Can I Borrow $500 Million Please?

That is basically what the County has been doing for many years and the payment has finally come due.

The County has a big problem to solve. I think this problem is driving the review of the Senior Tax cut. The County may actually need every dollar of revenue no matter how small it is after all we don’t have $500M sitting around – unless you look at the taxpayer for a bailout.

OPEB = Post Employment Benefits

GASB = Governmental Accounting Standards Bureau

Put them together and you get GASB statements 43 and 45. What is that? It is a change in accounting rules in how state and local governments must report and fund current and future retirement benefits. Hang in there. This is actually important and if we don’t understand it some people might try to take advantage of our ignorance.

Howard County, like most local governments, has been paying retirement benefits (mostly health care and NOT pensions) when they are due – when the employee retires and begins collecting those benefits we begin budgeting and paying for them then and not a moment sooner. What these rule changes require is that we must fund and/or pay for these benefits for all current and retired employees now.  This is a estimated to be a $477M problem.  We don’t have $477M sitting around.

Why did the rules change?

The intent of these rule changes is to show what local and state government’s full retirement obligations are for these benefits. Obviously, this represents a major change in how these obligations are viewed.  As I stated earlier, Howard County has been paying retirement benefits as they come due a.k.a. “pay-as-you-go” (when the employee retires). This dramatically understates the real cost of our county employees as we only pay out immediate and not future expenses. Since we do not recognize the future retirement expenses of employees while they are active employees and wait until the employee actually retires we are actually accumulating an obligation/debt that has never been funded or on our books as an obligation. We fully fund our pension costs for employees, but not retirement benefits (mostly health care benefits). Currently, 388 retired employees meet the eligibility requirements to participate in the plan. The County accounts for these benefits on a current funding basis, at a cost of $1,386,211 for fiscal year 2005. Assuming these employees live for another 20 years then we would have to fund $20 million today just for them.  We have almost 9,000 (or more) current employees between the government and school system.

Going forward when we hire a new teacher or police officer today we must not only begin paying their salary, taxes, pension, we have to fund their retirement benefits immediately. In addition we have to go back and look at our existing employees and calculate their future benefits and fund them now, fund our current retiree benefits and continue to pay current retirement benefits.  All of this has to come out of today’s budget and not a future budget.

With these changes we will get an idea of the true cost of our government. And it will make negotiating future employment agreements more colorful because in the past, we viewed the obligation to pay retiree benefits on a “pay-as-you-go” basis—a commitment of future dollars.  It was easier to promise generous retirement benefits because we didn’t have to pay for them for 20 or 30 years.  Now due to these changes, post-retirement benefits will compete for today’s dollars with every other budget item.  This will have an immediate impact the amount available for contract negotiations. The more we give at the bargaining table the more other programs could suffer. An increase in retirement benefits at the bargaining table by just $1.00 per employee could mean millions of dollars that we would have to put into a trust fund as soon as the contract is signed.

How will this work?

Going forward contributions toward the annual cost are going to be made through payments to the insuring agency (as they are today), and contributions for new and current employees will be made to an irrevocable trust fund whose assets will be held for future premium payments. Why? Because employees are not using these benefits until they retire, but we have to pay for them now rather than wait until they retire to pay for them. This trust fund does not become an asset on our books for accounting purposes. This is a future obligation that has been pre-paid so we have to amortize it.

How do you know the problem is that big?

According to Jim Robey’s budget Chief Sharon Greisz,

“This change in reporting requirements (for retired county employee health benefits) means that, for the first time, governments are required to actually budget for the future costs of retirees healthcare like we currently do for pension benefits. The price tag for Howard County today is $477 million, $320 million of which is for the school system alone.”

I don’t know what that price tag means. Is that what we will owe current employees only or current employees and current retirees?  That number is not getting smaller either. It keeps growing every month an employee is on the payroll.  We reduce classroom sizes, add more full day kindergarten, put more police on the streets.  All relatively necessary expenses.  The problem with retirement benefits is that it is mostly health care benefits and those costs are going up dramatically. How do you project future liabilities on costs like those with inflation rates like those? What is required of Howard County at this point?   That, my dear reader, is the question.

Now, not all employees are going to participate in the retirement plans either because they get their benefits from their spouses employer are don’t meet eligibility requirements. When does Medicare kick in and does it?  That has to be figured out.

