No Labels is a new grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America. No Labels Radio will offer a weekly dose of news and interviews with the policymakers who are working to find bipartisan answers to the otherwise intractable problems our country faces.
Our primary guest is U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who will discuss the work being done to forge a bipartisan solution to the nation’s fiscal problems.
Here’s your chance to suggest a question for one of the most prominent politicians of the past decade.
Want me to ask him about the budget debate? The 2008 election? His service in Vietnam? His choice of Sarah Palin? His appearances on Saturday Night Live?
Make your suggestions in the comments section below. And then tune in tomorrow to see if I used it.
North Carolina isn’t a must-win for Obama; it was icing on the cake last time. But I do think he’ll win there. Like Colorado but unlike Ohio, North Carolina is a swing state that is moving steadily in Democrats’ direction because of long-term demographic trends, primarily the continued influx of tech workers and other highly educated voters into the Research Triangle.
The state’s growth is centered in the progressive middle third of the state, as opposed to the more conservative East and the Appalachian West, a region where Obama has struggled to connect.
The resilience of Obama’s numbers in North Carolina — contrasted with his relative weakness in some Rust Belt swing states — suggests that he will win there. But it’s a stretch to call it a must-win state, as there are many ways to get to 270 without it. Remember, Clinton got 379 Electoral College votes in ’96 and never even made an effort in North Carolina. Few states go from uncompetitive to must-win status for a party in the span of four elections.
By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, on Tue Jun 14, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
I’ve been mulling over a column by David Brooks on “The Politics of Solipsism” for the past couple of weeks. What he wrote is nervy to say the least. He argues that America has lost the republican virtues on which it was founded, namely, the curbing of self-centeredness in the interest of the public good. I too am a fan of Cicero, but Brooks fails in one of the primary republican virtues by not forthrightly acknowledging that Republicans, the adherents of Ayn Rand, are the ones who have most blatantly deserted these same virtues. Self interest has center stage on their platform.
Brooks praises Truman and Eisenhower, but he fails to mention that it was President Kennedy who repeatedly challenged Americans and asked them to sacrifice. He urged us to go to the moon because it was tough, not because it was easy. And when my father, Robert Kennedy, was running for president and medical students asked him who would pay for more health care for the poor, he quickly answered, “You will.”
Contrary to the Republican philosophy, summed up by Ronald Reagan, that government is the problem, John and Robert Kennedy considered politics an honorable profession and affirmed that government was the place where we “make our most solemn common decisions.”
Both my uncle and my father knew that America is at its best when its citizens are willing to give up something for others. That was the spirit in which they committed themselves to public service. Ultimately they both gave their lives in the service of their country.
Like my father and my uncle, I believe that serving the public good is the essential republican virtue. In fact I led the effort to make Maryland the first and still only state in the country where community service is a condition of high school graduation. I did this because I believe that virtue comes from habits developed, not sermons given. Aristotle said, “we become house builders by building houses, we become harp players by playing the harp, we grow to be just by doing just actions.”
Republican governors are making their mark attacking public servants. They’re laying off citizens who exemplify republican virtues like teaching in inner city schools, fighting drug cartels, and rushing into burning buildings. Why? So that those who make outrageous salaries can pay lower taxes.
Brooks says that Republicans want growth, but I see no evidence that they want growth for anyone but the most well off. Where is the commitment to education, to infrastructure, to science?
Rep. Paul Ryan
Brooks commends Paul Ryan for sending the message that “politics can no longer be about satisfying voters’ immediate needs.” And yet Ryan would give the rich even more of a tax break at a time when our taxes are the lowest in three decades.
George Washington, whom Brooks also praises, would be surprised that the rich are being asked to shoulder less of a burden. He supported excise taxes that would fall disproportionately on the wealthy. When he went to war, he brought his wife, Martha, to share the hard, cold winter of Valley Forge along with him.
The wealthy have a special responsibility. From those who have been given much, much will be asked. In a true republic, people of wealth and privilege are first in line to serve in government, go to war, contribute to the honor and glory of their country. They set the nation’s values. If what they value is money, money, money, then the country will follow.
After 9/11, George Bush asked us to shop. At just the moment when he could have called us to a cause greater than ourselves, he (apparently on the advice of Karl Rove) urged us to step up for new TVs and designer bags rather than for the public good.
So if Brooks really wants to put an end to the politics of solipsism, he must take on the Republican party itself, which has done so little to cultivate the virtues of service, sacrifice, and commitment to country.
Please don’t lecture us about solipsism and republican virtues when it’s Republicans who are the ones who have made such a virtue of self interest.
By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, on Fri Jun 10, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
I recently visited Madison where I spoke to Wisconsin Women in Government, a group founded 24 years ago to support women who choose a career in public service. I welcomed the chance to talk about the ways women discover their power, a subject near to my heart and experience. Even though I’d grown up in a very political family, I’d never imagined as a young girl that I’d become a lawyer or run for political office. That’s what guys did. But eventually the women’s movement empowered me to develop talents I didn’t know I had and inspired me to encourage other women to do the same.
When I was in college, I saw women rally, conduct sit-ins and teach-ins, and march in the streets. In large groups and small meetings, women told their stories, demanded their rights, and passionately argued that they were equal to men. Women friends became class speakers, were hired to teach in law school, and won lawsuits. Heartened by their words and actions, I went to law school myself and founded a group called Women in Politics.
I couldn’t have accomplished these things without the support of other women who were also becoming empowered. Led by trailblazers like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, we gradually came to see ourselves differently and stopped believing what the world kept telling us–that we didn’t have it in us to make it a man’s world. We changed ourselves and we changed society. Friendship and solidarity made these transformations possible.
