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OpEd
Our civic obligation
There are still political
signs dotting the highways but
most are now in the trash
dump. If you try to recycle
them and paint over them for a
different purpose, the informa¬
tion still shows through. How
do I know? I tried the recycle
bit last week.
The elections on the
national level take place later
this year, but we must still lis¬
ten to the rhetoric. However,
the rhetoric I hate to hear is
that of closed minds on candi¬
dates. There are people whose
opinions focus strictly on
party affiliation and not on
candidates.
I am not in opposition to
political parties nor have I ever
quite understood the need for
two, three or more of them.
I suppose you could say I
am childlike in my opinions of
politicians: “Just do what’s
right!” While I am not the
most savvy person when it
comes to voicing my opinions,
I can truthfully say that my
vote has always been for the
person I think is most quali¬
fied for the job.
Would it not be nice if all
people felt the obligation to
vote and not be as apathetic as
we have seen this year?
When just 6,000 out of
18,000 primary voters return
for the runoff and only 17
percent voted the first time,
that is surely apathy. Of
course, if you vote you can at
least say you made a choice,
whether your candidate wins
or loses.
I’m a Democrat and can’t
help it!” When I hear this
statement I think, that must be
an incurable disease or some¬
thing.
I vote Republican no mat¬
ter who is running.” I suppose
that will keep a person from
having to make a rational deci-
of running mates
political trend started by Carter
By Carl P. Leubsdorf
The Dallas Morning News
When Barack Obama and John McCain
finally choose their running mates, voters can
feel sure that these two people were carefully
vetted from every possible angle and, if elected,
will play a real role in the next administration.
It was not always so.
Indeed, this pre-convention lull may be a
good time to recall that the person who
deserves credit for taking the vice presidency
more seriously is one of our lesser presidents,
Jimmy Carter.
It took two disastrous vice-presidential
selections to end the tradition of naming a run¬
ning mate at the last minute, without much
scrutiny.
One was Spiro Agnew, ultimately forced to
resign as part of a plea bargain over charges of
evading taxes on bribes from Maryland con¬
tractors. ,
Richard Nixon picked the Greek-American
at the 1968 Republican National Convention
over another ethnic candidate, Italian-American
John Volpe of Massachusetts. Nixon liked the
first-term Maryland governor’s hard line
against racial demonstrators.
A federal probe brought Agnew down in the
midst of the Watergate scandal. The govern¬
ment moved quickly, as Nixon faced possible
impeachment.
When he picked House Republican leader
Gerald Ford to succeed Agnew under the 25th
Amendment, Congress gave him far more
scrutiny than prior vice presidents had received.
The other disastrous pick was George
McGovern’s 1972 choice of Thomas Eagleton.
Aside from an aide’s brief question about
whether he had skeletons in his closet,
Eagleton received no scrutiny.
Two weeks later, Bob Boyd and Clark Hoyt
of Knight Newspapers reported that the
Missouri senator had been hospitalized for
depression and undergone electric shock treat¬
ment. Within weeks, he was forced to quit the
ticket.
So when Carter neared the 1976 Democratic
nomination, he asked a close friend, Atlanta
lawyer Charles Kirbo, to organize a discreet
process to investigate the financial and personal
backgrounds of likely running mates. Carter
would personally interview seven candidates,
but only the three summoned to his Plains, Ga.,
home were serious contenders.
The interviews proved revealing.
When Carter and Sen. Walter Mondale
faced reporters, the mood was relaxed, even
jovial.
By contrast, Carter’s interview with Sen.
John Glenn went so poorly that the former
Georgia governor cut it short and took the for-
Julianne
Boling
COLUMNIST
sion, or research the possibili¬
ties. It seems these reasoning
powers also catch a train to
Washington.
Writing your congressman
may bring satisfaction to you
the writer, but it accomplishes
very little else it seems. A staff
member will put in an enve¬
lope all the bills and proposals
their representative supported
for his terms in office and
think this is a good thing. The
recipient then tries to read
through all the form letters and
realizes his rep has voted posi¬
tive on bills the constituent
opposed.
Politics is intriguing on any
level. Will Rogers was well
known for his attacks on
politicians. “The promising
season ends on election day.
That same night, the alibi sea¬
son begins and lasts four
years,” Rogers said. However,
one of my favorite quotes from
him is, “Congress is so
strange. A man stands up to
speak and says nothing,
nobody listens, and then
everybody disagrees. • ■
We have a serious obliga¬
tion during this election year
as we do each time we choose
a presidential candidate. We
have an obligation to seek out
the best-qualified person to
lead us through the next four
years. The problems are great
and they are serious in
America. To be apathetic or
irresponsible in voting is even
more serious no matter which
party you claim as yours.
Cumming resident Julianne
Boling’s column appears each
Sunday.
mer astronaut on a tour of local landmarks,
including his ancestors’ graves. Their news
conference showed little rapport; I recall Carter
standing stone-faced while Glenn swatted
gnats.
