James McCall has the desire, but not the preparation to be President. Many of the issues he identifies are not centrol, and sometimes not even on the radar of the average voter. He recognizes the discontent of the citizenry, but seems to lack the ability to inspire others to make the changes that our country must make. I also notice that his priorities do not appear to focus on the most important issues.
I can’t endorse James McCall.
I was pleased to see my view on city planning represented in yesterdays Transportation Watch. That view being the need to make space for commercial areas in order to lessen the need for commuting – that is the number one way to reduce traffic in the long term. That article also mentioned a good example of such planning in the land that is being developed by Kennecott. They call it the “poster child for doing it right.” Today I found an article on the groundbreaking of the first commercial areas in the Kennecott development.
The thing that really interests me about this is that it is a rare thing when an existing city has the chance to implement this kind of strategic planning after the city has been well established. Luckily, I think that Lehi has that opportunity. Especially in conjunction with Saratoga Springs, we have enough land still undeveloped, and enough land which is ready for some revitalization, that we can still make a pretty god mix of commercial with our residential within Lehi specifically and the northwest part of Utah County in general. The key will be to start planning and acting now before this already small window of opportunity closes due to haphazard development.
For my latest installment of falling behind I will simply report that I have James McCall, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson left from last month. In addition we have Steve Adams, John Bowles, Jim Gilmore, David Koch, Raymond McKinney, and Donald Allen to consider.
I swear this thing gets longer all the time. (Actually this is the same number I had a month ago – I’m just 6 people farther down the growing list 😉 )
UPDATE 5/29/2007: I had not looked at Raymond McKinney before I listed him, it turns out he is running for VP so he should not have been on the list. Somehow I also managed to list Donald Allen as an addition although I had already posted on his candidacy.
I do not look favorably on many of the traits common among many European countries (higher taxes to fund broader social programs, shorter workweeks, that kind of thing). However a brief mention of Europe in Transportation Watch reminded me that there is one area where we could learn from Europe. They have learned to make use of transit systems so much that many people have no need of cars. Admittedly their population density almost demands this, but our population density is not decreasing so we should be planning ahead.
California is looking at a high-speed rail line that would make lots of short-distance air travel obsolete between San Diego and Sacramento. Here in the States we love to fly everywhere. It’s so bad that Amtrack is almost useless because we are not willing to take the extra time to ride the train that is slightly cheaper. If California actually puts in the funding to build this high-speed rail line they will have a train that is cheaper than the planes and faster than airport security. If that could be done in a number of other travel corridors as well we would have fewer planes in the sky, less fuel being used, and faster travel through airports due to lower volumes of travelers when most air travel is for longer distances.
Similar benefits could be realized on a smaller scale by implementing good transit options in population centers so that we would not be so reliant on cars for all our local travel. At least on those we can look to some examples of good transit systems here in the States rather than wondering what the rest of the world knows that we have not figured out yet.
UPDATE 5/14/97: I stand corrected – as Hyrum points out, Amtrack is not slightly cheaper than the airlines on cross-country trips.
As with all of the major candidates, my evaluation of John McCain simmered in the back of my mind for a long time. The roller-coaster of my feelings about his candidacy was hardly unusual. I have long liked the fact that McCain seems to be functionally independent of his party affiliation. As the campaign season matured I was disappointed to see more positions which seemed calculated to appeal to the base rather than driven by independent common sense. I have come to the conclusion now that my disappointment was driven by personal disagreement with the positions.
I believe that McCain chooses his positions based on personal conviction even when they are unpopular. There is a consistency in his message between those things that appear to be party-driven and those things that appear more independent. I think that it is his party that has walked a crooked line while McCain was holding fast to his personal convictions.
Seeing that, it became easy for me to endorse John McCain for President.
I have long believed that Utah needs balanced government. I have made most of the same arguments on this issue as were raised in that article. Having a single party in power does not generally provide the give-and-take, compromise-and-entertain-new-ideas environment that is the strength of a democratic society. One of the problems that encourages the current dominant-party situation in this state is the blurring of the proper separation of state and federal government. (And you thought I was going to talk about church and state separation.) One of the major causes for this blurring is that the federal government has been given power in many areas that were once reserved to the states. The It’s-a-Small-World mentality means that we think everything is local and we have to make our local decisions based on national implications.
The Utah County Democratic Party tried to make some distinction between different spheres of government last year by adopting a platform that was less like the platform of the Democratic National Committee and more closely aligned to the mainstream voters of this very conservative region. Now they face some resistance from local democrats who are more in favor of the national platform. In a place where the other party has more than 10 times the number of members your party has the initial move makes sense, but what does that imply about the relationship between the national party and the county party? How far from the national platform can you go and still retain the party name?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the idea that there should be no correlation between the platforms is as useless as the idea that there should be no variation between them. I hope that the balance here can be found so that Utah will have two viable parties throughout the state and not a ruling party and an opposition party such as we now have.
I think I would make a great elected official. That is, I think I have the qualities that I would like to see in candidates and elected officials at all levels of government. I’m intelligent and interested in learning a wide variety of new things, I care about our government and society, and I like to find solutions that are good now and beneficial to future society.
One of my core perspectives when I discuss issues was perfectly stated by Jason Black while I was talking to him yesterday – I always have the underlying question in all my thinking, "what can we do about this from where we are?" One answer to that with regard to political issues is to get involved. Laura and I have talked about this for some time and concluded that we want to do that.
I have decided to actively explore my options with regard to running for public office at some time in the future. That is a nice vague announcement. Initially it means that I will continue to share my ideas about current issues of the day in hopes that I can get a sense for what ideas resonate with other people. I have been asked before if I would consider running for office. (I have asked others the same question about their willingness to run.)
I will be looking to figure out whether local people are interested in the areas of local politics that I am concerned with. I will want to know if people in my state are concerned about the same issues that concern me on the state level and if the like my perspective on those problems. I will want to discover if, by some chance, my perspectives on our national political issues resonate with a wider audience.
So let me know what you think about my ideas and the issues that I cover. Am I right, or wrong? Are the issues I consider relevant, or superfluous? Do I deserve votes based on those ideas?
Keep in mind, on the local level that more is happening on the state and national levels at any given time. Unless I start to hone in on local issues I will likely have more to say about things at those larger levels. This is not meant to reflect greater interest in those levels of government – only to acknowledge that they provide more fodder for commentary.
Laura and I were having a fascinating conversation with good friends which rolled around to the topic of teaching children about their future roles as adults. We got to talking about the types of role models that children have and the messages that they are being fed from our society about those adult roles. Out of that conversation came the following gem – speaking about a person being sensitive to the needs of those around them and responding to the needs of others rather than being focused on their own needs and their own image:
“That’s the difference between being a hero and being an idol.” Denise Black
The meaning being that an idol is someone who we might look up to who is more concerned with their image than their substance while a hero is more concerned with being worthy of emulation than they are with their level of popularity. In case anyone is wondering, there are those among the ranks of our social idols (musicians, athletes, actors) who qualify as heroes under this definition. The key is to help our children understand the difference between the idols and the real heroes.
Although he is running for President, Mike Jingozian is more focused on the idea that we should remake our political machine. While the core values expressed have some merit, he fails to recognize that the vast majority of those who have the skills necessary to successfully operate our government are those who believe in, or more often have learned to work in conjunction with, our current political system. Calling exclusively for candidates outside that sphere will not result in better government, it will result in even more confusion and more room for exploitation by businesses and political professionals (like lobbyists and lawyers). It would be foolish to endorse this approach.
