The Republican Primaries are in New Hampshire

After all the action in Iowa, the candidates have all landed in New Hampshire. The action here has been mostly muted till now, probably because Romney is the perceived front runner, given that he was the governor of Massachusetts. Jon Huntsman has been living in the state, and the local Nashua Telegraph interviewed all the candidates, both the well-known and the lesser-known ones (this time they held some interviews at Nashua High School, with students organizing the whole thing and telecasting them live on the internet - pretty cool). Standard primary stuff, but the buzz was missing, the buzz of having most of the state and also national attention focused on the race.

After Iowa, the buzz is here. The fun begins for primary watchers like me!

January 4, 2012.

Great speech

I thought this part of Obama's Labor Day speech at Milwaukee was brilliant. “They drove our economy into a ditch. And we got in there and put on our boots and we pushed and we shoved. And we were sweating and these guys were standing, watching us and sipping on a Slurpee.And they were pointing at us saying, how come you’re not pushing harder, how come you’re not pushing faster? And then when we finally got the car up -- and it’s got a few dings and a few dents, it’s got some mud on it, we’re going to have to do some work on it -- they point to everybody and say, look what these guys did to your car. After we got it out of the ditch! And then they got the nerve to ask for the keys back!"

Simply and crisply makes the point.

However some bloggers have pointed out that this could alienate voters as it presents a picture of the economy having only a few dings .... for some people it is a lot worse.

Still, a good speech. I wonder how much input Obama gives to his speech writers - how much creativity come from him and how much from the speech writers?

Questioning candidates

It is amazing to me that the Tea Party candidates refuse interviews and choose to speak to only "friendly" reporters. Is it because they don't have the confidence in their views to have a dialogue on them? If they cannot discuss their views with a reporter how will they listen to alternate points of view if and when they govern? My first thought that it is extremely unacceptable for any candidate to refuse questions from any reporter.

But then is the point that reporters are partisan and the media will spin things out of control? Did I want candidate Obama to be interviewed by Rush Limbaugh and have him quoted out of context for a zillion news cycles?

When you look at it in the abstract, it is unfortunate that detailed dialogue, especially with people who hold an opposing point of view, is avoided while running for office. It reminds me of a situation when a co-founder of an organization I volunteer for was severely criticized for speaking at event organized by a group many didn't approve off. His answer to them was that he saw no harm in speaking at any forum he is invited to speak at - whether it is to the left or the right or somewhere in the middle. Any forum is a place to talk about his views, and answer questions on his views. That seems mature compared to political candidates refusing to answer questions from people they don't agree with.

I think it at least partly comes down to the fact that voters do not take the time to go through the fluff and logically discuss issues and weigh candidate positions. They get carried away by media storms.

Tea Party Momentum

I have been telling friends and family that the Tea Party enthusiasm is going to backfire on the conservatives. The Tea Party might be successful in getting their candidates win primaries, but in the general election this will help the democrats because mainstream America will simply not vote for the Tea Party candidates. They will either stay home or vote for democrats. But then comes the news that in the last quarter the republican candidates (including the Tea Party candidates) have raised more funds than the democrats and the democrats are really struggling ....Is my faith in mainstream America misplaced? I would be surprised if 'mainstream America' has moved this much to the right.

Local Elections

My father had assumed that I would vote in the local elections (equivalent to the municipal elections in Indian cities). He was surprised that I came home without voting, and that I had not talked about it much. "You always jump about when there are elections, you get so excited", he said.

I didn't vote because I just didn't have the time to read up on the candidates. I didn't think it made sense to vote when I barely knew anything about the candidates.

Why didn't I have the time? I just got busy with work stuff. My corporate world encroached on my citizen participation. Democracy is time-consuming. Does unbridled capitalism leave time for real engaged participation in democracy?

"It is not flashy, but election might change power in city", as the local paper The Telegraph put it. I should have participated.

Uplifting SlumDog Millionaire

Uplifting. This term is being used fairly commonly to describe the movie SlumDog Millionaire. The movie is ‘uplifting’ because in spite of all the trials and tribulations Jamal undergoes the movie ends happily for him, causing people to leave the theater on a high note. But I take serious issue with that particular happy ending. My friend put it well when she said, “Everything bad that happens to him is because people do bad things to him. But everything good that happens to him is by accident”. In other words everything is against him; he only escapes his difficult childhood because 'it is written'. To me this implies a message that you have to be lucky to aspire for a different life than the one you are born into. If one accepts that thought, then one accepts status quo when it comes to the disadvantaged and underprivileged people in the world today. There are millions of people are being exploited, but there are always people who will escape their circumstances through sheer luck. I volunteer for Asha (http://www.ashanet.org/) because I am not happy with the small number who escape through sheer luck – I want everyone, or as many children as possible, to have the opportunities to improve themselves.

As the movie progressed all I could think of was the millions of children in similar circumstances who are not going to win the million dollars. Many have complained that the movie focused only on the negative side of India, and some wonder whether all that indeed happens in India. Asha volunteers know that nothing in the movie is inaccurate. We work with organizations that fight the powerful channels that supply young girls to men. We work with organizations that are fighting the begging mafia. And we work with organizations that deal with the aftermath of riots and work towards preventing more riots. We know all that happens in the movie happens to children, day after day. But we also know that one kid winning a million dollars is not a solution in any shape or form. I think the movie does a disservice to the problems it so starkly portrays by leaving viewers with an uplifting feeling. I wonder how many people run out of the movie theater wanting to do something. To me the movie’s end trivialized the solution to the problems the poor face.

It is of course the filmmaker's choice. He is not making a documentary, but an entertainer. But the challenges that Jamal faces to me were too realistic to be entertaining. Feel-good movies in general are not so starkly realistic when they portray the difficulties of the hero. The hero typically undergoes some difficulties and then something nice happens to him and the movie ends happily. Even if the difficulties are realistic, they are not the difficulties of a multitude of people. They are the difficulties of one hero and a few like him and he gets past them and lives happily ever after. The fact that this movie was so realistic in its portrayal of the difficulties, and then becomes so unrealistic in portraying how the hero's life changes for the better, really disturbed me. How can people find this uplifting? Or entertaining? Friends tell me I am taking the movie too seriously. But then the difficulties that kids like Jamal face ARE serious! And real!

Stark. That is what the movie felt like to me. Real situations where hope is represented by the very, very, VERY long shot of winning a million dollars.

Voting

I managed to get to the polls relatively early (by my standards). The birds were chirping as I went along, as if they were heralding this momentous day. There was hardly a line at my polling station and I picked up a ballot and went to the little enclosed space to mark the ballot. As I stood there and looked at the names, a wave of emotion swept over me. It surprised me completely and I was taken aback. I had increasingly become a strong supporter of Obama, but was somewhat detached, content to observe the campaign from the outside (unlike my eager involvement in the Howard Dean and John Edwards campaigns). I do not know why the act of casting the ballot today made me emotional. Was it because the questions and thoughts Obama has in his first book about bringing about social change echoed my own sentiments as I struggled with similar issues as an Asha volunteer? Was it because a President Obama embodied the fact that the United States of America was truly a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country? Was it because it is amazing and humbling that after 9/11 and after Saddam Hussein is known as a reviled dicator the US can still elect someone called Barack Hussein Obama? Or was it simply that the election of Obama would finally bring to an end to the appalling governance of President Bush?

Perhaps it was all of the above. What I know is I was moved to tears.