Mondale prepared carefully for his meeting
with Carter, after Dick Moe, his astute chief of
staff, helped persuade him to seek the spot.
Moe’s interesting 2006 account in
Minnesota History, reprinted in the latest
Presidential Studies Quarterly, notes that both
men “had thought a great deal about the poten¬
tial of the vice presidency. Carter talked at
length about how he saw the office as a wasted
national asset. He was determined to use his
vice presidency in a way no president had done
previously. If
And Mondale, his top aide wrote, “made it
clear to Carter that he did not want to be con¬
sidered if it was to be a strictly ceremonial
office; he wasonly interested in a truly sub¬
stantive role.”
In their four years in office, Vice President
Mondale was President Carter's top adviser.
The pattern they created has survived.
Ironically, Mondale conducted the messiest vet¬
ting process when he picked Rep. Geraldine
Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 without
enough scrutiny of her husband’s financial
dealings.
The substantive roles of vice presidents
have varied; the Bill Clinton-Al Gore pair came
closest to the Carter-Mondale duo, while Dick
Cheney gained more power the past seven
years than any predecessor.
But there has been no repeat of the Agnew
or Eagleton disasters. However the Obama and
McCain choices play politically, neither selec¬
tion is likely to prove insufficiently vetted or to
lack a real role.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau
chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers
may write e-mail him at cleubsdotf@dallas
news.com.
Letter policy
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Mail letters to the Forsyth County News, P.O.
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6017 or e-mail to editor@forsythnews.com.
A DEFICIT OF IDEAS
Candidates’ energy plans lacking in originality
By E. Thomas McClanahan
McClatchy Newspapers
Barack Obama issued an
4 t emergency economic plan
recently, followed by a big
speech outlining an energy
plan. For somebody identified
as the “change” candidate, he
served up some pretty familiar
stuff.
Obama would whack big
oil with a windfall-profits tax
and use the money to cut
$ 1,000 checks for married
couples and $500 for individu¬
als.
He would create a $25 bil¬
lion State Growth Fund to pre¬
vent state officials from cut¬
ting health, education and
housing assistance and the
like; and a $25 billion Jobs
and Growth Fund to repair
schools and prevent cuts in
road and bridge construction
funding.
He wants to release 70 mil¬
lion barrels of oil from the
strategic reserve to lower fuel
prices — a position he
opposed during the primaries.
He proposed money for
development of new hybrid
cars. He wants to spend $150
billion to encourage renewable
technologies. He says his pro¬
gram would do away with the
need to import any oil from
Venezuela and the Middle
East within 10 years.
He wants to hand out $4
billion to car makers so they
can redo their factories to pro¬
duce hybrids. He offered a
$7,000 tax credit for those
who buy the resulting cars.
(John McCain has also backed
tax credits for purchasers of
low-emission cars.)
The total effect of all this
is less like a campaign plat¬
form than an infomercial.
Wait! That’s not all! Call now
and we’ll throw in another tax
credit!
What it reveals is an old-
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line, conventional, big-govern¬
ment liberal whose instincts
seem mainly oriented toward
throwing money. He speaks of
leveraging private capital to
create a new energy economy,
but seen through his plans,
private enterprise is barely vis¬
ible. It’s almost all govern¬
ment, government, govern¬
ment.
Obama’s idea for a wind
fall-profits tax would be espe¬
cially damaging. Taxing com¬
panies for marketing a com¬
modity essential to our mod¬
em economy would be perni¬
cious; whatever you tax, you
get less of.
The Congressional
Research Service studied the
last time we tried a windfall
profits tax 30 years ago, and
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Sunday, August 17,2008
concluded it resulted in higher
foreign imports and lower
domestic production.
Over the last year, the oil
and gas industry’s return on
investment was 8.3 percent,
hardly an eye-popping rate.
Many other industries post
returns much higher, including
drug makers, agriculture
chemical producers, railroads,
semiconductor makers and
entertainment companies, to
name a few. Should they be
candidates for a windfall-prof¬
its tax?
McCain has played his
own scattershot game on ener¬
gy, offering inconsistent pro¬
posals and positions.
He recently endorsed
drilling on the outer continen¬
tal shelf — which Obama has
PAGE 13A
also done in a more lukewarm
and grudging way. Both he
and Obama favor the misguid¬
ed cap-and-trade idea. McCain
has complained about the
> . obscene” profits of big oil,
and his proposal for a gas-tax
holiday was poorly thought
out.
I’m all for alternative ener¬
gy sources, but we’re going to
need conventional sources for
a long time. Instead of talking
about taxing companies for
delivering what we need, we
should get started tapping
more of our own domestic
supply.
E. Thomas McClanahan is
a member of the Kansas City
Star editorial board. Readers
may e-mail him at mcclana
han@kcstar.com.