Opinion

As I drove home from a VP debate party on Thursday night, I surfed radio talk shows and heard countless callers say that Governor Palin ‘won’ the debate and express that they liked her because she could “relate” to ”regular” people.  Call me crazy, but I don’t think the President or the Vice President of arguably the most powerful country in the world should be a “regular person.”  On the contrary, I think the country’s top leaders should be extremely special or at least better informed, smarter and more experienced than the rest of us.  I am sure most of those callers would agree that their next-door neighbor could relate to “regular” people but they sure wouldn’t want them to run the country.  

Why do we need the Vice President to relate?  Yes, we desperately need a Vice President and President who understand the needs of working and middle class families who are suffering economically at the same time that corporate CEO’s get multibillion-dollar bailouts and golden parachutes. But the fact that Sarah Palin gets points from some folks for repeating obviously memorized and overly rehearsed talking points and political platitudes simply because they were peppered with homespun lingo like “there ya go” and “you betcha” is demoralizing.

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.

If you missed the first presidential debate you probably relied on the media to tell you who won.  

BTW, you're not alone. TV audiences for presidential debates have been shrinking for more than two decades. McCain-Obama Round 1 drew 30 million fewer viewers as compared to the Carter-Reagan debate in 1980.

These days the media relies on instant national polls to proclaim a winner.  

To view more cartoons by Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe, click here.

"Union ratifies new contract with Star-Ledger."
AP Newswire
 
"New Jersey cannot lose its' only paper!", cry readers. This, according to news stories in the Bergen Record, Courier News, Asbury Park Press, the Press of Atlantic City and the New Jersey section of The New York Times.

Teamsters Local 1100, which represents 400 Star-Ledger mailers [or it might be Teamsters Local 400 representing 1100 Star-Ledger mailers, I can never remember], voted on a contract ratification. One-hundred eighty-three voted for the ratification, 18 voted to oppose and 75 abstained.

Bribery and money laundering may be illegal for almost everyone else, but not for politicians. They call it "pay-to-play" and "wheeling." The party in power almost always benefits from these structural advantages, so politicians love to rail against corruption when they're powerless to do anything about it, but then sit on their hands and make excuses when they could actually change the system.

When Gov. Jim Florio proposed an ethics reform package in 1992 -- partly to fulfill the campaign promises he had made three years earlier -- Republican leaders who controlled both the Assembly and Senate criticized him, saying the plan was politically-motivated. Sound familiar?

During a decade of state-wide Republican control, pay-to-play and wheeling continued as Republicans easily out-raised Democrats. That is, until Jon Corzine ran for Senate (and later governor) and Democrats regained a majority in the legislature. Suddenly, fixing this broken and corrupt system became a top GOP priority and popular campaign refrain.

With the tables turned, Republicans introduced a series of reform measures in 2006 which Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman called a "warmed-over stew of existing legislative measures." Yes it was, but the stew had gotten pretty cold in the hands of Democrats.

The financial debacle on Wall Street may change many things. Our international power, standard of living and individual security might all change. Every cloud, however, has a silver lining. At least the American people will be spared much of the Republican rhetoric that reflects the policy choices that produced this mess.   Here are my favorite classic Republican lines that we might not hear for a while.

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.

To view more cartoons by Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe, click here.

To view more cartoons by Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe, click here.