President Obama, Get used to it.

I'll be the first to admit he doesn't have the kind of experience that we normally look for when we select or President. But that my friends is why I think, he is the best choice. Because the kind of people we have been electing for the past few years have not been getting the job done and just as only Nixon could go to China, only Obama can change the direction of the ship of state far enough to make a significant and necessary change.

The direction of government for the last eight years, and for sure and to a great extent since 1980 with the election of Ronald Regan, has been less government. Even a bleeding heart liberal like me has to admit in retrospect that maybe government was too intrusive. Time after time we have seen State and local governments come up with solutions to problems that the federal government could not. My issue with the Reagan approach was to throw the baby out with the bath water. Seeing government wasn't effective in certain area's he reasoned that eliminating the government all together was the proper response.

We have had trickle down economics and starve the beast legislative agenda's since then, except for the eight years Bill Clinton was in office, and the average person is less well off because of it. We are not keeping up income wise. More and more of us are falling behind in savings and health care costs. We certainly have given up our individual freedoms out of fear from our latest bogeyman, fundamental Islamist terrorists. The average guy is getting the shaft and I think finally we are waking up to it. We are getting a grasp on the idea that middle class is evaporating and the lower class is getting to be a larger more inclusive group.

Families who are relatively secure are fewer in numbers and are making astronomical amounts of money in comparison to most of us. The differences in the salaries makes no sense other than to reward managers for making sure the work is done at the lowest cost by the least amount of people, regardless of the social consequence of high turnover and job insecurity.
My favorite cartoon is of the boss complaining to an associate that he can't get any loyalty out of his temporary workers. The insecurity in the job market feeds a paranoia that encourages a shut up and take what you can get attitude. This feeds the cycle of "let them eat cake" postures by management.

There seems to be nobody that speaks for the most of us as most of us were dreaming that just any day now our ship would come in and we be one of the fat cats at the country club and weren't listening to the folks that raised the alarm. "Free Market' economics is just another closed loop kind of thinking that says we are right and concern for anything other than the free flow of dollars from the street to corporate accounts is not acceptable. Like fundamentalist religion there is no room for dissent or disagreement.

Note however in these politically correct times, the mantra of most organizations is that their most important asset is their employee's. And this is true, but not so true that the working people in an organization should profit from prosperity. That should go to the managers and stockholders, who under examination one sees have usually done the least.

But now there is a voice. Obama has struck a chord with the millions of people who are slowly but evermore vocally realizing that the deck is stacked and system isn't working for them. Forget the man behind the curtain. Bush has wrought havoc on our concept of democracy and res assured he will do his damnedest to reward his supporters by trying to extend the perks he got for them this past eight years. No doubt no matter who becomes President, much of the work of this next administration will be undoing the mess Bush has created.

None of he candidates with the notable exceptions of Obama and Edwards are even discussing the issues that should be foremost in the minds of voters. We need to level the playing field. We have to deal with the failing infrastructure, out of reach health care costs, and welfare costs, corporate welfare that is. We have to give what's left of the middle class some hope and we have to give the underclass, which at this point maybe bigger than the middle class, more than hope.

Obama has what I refer to as the Tiger effect. No, I don't mean that he is multiracial. When Tiger Woods became a professional golfer, he brought people into the sport that never felt they belonged. Professional golf was a sport for rich old white guys. What Obama is doing is bringing people into politics that think that it's time that rich old white guys move aside. The telling point will be if this constituency organize, work and vote for him