PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, OCTOBER 7, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
President
The presidential elec-
tion will be decided by
the thin slice of undecid-
ed independent voters.
Presently Hillary Clinton
is leading Donald Trump
nationally by about six
points. With the cam-
paign entering its fi nal
weeks, any can happen.
Trump’s performance in the sec-
ond debate on Sunday evening could
change things—either in his direc-
tion or in Clinton’s. Vice presiden-
tial nominee Mike Pence may have
taught his running mate a few things
for the upcoming town hall meet-
ing style debate. Pence stayed on his
message—never giving a full-throat-
ed defense of Trump’s style, history,
plans or policies. Rather, Pence po-
sitioned himself perfectly to become
the front runner for the GOP nod in
2020 (if Trump does not win, that is).
We were told earlier this year,
after it was clear that Trump would
be the Republican nominee and
Clinton was but assured her party’s
nomination, that 2016 would be a
nasty, personal campaign. Both can-
didates have given each other, their
campaign surrogates and the media
plenty of fodder.
Trump can’t stay off Twitter nor
can he stay on message, even with
a teleprompter. Clinton is still un-
trustworthy to a majority of vot-
ers—people can’t get past her emails
(Benghazi doesn’t merit much cover-
age these days).
It seems that those who support
Trump cannot be dissuaded regard-
less of what their candidate says or
does. That demonstrates that the de-
sire for a complete change in the way
Washington does business is para-
mount. Those who support Clin-
ton also cannot have their
minds changed—it’s un-
certain if it is due to Clin-
ton herself or the fact that
they can’t fathom a Trump
presidency.
This newspaper can
envision a Clinton presi-
dency, which means that it
cannot support Trump. He
has a message that has obviously res-
onated with a great swath of America
but we don’t think he is the person
to seriously address those issues. Sure,
we wish we had a different choice
of candidates, but primary and cau-
cus voters across the country have
endorsed these two for their party’s
nomination.
The presidency tends to moderate
the person elected. There are many
factors that can keep the occupant of
the Oval Offi ce from going too far
off track, Congress and the Supreme
Court being just two. But words have
consequences, and Trump’s state-
ments on whether to support our
NATO allies, use nuclear weapons
and a cavalier attitude about other
nations getting them are just a few
that we fi nd worrisome—not to
mention allies around the world.
Trump’s personal and hurtful at-
tacks against other politicans and ci-
vilians is very unpresidential—his late
night Tweets are akin to the taunts
of the playround, much like his yen
for nicknames like Little Marco and
Lyin’ Ted.
The unfortunate reality of this
election campaign is that the Repub-
licans have a message but it has the
wrong messenger. America always
gets the leaders it needs, not neces-
sarily the leaders it deserves. Donald
Trump is the wrong leader.
—LAZ
editorial
I’m with her (Ameya)
By ERIC A. HOWALD
I always hesitate to call
myself a feminist. It makes
me feel like a stray dog dig-
ging up a stranger’s garden.
However, as a father to
an only daughter, Ameya, I
also feel duty-bound to say
something when issues of
gender inequity arise.
A day after the fi rst presidential
debate, Ameya’s social studies class
discussed the Hindu belief in reincar-
nation, the notion that a living being
begins a new life after each biological
death. The discussion prompted the
teacher, Whiteaker Middle School’s
James Decker, to pose a question to
the class, “What would you like to
come back as if you were reincarnat-
ed?” Ameya told me she was one of
the fi rst to raise her hand. Mr. Decker
called on her.
“A boy,” she said. “Just to see what
the experience is like.”
Inwardly, I cringed a bit as she told
me this, but the story was only half
fi nished.
Mr. Decker then asked the rest of
the girls how many of them wanted
to come back as boys. All but one of
the girls raised their hands. The ma-
jority of the boys wanted to come
back as animals.
I wanted to believe that this is an
anomaly, but Mr. Decker told the
class the answers have been the same
in most classes when he has posed
similar questions in the past three
years. The girls want to come back
as boys, the boys mostly want to be
animals – generally things with big
teeth, big claws or some combination
of the two. It varies little from year-
to-year. Mr. Decker confi rmed it in
an email discussion we had later in
the week.
Mr. Decker said that this is the
one question he asks the kids where
they still manage to surprise him.
While the general trend is
steady, some of the more
recent responses have
been students hoping to
come back as minorities
in hope of having a bet-
ter understanding of life
from a different perspec-
tive. That lessened some
of my frustration with the future of
the world Ameya will inherit.
He said that the girls generally feel
that there is too much drama within
their gender, that they are held to dif-
ferent standards than boys in terms of
how they look and act, or that their
parents are more protective of the fe-
males in their family while the boys
get to run roughshod through life.
