Ironically for anyone who remembers the 90’s, Newt Gingrich seems poised to play the role held in 2008 by his nemesis, Hillary Clinton.

After Iowa, the 2008 race was turned on its head, turning the establishment candidate into the scrappy underdog, and the young upstart into the favorite of both the elites and much of the grassroots. Subsequently, Obama’s failure to channel his momentum into a New Hampshire win meant a primary contest that went through three changes of season and seven months as Clinton doggedly stayed in the race, with sporadic but significant victories in Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio.

Electorally speaking, the Republicans may face a similarly zig-zagging primary process, given the structure of their primary elections calendar. As Gingrich’s star rises, particularly his significant coup with the New Hampshire Union Leader’s endorsement, Romney’s primary results may only be glancing blows instead of the needed knockouts. If Romney does not establish decisive wins within the first few primaries, the longevity of the Republican primary calendar means a grueling and potentially intriguing obstacle course race to the nomination. Delegate-heavy primaries like New York and California don’t take place until April and June, respectively (far later than in 2008). The gap in electorally significant contests between Florida on January 31 and Super Tuesday on March 6 will provide plenty of  As Jon Ward and Mark Blumenthal reported at Huffington Post, “…the altered calendar will create the most spread-out contest since the 1970s…mathematically, it will be hard for Romney to argue after January and February that he is the putative nominee.”

But the spoiler role is about more than just riding out a long contest. True spoilers expose and exploit the intraparty fissures that turn elections into identity crises. Clinton’s prolonged candidacy became a microcosm for Democrats’ internecine conversations about race, gender, and age. Robin Morgan excoriated young Obama supporters for betraying feminism, who responded in kind, while Caroline Kennedy played ref and declared Obama the winner of the 60’s mantle. The long-running conversation exposed both the conflicts and the overlaps between the Democratic voter bases. The possibility for a similarly explicit showdown among Republicans gives this primary season some real zest. (Finally.) Though this contest may lack the visceral punch of the white-female-vs.-black-male, Gingrich and Romney slugging it out would mean a head-to-head matchup of the Reagen coalition’s two factions: social conservatives and economic conservatives.

As of now, Gingrich need only place within the top three in Iowa and New Hampshire to justify remaining in the race for months to come. Between the advantages of the primary election sequence and the fractured Republican base, with its appetite for a Romney alternative, in this case we may see that to the spoiler goes the victory.

On November 28th the United Nations Climate Change Conference will begin their 17th annual negotiations in Durban, South Africa. Representatives from 194 countries will make the trip, however an ever dwindling number of them will be high officials, just one of many signals suggesting low expectations.

Like usual the US, the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, will again fail to show leadership or provide the example to put local and international criticisms at rest.

President Obama’s proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 aimed at installing a comprehensive cap and trade system for carbon emissions. The stated reduction goals aimed at bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012, 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

Whether or not these ambitious aims would have been accomplished we will never know, the House barely passed the measure while the bill fell under the swift guillotine of the Senate.

All the US has to bring to the table in terms of broad climate based legislation is revised fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and some minor efficiency changes. Meanwhile, the EU is making efforts to reduce emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels, China is imposing a pilot cap and trade scheme by 2013, Japan already has one,  and Australia just imposed a progressive carbon tax.

The bulk of nations are all pursuing similar strategies. In fact, there are simply too many efforts being made internationally to even give cursory mention in so short an article.

It seems that since the international arena, so evidently lacking leadership, has failed to impose universal climate policy standards, most nations have decided to come up with their own policies.

All except the United States.

Enhanced fuel efficiency standards are welcome progress in the otherwise barren world of federal environmental policy. Their broad acceptance goes to show strategic, well-planned policy designed to change the incentive structure of manufacturers and consumers can orient the market towards more efficient means.

If we want to compete in the growing renewables markets we have to reorient our economy. This wont happen with an idling, fume spewing Congress.

The US is holding the whole world back with its conservative bending, regressive outlook. At this rate it looks like one day we will be one of the advanced countries who has made the least number of advances, even compared to many developing countries.

If the republicans manage to pull out majorities in Congress, and put a Republican in the White House, we might as well go back to the stone age and bring out the steam engine. Perry cares so much about the EPA he can’t even remember what its called. And the last few days Romney has jokingly been calling himself a “serial exhaler of carbon dioxide” when bashing the already too limited scope of the EPA.

