How can I be making resolutions in October?

I went to see Avenue Q last weekend with the Schefflers and Alissa. Since then I have been giving a lot of thought to the whole “I don’t know what I want to do with my life thoughts” that seem to linger a lot longer after college than you’d think that they would. I think everyone has the feeling that they fear that one day, they will look back on their life and be disappointed with the things that they have done.

For me, the fear is not that I will have made a difference. The fear is that I am making the right decisions. Sure, in debate and work I am quite confident once I have made a decision. This isn’t what I am referring to. There are days when I read government writing (read: jargon laden sentences that run on for four paragraphs), and think that I should work in communications. I believe that words have power and that how you speak does mean something. I am extremely critical when it comes to writing. Especially when it is bad. I have always been taught that good writing, translates into excellent life outcomes. If I am better than some, but not a complete expert – shouldn’t I take that skill and run with it?

Other days, I wish I could just be involved in academic debate all the time. I think that when it comes to being an administrator and tournament director, that I am among the best people in the country. Granted, I do not run large national circuit invitationals – but I think I keep things running smoothly; so long as 20 people all are not shouting at me at the same time. We shall see how good I actually am. The Raider Rumble – Sheboygan North’s version of the Appleton East Challenge – is expected to be the largest Wisconsin tournament this year, on top of the complications caused by the challenge itself. I have said many times that my ideal job is working as a college debate coach. The attraction is the extremely low stress environment that exists around parliamentary debate (6-10 tournaments over a year is a much easier sell than 10 tournaments in three months).

Still others I aspire to be a strong professional in the job I currently am in. Being a policy/budget analyst is what I went to school for and its the job I currently have. Thinking about ways to be better at the job (which most days doesn’t really feel like work); is something that I genuinely want to do.

And then sometimes the thoughts about really making public policy change gets me to thinking about running for political office.

I have said this a number of times; I am so overwhelmed by opportunity that I feel that I cannot make a choice or that I just muddle through without much perspective about where I am or where I am going. I suppose this is all natural for someone who isn’t even 25 and is just entering the workforce.

My friend Paul told me once that I think too much. Perhaps this is what is going on here. But I think that there are some easy things that I can do that might help provide me with additional clarity.

Write more. I love writing. Whether its introspection like this, or commentary on political events like the previous post – I think the more I exercise the act of thinking by putting thoughts into the keyboard the more, the better I will be at both.

Stay in contact with people. There are many people that I have lost touch with that I haven’t really meant to lose touch with – it’s just happened. This is a fact of life. We are all busy. But I should at least make an effort to transcend my busy schedule to reach out to people I want to be around me. To that end I have asked to join my schools Policy Report and I just joined the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Walk the dog more. I love Bartlet and I like taking him for nightly walks. I need to start exercising more. You’d think that I’d put two and two together and stop being lazy. It also gives me time to just think.

Lastly, I need to read more. I spend a lot of time reading important news stories related to City and State government (and of course much more time reading about the Presidential campaign that I care to disclose). But that reading isn’t the kind of reading that was championed by all of my professors. I need to engage and grapple with larger and more sophisticated texts on a more frequent basis.

I feel odd making new year’s resolution type statements when it’s only October. But I feel like the message in sooo many Obama emails: why wait? I have thought about why I need to do these things, why should I wait until later to start doing them, when I can start now?

Tom Brokaw is a terrible timekeeper

Seriously. I’ve seen awkward freshmen that barely understand the format of debate do a better job of cutting people off when their time is up. I hope that the next time my kids are in a debate that Brokaw is their judge. They could keep reading advantage after advantage.

If you haven’t guessed, this is my running commentary of the Town Hall debate. My reactions maybe a bit delayed – I’m trying to reheat chili. It’s not working out because I’m using the oven. I need a microwave. Anyway, to the debate.

I was a bit annoyed that the first question was clearly about older Americans and Obama failed to answer with anything close to the question. He even has a tax exemption for older Americans. And yet I didn’t hear anything about it. Nor did I hear anything about Social Security and Medicare.

Hey! Senator Feingold finally gets named dropped in this campaign. I’m sure Russ is really hating this. If anyone hasn’t noticed, Russ has laid pretty low in this campaign. In part it’s because his major legislative accomplishment shares the GOP’s name.