Howard County has a 1/2 billion dollar funding problem for retirement benefits.  Get this Maryland has a $20B problem.  We are potentially in for a squeeze.  Fortunately, we have surpluses and Robey earmarked $38 million for funding these benefits because he recognized the problem, but that is less than 10% of the current liability.

Now what?

How is this issue resolved? It depends but there are options and each option has a consequence. So it comes down to what Ken Ulman will be willing to live with and what the County Council is willing to live with.  These are smart people (for the most part) and they have smart people to help them figure it out.

• We could, but should not, ignore the new rules. If we don’t fund these obligations then we can’t have our financial statements certified. If our statements are not certified then the bond rating agencies will not give us very good ratings. That means our interest rates will increase and as such so will our cost to service our current obligations of almost $1 billion. The longer we ignored the rule the worse our books would look and the worse our bond rating would become.
• Since these post-employment benefits are subject to change at any time employees could be required to pay more into the system.
• Current retirees could be made to pay more.
• They could eliminate the benefit altogether and put them on Medicade.
• Raise Taxes (this is my bet)
• We could see the elimination of tax benefits ie: The Senior Property Tax Cut
• We may not see any decrease in taxes
• We could get across the board budget cuts
• We could eliminate Ken Ulman’s Executive Protection Unit, the tailoring bill for the bullet proof vest, the vest itself, the 24/7 police driver/escort.  Over 8 years that could amount to about $1M.  (this is tongue in cheek – I regret that it is detracting from the content of the post)
• Maybe they can borrow the money and pay for it like they do on a bond?  Problem may be that this really isn’t a capital expenditure.

I don’t know what else we can do other than increase revenue or decrease expenses.  I think Ken Ulman is going to seek new sources of revenue.  This is going to be tough because like thousands of other HowardCounty residents I just received the new assessment notice on my home and it went up 157K.  That will be phased in over three years but I will start paying $500 extra a year now and in three years $1,500 then they will reassess my property again.  This just might solve the problem.  If 90,000 homes are going to be paying an additional $500 to $1,500 per year in property taxes over the next three years then we just got (roughly speaking) $45,000,000.00 per year in new revenue.  The unfortunate part is that all the people with their hands out wanting more money don’t seem to realize that $45M has already been spent.  All this on top of an expected increase in our water rates (I predicted this in an earlier post and Jim Irwin confirmed it later).

Either way some or a lot of people are going to be unhappy.  This is an issue a lot of people may not care about or bother to try to understand – however, unless something else happens this is going to be the defining local issue of 2007.

Interestingly enough, the recent budget hearings held by Ken Ulman had a lot of people clamoring for money and funding.  I don’t think they had the big picture in mind.  I know from pre-election statements that Ulman made that he is well aware of this issue.  Chris Merdon talked about it too.  I can only imagine what Ulman must have been thinking as people were coming to him with their hands stretched out looking for money. This will be a real test of Ken Ulman and our County Council.

2007 Wish List

• With the 2008 nominations of the two major parties presidential candidates likely to take up a great deal of media and blog attention I am hoping that we will see two candidates emerge early in the process.  However, that seems to be unlikely given that the dates of the nominating conventions are August and September 2008.

The 2008 Democratic National Convention will be held from Monday, August 25, through Thursday, August 28, 2008. The 2008 Republican National Convention will start just 4 days later, on September 1, 2008, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The candidates will have 2 months to get their messages out for the November 4, 2008 election.

My early favorites (this could change):  Bill Richardson (D) Governor of New Mexico and Rudy Guiliani (R).  Although I don’t believe either of them stand much of a chance in their respective primaries.  Richardson is too moderate to conservative and Guiliani is to moderate to liberal.  At this point I think I could vote for either one of them.

In the unlikely event they receive the nominations they won’t have a lot of time to swing back to their real positions on the issues.  It concerns me that in such a long primary process and short general election process we don’t get to know our candidates very well.