Its time for the international community to put some heavy pressure on the US to change its ways. Now is the time – and Durban is the place to do it.

On Monday, November 21^st, Mitt Romney released “Believe in America,” a controversial, misleading campaign ad, in New Hampshire.  His first paid commercial delivers a very flawed attack, raises his own character questions, and gives Democrats ample ammunition to respond.

The first 22 seconds serves as a flashback to Barack Obama campaigning for Presidency in October of 2008. Sound bytes wrap the first quarter, combined with oversized texts such as “HE FAILED,” “GREATEST JOB CRISIS SINCE DEPRESSION,” “RECORD HOME FORECLOSURES,” and “RECORD NATIONAL DEBT.”

The footage shows clips of Obama in New Hampshire and clusters of civilians enveloped in an overwhelmingly dark, clouded atmosphere, delivered in lightening speed to Jaws-like music that evokes a sense of impending doom onto the viewer. The darkness then clashes and is defeated by the bright fluffy white clouds and the hopeful, gentle voice of Mitt Romney. Soothing symphonic music accompanies his inspiring words to the viewers, along with nearly an all white male audience throughout his clips.

Walt Disney mastered the art of subliminal advertisement. Go back to your tapes of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, etc, and you will hear off-color sound bytes and subtlety vulgar animated backdrops that your conscious mind misses but your subconscious grabs onto and conveniently stores them. Big business has been using this technique for decades and Mitt Romney is no different.

I almost missed the few nanoseconds [about 20 seconds in] that Romney inserted during the scenes of Obama that reveals a seated congregation of Black citizens. Moreover, if analyzed closely, the viewer will notice that the nearly blacked out portions of the footage consist primarily of Black civilians. Romney does an excellent job of covertly linking minorities to terms such as “debt,” “crisis,” “foreclosure,” and “lose” – thereby, trying to create an “Us” versus “Them” mentality.

Let’s focus on this “all black segment” when President Obama’s words are heard: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Romney intentionally chopped down the sentence from its entirety of: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’” It is a huge oversight for Romney to take the then Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 statement and attribute it to 2011 in a desperate effort to convince the public that he has been dodging the economy.

First, President Obama has been addressing concerns about the economy since he took office. If not, then why did he sign into law The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009? Why is he and Michelle Obama tirelessly campaigning for the passage of his American Jobs Act? Second, Romney cleverly juxtaposes the races through the placement of images and lighting, failing to include minorities in his own footage. He presents President Obama as “The Other” and further reinforces this notion by solely reaching out to blue collar factory working middle class white men throughout “Believe in America.”

Perhaps Romney’s team got what they wanted – the media is continuously talking about the campaign ad and he is receiving that much sought after attention, but at the same he is losing credibility, his character is under question, and Newt Gingrich is climbing his way to the top in New Hampshire.  He is treading dangerous water by not only delivering misleading information, but also by combining it with heavy racial undertones.

Instead of Romney trying to sell his ideas like a popcorn and soda commercial at your local Cineplex, he should focus on delivering honest, quality, and inclusive messages.

In her book The Missing Class, Sociologist Katherine Newman documented a startling new discovery – almost 57 million Americans were living in a reality known as the ‘near poor,’ those living 100 to 200 percent above the poverty line, neither officially destitute nor comfortably middle class. In her “The Nation” interview with Eyal Press, Dr. Newman noted that policymakers have been slow in responding to this group, “I haven’t heard anybody else (besides John Edwards) talk about these people, Republicans nor Democrats. I don’t think the political parties reach out to them very much.” This interview, as well as her book, hit the press in mid 2007, but the plight of the near poor failed to make a blip on policy radar screens.

Four years and one catastrophic economic downturn later, Katherine Newman was right in her assessment of the near poor. It took the prestige and popularity of the New York Times to unveil this great discovery (again) in their November 18^th article “Older, Suburban, and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ startle the Census.” Citing recent statistics from the Census Bureau’s new supplemental poverty measure that better accounts for disposable income spent on things like medical expenses, this article concludes that 51 million Americans fall into the near poor category, with incomes only 50 percent above the poverty line.

