The End of the 2012 Election

            It’s a miraculous feeling knowing you were there when things changed. Maybe not forever, maybe not dramatically, and maybe not even for a generation. But knowing you were there and involved when something truly important happened is an untouchable and incorruptible moment. If the election proved anything, it’s that we are a divided nation. But it also showed that we didn’t give up when the moment was hardest, that we stuck to our guns and decided the devil we all know is better than the devil we don’t.

            I’m from Maine. For most of my conscious life my state has always had two Republican U.S. senators who could best be described as moderates. And when Olympia Snowe stepped down, the GOP was left scrambling with one less vote. But instead of going the chosen course of red and blue, Maine went with Angus King, an Independent who may prove to be the key vote for the next few years. And on that line, Maine became the first state to ever ratify same-sex marriage by popular vote. Though we are a small state, the people of Maine proved something on Election Day. That even in the most divisive moments in contemporary history, we can still agree that some things are inalienable and that the overall system demands to be fixed (and that we deserve no less).

            In terms of the national election, it was surprising just how substantial a victory Obama won. It was close early on, but by 11:30 the race was over. The incumbent had won, no doubt about it. Even with Florida notwithstanding, the president had over 300 Electoral College votes, and his challenger conceded. I truly believe in my heart that Mitt Romney is not a bad person. On the contrary, I believe he is a good man who loves his family and his country. It’s a remarkable shame that the most honest emotion Mitt Romney ever showed was in his concession speech on November 7, 2012 at one o’clock in the morning, only after he lost his second race for the White House. It was not a concession speech from a movement leader like Reagan, but from a man who had tried and failed, from a cowboy finally ready to ride off into the sunset once and forever.

            At the same time I don’t believe President Obama is a bad man either. I believe he is just a man who underestimated how divided a country we really were, who didn’t anticipate the drive for partisan goals would ultimately outweigh the moral obligations to the American people. But we stand at a crossroads now. The GOP has lost. Mitch McConnell has lost. John Boehner has lost. Mitt Romney has lost. The goal of these Republicans and so many more for the past four years had been to make President Obama a one-term president. The goal wasn’t to fix the economy, or to create jobs, or to bring soldiers home, or to change policy, or recreate the power of the president, or even to pass basic legislation. It was to defeat somebody in the opposite party. That has to be the most startling thing about our broken system: that our politicians haven’t even been running to win, but instead just to make sure somebody else loses.

            Maybe now we can actually get something, anything, done. Obama has a second term. Neither party really has anything to lose. The Tea Party appears to be on its last leg, if you believe what the 2012 election has said so far. We’re a nation far removed from perfection. We’ve admitted that ideology doesn’t always pay off, that putting all our eggs in one basket might just make us hungry later. But we’ve also admitted that we’re ready to see something through, that despite what recent history might say, we’re accepting of new norms.

            Sure, our economy needs work. And admittedly, we’re still more divided than ever. But if there is one silver lining to the years 2008-2012, it’s the notion that we’re ready to continue to move forward. That we admit social issues like equality are still worth fighting for. That we’re not just names on a list, numbers in a book somewhere. That we’re not just a nation of 300 million lost souls who only want what’s best for ourselves, no matter what the cost to everyone else might end up being, and who just want to be left alone. Maybe we’ve finally come to terms with the fact that change doesn’t happen over night.

            Maybe I’m being overly optimistic. We have a lot of work to do here at home in terms of nation building. But it’s that idea of the silver lining that drives so many Americans to keep going. Politicians don’t change things. Presidents don’t change things. The Electoral College doesn’t change things. Money doesn’t change things. Necessity changes things. The idea that we are better than the rhetoric dictates changes everything.

            John Fitzpatrick Kennedy said it best just a few months before he was gunned down in Dallas. A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.

Did Mitt Romney Really Win?

            The challenger seemed cool, calm, and collected while the incumbent seemed spent, tired, and bothered. With the blessings of the “moderator,” the incumbent allowed himself to be interrupted time and again by his opponent, often allowing him the last word even when it wasn’t his turn. This was not the Obama we were expecting, nor was it the Romney we were expecting. But my question: did Romney really win the debate, or did Obama just gamble and lose?

            Romney had an answer for everything thrown at him. Or at least it sounded that way. He gave the same tired answers he always gives. He denies Obama’s accusations about his tax cuts without giving numbers to back them up. He spoke about his Medicare program as being eons better, but without having figures to aid his argument. He talked about studies that no one’s ever heard of, just trying to disprove the reliability of surveys in general. He said things like “I could name more” when referring to hospitals where Obama’s plan has failed, but promptly refused to. At the end of the day, Romney didn’t win the debate. He simply fooled America into thinking he did.