The seventh graders’ responses to
that single question speak volumes
about the value placed on females
and feminine perspectives in our so-
ciety. My daughter is 12 and she’s al-
ready drawn some conclusions about
her inherent worth based solely on
her gender. That’s not the world I
want for her and no ill-defi ned so-
cietal norm should be able to impact
her self-esteem in that way.
I told an associate recently that I
wasn’t particularly a fan of the Dem-
ocrat in the presidential race, but she
was a woman and a female president
was something I wanted my daugh-
ter to see in her lifetime.
He countered by saying that there
were lots of women in positions of
power in business and academic set-
tings.
I am more convinced than ever
that it is not enough. I am the grand-
son, son, brother, husband and father
of women. In the upcoming election,
it may appear as though I’m stand-
ing with “her,” but it’s because I want
Ameya’s daughter to hope for rein-
carnation as president.
moments
of
lucidity
(Eric A. Howald is the managing
editor of the Keizertimes.)
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Support Citizens United
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Hillary Clinton has promised that
in her fi rst 30 days as president she
will propose a constitutional amend-
ment to overturn the U.S. Supreme
Court’s 2010 Citizens United deci-
sion, which she characterized as a
“disaster for our democracy.” Be-
cause Clinton has a better-than-even
chance of being elected president,
who am I to argue?
The California Legislature is
ahead of Clinton. It has placed on
the November ballot an advisory
measure, Proposition 59, which in-
structs state offi cials to use “all their
constitutional authority” to overturn
the ruling.
It’s funny how Democrats talk as
if Republicans are rolling in dough,
while Dems are stuck passing the hat.
The opposite often is true, especially
this year. As of Aug. 31, The Wash-
ington Post reported, pro-Clinton
campaigns had raised almost twice
as much money ($795 million) as
pro-Trump concerns ($403 million).
Bloomberg looked at super PAC mon-
ey on Sept. 21 and reported that pro-
Clinton super PACs raised $153 mil-
lion and spent $121 million, while
pro-Trump super PACs raised $16
million and spent $12 million. That’s
the Dems outspending the GOP 10-
1. Where’s the outrage?
Bloomberg recently reported that
Clinton campaigns are out-raising
money from billionaires on a mar-
gin of 20-1 against Trump. If Clin-
ton wants to do something about
the corrupting effect of big money
in politics, all she has to do is talk to
the mirror.
It’s a good thing money doesn’t
buy popularity. At Monday night’s
presidential debate, Trump ribbed
Hillaryland for spending buckets on
advertising designed to bury him.
Quoth The
Donald: “$200
million
is
spent, and I’m
either
win-
ning or tied,
and I’ve spent
practically
nothing.”
That’s the dirty little secret about
campaign spending—it cannot com-
pensate for a bad candidate. Accord-
ing to the Center for Responsive
Politics, Trump won the GOP pri-
mary after spending half the amount
that bankrolled the candidacy of for-
mer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio was a good can-
didate who outspent Trump, but he
could not win his home state. Like
it or not—I’m on the “not” side—
Trump won the GOP primary be-
cause his message popped with GOP
voters.
It’s laughable that Clinton is pro-
posing a constitutional amendment
to overturn Citizens United because
whoever her Supreme Court picks
are, they are bound to oppose Citi-
zens United as Clinton has promised
to have a litmus test for her Big Bench
picks. There would be no need for a
constitutional amendment.
The left gets all teary-eyed about
the absolute authority in the Su-
preme Court’s decision to uphold
Obamacare. That ruling is sacrosanct.
Citizens United, however, is easy
prey—so easy that state lawmakers
are invited to venture into deciding
federal law.
“It’s become a code word for ev-
erything you dislike about politics,”
Bradley Smith, former Federal Elec-
tion Commission chair and now
chairman of the Center for Com-
petitive Politics, told me. The pub-
lic has come to think that a rever-
other
views
sal of Citizens United will end the
supersize role of money, especially
corporate money, in politics. They
forget that the 5-4 decision written
by Justice Anthony Kennedy denied
the government’s authority to censor
a political documentary. The con-
servative group Citizens United had
produced an unfl attering 90-minute
fi lm called, Hillary: The Movie. The
FEC prohibited the fi lm’s airing on
pay-per-view stations to comply
with the 2002 McCain-Feingold
ban on “electioneering communica-
tions” funded by corporations or la-
bor within 30 days of a presidential
primary.
If the Big Bench were to overturn
Citizens United, Smith added, the
court likely will make it “impossible
to air a documentary movie close to
the election”—whether the fi lm-
maker is Citizens United or Michael
Moore—but would not cleanse poli-
tics of corporate funds.