McCain is now making his typical pitch about how he combats earmarks. Cutting earmarks can’t solve anything. 18 billion dollars can’t solve anything. His other solution: an across the board spending freeze is even worse. I think most people don’t understand the enormity of what the Federal Government pays for. If there’s a spending freeze, then there’s no money to give out Pell Grants or Perkins Loans or Stafford Loans. How will any college student afford to go to college? The price of a college education is so high that without student aid, its unlikely that anyone – save the privileged few – would be able to attend college. Or how about aid to kids in foster care? Without IV-E dollars, many states would be without the ability to pay for kids in foster care. There would be no dollars being spent on the United States’ defense. No dollars spent on Social Security. No dollars spent on Medicare. That’s something that would be awful and more difficult for most Americans.

Brokaw finally forces the issue on entitlement spending that people have been asking around – without asking the question directly. Nice.

Obama seems to be off of his game. McCain had a good remark about not answering the question to Obama’s response to entitlement spending. This has been a looming issue for anyone that understands anything about public policy or has been listening to this debate. Obama said, he’d “take on social security” – this is not the best line. It’s committed to reform. However, that doesn’t play way well with anyone. He should say that he’s committed to maintaining benefits or something generally positive about the program. It’s also non committal on anything. Not the best way to take it to McCain on an issue that overwhelmingly favors democrats.

Obama’s lack of an answer here, allows McCain to get away with “putting people together” to be a plausible solution. Come on. We don’t call Social Security the “third rail” of politics for no reason. It’s extremely hard for anyone to make change. Bush in 2004 – with a republican house and a republican senate could not privatize socials security. If that doesn’t tell you that that Social Security and Medicare are major policies that are going to be difficult to change, I don’t know what will.

Obama is bringing up that McCain is old and has been the senate for the long time and doesn’t support the things that Candidate McCain has talked about. This is a pretty good comparison.

Holy crap. McCain spoke the name of the President-who-must-not-be named because he has the worst approval rating since approval ratings began to measured.

Obama gets a question about whether or not health care is a commodity. The initial response is meandering. He finally mentions the “moral” obligation. This is good, but it would have been nice to hear “health care is a right.” Talk up the talking points to your base. Alissa is loving Obama gushing about electronic medical records. She felt that McCain was naive in his response to medical records.

I’m loving Tom Brokaw right now. Forcing the candidates to answer the question of whether or not health care is a right. Obama finally figures out that this is what the question was about. Hillary Clinton thought she coached Obama better than that. I like that Brokaw has “interpreted” his role to force the candidates to answer questions.

Obama finally hits hard on health care. Democrats rejoice. Hitting McCain on S-CHIP and in general being very empathetic.

Obama turn on the phrase “I don’t understand” to things that are completely rational is so awesome. I’m loving it. Although I would have preferred him to use “without weapons of mass destruction” instead of “no connection to 9/11.”

Obama on the moral obligation line is pretty good. I think it communicates very well what Obama’s value’s are in relation to foreign policy. It also is a good base rallying cry.

McCain is talking about needed a cool hand at the tiller. I don’t know what the tiller is. I wish his language wasn’t from the 50’s.

I love looking the people in crowd. Many of them have reaction to other people’s question. This one woman was just like, “oh shit. That question on Pakistan was so smart. I hope they don’t call on me. My question was about Pandas.” The reserved reactions to candidates responses are also interesting. When people smile or nod is interesting.

I’m annoyed that McCain, who’s hero – according to McCain – is Teddy Roosevelt, can’t get the Teddy Roosevelt quotation correctly. It’s not “walk softly and carry a big stick” or even “talk softly and carry a big stick.” It’s speak softly. Come on. If the guy’s your hero – get the quotation correct.

Obama using “muddling through” to talk about policy. Seriously, is he courting the policy student vote? No one else sees that particular phrase as strategic unless you’re pursuing a degree in political science or public policy.

Obama’s answer on “what don’t you know and how will you know it” isn’t as good as it could be. It’s pretty good, but not the best. He should use this to talk about his values and that his values are the middle class. Obama sort of makes that point, but not quite.