            That’s not to say Obama didn’t help Romney’s case. The president seemed unprepared, as if he wasn’t speaking from prewritten prompts like his challenger, but rather as if he was speaking from the heart. He wasn’t the eloquent guy we picked four years ago. Last night we saw a guy didn’t want to lie and say he was the greatest president ever, but who just wanted a fair shot. And that’s not the guy we need.

            All’s fair in love, war, and politics. Obama should have come out swinging from the start and hammered Romney on his 47% comments, on his overseas bank accounts, on some of the things he really did at Bain Capital. But instead, we saw Obama try to take the moral high road. The trouble is, there is no moral high road in politics, especially if you’re running for president. Sure, neither candidate had any good zingers for the other, but Obama needs to press Romney hard and often until he spins out of control and self-destructs.

            Romney is an enigma in presidential history. Never before has someone said less and stood as good a chance at winning than Romney. The fact that he changes his opinion more often than John Kerry should take voters aback. But the most egregious offense committed by Romney is the one he is most heralded for. When he talks about balancing the budget, he says he’s going to go through every government program. He’s going to ask himself “Do we really need this?” If not, he’s going to cut it. This is a man who thinks balancing the national budget is as easy as cleaning up a spreadsheet.

            Romney is like a middle school eighth grader new to Facebook. He’s got a lot of friends, yet he feels starved for attention. So what does he do? He posts a status saying if he doesn’t think you’re necessary to his friend list, he’s going to delete you. That way he can balance his list.

            This is the major problem with Mitt Romney. He has literally stupefied half of America by saying one idiotic thing after another, with each one contradicting the other in order to please some base of the electorate. But in doing so he has somehow brought together a base of people who don’t care what he says, who don’t listen, and who have been fooled into thinking he has them in mind.

            Make no mistake about it. Last night we saw a new Romney, a man determined. But he’s not determined to help anybody, least of all the middle class he so righteously glorified last night. He just wants to win.

Mitt Romney's Ohio Problem

            As goes Ohio, so goes the nations. This is the sentence that Mitt Romney should be repeating over and over until November 6. He should breathe this particular construction of words both day and night, awake and asleep, in moments of triumph and defeat, and through mouths of food. He should do this because no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning Ohio since Abraham Lincoln. In order to defeat President Obama, Romney absolutely has to win in Ohio. And Romney’s chances of winning Ohio depend completely on who he picks to be his VP.

            As of now, there has been no final decision on who the VP will be. Some say Rubio. Others say Condi. And others still insist on former candidates like Pawlenty. But if Romney realizes that has to win Ohio at all costs, his pick should be Ohio Senator Rob Portman. Portman is a well known politician in Ohio, while being lesser known around the rest of the country. He stays out of the limelight, but has been campaigning with Romney for quite a while now. Romney needs a name that the people of Ohio trust, and a name that the rest of the country can accept.

            Portman could well be the most important person in the 2012 election.

            With the Republican National Convention fast approaching, Romney has a decision to make. He could pick a Sarah Palin type candidate, one who demands more attention than himself. He could pick a candidate like Condi to go after minority votes. He could go for Bachmann to gain Tea Party support. He could literally pick anyone. But if he were smart, he would pick Portman. Portman doesn’t necessarily promise Romney a victory Ohio. But any other candidate will nearly guarantee that Romney will lose the swing state, and thereby lose the election.

            Romney will undoubtedly pour mountains of money into campaigning in Ohio, but that still might not be enough. I’m not sure if Romney has realized yet that there isn’t enough money in the world to buy trust. He will have to barter for it, and he could sacrifice a lot more than a spot on his ticket to a guy from Ohio.

            Just remember, Mitt. As goes Ohio, so goes your legacy. 

The Heavy Burden of LeBron James

            Tonight is the most important night of LeBron James’s life. Up until now he was a magnificent loser, a tragedy of God-given talent meant to wow us but never win us back. Tonight LeBron can become more than a loser, more than a tragedy and even if he can’t win all of us back, he can certainly win most of us.

            People love a winner. Ask Kobe. Ask Kevin Garnett. Ask Ben Roethlisberger. It doesn’t matter what you did or how big of an asshole you really are; people will love you if you win. And tonight, LeBron is as close to that elusive ring as he’s ever been. With one win tonight, he can begin to repair his broken image, and stand just a little taller in the shadow cast by Michael Jordan.

            Tonight LeBron can silence everyone who has been begging him to lose for two years. All it will take is 48 minutes of unrelenting and uncompassionate basketball. He will have to play like he’s never played before. He will have to play more than a perfect game; he will have to be an Olympian waging holy war on Oklahoma City. Tonight he will have to be more than just LeBron James to win. He will have to be Aries, god of war. He will have to make fools out of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and James Harden. If LeBron truly wants to be remembered as one of the greats, he will have to destroy his opponents in a way never before seen in basketball. For tonight, LeBron has to be the greatest to ever play the game. Anything short of that simply will not do.