Jeffrey Toobin reported as much
in the New Yorker. “’People use Citi-
zens United as shorthand for all the
problems of money in politics, but in
fact the decision itself had little to do
with money in politics, and revers-
ing it would do little or nothing to
remove money in politics,’” Pamela
Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law
School who also worked in the
Obama Justice Department told him.
Because of all the misinformation,
expect Californians to approve Prop.
59. But the measure likely would fail
if its effects were characterized more
accurately. Smith’s suggestion: “We
should make (Prop. 59) an up-or-
down vote on whether the govern-
ment ought to be able to censor po-
litical documentaries.” Voter, beware.
A truly apolitical ban wouldn’t apply
to conservatives only.
(Creators Syndicate)
Trump’s immigration stand is wrong
Some sources of wisdom on last
week’s debate gave Hillary Clinton
the win by an overall rout. That hap-
pened because Donald Trump allowed
his apparently often uncontrollable
temperament to take over. Neverthe-
less, Donald did well, even admirably
well for about 30 minutes, when he
drove hard his strongest issue: trade.
In The New York Times, Ross
Douthat and Maggie Haberman gave
Trump the nod for the fi rst 25 min-
utes. Douthat said he “seized on the
issue, trade, and hammered away at it:
linking his opponent to every estab-
lishment failure and disappointment,
trying to make her experience a liabil-
ity rather than a strength.” Haberman
wrote that Trump “has a strong case to
make on trade, when he makes it.”
Trump kept swinging in Hill-
ary’s direction, coming hard at her on
NAFTA , it being “the worst trade deal
maybe ever signed anywhere.” Dur-
ing these moments, he spoke with the
confi dence of a man who knew what
he was talking about.
But what may have been Trump’s
best part of the debate was—factu-
ally speaking—probably his worst. Al-
though a strong contender for this du-
bious status would have to be where
he said he both would and would not
honor the NATO treaty and then said
he both would and would not adhere
to the fi rst strike doctrine on nuclear
weapons. This juxtaposition on issues
adds up (fact checked by CNN) to
140 changes of mind or reversals on
20 current issues.
Trump throughout made a lot of
noise about how horrible NAFTA
has been for the
U.S. In the fi rst
place, some dis-
regarding
gene h. agree
the effects of
mcintyre NAFTA. How-
ever,
respect-
ed economists
who’ve written
about the sub-
ject is that the effect on the American
economy was small. Economic stud-
ies of NAFTA fi nd its effects causing
a small reduction in wage growth for
blue-collar workers to less than .20
percent increase in American wages.
Further, the Congressional Research
Service concluded a slight growth in
output and productivity and nearly no
impact on employment numbers.
NAFTA came into existence in
1994, shortly before one of the great-
est economic booms in U.S. history;
and NAFTA did not devastate the U.S.
economy as unemployment dropped
from 6.6 percent in January, 1994, to
4 percent in January, 2000.
Early on, Trump was asked how
he would raise the wages of Ameri-
can workers. Here’s verbatim what he
said: “Our jobs are fl eeing the coun-
try. They’re going to Mexico. They’re
going to many other countries. You
look at what China is doing to our
country in terms of making product.
They’re devaluing their currency, and
there’s nobody in our government to
fi ght them. And we have a very good
fi ght. And we have a winning fi ght.
Because they’re using our country as
a piggy bank to rebuild China, and
many other countries are doing the
same thing.
“So we’re losing our good jobs,
so many of them. When you look at
what’s happening in Mexico, a friend
of mine who builds plants said it’s the
eighth wonder of the world. They’re
building some of the biggest plants
anywhere in the world, some of the
most sophisticated, some of the best
plants. With the United States, as he
said, not so much.”
All that he said would be eye-
popping...if it were true. Jobs are not
fl eeing the U.S. In August, 2016, our
country marked the 78th straight
month where our country increased
its jobs while we’re in the longest pri-
vate sector jobs growth in U.S. history.
China is propping up its currency to
stop its investors from running away
from China. Tesla is building the big-
gest manufacturing plant in the world
in Fremont, California; up until now,
Boeing has had the largest manufac-
turing plant in the world in Everett,
Washington.
The accumulation of Trump’s mi-
nor inaccuracies and blatant lies are so
long they might not fi t on this entire
page. He’s simply not credible most of
the time but has bamboozled those
Americans seeking a fi ctional im-
migrant from the planet Krypton,
a Superman-like superhero, to save
them—when virtually every Ameri-
can, through hard work and stick-
to-it-ness has a better chance than
anywhere else in the world to save
himself.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)