I will keep a close watch on the polls from David Wissing’s excellent blog www.hedgehogreport.com

• Newt Gingrich runs for President.  Not that I want him to win but because we need to hear his message. 
• Osama Bin Laden is captured or is proven to already be dead.
• The Iraqi Government starts showing great progress in controlling their country’s destiny, military, police, and oil production.
• Statements 43 and 45 don’t bankrupt the Howard County Budget (more on that later).  That is a bit tongue in cheek but it is a very big issue and one we should all become familiar with.  It has the potential to spark a lot of discussion, debate, and arguements.
• We have a major energy breakthrough.  Remember this news story:  U.S. President George Bush said Monday evening that the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs related to energy that would “startle” most Americans, reports the Associated Press.
• Ken Ulman picks up a couple of Chris Merdon’s innovative proposals such as tapping the methane in our landfills, convert our diesel fleet to biodiesel and go one step further - create incentives to build a biodiesel and ethenol plant(s) in Howard County (Dick Story HCEDA is working on it).  I also wish that Ken Ulman works with the school system to ensure every highschool student has a laptop computer and that the school curriculm is changed appropriately to make the best use of the laptop computers.
• That I get in to Graduate School so I can begin studying for my MBA.
• Health and Happiness for all
• Best wishes for our newly elected public servants
• That Howard County gets 10 additonal blogs.  Did you notice that we have had a proliferation of Howard County based blogs in 2006?  The Godfather of them all is David Wissing.  I don’t know who came next (Ian, Evan, or me).
• That Ian’s blog awards are as entertaining as the 2006 awards
• That we see a lot more discussion about the issues we face in 2007 and less about the people deciding the issues.

The Vultures are Back in Long Reach.

I woke up this morning and saw vultures circling in my backyard. Okay, maybe not a good sign to start the day or the new year, but I’ve been here before.

Last year the neighborhood saw about 200 of these federally protected birds take up temporary residence, and it started the same way, with 20 or so “scout troops.” The birds have wingspans up to six feet but are not considered harmful to humans or pets. However, they do make a mess and they did damage roofs and some cars.

Last year, their favorite roost was in the Gable townhome community. Because of their protected status, there was not much the community could do except try to scare the birds away. Meetings were held and experts were consulted and after a while they put up some spotlights to shine into the favorite roosting trees and they used starter pistols in the evening to convince them to move along. I’ll bet the Gable’s residence will be out in force tonight to try to stop this before it gets started again.

The Columbia Flyer and a few of the local TV stations covered the issue.

Personally, I found the vultures an interesting addition. I’d be walking the dog in the morning and there would be 20 – 50 birds staring at us from the trees and the houses along our morning path. “See – still moving, no food here, don’t mind us” and we never had a problem, but then they were not damaging my property. I can’t find the quote, but one of the Gable’s residents used to wake up and have the vultures staring down on the bed from the skylight – yep, that’s a good way to start the day.

Two larger pictures available below the fold.

Saddam Hussein ‘executed in Iraq’

You may find it interesting how the world media has reported the news. 

From the BBC

From the Baltimore Sun

From the Washington Times

From Agence France-Presse (AFP)

From Itar-Tass

From CBC Canada

From Al Jazeera

The Chinese News Service

The New York Times

May God have mercy on his soul.

Truancy Court

HoCo BOE is looking into implementing a Truancy Court.  The BOE has given the go ahead to develop the program.

Trying to find new and creative ways to keep kids in school is always a good idea.   “Truancy Courts” have been very successful in different parts of the country.  Programs in North Carolinas Durham and Mecklenburg Counties claim “Some elementary and middle school students who used to skip school frequently are now getting perfect or near-perfect attendance records thanks to Truancy Court,”  

There are also programs in Louisville KY and others – the ones with the highest long term success rates vary considerably from the “models” HoCo says it is planning to follow.

“The success of this program is to know that it’s a community issue,” Byer, an energetic, enthusiastic advocate of children, said. “Judges, the Division of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Social Services, the school, mental health and social workers all need to be involved.”Byer emphasizes that judges need to look at the causes behind truancy and offer real programs, not just sluff the child off to another agency. They must look a child in the eye, and his or her parents, and applaud their accomplishments, no matter how small.Abuse and neglect cases are the easiest to identify,” Byer said. She listed other possible reasons a child may avoid school: Academic failure, chemical dependency issues, parents with chemical dependency, domestic violence, peers, poverty, language, having to baby-sit siblings, and parents who place little value on education.  

Byer said that suspending and punishing a child, embarrassing, isolating or humiliating does not help the children. “We need to stop doing things that don’t work. Praise the parents, too, when the kids are doing well,” Byer said. “Everyone has value.”

These successful truancy court programs emphasize getting to the root cause of the absences — not a punitive approach.

Too bad HoCo will probably not be taking that approach.

Unfortunately – it does not appear that this is the direction HoCo is planning to go, not suprprising with “Mark Blom, the board’s attorney and one of the people behind the concept” involved.