            Tonight, LeBron has to play as if he’ll never see the hardwood again, as if he will fade into oblivion once the clock runs out. His legacy will be in his own hands then. If he wants to become more than just a man, he’ll have to play like that. Forget the Super Friends, LeBron. Tonight it is only you on that court. With a decisive victory you stand the most gain. But you also stand the most to lose. It won’t mean the same if you win in Game 6 or Game 7. You have the entire NBA in a stranglehold tonight, LeBron, and you have two choices. Either let them go to fight another day and be seen as weak, or finish them off once and for all, like the titan you so desperately wanted to be.

            Tonight’s the night, LeBron. Go out there and play the game like it’s never been played, or be cast as a failure forever, as someone who couldn’t get it done when the moment was biggest.

            This is the moment you gave up everything for. This is what you were born to do. So go and get it, or else why bother at all? Some players get remembered, LeBron, but legends never die.

John Edwards Goes Free

            Sometimes even scumbags catch a break. Today, federal prosecutors dropped their case against former presidential hopeful John Edwards after the corruption trial against him ended in deadlock. Edwards was acquitted by North Carolina jurors on one count of accepting illegal campaign contributions. The five other felony charges against him ended in deadlock, causing the judge to call for a mistrial. He will not be retried on the five unresolved counts.

            Edwards allegedly used his campaign contributions to finance and cover up an affair he had. It was reported that up to $1 million in secret payments from wealthy donors was being used to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president in 2008.

            Edwards is a two-timing hack who cheated on his late cancer-stricken wife and didn’t even feel bad about it. I’m sure at some point Newt Gingrich called Edwards with high praise and well wishes, telling him to hang tough and that this will all blow over soon. People are quick to forget and even quicker to vindicate any degenerate on the grounds that they’ve changed.

            But people like Edwards never change. They smile and pose for pictures with their families by day, but by night they’re always on the prowl. And guys like Edwards have an unwarranted sense of entitlement. Not just when it comes to women, but with anything they know they shouldn’t be doing. They’re greedy and they think they won’t get caught. And worst of all, even if they’re caught red handed hiding a pregnant mistress with campaign contributions while their wife is dying in a hospital bed, they know eventually we’ll forget all about it.

            That’s just how these people work. Understanding a politician’s motives is like understanding the old riddle: Why does a dog lick itself?

            Because he can.

The Most Boring Election in History

            For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. Hunter S. Thompson said that. Unknowingly to him, Thompson summed up perfectly politics in the New American Century. And if he could be brought back from the dead to see the political crater we’ve landed ourselves in today, he’d probably kill himself all over again.

            Every day we inch closer to that impossibly dark day in November known as Election Day. To say this election season has been lackluster would be a terrific understatement. Nobody in the GOP rose to take on Obama, even though he was freefalling for quite awhile. I’m not saying any two-bit chump could have beaten the incumbent, but certainly a real candidate could have made some serious waves. But instead we’re stuck with the impossibly boring Mitt Romney pretending he wasn’t the inspiration behind Obamacare and telling us his dog likes road trips on the roof of the car.

            In 2008, we thought we were witnesses to a brand new kind of president, a modern-day JFK, FDR and Lincoln all rolled into one. He was that moment of triumph, the instance of beauty; his election was supposed to be the single greatest accomplishment our generation ever achieved. But for all his promises, well wishes and good intentions, we were the souls that had to be trampled.  It wasn’t that Obama betrayed us and it wasn’t that he changed into some kind of monster. We just eventually realized that our perceptions of him had been wrong from the start. Through no fault of his own he couldn’t be JFK or FDR or Lincoln. And we hated him for that so we shot down everything he tried to do, blamed him for every bad thing that happened and put him under a microscope that no other sitting president has had to experience. In the end, we trampled him back.

            So this is the dilemma we’ve put ourselves in. The battle for the White House has come down to a pathological liar in Mitt Romney and the Great Compromiser in Barack Obama. There is no poll accurate enough to tell who is going to win, simply because the polls are from biased sources. Fox News polls will tell you Romney has a double digit lead in every state plus Puerto Rico and D.C., while MSNBC will say Obama has already secured his third and fourth terms. You can’t trust anyone these days.

            Instinct tells me Obama will win, but not by a landslide. It is enormously difficult to unseat an incumbent president, especially in war time. And when the platform of the GOP is “Anybody but Obama,” the GOP is bound to fail (that tactic didn’t work well for the Democrats in 2004, and it won’t work now). The trouble with Romney is that he isn’t your typical Republican. He’s a Mormon, which may alienate many on the religious right. He was governor of Massachusetts who created Romneycare which may push away many Southern voters. There are no guaranteed states for Romney this elections season, but Obama doesn’t seem set either. As a black Democrat, his chances of winning big in the South look bad already. Texas and Florida could well go to Romney just by default.

