigative conclusion of what occurred.

An official government investigation of 9/11 drew a pat conclusion that a group of Muslim extremists under the influence of Osama Bin Laden was responsible for everything that happened on that tragic day.  Critics not only complained that the 9/11 Commission's conclusions contained the same kind of pat simplicity that embodied the Warren Commission Report into the JFK assassination.   These critics pointed to the fact that not only was a commission not appointed until angry complaints were launched from family members of 9/11 victims, but also that the request for an independent query was squelched while the two key figures to testify, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, would only do so in executive session and jointly.
With the current revelation that Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was gunned down in Pakistan last Sunday night by a team of Navy Seals, those in the power vortex have already pointed out that those who question a rush to judgment and focus on the series of contradictory accounts relating to facts surrounding Bin Laden's death fall under the category of conspiracy theorists that will never believe anything that mainstream government and media figures report.
While much speculation has occurred on how the Pakistan government as well as residents within the affluent community in which Bin Laden had allegedly lived for as long as five or six years, were unaware of what was happening, another important question needs to be considered.
As someone considered so brilliant a strategist that he was responsible for bringing down the economy of the Soviet Union as well as severely damaging that of the United States had selected a spot for building a compound designed to protect him from those pursuing him in an affluent residential area under the shadow of Pakistan's equivalent of West Point.  It was also an area inhabited by many of Pakistan's top generals.
Whether one chooses to believe that Pakistan's leadership was backing the United States or Bin Laden, the proposition makes no sense of building a compound in that area.  Suspicion would  emerge either way.
There is also the question of normal curiosity.  Neighbors would have had every reason  to be concerned, especially in a nation with the volatility of Pakistan, that those living in the compound were so concerned about their privacy that they would not allow trash to be picked up, burning it themselves,
They were also so concerned about privacy that, rather than allowing youngsters to retrieve balls that had gone into the compound, they would simply give them money to buy new ones.
Anyone incorporating the account of any Bin Laden type living under such circumstances into a James Bond style movie script would be scorned and ridiculed by reviewers and film viewers alike, but only in the event that it ever saw the light of day.
There is also the puzzling question of the world's most wanted man being gunned down in a compound shared by couriers and wives, but not bodyguards.  This allegedly super brilliant world terrorist would hardly have been functioning without bodyguards.
There is yet another key issue that needs to be explained.  Many of us recall those pictures we were shown of discarded needles from an Afghanistan cave where Bin Laden had temporarily hidden.  Here was a sickly man who needed constant dialysis attention or he would die.
Now we are told without explanation to scrap the old theory that existed until the report of Bin Laden's assassionation.  Oops, for years we thought he was this sickly man barely being kept alive through dialysis treatments and being forced to move from cave to cave in mountainous Afghanistan to escape death or capture.  Now please disregard that theory, ladies and gentlemen of the world.
Failure to disregard what we seek to have you disregard makes you fall into the dangerous company of those perpetually bothersome conspiracy theorists in our midst.  

Summer Workshop in Slavic and Central Asian Languages

Intensive language training has been offered at the Bloomington campus of Indiana University since 1950. The Summer Workshop provides up to 200 participants in Slavic, East European and Central Asian languages the opportunity to complete a full year of college language instruction during an eight-week summer session.

Utilizing the resources of Indiana University's own specialists as well as native speakers from other universities and abroad, the Summer Workshop has developed and maintained a national program of the highest quality. Allowing all participants to pay in-state tuition fees, the program has as its goal the enhancement of speaking, reading, listening and writing skills through classroom instruction and a full range of extra-curricular activities. Fellowships and funding are available.