Just to be completely clear – I consider Mark Blom to be the single most destructive force in Howard County Education.

He is the “legal genius” behind enormous costs to the system, and his litigious postures set the tone which in past years has been one of disrespect to teachers, employees, students and the public.  He was the “chief of staff” for the former Supt, O’Rourke – and imho was part and parcel of the incredible failures  and scandals of that “era”.  Why he is still on the HCPSS payroll is beyond my comprehension.  And now, his very visible hand in the new “Truancy Court” plan gives me pause to keep a very close eye on the development of this project.

More punitive is a recipe for failure – but it will keep central office busy, and some people on their toes.

Although Mr. Plunkett the business, community, government relations officer for the school system, and one of the originators of the concept says “Current truancy laws only impose [criminal] penalties on parents. “The problem, however, rests with the students. … It would be a proactive measure.”

However,  the characterization in the Baltimore Sun of the proposal ….”A small team of Howard County legislators, litigators and school system officials will work in the coming weeks to draft a bill that would create the county’s first truancy court that places harsher penalties on students.”  sounds much more ominous – and accurate.

“Board members were told that truant students could face consequences that include community service, counseling, substance abuse evaluation and treatment, mental health evaluation and treatment, a curfew and loss of driving privileges.”

Now, that may seem reasonable — I agree that if a “kid” isn’t going to school, it might be a good idea to make his “off time” as boring as possible by withholding driving priviledges.  And, depending on how the program ultimately plays out – giving approporiate counseling is a good idea too.

However,  we should listen to what is being said – and take them at their word.  They intend to model the truancy Court after relatively punitive models — and then take the more punitive aspects further — for example…

“The Howard County truancy court would be based on a model used in Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties. However, unlike that model, which applies only to students 15 and younger, the Howard County court would apply to students 12 and older.”

“Turning 16 does not give you a right to get cavalier,” said Mark Blom.

That sounds like Mr. Blom.  Stomp out that “cavalier” attitude through force and punishment.

You know, that may work — for the authority fearing, generally well behaved kids. — the kids who might partipate in some gawd-awful prank – like senior skip day.  Have them arrested, put it on their permanent record, and hope it keeps them out of the college of their choice.
Like “drug testing” the athletes and kids involved in extra-curricular activities.  Pick out the group least likely to be a problem and most likely to be intimidated by the punishments — it’s a feel good fix for the impotent adults.

It lets them say “Hey, we’re doing stuff!” without really getting into the hard nitty gritty work of getting to the root of individual kids’ problems, and sticking with effective remedies to the entrenched social, emotional and educational problems facing our most vulnerable community members.

I’ll keep an open mind until I see the final plan — but folks, this needs to be watched closely.  HCPSS is not “child friendly” in many ways.  You may not think this is going to be a problem for you, because, of course – your kid is not a juevenile delinquent or a truant.

But, you are the one who will be getting the phone calls and being dragged in front of attendence tribunals…. because you care.  I actually had a central office person call me last year to let me know that if I took my son to PARIS with me for a week that he would be in jeopardy of being held back in the fifth grade!!!!

What would be more educationally valuable – a week in Paris, or a week that consisted of two half days, a day off, and several assemblies and parties?   I suspect the mother who got the call saying if her 17 year old who hadn’t shown up for class all week – because he was playing video games – did not show up he would be held back in the 9th grade, again, responded the same way.

Let’s hope the new BOE keeps a close eye and does not leave this potentially positive program turn into yet another exercise in “beat on the good kids”.

Cindy Vaillancourt

hussein hanging

According to msnbc anon sources “Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins at sundown Saturday.”

The hanging could take place as early as Friday, NBC’s Richard Engel reported.

When we wake up in the morning, UTube might have the “mother of all” videos.

Let’s hope not.

cindy v

Practical Politics and Policy

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun writes about this today 

Greg Fox was quoted as follows:

“The original concern was five County Council members rushing through this, but now we’re talking about rushing through in four weeks,” Fox said about the task force.

The problem is summed up as follows.  The Bureau of Revenue needs tax information June 1 in order to get tax bills out on time. It will take until June to get any changes made to the legislation which won’t give the Bureau of Revenue enough time to get the bills out to residents.

End update

David Wissing has a good post on how Calvin Ball’s task force is coming along (here).  Essentially it comes down to this.