            Still, I can’t help but feel ultimately uninterested in this election. It was boring from the start and will conclude with a yawn. The American public will most likely go to bed early on that night in November, not because of a landslide win, but simply because we’ve been bored to sleep. 

The Hard Goodbye of Newt Gingrich

            Newt Gingrich, the masquerading musketeer of morals, has called it quits. He announced last week that he would suspend his campaign, and today announced he will endorse Mitt Romney to take on Obama in November. His last electoral victory coming in South Carolina, the only way to describe Gingrich’s decision would be: about damn time.

            Perhaps the worst candidate this season who threw his name into the hat, Gingrich leaves behind nothing more than a bad taste in the mouths of the American public. He wasn’t the dumbest, he wasn’t the angriest, he wasn’t the craziest and he wasn’t the least qualified candidate running; but he was the worst. He wasn’t fun at all. He was offensive. He didn’t make sense. He toed the unfavorable line between reality and fiction (moon colonies, seriously?) and he paid because of it. And worst of all was that he was never genuinely interested in what he was doing. He's just a fat and lazy prick who refused to go quietly into the night, and we'll hate him because of that forever.

            There was that brief moment when we thought he stood a chance, but that came and went faster than dirt in the wind. The monumental defeat that was the Gingrich campaign seemed to drag on forever, bleeding out but never wising up. He waited too long to quit. Had he ended earlier he could have been considered as a running mate. But now the American audience has caught scent of what Gingrich really is: a leech. He latches onto anything he thinks will make him better off, bleeding his host dry before moving onto the next victim.

            I will not miss Newt Gingrich like I miss Santorum or Perry. I will not hold him in contempt like I do Cain or Bachmann. Truthfully, I will forget about Gingrich as soon as he’s gone. That’s the fate he’s sealed for himself. He’s neither a tragic hero nor a graceful loser. At the end of the day, he’s just a nobody. 

The Story of the Midnight Rambler

            Levon Helm, singer and drummer of The Band, died on April 19 after losing a battle with throat cancer. He was 71.

A now mostly-forgotten voice of the South, Helm leaves behind a hole in both Americana and rock and roll that will never be filled again. Sharp in his growl, electrifying in performance and enigmatic in his persona, Helm was honestly an American icon.

            You’ve probably forgotten the names of the songs or how the words go exactly, but as soon as you hear his distinctive, and at times haunting, bark you remember exactly why it was that you loved The Band.

            He was one of a kind, but the world forgot about Levon Helm. Sure, he was still known in music circles and for his local concerts in Woodstock, N.Y. known as Midnight Rambles, but to the wider public he was just another old-timer. Helm was in fact an inspiration for generations of musicians. He was master of his art. He was a riverboat gambler. He was an unforgiving critic. At the end of the day, he can only be described one way: he was Levon.

            I remember the first time I heard “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Music was never the same after that. I judged everything else through a scope measured by that song. It’s an unfair comparison in retrospect, but it seemed right for a long time. That song didn’t just sum up the tensions still simmering from the Civil War. It didn’t just sum up the South. It was an introspective look at the heart and backbone of America itself. It created a triumphant sense of defeat, a colossal collapse of body but not spirit; it was the phoenix rising from the ashes of old hopes and dreams. It changed the way many people looked at America and American music.

            People like Helm come around once in a lifetime. He wasn’t just a drummer in a band. He was the pounding backbeat for the narration of American history. Looking back, it’s impossible to tell where the musician ends and the fable begins. That’s what makes him legendary.

            Figures like Levon Helm don’t really die. They become a part of history, eventually fictionalized to heroic proportions. They become part of folklore. Some people will say if you listen hard enough you can still hear his Appalachian cry in the wind. So goodnight, Levon Helm. Yours will be the story of the Midnight Rambler, claimed by history to be remembered as more of a myth than a man.

Santorum Suspends His Run

            The improbable roller coaster ride that was the Santorum Campaign has finally called it quits. The often despicable but occasionally eloquent Santorum was the last real obstacle between Mitt Romney and the GOP nomination. And while we are undoubtedly getting rid of what would have been the worst presidential nominee in American history, we are losing something even greater than that: the last really honest person running for President of the United States.

            The former senator from Pennsylvania is a religious nutcase and financial hypocrite. He was so despised for his comments about homosexuality that his name became synonymous with the frothy byproduct of anal sex. He had no idea how to run a country or even a presidential campaign. He said whatever came into his mind, but never once doubted he was right. That’s what made Santorum so likeable. He honestly believed everything he was saying and that he was working for a greater good.

            Unlike other religious fanatics, Santorum never claimed that God intended him to be president. He was just an overly religious guy who happened to be running for president; one was not the product of the other, it was merely coincidence. And unlike fellow GOP hopefuls Romney and Gingrich, he was not the kind of “Washington insider” they despised, simply because he didn’t understand how Washington really worked. Sure he was a senator, but that’s a far cry from president.

