People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. ― John C. Maxwell
Today’s quick hits deal with these important subjects:
- Gazette & Census
- Gallup – Confidence in Institutions
- Reagan & Trump
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. ― John C. Maxwell
Today’s quick hits deal with these important subjects:
Some people hear voices…some see invisible people…others have no imagination whatsoever. – Unknown
Today’s read deals with these important issues:
There’s a big, wonderful world out there for you. It belongs to you. It’s exciting and stimulating and rewarding. Don’t cheat yourselves out of this promise. – Nancy Reagan
Happy Monday! Today is another one of those days in which there are several major stories out there that I want to comment about – so it’s another “Political Odds & Ends” day!
Today’s topics include:
My favorite President, Ronald Reagan, was once quoted saying, “The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is an ally not a 20% traitor.”
Wisdom like that is missing from today’s Republican Party. In recent years a candidate like Reagan would probably face a challenge from a Tea Party candidate if he ran for public office in Montana.
Today (March 5) the Great Falls Tribune has published a couple of “Montana Soap Box” opinions, one from Republican State Rep. Jesse O’Hara and one from Republican Public Service Commission member Roger Koopman. You can read their views HERE and HERE.
Maybe I’m a political nerd, but I really get excited about State of the Union speeches. One thing I don’t do is watch the so-called experts talk about the speech on cable news afterwards. I briefly checked in on the “Republican response” and then I watched other channels.
I think I watched about 30 minutes of “Smokey and the Bandit,” for some reason, which was probably better than all three responses from the right.
I almost always go back the next day and read the President’s State of the Union speech to see what I missed. With the cameras panning around and the graphics flashing on the screen, plus sending and reading Tweets, parts of the speech can be missed.
The speech was about 6,923 words, and it lasted a little over one hour and five minutes. (SOURCE)
The President started his speech with “Today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it, and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest level in more than three decades.”
Since I am married to a teacher and know how hard teachers work and how much extra time they put in to help children, I was happy to see him lead off his speech praising them.
A few minutes into the speech I tweeted, “Maybe Obama should have started his speech with “we all pretty much suck at running this country.” I think many of us are tired of Washington. Even the President said, “…there are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments.”
When the President said he was going to have Vice President Biden “lead an across-the-board reform of America’s training programs.” After hearing he assigned the VP additional duties, I was worried the President would say, “I’m also asking the Vice President to take over the job of running our land-based nuclear forces.”
This morning after hearing what the Republicans said about the speech, I think about the only way the GOP would have hated the President’s speech more would have been if Queen Latifah had showed up and married a bunch of people.
When Gallup published their most admired list for 2013, the first thing I thought was this will send conservatives over the edge.
Why? Gallup reports, “For the sixth consecutive year, Barack Obama ranks as the Most Admired Man among Americans, and Hillary Clinton is again the Most Admired Woman. Both won by comfortable margins.”
I think the key line is “Both won by comfortable margins.”
For as much hatred that is spewed from the right about Obama and Clinton, they are more admired than Pope Francis, former President George W. Bush, and even former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.