It’s Election Day! Finally! What a joy to watch the news this morning without one, single, political ad.
I feel like I wielded a sword in this fight, but I also feel like I should have worked harder for the candidates I support. I could’ve given more money, maybe, or attended more rallies, I think, or maybe I should have sharpened my blade in my Courier column and not have been quite so…accomodating to the right wing. With so much at stake and in the balance in this election, it just feels like I could have done more.
So…I’m wondering if there are still a few “undecideds” out there who won’t be voting until after work tonight…is it possible that I could put a few more words and ideas out there that one of them might see that…could influence how they view this choice?
As I was getting dressed this morning, preparing to vote, I was thinking about an argument that I never made. I essentially work in the automotive industry because a majority of my clients, as an advertiser, are car dealerships, and when our economy collapsed in 2008 (just before the election), the auto industry was hit hard. The company I work for was a direct casualty.
Detroit’s business model (Ford may be considered an exception) was poor. The big thick margins on vehicles that Americans weren’t buying had finally come to roost. American auto makers didn’t see the future that the Japanese and Koreans had figured out long ago by making dependable, affordable, fuel efficient cars. Detroit didn’t see what consumers were looking for because, true to form, their operating principle since the early 70’s, had been “profit before quality.”
As cars didn’t sell, dealers cut advertising, and my company had to let employees go, while many executives, like myself (and ownership), took substantial pay cuts to keep things going.
As all this started unfolding, Barack Obama was sworn in as President on Jan 21, 2009.
In February, his massive stimulus package, including nearly 290 billion dollars of tax incentives, was approved by a Democratic Congress, Chrysler and GM were given federal loans, and health care reform was signed into law a year later in March of 2010.
The combined stimulus of loans, tax incentives and billions of dollars funnelled into infrastructure, led to positive job creation that same month and for the first time since December 2007.
Detroit was forced to restructure, in order to get the loan, into a more efficient business model, with better designs, and they immediately absorbed old cars in the government sponsored “Cash for Clunkers” initiative to get people into newer, better, more fuel efficient American cars.
By 2011 cars were selling and Detroit was in the black.
And in 2011….my company was hiring again. Paychecks went back to where they were and this year we’ve had record months in Direct Mail advertising. Our employee count is above where it was in 2009 and we’ve already forecasted a possible record breaking 2013….
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Barack Obama has been President that entire time…yet…Republicans give him no credit, whatsoever, for diverting us from a depression, and for, in fact, awakening recovery. Who else could it have been?
If Republicans are going to blame President Obama for everything that happens in America, don’t they have to give him some credit for what is good today? This is an election hinging on economic theories and despite real growth, polls show that Americans believe that Romney is the better candidate in that regard.
WTF?
Romney believes in the same neoliberal economic policies that President Bush deployed and they, undeniably, contributed to economic collapse as more and more money was transferred from the middle class (the consumers) to the wealthy.
Obama believes in what has been successful already, even with a hostile Republican House that has blocked every single initiative (with100% uniformity) since January, 2011, that he has proposed. From a Jobs Bill with more tax incentives, to the Buffet Rule for more equitable tax reform, to financial reforms that would protect consumers from the fleecing they took leading into the recession.
WTF?
Even where I work, many of the people whose jobs have been saved or created by the recovery of the automotive industry are blind to the reasons WHY and instead they put their faith into a candidate who would have chosen attrition in Detroit which would have sent thousands and thousands of workers onto welfare rolls.
WTF?
Its going to be a close race and while I am optimistic of an Obama victory and for the local candidates I’ve supported to win, I am also preparing myself for the work ahead if they don’t. That work will be to continue fighting for egalitarianism, environmental sanity, economic fairness, consumer protection and civil rights.
It may be to awaken the conscience of a President to do the right things….
..or it may be…to stand behind a President who already believes in those principles.