            The unlikely dark horse candidate in this race, Santorum effectively seals the deal for Romney now. As goes Santorum, so goes the GOP. Romney will likely promise him some position in his cabinet if he endorses him (and suggests all his delegates follow Romney too).

It was a bitter end for the sweater-vested whirlwind that came out of nowhere. Unlike any other candidate running now, he always spoke from the heart and meant every word he said. He didn’t pander and he didn’t flip-flop. Sure, he was an asshole, but he was a painfully honest one. Who knows why he quit. Maybe hoping Romney will give him a cabinet spot. Maybe so he won’t be remembered as the guy who forced a brokered convention. Or maybe he just got tired of the monotony of the rat race.

But something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Rick Santorum.  

Mitt Romney's Last Stand

            Everyday we inch closer to that terrible moment in Tampa when the GOP will crown their nominee to take aim at the White House. Ever since Obama won in 2008, people have been clamoring for Mitt Romney. He’s the handsome business man from Massachusetts, a guy with values. Not only was this his race to win, but it was his turn. That’s the way this thing works. When your number’s called, you know it. But somehow, things aren’t working out the way we all expected for Mitt Romney.

            It was a cast of nobodies. People we all laughed at and said didn’t stand a chance against the machine that is the Romney campaign. One by one they dropped until the most astonishing cast of losers stood against Romney: a fat man without a moral backbone, an old man with caterpillar eyebrows and a guy whose name is now synonymous with a frothy byproduct of anal sex. There was no way these guys could even muster up a hiccup to Romney, let alone fortify against him and create Romney’s Last Stand. But that is exactly what they did. And now with the Convention just short months away, Tampa doesn’t look so promising to Romney anymore.

            The race boiled down to Romney and his apparent arch nemesis Rick Santorum. The two have been trading victories back and forth. And while Romney has a stronger foothold for now, Santorum is making sure Romney gets nothing easy. And then there’s the other guys: the fact that neither Newt Gingrich nor Ron Paul will drop out of the race keeps disrupting that which we had all thought was coming: Romney’s nomination.

            The clear path we once thought we were on has become something completely and wholly unrecognizable. And the terrible nightmare we’ve gone through already may become even more fiendish as the likelihood of a brokered convention seems ever more possible. This is where no candidate gets the majority of the delegates by the convention, and a new round of voting begins in which anyone can enter. Anyone including former candidates and even non candidates like Sarah Palin could swoop in and steal the nomination.

            A brokered convention will most likely occur since both the Gingrich and Paul campaigns refuse to die. In fact, Gingrich has made it clear he wants to align with Santorum and use their combined delegates to ensure that Romney doesn’t win. If Romney can’t win the nomination on his own, he will never win at a brokered convention. Every delegate he misses is another nail in his campaign’s coffin. And it looks like Santorum has the hammer and Gingrich has the nails.

            Poor, poor, pitiful Mitt. Fate has dealt him a cruel hand. He waited patiently for his turn, but the gods of politics may have snatched his chance away from him. Through no real fault of his own, Romney has been broken. He still has a chance, but it shrinks every day. It shrinks every hour and every minute of the day. He can feel the tentacles tightening around him even now. The question is: what is he willing to do to win? And how much longer can he go on bleeding like this?

The Man Who Would be King

     There are two types of Independents in the Senate (mainly because there are only two that come to mind). The first is the ideal, which is the Bernie Sanders model. He is a champion of the people who stands for civil and social rights and who actually dreams of a better America for all involved. The other is the Joe Lieberman model, the kind of Independent who changes parties just to win and whose jowls quiver at the scent of money. The next Senator from Maine will be an Independent, but the questions remains: what kind of Independent will he be?

     Former governor Angus King stands alone to win the Senate seat vacated by the once-proud Olympia Snowe. This is because he has both sides afraid to bet against him. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans of Maine want to put forward a strong candidate of their own because by doing so they could easily guarantee the other side victory. You see, King was a wildly popular governor, and time has only done his reputation favors. He will win a majority of the vote. So if there were a strong candidate from either side, a three way race would be created and it would be Paul LePage all over again: the winner wouldn’t have to win the majority, but simply more than a third.

     King scared off the Democrats fast. Hard hitters like representatives Pingree and Michaud chose to hunker down, and fellow former governor Baldacci wisely took a wide berth around King. All that’s left for the Democrats is a bunch of nobodies who don't stand a chance against King: a couple of state representatives and the former secretary of state. The Republicans, meanwhile, still seem to be in a state of shock seeing Snowe step down from a seat she was guaranteed for life. There are six Republicans vying for the spot, all with same chances as anybody else: slim.