Dr. Newman was spot on again when she stated that policymakers – Republican or Democrat – are not paying much attention to this group. GOP candidates like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are championing tax cuts for the middle class (the class this near poor group tends to fall into), while Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry opt for the opposite, believing that the poor and near poor are getting a “free ride” and should be taxed more heavily. Beyond this, just how should policy makers respond?

Looking at families only, (policy responses for all types of people that fall into this category are outside the scope of this post) Republicans and Democrats could take advice from former Presidents like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and expand on social insurance programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC program, which rewards parents with a tax credit per child based on their yearly earnings (up to $5,751 for a married family with 3 children, filing jointly, and making less than $49,078 in 2011), was expanded by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and again by Bill Clinton in 1993. While the EITC has been one of the most effective anti-poverty policies ever devised by the federal government, increasing the amount would help families facing high disposable income costs like medical expenses, and would put Americans more in line with our European counterparts.

Or, policymakers could finally embrace the policy suggestions of social scientists across the United States and define broader social reforms that could eliminate many of the work-family conflicts that keep the near poor teetering on edge of poverty. For example, state subsidized, quality childcare is one policy option that resounds from the research of political scientists like Dr. Janet Gornick of the LIS Center and CUNY Graduate School and researcher Heather Boushey from the Center for American Progress.

The simple fact is that the issues faced by the near poor will only get worse without a policy response. So whether or not the Republicans decide to embrace the policies of their revered Ronald Reagan or President Obama decides to listen to the policy suggestions from a growing number of social scientists, someone needs to act. Now.

I wrote my last blog post in the immediate wake of the forcible eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park that took place early Tuesday morning. For a lot of people, that afternoon was a filled with uncertainty mixed with vague but tangible optimism, thanks to so many other Occupy movements still holding, November 17^th actions imminent, and an overwhelming wealth of public support. While the past week’s events have justified initial optimism, building developments both in and (most importantly) out of the Plaza are reason for even more confidence.

Down on Wall Street, vigorous organizing is still taking place around Liberty Plaza, with meetings of various working groups and the relatively new ‘spokes-council’ happening frequently both in the square and at 60 Wall Street (an indoor location required a month or so prior to eviction). This is fantastic, a sign of real endurance. It’s heartwarming to see that the square is still teeming with revolutionary activity. What these meetings demonstrate is a commitment to a core of organization, and they maintain a sense of stability and of perseverance. What’s more exciting though, are the events taking place outside of Liberty Plaza, which prove that losing the Zucotti Park encampment may actually have been the best thing to happen to the movement in New York City.

For one, New York occupations are now reaching out more into the boroughs. What these geographically specific occupations have—what Zucotti didn’t could never really seem to get—is the ability to empower and represent more diverse communities. While the occupation on Wall Street was often shunned by even supportive people of color, Occupy Harlem has proven to be a much more effective forum for those who represent the non-white majority—not to mention those most effected by the historical inequality of capitalism. By rallying more diverse support, these movements prove, as one veteran protester rightly argues, that “Occupy Wall Street is not a quote-unquote white thing.”

And it’s not just the occupations that are spreading beyond the park. So too is the organization of the working groups themselves. With less time and energy being spent down on Wall Street, many organizers that I’ve spoken with are feeling more free to organize specifically around other issues, such as student debt. Like geographic diversity, this tactical diversity will also allow support for the movement to grow. With attention shifting from broad and singular to narrow and varied, people generally familiar with the movement may find more meaningful reasons to take part. Of course, Occupy Wall Street remains central as a symbol and as a communication hub. However, with force from cops and the weather both increasing, these independent (and mobile) points of organization are going to be key to keeping the movement alive.

Life continues in the square, and that is truly excellent. But what really makes me certain that these movements have political staying power is that they are moving beyond Wall Street. A week ago we lost the park, and while we may have gotten it back (sort of), what we really gained was the knowledge that we may no longer need it.

Obama just returned from a ten day trip through Asia, with visits to Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. The trip has widely been considered a diplomatic and strategic success. Yet all Perry, Romney, and the rest of the Republican candidates took from it was an out of context sound bite in which Obama allegedly calls all Americans lazy.

