Category: Politics and Grassroots

English, career advancement, and Jose Abreu

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The idea that immigrants should learn English is easy to dismiss as a quasi-racist attempt to expunge foreign cultures from America. The pro-English crowd doesn’t do itself a whole ton of favors, either, even as Americans largely support the position.

Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox gets it. While some of his less-accomplished teammates might try to work on their baseball mechanics in the Arizona Fall League once the baseball season is over, Abreu wants to learn English:

“That’s my goal. I want to be a leader and I know that for that, I have to learn the language,” Abreu said through an interpreter Tuesday. “And that’s my focus for this offseason. It’s one of the things that I have on my list. I know if I can learn a little bit more of the language, I can express myself in a better way with my teammates and my coaches. It’s going to help our relationship.”

He’s already a great player, but Abreu wants more – and he understands that means understanding the country’s dominant language. That’s especially wise considering Abreu makes north of $11 million a year and is one of the up-and-coming stars of baseball, a sport which employs a high percentage of Spanish speakers as players, coaches, and managers. Abreu isn’t at a place in life where he needs to learn other people’s languages.

Yet, when Chicago’s 2015 season ends, Abreu plans to do just that – so that he can move beyond being an excellent player and become an excellent teammate as well. And when Abreu’s bat slows and his legs get achy and heavy with age, he won’t want for opportunities to stay in the game – whether as an announcer or in coaching, managing, or the front office.

Public services which cater to Spanish speakers without asking them to learn English promote the status quo. For Abreu, maybe the status quo is earning “only” $11 million annually, rather than getting a sweet franchise cornerstone-type of paycheck in the $20 million range. What about the status quo for a recent immigrant struggling to earn enough to support a family?

With his still-giant paycheck and an offseason’s worth of time to spend, Abreu has the means to take this initiative. It’s worth wondering who else might jump at a chance like this – and whether our public services do enough to nurture it.

Debate recap and a farewell to Walker

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Beverly Hallberg was super-nice enough to record this week’s Crummy Little Podcast right after the last GOP debate, and you can see some of her predictions are coming true already. She said people would start dropping off, and there goes Scott Walker.

Walker’s abrupt exit still leaves the Republican field crowded, and the big crowd includes a few well-funded candidates. Past primaries have served as surmountable obstacles for early favorites, providing just enough resistance to make the smart-money candidate break a sweat. This time, there isn’t a favorite, and a good chunk of the party finds the supposed front-runner less than ideal.

That’s a recipe for a brokered convention. If any four of Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, and John Kasich come into the Republican convention with a hefty amount of delegates. Trump has a plurality, but there’s no majority. How does that play out?

The easiest answer is the non-Trumps dropping out and throwing their support behind a consensus candidate. And if you want to be that consensus candidate, now is the time to drop out.

None of the candidates have lost any votes, yet – their greatest crimes have been poor poll performance. They could credibly blame lackluster fundraising for their exits (“money in politics” is an effective bogeyman). They can hope that their failures of 2015 are forgotten by the summer of 2016. The two who have dropped out so far – Walker and Rick Perry – boasted very successful gubernatorial records.

Could the busy, noisy, crowded field that drowns out the voices of accomplished candidates be the factor that re-opens the door next year?

Well… no. It’s probably more likely to be a House of Cards story arc than a real-life convention drama. But if there was a cycle where something this bizarre could happen, 2016 might be it.

What’s at stake in the Planned Parenthood fight

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

There might be another video dropping any day now in the gruesome, disturbing series of Planned Parenthood exposés from the Center for Medical Progress. They videos have stoked and motivated pro-life activists to encourage further adoption of the culture of life – as they should have. As discussed in last week’s post on Communities Digital News, the short term goal of stripping Planned Parenthood of its federal funding – and its position of moral authority is a pretty important step.

Could Obama win another term?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

That was the big question in this week’s post at Communities Digital News. The answer (spoiler alert): You bet he could. President Obama is possibly the best campaigner the Oval Office has seen, and he certainly has more tools to help him than any of his predecessors.

An under-the-radar element of this discussion is that it sprang from a comment Obama made speaking in Africa, where he told a group of African diplomats to move away from governmental systems which allow someone to declare himself “President for Life.” He’s right, of course, but the comment had a hint of first-world arrogance. (Imagine the optics of a white American President saying the same thing.) It’s a good thing he said it, though, and that he escaped criticism for doing so.