     Thus is the crossroad for Angus King. He must stay Independent and not pander at all to either side. If King leans in either direction too far, he will lose that which makes him so likeable: the fact that he is agreeable to everybody and wholly Independent. So he must model himself after Sanders. He must be an Independent who answers to the people, rather than Lieberman who will forsake anybody and answers to the lobbyists. King may even have to go farther than Sanders. He might have to become to first real moderate in the history of the Senate, the kind of Independent who doesn’t answer to anyone other than his own state and his conscience. 

     The road King faces isn’t particularly challenging given the circumstances. The only thing that stands in his way is the man he sees in the mirror. King could be his own worst enemy. But he could be the first step in the right direction not only for the state of Maine, but for American politics as a whole. 

The Gambling Green Goblin's Last Chance

     Yet again, Danny Ainge has proven that all gamblers lose eventually. Last year, when he shouldn’t have made a trade he gave away fan favorite Kendrick Perkins for Jeff Green. Green had hoped to prove his dissenters wrong this season, but we saw how that went. Then this season, when Ainge had to make a trade to salvage the season, he sat on his hands too afraid to break up the Big Three. The Celtics are down to essentially two big men, Garnett and Bass. Wilcox is lost; O’Neal is not expected the finish the season with the team and rookies Johnson and Stiemsma are unproven. Ainge single handily ruined the Celtics these past two seasons.
     Expect an early exit from the Green Gang this year. They sit at seventh in the East and probably won’t move much higher than that. If the playoffs were to start today, the Celtics would face the Miami Heat. And they would lose. If they manage to claw their way up one spot, then they would face Orlando is the first round. This is a much more desirable matchup. The Celtics have had Orlando’s number all this season.
     But the final test of Danny Ainge will start once the season is in the books. It would have been a storied offseason, but many of the big names are off the list. The Celtics stood pat at the trade deadline probably in hopes of luring Dwight Howard away from Orlando in free agency. They failed. They wanted Chris Paul. He’s gone. Deron Williams will most likely end up in Dallas, or maybe even Orlando to play with his buddy Dwight. Kevin Love will not be joinging us. But there are a few bright spots.
     Ainge needs to gamble again and sign Greg Oden. The oft injured number one overall pick is considered a bust, but could be solid coming off the bench if used correctly. The Celtics cannot put their franchise on his back, but if he still wants to prove himself Beantown could be his home.
     But Ainge needs a young and reliable center. His choice should come down to JaVale McGee or Roy Hibbert. Both are young and could be explosive, and either would be guaranteed the starting spot. And a starting center paired with Rondo will flourish. The Celtics should also gamble on Kwame Browne, another former number one pick who has failed to live up to his hype. But coming off the bench, he could be dangerous. And with McGee (or Hibbert) and Oden (or Browne) suddenly a team that seemed small has gotten huge.
     Next the Celtics have to resign Bass, Green and Pietrus. Green will come cheap and, like Oden, will want to prove himself. And he has to do it here. Bass might have a higher price tag, but he’s proven himself this season. He has seemingly broken the curse of the number 30 (see Bias, Blount, Telfair, Wallace, Murphy, etc.). Pietrus wants to be here and will out hustle anyone at anytime.
     As for the rest of the team, the Celtics just need to go on a shopping spree. O.J. Mayo or Eric Gordon could fill out the shooting guard needs, while Kirk Hinrich is a hard working combo-guard. J.J. Hickson could be a solid power forward behind Bass. All these guys with Rondo, Pierce, Green, Pietrus and Bass could be very promising.
     Things could be better for the Celtics, but things could just as easily be worse. This will not be a year for banner 18; Ainge has made sure of that. But if the crafty GM wants to prove his worth before he goes the way of the dinosaur, he’ll make a big splash this offseason. He has to. His legacy depends on it.

Obama's War on the Catholic Church: Battle Hymn of the Republicans

            Behold! The angel of death has arrived. He carries with him a pack of Trojans, a doctor’s prescription and fistful of Plan B. And hell follows with him.

            President Obama has put himself in a very precarious position. The devoted Catholics who once would have unquestioningly followed a different Democratic president into battle now seem apprehensive of Obama. At least that’s what the leaders of this non-taxed organization want you to believe.

Contraception may be a divisive issue, but it should not be ammunition for war.

The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And so far it hasn’t. This contraception debate being waged on Capitol Hill has nothing to do with religion. It’s about personal choice and the right to privacy, if you’re into that kind of thing. Women who use birth-control aren’t pointing to the heavens and mocking Jesus on their car ride to Planned Parenthood.  

The argument has been made that Catholics should not be forced to use contraceptives. This is a legitimate argument. However, the argument becomes void when you step back and realize no one is forcing contraceptive pills down the throats of good God-fearing Catholics. All that is being asked is that employers and insurance companies offer the birth-control option to those who want it.

The next logical step in the argument would say that the Catholic Church shouldn’t have to provide birth control if it finds it morally inexcusable. And Obama couldn’t agree more, which is why churches don’t have to offer contraception. It’s not like they’ll be handing out condoms instead of the Eucharist. The churches would merely have to let their insurance companies offer contraceptive plans.