Within days of a November 12th meeting, Perry released this classy ad with the well trimmed clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_NJgKoBERM After a turn towards the camera reminiscent of a supervillan rotating in his chair to address world leaders with outrageous demands, Perry says “Can you believe that? Thats what our president thinks is wrong with this country?”

Actually, the fragment was part of a CEO business summit held by APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation). The question was about limitations on receiving foreign investment from China, a contentious issue facing both legal prohibitions on foreign ownership of nationally strategic industries and businesses failing to keep up with attracting money from foreign investors in an increasingly competitive international atmosphere.

After lauding American business, innovation, and limitless opportunities, Obama says, “But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America.” Sounds like an excellent observation to me, what do you think Rick?

Romney was just as quick to load his campaign guns with these verbal bullets. Too bad they’re blanks. In a speech in Massachusetts he fired off with “…I just don’t think that President Obama understands America. Now, I say that because this week…he said that Americans are lazy. I don’t think that describes Americans.”  Well done Mitt. Anything else you want to contribute? “I’m convinced that America is not lazy…they’re being held down today by a government that is too big…”

This central tenet of both Perry and Romney, that government is always bad and always too big, is border line scientific truth, unquestionable – especially when doused with counterfactual evidence.  Not even the Obama administration’s program SelectUSA, one he mentions in the same meeting, which helps streamline and assist foreign investors building job generating firms, could threaten the creed. Even when Obama’s goal of doubling US exports in five years through such programs is largely on track.

What is more upsetting is that Republican campaign rhetoric has tarnished probably one of the most important presidential trips in the last decade. One which strengthened economic and political ties with some of the worlds largest developed and emerging economies. One that reasserted American influence in the region after a long hiatus. One which showed the growing economies of Asia they have an ally, friend, and protector.

Whose really lazy? The candidates who can’t come up with anything better than taking words out of context or the globe-trotting president working hard to make accomplishments abroad because Congress won’t let him do anything at home?

On the November 12 Republican debate Mitt Romney asserted that if “…we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.” Since Romney is a top-tier candidate, it is worthwhile considering seriously the troubling statement quoted above.

No one disputes that Iran’s nuclear success in civilian technology will translate into a military capability. But it is a mistake to believe that a military solution exists to prevent Iran’s nuclear ascendancy.

Clifford D. May goes through a good account of Iran’s extra official and terrorist activities, and communicates his amazement at everything that Iran accomplished while being “weak-” meaning a non-nuclear state. This was very odd. That same list told me that as a non-nuclear power Iran has positioned itself intelligently in the international arena, and is not so weak.

Strength and power are relative terms. If a political unit is conventionally weak, then it resorts to unconventional methods to achieve its aims. Americans against the British in 1776, Jews against the British in Palestine, Palestinians against Jews in Israel and the occupied territories, Viet Cong against the US, and the list goes on and on.

States also sponsor non-state actors to accomplish their goals when direct confrontations are deemed too risky. US financing of insurgents in Nicaragua and Afghanistan during the Cold War, Soviet and Chinese financing of insurgents in South Vietnam, and Iranian financing of insurgents in Iraq and of Lebanese-based Hezbollah.

Unlike the easily scared Saudis in 1985, the surprised Iraqis in 1981 and the aloof Syrians in 2007, Iran has the capability to respond to an attack on its nuclear facilities through unconventional and, increasingly, conventional means. In 2010 Thomas Friedman wrote that Hezbollah was in possession of over 40,000 missiles. At the same time, the 2006 Lebanon War demonstrated that Hezbollah is a formidable fighting force.

Yes, Iran is too weak to invade and conquer an Arab state (and so is the United States, by the way). But beware. Iran is not too weak to inflict damage on Israel, or an invading army, through its conventional strength or too weak to give Hezbollah the order to join the fight. And considering how close Iran is to becoming a nuclear state, the best argument against another American military adventure is that if the consequences of such action were deemed manageable, the Israelis would have already done it.

Mitt Romney’s claim that Iran will not have nuclear weapons if he is elected diminishes past experiences with Iran and ignores the available information. These would be deadly symptoms for a new administration deciding its Iran policy. Now and in the future the US must be careful that the rhetoric employed in the coming Iran-nuclear crisis does not corner the US or Iran into actions that are detrimental to Americans, Iranians and the region.