Random Thoughts from the Veep Debate

There’s not a lot of consistency here. These are mainly my thoughts as I react to the debate as it unfolds for me. I’m watching it a bit behind on Tivo. I’m not watching the Cubbies (but gameday is up on my computer), because I’m convinced they’re going to lose the series in three games. I’m trying to be as neutral as possible – focusing on my experience in debate and rhetorical studies, instead of my political opinions or public policy training.

At the beginning of the debate I was so frustrated with Biden and his failure to look in the camera. Gov. Palin does a good job at always making sure that she does this. In that sense, she’s a natural at the television medium. Biden seemed to start sensing that he wasn’t in the camera and started doing so about fifteen minutes into the debate. Perhaps there are multiple sets of cameras – I’m not really sure how these things are setup, but it would be interesting to see. This format all seems to favor Palin too; being rapid fire its really easy to be vague and sound good.

I loved Biden’s dig on the “that’s the bridge to nowhere.” This may be a one liner that gets replayed over and over on CNN.

Biden seems to confuse this format with Meet the Press. He’s consistently defending his record and giving us something to think about, but he’s not convincing anyone. He’s not making the case that McCain-Palin is worse for America. Paul Begala on CNN had this great piece earlier this week about how to do well in American political debates. His most important point: don’t lose sight about the greater argument. Biden seems focused on the details, rather than the big picture.

A good example of this is on the issue of energy. Palin says she’s not focused on the causes of Global Warming, she’s focused on the solution. Biden responds saying that you need to understand the causes to find the right solution. While this is absolutely the truth about crafting good policy – you need to know what’s wrong to fix it – I don’t think this makes for a good sound bite and I don’t think that most people understand how important that is. It’s probably good that Biden did indict her on this, but I would have hit back much harder. Talk about how the house Republicans, now lead by McCain (although that’s a questionable claim), just voted against a measure that was all of the above solutions because it didn’t have enough tax breaks for the oil companies. It’s highly unlikely that Palin is going to be able to answer that. Biden should link the important issues, not just respond with a list.

Similarly, I was mad that Biden didn’t attack Palin on health care from a policy side. Instead Biden chose to attack from a coverage stand point. Which is fine and good. But a tax rebate for health care is a silly policy. How does this help people get health care? In order to get the benefit, you have to have a tax liability. This doesn’t help low income people who can’t afford health care coverage right now. On top, you have to wait until after you have submitted your taxes. How does that help you fix your immediate needs? It doesn’t. The McCain plan is coverage delayed and coverage denied. That’s a policy that fails doomed to fail and barely pays lip service to the problem.

Biden now is doing a good job of comparing McCain to Bush. Repetition and litany of issues reinforces the Obama camp’s claim that McCain is the same Bush.

Palin insistent that “words hurt our cause” to anything that is critical of any military efforts is down right disgusting. This is the same unless you are with us or you are against us, mentality that Bush administration has used for years. It’s as if the words perform some perlocutionary function that attacks our troops. It’s as annoying as a team that’s getting crushed returning to the 1AC advocacy in the 2AR. (Debate reference).

Did I just hear a sigh? I couldn’t tell who it was from, but in general Biden has held himself well. Smiling often.

Oh Christ. Did Biden just walk into the Kerry line of “I was for it before I was against it?” Yup. Palin doing a good job capitalizing on that now. This is where Biden should hit back on strait talk. All Biden has to do is to show, like Kerry did at the convention, how McCain has flipped positions for political purposes. Not to mention this gets us away from the typical Obama sound bite about needing the right judgment on the war in Iraq.

What? Did Palin just ask the Constitution if it could give the Veep more power over the senate? This conjurs a funny image. (Yes, I know its a reference to Cheney having a lot of power – but apparently she wants more.) I wish the constitution were a person to tell her no. And for all the reasons why that would be stupid.

I guess we don’t have to have a constitution to tell her. Biden just did. I hope this gets picked up as news. Who in the world thinks the executive branch should have more power? Especially power

Wow. Biden taking the Maverick lines to school. That was a really good response.

“I’ve worked together, but I’ve never had to compromise.” That sounds like a contradiction in terms.