When you listen to people like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or any Catholic priest Fox News chooses to interview, you notice a very common theme: a bunch of old men telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies, their privacies and their futures. And there’s something downright funny about Gingrich telling us what’s morally just in a world full of heathens. The thrice-married adulterer has already broken one of the Bible’s biggest taboos involving that whole “sanctity of marriage” thing. But that’s beside the point. He’s squared himself with his Lord. The rest of you sinners? Not so much.

Clearly the Catholic Church is infallible. Its leaders have never been wrong before, nor will they be wrong at any point until the end of time. So I take their word on every little detail about my day to day activities. This is why I don’t eat shellfish (Leviticus 11:10), why I don’t wear polyester or any mixed fabrics (Leviticus 19:19), and why I still have slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46). And that’s just one book of the Bible. You sinners should all go read it now.  

Do not be distracted by the rhetoric about this being an issue of an entrenched religion up against the right hand of Satan currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This is not Obama’s war on the Catholic Church. Rather, this is the Catholic Church’s war on Obama. And the terrible part is the Catholic Church is willing to sacrifice all of us to win that war.  

The Waiting Room, The Pissing Contest, The Florida Primary

            Florida. It is known as God’s waiting room. And that is most certainly the meaning it embodies as the GOP debate and primary draws nearer every day. This is clearly the most significant vote yet, as the race has been split between the three ways thus far: Santorum took Iowa, Romney won New Hampshire and Gingrich ceased the moment in South Carolina. Elder statesman Ron Paul will be avoiding the Florida primary in hopes of securing victories out west. So what exactly will Florida mean for the three headed monster that remains?

            Florida means different things to all the candidates. If Gingrich were to win, it would strengthen his foothold in the South and probably secure him the remaining majority of the Bible belt. If Santorum were to win, it would blow the breeze of confidence and significance into his flag; his victory in Iowa still seems sketchy at best. Too close to call between him and Romney. But if Romney were to win, it would signify everything we’ve been expecting. If Romney wins in Florida, he wins the nomination. The only person standing in his way (and I can’t believe it’s come to this) is Newt Gingrich. The only place that toadstool is guaranteed votes is in the South, and if Romney can derail that train he stands stronger than ever to win the nomination handily.

            Gingrich has been surging to the naked eye, but if you look hard you will see he’s actually been digging himself a very deep hole that looks harder and harder to get out of. He’s managed to paint himself as a cool handed Christian and Washington outsider, but eventually those colors will run and the voters will call his bluff. He lied to CNN’s John King and the rest of us about “character witnesses” concerning his open marriage with his second ex-wife. He’s passed borderline racism and has developed a blatant sense of infallibility and supremacy. Even Jimmy Carter says Gingrich is racist (sort of). He blows of questions pretending to be unconcerned with petty differences and too mature to let them bother him. While this holier-than-thou attitude worked for a while, it’ll have to catch up sooner or later. You can’t hide in plain sight forever, and Gingrich will learn that the hard way.

            The world will come crumbling down around Gingrich sooner or later, but if Romney can win in Florida he’ll be delivering a fatal blow to the fatally flawed Congressional reject. If Romney can even split the South with Gingrich, then he’ll undoubtedly win the nomination. People like Gingrich and Santorum can’t win in states where the evangelical vote doesn’t matter: namely New York, California and Ohio. Texas could be a wildcard, but Romney has already put himself in good position.

            But what does it matter? Listening to all the candidates, you can’t help but feel that they don’t actually care about what they’re saying, or understand it. They go through the motions that past candidates took, but those motions are emptier and bitter tasting. No one is battling for anything intrinsically important, Obama included. The only thing these politicians care about is a victory, not for some greater vision of America but only to see the other side bleed. It’s all just become a giant pissing contest, and all of us are standing downwind. 

The Good, The Bad, and Rick Perry: The End of the Lone Ranger

            Not all cowboys get to ride off into the sunset. Some go down in blaze of glory, shot down with both guns drawn. Others just get old and die, drenched in whiskey and telling stories about the old days that no one else remembers or cares to hear again. And this is the fate of the last cowboy in the 2012 race for the White House. Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Tea Party creation and the one time Republican flavor of the week, has dropped out of the race. There was no glory, as he didn’t capture the nomination like he thought he could. And there was no grand shootout; Perry just gave up. Rather than stick to his guns and go down firing, Perry hung up his six shooters and spurs and retired to the ranch. Not the ending that any cowboy dreams of.

            Perry’s undoing was all of his own creation. He scared away supporters and donors while spending millions on a lost cause. No one would even come to listen to the once proud former front runner speak in South Carolina earlier today. His stances on taxes (or lack thereof for the wealthy) and social security did him no favors in the eyes of voters everywhere. He seemed unprepared in every step of the race, and was beaten mercilessly by the other candidates. Perry went from good to bad to ugly in a very short period of time.