The Republican debate is set up all wrong

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

No kidding, right? But there are two big problems with the debate to talk about in this weekend’s post at Communities Digital News.

In reality, fitting a giant candidate field into an hour long debate is a square peg-round hole problem. The networks, sponsors, and even the Republican party are trying to figure out how to handle a historically large field using the same promotion vehicles they used when only a handful of people could afford to mount a primary campaign.

It may not happen every single cycle, but it will happen again. Networks need to use the 2016 primary season to figure out how to handle it.

The last thing the world needs is another crummy little podcast…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

…But, as Chris Elliott replied when David Letterman asked him if people would want to see a movie like Cabin Boy, “Ask me if I care.” (And I’m pretty sure that flick won an Oscar.)

My newest project is the Crummy Little Podcast – an excuse for me to talk to smart people about stuff I find interesting. The first guest is an old Friend of the Program, Matt Lewis, who talks about his forthcoming book, Too Dumb To Fail: How the GOP Won Elections By Sacrificing Ideas (And How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots). Donald Trump, The Simpsons, and the Counting Crows all come up, as you’d expect.

Check out some extras and keep up to date over at  CrummyLittlePodcast.com. Or, if you’re so inclined, subscribe on iTunes.

He’s Trump! He’s Trump! He’s in their heads. (Sorry.)

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Donald Trump is leading the pack? Not so fast. This week’s post at Communities Digital News does some critical analysis of those results that news media ought to be doing. The polls the news reports are citing aren’t looking in the right places, nor are they asking questions of the right people. They should know better than to project a front runner off of that but knowing better probably doesn’t help attract eyeballs.

In a just-recorded podcast episode with friend-of-the-program Matt Lewis (and some post-podcast discussions) he pointed out that there is a legitimate affinity for Trump. It is kind of nice to see a Republican who doesn’t walk on eggshells and apologize for his or her beliefs, which is something too many national GOP figures do. So there is something to Trump’s early support.

But is it anything more than name recognition? FiveThirtyEight doesn’t think so.

In reality, showing up to vote is much different from answering a telephone poll, especially in caucus states. It takes a lot of hard, specialized work. That’s why Trump’s fundraising will be interesting to watch, even if he doesn’t really need the money. For all his millions, fundraising shows an organizational discipline that can translate to other fields as well.

What is love?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Baby, don’t hurt me, but that’s a natural question in the wake of today’s Supreme Court ruling. Or more appropriately, what is marriage?

Same sex marriage advocates are romanticizing the decision as a win for “love.” How silly to believe that something as big as love can be defined or confined by something as small as legal proceedings. Justice Kennedy’s opinion was clear that, because the 14th Amendment preserves equal protection under the law at the state level, all states must recognize the practice. He wrote that marriage was a fundamental right which could not be denied.

What he didn’t write was what a definition of marriage. That seems just a little important, doesn’t it?

It’s the giant gorilla no one talks about: Much of the vitriol in the same sex marriage debate stems from an unspoken disagreement over the definition of a marriage. If you believe a marriage is a pairing of biologically complimentary individuals intent on procreating, you might see a same sex union as pointless. Sure, the participants might offer each other emotional support and companionship, but the very root need for a marriage doesn’t exist. (This point of view was summed up nicely by the priest in Spaceballs: “I’m trying to conduct a marriage here, which has nothing to do with love.”)

Conversely, if you believe that marriage is a committment based solely on love, you don’t see a reason (other than bigotry) why someone would oppose same sex marriage. Each side would be well served to assume better of the other.

Kennedy wrote that pairings should not be limited – that the fundamental right to be with the person you love shouldn’t be confined to heterosexuals. Fair enough. But it is fair to ask, why stop at a pairing? Two is an arbitrary number when biological considerations are brushed aside. Why couldn’t polygamists marry all the consenting adults they’d like to marry? Why do we recognize marriages at all?

There may very well be answers to these questions, but Kennedy didn’t spell them out. If marriage (or any other protected institution, status, or practice) is a nebulous concept, government cannot do its job, which is to guarantee citizens equal protection under the law. So while this week’s opinion may have been a short-term victory for same sex marriage advocates, it’s tough to say what exactly they won.