It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have a single woman professor in college. After law school, I applied for a job at Legal Services, and since I had two children, asked if I could work part time. The director said no. He wanted Legal Services to stick to the same standards as large law firms. They didn’t have part-time lawyers, and neither would he. A few years later, he was elected to Congress and joined a family-friendly caucus. He had changed, like many others.
Read the rest of… Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Empowering Public Employees: Lessons From the Women’s Movement
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jun 8, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET
Today marks the 43rd anniversary of one of the most touching eulogies in American history: Senator Ted Kennedy’s poignant speech at the funeral of his fallen older brother, Robert F. Kennedy.
I shared my thoughts upon the anniversary of RFK’s eulogy to Martin Luther King a few months earlier — which I believe is the greatest speech of my lifetime.
But today, I will let the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s words speak for themselves:
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jun 6, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
Yesterday, June 5, marked the 43rd anniversary of the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
His daughter, our very own contributing RP, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, spent the weekend paying tribute to the virtue of public service. In a speech before the The Women’s Network, Townsend shared her thoughts on the meaning of her father’s legacy:
In 1968, as you all remember, my father was running for president. David Frost asked Ronald Reagan and my father a question. I’m going to ask you that same question and give you thirty seconds of silence to think about how you’d answer that question, okay? The question is, “What is the purpose of life?” Think about how you would have answered it, okay?
Both Ronald Reagan and my father came up with good answers, and answers that rooted in the American tradition. Ronald Reagan said “The first thing is you have to reproduce yourself. Of course my mother [of ten] did a really good job on that one. And then he said what we really need in this country is individual freedom. We’re based on a belief in the Judeo-Christian belief of individual salvation and so what we need is individual freedom within the extent of the law. That was his answer. That makes a certain amount of sense. We talk about freedoms, we’re clelebrating Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms.
But I think Ronald Reagan missed something. My father said the first thing you do, you need enough food, clothing and shelter. If you don’t have that, that’s not a worthwhile life. But after you do that, you have to help others. You may have no shoes, but there’s always somebody else who has no feet. Our responsibility is to help others.
What had happened in 1968 when my father lost the election is we moved away from a sense that we’re all in this together, we’re part of a larger community, and we have to help one another. [We moved to] A belief only in ourselves, individualism. That started to dominate our economic system, which wasn’t there before. Milton Friedman, Allen Greenspan, who only thought: “What can we do for me?” Ayn Rand. And that has been a destructive economic system. We hear the rhetoric: “We want to cut taxes to create wealth”. Well, wealth for whom? Wealth for the top two percent of Americans. Wealth for the rest of Americans has not gone up in thirty years. What we’ve done is focused on wealth and not on worth. It means our country is weaker of this bad ideology which we have to change, and that’s what Democrats need to do.
Coincidentally (?) , Townsend entered the patheon of the American intellectual zeitgeist yesterday as well. She was featured as a clue in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle:
106 Down: “Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, to J.F.K.” Five letters.
My husband’s father passed away in late March at the age of 87. I wrote this piece the next day. It originally appeared on my blog MavenMama on Bluegrassmoms.com.
Everyday approximately 1,100 World War II veterans die. I was floored when my husband shared this statistic with me, until I realized how many served in that war – 16.1 million.
Tonight, my father-in-law joined the ranks of these comrades in arms and passed quietly away. At eight-seven, he had lived long and hardily all the way to the end. Just an hour before he collapsed he was sitting in his favorite recliner watching his much loved hockey team on the television in the assisted living apartment he shares with his wife of sixty-four years.
As my husband and I sat alternately weeping and laughing he wondered aloud if we are ever really ready for the passing of a parent. Even when our parents have had more than their fair share of life, and are ready to journey to their Heavenly Father, it is still a blow, a sad surprise. Even when the best and worst case scenarios of “ways to pass” have been discussed and played out in long distance phone calls and in quiet conversations, and the best case scenario does indeed come to fruition one is not prepared.
And with the passing of Frank, and other veterans like him, who protected us and liberated millions more in allied countries, it is the end of an era. An era of brave men who served their country and then returned to marry their sweethearts, go to college on the GI Bill, buy their first home, and raise a family in a middle-class-town.
Yes, he served his family and his country well and it is indeed the end of an era.
By Kristen Hamilton, RP Staff, on Mon May 30, 2011 at 4:00 PM ET
At a very young age, my grandfather, Charles Hamilton, fought in the Korean War.
My grandfather never said much about the war, but he did tell the family about the time his comrade accidentally shot him in the foot after which he would always chuckle. I doubt that my grandfather knew that he was my hero, but he was. Even though he is no longer with us, his legacy continues to live on.
Both our fathers, Harry Greissman (who died in 1997) and Kent P. Hollingsworth (who died in 1999), proudly served in the U.S. Army.
Their service was a decade apart.
Harry Greissman
Harry Greissman was from Brooklyn, New York and served as a lieutenant in the Seventy-eighth (Lighting) Division during World War II.
His letters to a Southern sweetheart Anne Hetrick describing the European Front and the horrors of that war have been immortalized in the book, LOVE STORIES OF WORLD WAR II, compiled by Larry King.
Kent Hollingsworth grew up in Scott County, Kentucky, and followed his older brothers’ example by enlisting in the Army. In 1952, he graduated from Armored Officer Candidate School at Fort Knox and served as a tank gunnery instructor, close combat instructor, trial judge advocate for regimental special courts martial, resigning from active reserves as a captain in 1962. For the next 23 years Hollingsworth served as editor of the Blood-Horse, a weekly magazine devoted to Thoroughbred racing and breeding, and his eloquent writing remains a model few can master.
Both men could light up a room with their wonderful humor and captivate us all with their spellbinding way of telling a story. Both married beautiful women who knew how to throw a great party. We miss them terribly, and yet we are comforted knowing that they were – and are – our heroes.