            The Lone Ranger is expected to endorse Gingrich later today. He has already dismantled his anti-Gingrich website. The same people who demanded early on that he enter the presidential race were clamoring for him to drop out the past few days. As it turns out, Perry was never the gunslinger he thought he was, but rather just another gun for hire in a town full of whores, drunkards and bandits. He was forgettable. He was replaceable. And most of all, he was a failure. He set out to destroy Mitt Romney, and the best he could do was bow out and endorse Gingrich.

            So adios, Rick Perry. He goes on now to join the likes of Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman. Freaks and losers of the GOP nomination race. People who never stood a chance but were dumb enough to try anyway. This is what happens to cowboys who set Mitt Romney in their crosshairs and miss. They get no redemption, no glory whatsoever. They just get run out of town like disease ridden dogs, beaten raw and forced to live on the fringes, covered in dirt and their own blood. 

Out of the Hunt

            He never really had a chance, and perhaps that’s what made Jon Huntsman so compelling. Sure, he was a dull candidate; but he became the kind of political icon we all adore. He was the free falling loser who could do whatever he wanted before he hit the ground. He called out the stupidity of the other GOP candidates and of far right ideologies by claiming that global warming was real and that he himself believed in evolution. He went on Letterman and played rock and roll piano. He became a media darling for things he stood for but could never accomplish. He was the candidate we all really liked but would never bet on. And he’s doing himself a disservice by backing Romney.

            The two are polar opposites. Romney is the archetypal presidential hopeful who walks away from questions he doesn’t like. Huntsman broke the mold this election season by admitting he doesn’t believe all the crazy things everyone else in the GOP says they believe. Romney has been eyeing the White House for years with the goal of electing more Republicans; Huntsman served as Obama’s ambassador to China. Romney only wants to win, but you get the feeling that Huntsman actually wanted to help the American people. Sure, he's greedy and very well off. But Huntsman stood for something that neither Romney nor the rest of the GOP hopefuls could ever stand for: a type of conservatism founded by actual beliefs and not merely partisan differences. I honestly believe that Huntsman was in it to do some good, and not merely see the other side lose.

            He was everything we could have wanted in a real candidate, not just a Republican candidate. And that’s why he never caught fire, except for a spark here and there. He wasn’t even the least bit polarizing. He wasn’t contentious. He wasn’t the norm. He wasn’t as interesting as Herman Cain, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. He didn’t have the name recognition of Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. He was just Huntsman, a well to do western politician who couldn’t cut it with the big dogs but hopped into the ring anyway.

            So goodbye to Jon Huntsman, the patron saint of the coulda-shoulda-wouldas of the world. A hero to the losers. A guy we’d all like to have a beer with. Not a real candidate, but a guy who could have been a halfway decent president. And that's all we can really ask for these days.

The Results Are In, And They Are Meaningless

            And so it was that a mere matter of days into the New Year, Mitt Romney stomped his foot on the presidential terra. He went toe to toe with all the others in Iowa and came out victorious. But it was not an easy victory. It was a hard fought battle, and Romney only won by eight votes. Romney may be one step closer to locking down the nomination, but if Iowa proved anything it’s that Romney isn’t commanding the support he once thought he had.

            It has been an up and down season. All the candidates have seemed to have had their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. But the one that no one took seriously up until now was former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum who surged to the front to battle with Romney like a frothy whirlwind. If nothing else, his minor defeat by less than a dozen votes gives Santorum the ability to present himself as the clear cut alternative to Romney.

            New Hampshire is next, right around the corner and Romney has that under lock and key; he’s been campaigning there for what seems like years. Rick Perry has apparently also thrown in the towel, given up and gone back to Texas to “assess his candidacy.” He finished in fifth place with 10 percent of the vote, behind Gingrich’s 13 percent and Ron Paul’s 21. Michele Bachmann, who many thought could do some serious damage in her home state, wound up with only 5 percent of the vote.

            All of it seems somehow meaningless though. To majority of the public there was never a doubt that Romney would win the nomination eventually. And for many others there has never been a doubt that Romney will lose in November. It is only been on the fringes that there has been hope for Ron Paul and Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich. This has proven to be an utterly lost season, perhaps foreshadowing that 2012 will in fact be the year the world ends.

            It all seems more about the ritual than the results, more about the pomp than the circumstance. Not only Iowa has seemed to have lost its meaning, but the whole process seems to have become unimportant in the eyes of the voters. People all around on both sides seem indifferent or unenthusiastic about the prospects of 2012. Is this the year that role of President of the United States finally becomes unimportant? Only time will tell. So until then, buckle up, because the journey is almost over. I feel it will have a very Vonnegut style ending. We will crown the Republican nomination not with a whimper or a bang, but simply with a shrug.