1. The task force probably doesn’t have enough time to review and make a recommendation to the council on the Senior tax bill, (25% reduction and assessment freeze for those over 70, limited income, etc passed by the previous council) so
2. Greg Fox, Mary Kay Sigaty, and Courtney Watson seem to be of the opinion to allow the tax cut to proceed for at least one year.  After a year the county can make an informed decision based upon on real statistics and information rather than a study by a task force.

Well, I think the tax cut should go forward for a variety of different reasons.  However, I think their is another story here as does Mr. Wissing.  Mr. Wissing sees this as an “early defeat” for Calvin Ball.  Maybe it is, but I think what we are seeing is the real power on the County Council begin to emerge. Dave’s post remined me of one of my earlier posts “Calvin Ball for Chairman” in which I said:

My view of the Council is that we have three voting blocks.  Ball and Terresa, Watson and Sigitay, and Fox.  I think with the democrats split along those lines Greg Fox will have more influence than most people originally thought.

I think I may have been wrong.  Perhaps Fox, Watson, and Fox have just emerged as a voting block and will control the County Council as a team.  The next four years could be spent trying to drive a wedge between the three of these members or trying to pry one of them loose. Dave ends his post with this:

Of course, there is still time for County Executive Ken Ulman and Calvin Ball to twist either Watson’s or Sigaty’s arm off and force them to vote for the task force to avoid a potentially embarrassing first defeat for Calvin Ball as Chairman, but it is interesting to see cracks already developing among the four Democratic members of the County Council this early on. Maybe this County Council will be more independent than I had originally thought despite the 4-1 Democratic majority on the County Council.

I don’t think anyone is going to twist Mary Kay Sigaty’s or Courtney Watson’s arm.  They may break their own in the attempt. or promise more than they can deliver which would be worse than losing this one now.  Dave may be surprised at cracks already developing but I am not – I thought they already existed. 

However, I wouldn’t call this a house divided or signs of cracks emerging.  It is more likely something a lot less exciting. 

I see it as three independent thinkers coming to the same very practical conclusion.

Speaking of practical conclusions.  Courtney Watson put forth some very practical legislation that will:

1. require that meetings be held in a public or institutional building (currently enacted legislation suggests this, but does not require it).
2. expand the radius of the meeting location from three miles to a distance of five miles from the site.  This overcomes objections that there may not be a public building within three miles.
3. allow a written exception to be granted by the Director of Planning and Zoning for cases that merit an exception.

As the Councilwoman correctly noted in her message:

In the past few months there have been instances where developers have held presubmission meetings on the site proposed for development, in the dark and in cold weather.   This practice is obviously unsafe and has also been perceived as an attempt to limit public participation in the development process.

A friend of mine, who lives in Font Hill, mentioned to me that the meeting regarding the affordable housing development behind the Quest Fitness Center (you know 59 units on 2.5 acres) was originally to be held in such a setting.  It is probably one that Ms. Watson had in mind when contemplating this legislation.  According to my friend many of the residents he is aquainted with in Font Hill did perceive this as an attempt to limit their participation. Turns out in this case (and I am sure in many many others) County regulations make the developers look like the bad guy.

Ranking Loyalty

I was a teenager when Gerald Ford became president. But not an ordinary teenager.

I had spent much of the previous summer watching the televised Watergate Hearings. I knew who John Dean was. I knew about the Watergate break-in and the simmering controversy before the re-election of Richard Nixon. I couldn’t quite figure out why “we” re-elected Nixon when the opposing candidate promised to bring home the troops. I was 12.

My older brother and I watched the resignation speech (we even tape recorded it) and watched the helicopter take off. And we waited to see what would happen next.

Even though we lived in a republican household, we had our own ideas. I wondered whether Nixon would have a trial – my older brother, already jaded at 14, said it would “never happen” . He was right. When President Ford pardoned Nixon, we were not shocked. I, however, was disgusted. For one, I hated that my smug brother was right… again. But I really hated the idea that lying, cheating, stealing – especially on that level – would go “unpunished”. I figured the pardon had been “prearranged”.

Over the years I have come to believe it is possible that no actual conversation between Nixon and Ford spelling out “the plan” took place. I also came to believe that Pres. Ford was correct when he said that the country could not move forward until the Watergate affair as behind us…. but that letting it run its’ complete course would take so long and be so destructive … and there were truly pressing national issues which needed to be addressed … that it was actually in the best interest of the United States of America to let History be the judge of Richard Nixon.

