American Pie Chart

One unfortunate side-effect of a November election cycle is the inevitable politician-Halloween costume. I can already see it now, droves of the uninspired in poorly fitting shirts and bad ties, donning creepy rubber masks of John McCain or Barack Obama. Smug opportunists, lacking any in creativity, will be parading the streets this season and there’s nothing we can do about it.

I am guilty of having dressed up in a politician-costume myself one Halloween. I, however, was totally adorable.

It was 1992, I was eleven years old, and I bagged more candy than any Halloween before or after. My costume consisted of two large plastic fake ears, a couple of income tax charts, a suit with a few lapel pins, and my older brother as my private security detail. For one glorious Halloween, I was H. Ross Perot.

My brother and I made rounds in our neighborhood, filling a briefcase with candy. We’d ring a door bell, and rather than the standard “Trick or Treat,” I’d launch into a full-on Perot impersonation (an 11 year old’s voice can be remarkably similar to Mr. Perot’s).

“I’m here to tell you about my new tax plan!” I’d say with my best Texan accent, pointing to graphs and charts we’d printed up, concluding with, “Would you be kind enough to make a donation of candy to my campaign?”

It was decidedly a hit. The neighbors were amused by our performance, often adding extra handfuls to our already overloaded briefcase. My brother and I cleaned up, all thanks to a little political schtick.

Sixteen years later, my thoughts have returned to the revolutionary Mr. H. Ross Perot.

He’s back with www.perotcharts.com. In Perot’s new website, he’s attempting to present what he describes as “an instrument panel or a dashboard” to give the data behind the problems facing the American economy.

The website went live on June 16th, and still has that new-website smell. So far, there is a collection of charts, a video, and a pretty in depth presentation with a very heavy-metal name, titled “Suicidal Spending.” I would kill for some videos of Perot with a pie chart and a pointer, but I’ll take what I can get.

My favorite part of the one available video is when Perot whips out the numbers: “$9.4 Trillion, that’s our national debt. If congress put $1 a second into a special account, it would take over 297,000 years to have enough money to pay off the debt. Now, let’s assume Congress is going to load dollar bills onto box cars to pay off the debt. The length of the train pulling these box cars with $94 Trillion would be over 1400 miles long. Now if you could take the dollar bills end on end from the earth to the moon and back, it would take just over 1900 round trips to pay off the debt. I hope that gives you a good example of just how big the debt is.”

Okay, sir, but what if Congress decided to tape one dollar to every page in the New York City phone book? How many Empire State Buildings could you make outta those phone books? Huh? Huh?

In all seriousness, the service Perot is attempting to offer is quite helpful. While “Hope” and “Change” are critical, solid information may be the most important of all. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said “You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.” The facts need to be made clear to the American people. To quote another great New York politician, FDR, “this great nation calls for action and action now.”

I think Barack Obama, the presidential candidate more in-tune with reality-based facts, should take a page out of the Perot play-book. Imagine Obama using his status, clout, and god-given charms to educate voters on the issues. He could produce a series of YouTube videos that really pick apart the basics of the problems we’re facing, not only making his case clear, but squashing all hope of his opponents claiming he’s an empty suit.

In the age of the viral video, why not skip the middle man and go straight to YouTube? Give the people the Obama they want to see with the information they need to see.

Or, if we’re serious about getting these facts to the masses, let’s get Rev. Wright some pie charts!

A Big Loss

A thought occurred to me last year while watching the video of Gov. Mario Cuomo’s 1984 DNC Keynote Address. The speech itself was powerful, stirring; certainly a model for Barack Obama’s address twenty years later. Cuomo was fierce, unleashed on the national stage in the era of the Reagan-Democrat, when liberals were labeled as weak and America as “the shining city on a hill.” Cuomo, instead, spoke of a “tale of two cities,” one occupied by the supply-side ideology of Ronald Reagan, and the other by a struggling working class.

Twenty-four years later, Cuomo’s address still has relevance and resonance. For me, though, one of the more memorable attributes of the video is in the background.

Behind Cuomo stands a young aide, rocking back-and-forth, as a music fan would, to each note of Cuomo’s lyrical delivery. The man, Cuomo’s then counselor and communications director, was clearly and unabashedly captivated by the sentiments of the speech. The man in the background was a young Tim Russert.

I had always been a fan of Russert, but knew him only as a consummate and mostly-impartial journalist. After watching the speech, and seeing his passion for Cuomo’s ideas, I began contemplating “What if this guy ran for office?”

Russert’s years as NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief and host of Meet the Press proved he had the knowledge, skill, and appeal. On a personal level, and outlined in his book, “Wisdom of Our Fathers,” we know him to have been a family man, a devout Christian, and a patriot.

Russert, as an interviewer, was consistently more likable and affable than whomever was on the other side of his desk. Something about his demeanor allowed for him to be “tougher” in questioning without ever making any enemies.

This skill set kept bringing me back to the idea of Tim Russert: political leader. These hopes were quieted yesterday with some very sad news. It was reported around 3pm, Tim Russert died unexpectedly at the far-too-young age of 58.

I doubt if he ever considered the jump into elected politics I’d imagined for him. In the end, Russert had more influence than most politicians, and a position (like his spot near the podium in 1984) he seemed to take a tangible amount of joy in. His influence on journalism as whole was distinctly positive, and his seriousness helped maintain NBC’s level of reporting while much of the news media was busy playing limbo.

With the general election approaching, Russert’s even-headed analysis and even-handed interviews will be sorely missed.

First and foremost

Thank you for visiting this humble shell of a blog. I’m joining the (literally) millions of people worldwide who’ve started blogs, lapsed in updating them, tried to avoid thinking about them, and have gone on with their lives, imagining the whole thing as never having happened.

Hopefully, this website will not face a similar fate, but in the case that it does, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.