This weekend, the Egyptian army and police were once again clashing with protesters in Tahrir Square over the potential for a democratic Egypt. Reforms that promised to make the government a representative one have been delayed, and any parliament will—for the foreseeable future—have no power not delegated to it by the military.

And although Silvio Berlusconi has been my favorite politician to hate for quite some time, and I think Italians will be better off without him, I cannot help but question what his departure says for democracy in Italy.  He seemed forced out more by international pressure via the European Union (particularly Germany and France) and the IMF than by Italians themselves, at least initially. And the imposition of new economic laws—in some cases, like those on the privatization of water rights, in direct opposition to recent popular will—is clearly not something the populace is in favor of.

A hop, skip, and jump across the Ionian Sea in Greece, similar complaints abound. In order to receive financial help, the Greeks had to essentially cede their economic sovereignty with regards to their fiscal overlords. The new government has decided to accept an offered deal—no matter the chains attached—regardless of its unpopularity. And they did so after backing down from one plan that would have given the Greeks a chance to show its unpopularity at the polls. The money was more important that the will of the people, it seems.

Democratic will matters less here in the home of the free and the brave as well. For example, in response to cities in financial crisis because of the recession, my home state of Michigan passed a law allowing the governor to dissolve city governments and install their own leaders to run things. To hell with who the citizens voted for!

Times are tough. When everything seems to be falling apart, I see why some people don’t like the mess that is democracy. It is indecisive and then schizophrenic when choices actually are made. So it’s tempting to just say, “Hey—leave this one to the professionals,” especially in the latter three instances where alternate decision makers can have incredible legitimacy (the Egyptian military might not be quite on that level).

But those people who value democracy don’t do so for results. We don’t assume that “the people” will make the right decision every time. But we recognize that the best way for governments to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the demos, and for us to feel free, the choices do have to be ours—right or wrong.

Sometimes there will be situation like Greece’s, and institutions should choose to help or not. But if they do, they should not try and substitute their wants for those of the Greek people. Democratic legitimacy is too high a price to pay for a bailout. Leaders (military, political, and economic) need to remember that democracy is the template they need to work within, regardless of the inconvenience.

Should we simply reject a presidential candidate based upon his religion?

Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, has been defending his Mormon beliefs ever since he announced his candidacy. I understand that a certain level of fear ensues when first confronted with something unfamiliar. This is probably the reason why Herman Cain’s activities as a minister of the Antioch Baptist Church do not meet the conditions for interrogation. So, are we to place less legitimacy on the Mormon faith because it’s not part of the American norm?

I must admit that I know very little about Mormonism. My knowledge is limited to the misconception that Mormons generally live somewhere in Utah, dress in Amish clothing, inbreed, and practice polygamy. I later discovered that those are usually Mormon fundamentalists. In reality, we have elected 15 Mormons into Congress, including our Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. So, what’s the public so afraid of?

The quick and handy Wikipedia defines Mormonism as a “the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement” and the fourth largest denomination in America. More or less, it is a form of Christian primitivism that uses and follows the teachings of the Bible, the Book of Mormon – which ironically is also a hit Broadway production – and the Doctrine and Covenants, among other texts. Does that sound so terrible?

It is true that Mormonism, like most Republicans, is conservative on matters of family life, but it also emphasizes individual agency. How they apply these ideas in the public arena is up to the individual candidate, who is ultimately responsible to uphold the US Constitution as a public leader to its citizens, not to the church hierarchy.

Let me remind us all of Article VI , paragraph 3 of the U.S Constitution: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Just as we don’t vote for a candidate based upon his favorite color, why should his particular faith influence our decision? Also, don’t all candidates adhere to general beliefs, whether they be religious or not, that may influence their decisions?

Like Vice President Biden, I find it preposterous that Romney’s faith is undergoing such fierce questioning. Similar to a speech that John F Kennedy delivered during his 1960 campaign, Mitt Romney felt the need to address his much debated faith: “Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.”

He may not win the support of evangelical voters at first, but when it comes down to Obama vs. Romney, I bet those right-wingers will flock to their Mormon representative. It’s time for conservatives to get comfortable with the idea that an American, who promises to uphold the law and the Constitution, may represent the GOP – he just also happens to be a Mormon.