I think it is also likely that with the abrupt end of the “process” we were not only spared the daily legal shenanigans and posturing that might have eventually taken the spotlight off of the “evil-doer” and refocus it on the chorus of lawyers and politicians and the process – but that in the end, maybe Nixon ultimately shouldered more of his share of the blame and stigma than he might otherwise have absorbed.

Any doubt was removed during the Clinton years when the rabid republicans tried so hard to make so much out of Mr. Clinton’s piggishness. Sure, I wouldn’t want to be married to him (or have him date my duaghter).   Whether it was technically a lie or not, I have no respect for the whole “beating the devil around the bush” of whether he had “any kind of sex” with “that woman” and tried to “finesse” the questions during the deposition.

But in the whole scheme of things — the republicans who were willing to exploit the “non-state issue” to the detriment of the country came off looking much worse than the arguably too clever for his own good legal eagle who probably did not actually tell an actionable lie — but clearly intended to try to mislead and avoid being truthful.

So the idealism of a 12 year old gives way to the pragmatic – yet still idealistic — 44 year old. Nixon lied, cheated and stole in order to advance his campaign and then tried to use the status and power of his office to get away with it (Loyalty to America—nixon minus1)— and Ford was loyal to the United States of America in pardoning Nixon in the best interest of the country — even though it worked to his detriment personally. Loyalty to America – Ford plus 1.

Bill Clinton lied, and cheated on his wife — and tried to mislead and avoid exposure and embarrassment in his personal life — and the republican congress was willing to dessimate the United States of America in order to advance themselves politically. Loyalty to America? Don’t think so. Clinton 0, Republicans -1
Now we have the Bush Administration and the release of the Ford/Woodward interview – after Mr. Ford’s death. All but the most deliberately blind partisans can see that Mr. Bush either did know, or should have known, that the claims he was making as a justification for “going to war with Iraq” were unsupportable.

We can argue over just how damaging the Bush Adminsitration has been to The United States of America — both here at home and around the world. But for a moment, let’s just look at the concept of loyalty.

Mr. Ford gave an interview to Bob Woodward which was under the condition that its’ contents not be released until after his (ford’s) death. In it he gave candid and specific criticism of not only Bush, but many of the Bush administration —- and condemned Bush’s justifications for military action in Iraq.

Why wait until after his death? Did he consider criticism of the sitting president in time of war to be dis-loyal? Was he more loyal to the republican party than to America? Was he right to keep his questions/criticisms to himself? Will time help me to understand why Mr. Ford did not speak out during his life? So far I give Bush -2 for loyalty to American ideals …. but what of Mr. Ford?

Cindy Vaillancourt

While it is sad to be ranking degrees of lying —- I believe  some lies are worse than others.

The Great Democrat Hope

John Edwards has officially announced his candidacy for the 2008 Presidential race.

The Democrats now have an opportunity to choose to run a candidate who could win.

With no disrespect intended to Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama – I don’t think (at this time) either of them could win. They would make interesting candidates, and spark interesting debate.  But that is not the same thing as winning.

I assume Mr. Obama is a hardworking, well meaning, smart, dedicated individual. Though his resume is still alittle short. Mrs. Clinton is an undoubtedly hard working, talented, smart, dedicated indidvidual. Perhaps her resume is a little too long.

Maybe the dream ticket (right now) would be Edwards/Obama…. though I fear racism and ignorance in this country is still a determining factor, stealthy though it may be. In fact, Mr. Obama may be “mistaken” for an “immigrant” (code for middle eastern descent) – so he has potentially hit the “anti” tri-fecta…. anti-youth, anti-black, anti-arab.

I cannot imagine what Mrs. Clinton could do to cure her own tri-fecta of projected ignorance. Female, Bill Clinton, liberal. She is a polarizing figure – and the “great middle” of America doesn’t much care for polarization —-( George Bush sneaked through with the “compassionate conservative” marketing line, and the promise to do what is right and not quibble over legal technicalities, neither of which turned out to be quite accurate ).  She can be attacked on too many fronts, legitimately policy related and superficially hate-based.

So, with Mr. Edwards, I am cautiously optimistic that the Democratic Party appears to have a viable candidate stepping forward who might have the wherewithall to carry the nation in 2008.  He is smart, poised, experienced – but not too entrenched in DC.  Let the games begin..

Cindy Vaillancourt

Gerald R. Ford, RIP

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon‘s scandal- shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.”My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”