Happy President’s Day, everyone. I was thinking about the Presidents I admire, and I noticed a trend toward the somewhat anti-Democratic “strong President.” With that bit of insight, I can see the appeal of the “man on horseback” to whom citizens might gravitate in times of trouble, resulting in a diminishment of democratic institutions.

That said, my two favorite Presidents are Abraham Lincoln (even named my son after him) and Teddy Roosevelt.

So, who do you folks like?

At some level, I believe I’ve gleaned most of my notions about life from pulp culture in one form or another. One of those, from the Robert Redford movie, Jeremiah Johnson, is the notion that you can measure a man’s stature by the greatness of his enemies.

In any case, that was the synapse that fired when I was reminded of the FDR speech (Madison Square Garden 1936) wherein he welcomed the hatred of his enemies.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.

That speech was delivered a little over 73 years ago – almost as long as the Indiana Toll Road lease! – and much of it sounds like it could have been delivered yesterday:

#[The American People] “sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.”

#They wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways‹those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

#They sought fairer wages, an end to long hours of toil, and the elimination of wild-cat speculation.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

As I say, much of it could have been delivered yesterday, except that there are precious few politicians on our national landscape who welcome the hatred of such enemies. If you measure their worth against the power of those they stand against, you will find most wanting. The triangulation and political calculation of the Bayhs, the Liebermans, the Nelsons, Landrieus, and Specters, and – to a certain extent – President Obama himself, you find a group of politicians standing for nothing, falling for anything, and allowing the country to drift back into the control of the policymakers who (aided and abetted by that honor roll of Senators, I suppose) brought us America’s lost decade of 2000 – 2010.

John Cole has an impressive rant describing how a bill just about everybody likes could flame out, die and cause political wreckage through a combination of political nihilism and the right wing media/thinktank wurlitzer.

For some reason, it reminds me of the Subgenius rant “Hateword” by Nenslo.

So glad Indiana decided to shift school funding from property taxes more volatile sources of revenue just before my kids hit the public school systems. Here is a look at some of what our school district is looking to cut to cope with the sudden shortfall in funds:

A 3 percent salary reduction for administrators and support staff – essentially all nonteaching staff. The same employees will also have their health insurance benefits rolled back to 2008-09 levels.

• Eliminate of two assistant principal positions – one from each McCutcheon and Harrison High School – for next school year, and the elimination of the assistant principal position at Mayflower Mill Elementary School after the 2010-11 school year.

• Reduction of art, music and physical education instruction from those special teachers at the elementary schools by 50 percent. Classroom teachers will corresponding additions to their duties.

• Increase elementary class sizes.

• Reduce librarians to 20%.

• Eliminate world languages classes.

• Reduce the number of or frequency of elective courses offered at the high school level and eliminate Japanese altogether. This will result in larger class sizes.

• Reduce the number of summer school courses offered.

• Eliminate three to four remediation teaching positions throughout the district.

• Eliminate TSC’s adult education program.

• Discontinue funding for the early college program. Students will still be able to attend college classes but must pay for them themselves.

Politico has an article entitled “The nuking of Dan Coats.” First, a disclosure. I don’t care for Dan Coats’ policies. In a race between him and Evan Bayh, I’d vote for Bayh.

With that out of the way, I find the vigorous pushback against the prospects of his candidacy revealing, and what it reveals annoys me. Politico describes the push:

In the week since Dan Coats announced he was preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrats have launched a withering, no-holds-barred assault on the former Republican senator, throwing him off balance and raising questions about whether his prospective candidacy has suffered lasting damage.
. . .
The ferocious barrage — a coordinated effort unleashed by a small core of senior Democratic strategists in Washington, top Bayh political hands, and Indiana Democratic Party officials — has partisans on both sides of the aisle wondering not whether Coats has been bruised by the punches, but whether he will be able to pick himself off the canvas.

Now, when was the last time you heard Senate Democrats described as ferocious about anything? What this tells me is that they are capable of being vigorous and proactive, but choose not to when it comes to actually getting anything done in terms of policies. Challenge a centrist Democrat’s incumbency, and you’re going to get kneecapped. Derail a Democratic policy initiative and they are as helpless and passive as newborn kittens. Sure, there are procedural hurdles in the Senate that don’t apply to the campaign trail, but I guarantee the last year would have played out a lot differently if the Senate Democrats had taken the political crowbars to filibuster supporters the way the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going after Coats.

Again, it’s not that they can’t. So, it must be that they don’t care to. The Democrats need to get someone like Howard Dean back in position to put some political energy behind policy initiatives instead of just becoming animated when an incumbent is threatened. From my view, it seems the the Democratic base isn’t so much frustrated by policy positions that are too liberal or too conservative, but rather by a passiveness that seems indifferent to actually accomplishing anything. It’s back to the days when Daschle and the Democratic Leadership Council were running the Democratic Party and the party was routinely getting its clocked cleaned by aggressive, energetic Republicans. It wasn’t until Dean stepped up and showed some intestinal fortitude (not liberal, necessarily, just not waffling and passive) that the Democrats got some of their mojo back.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter (which, I might add has taken a fair amount of energy away from this blog – it’s a lot easier to post a random thought on Twitter than a full blown blog entry.) So, I found this blog post on PeteSearch fascinating. It identifies some regional characteristics about Facebook from peoples’ connections, fan pages, etc.

The old Union states and the Confederacy seem to be identifiable as distinct regions. Dixie has a lot of nearby connections, and not so many far flung connections, and prominent displays of their love of God. The Union (which he labels Stayathomia) is also characterized by nearby connections and not so many far flung connections, but God doesn’t figure so prominently as sports and beer.

Greater Texas seems to revolve around “a central city” which I’m guessing is Dallas, and God is loved but comes in second to the Cowboys. There’s a “Mormonia” intermixed with the “Nomadic West” with Mormon communities likely to be strongly connected with other Mormon communities over long distances. They like Glenn Beck and, for some reason, Twilight. The Nomadic West is characterized by a tendency for small communities to be strongly connected to distant cities. “For example, Boise, ID, Bend, OR and Phoenix, AZ all have much wider connections than you’d expect for towns their size.” These folks like Starbucks.

Finally the Pacific West is divided up into Socalstan, with a center of gravity in L.A. and a tight knot around Seattle.

It would be interesting to see how this sort of thing changes over time. Will the connections get more diffuse? Will regional alignments shift around?

Rep. GiaQuinta’s HB 1324 would give counties options for disposing of vacant lots acquired at tax sale.

Permits a county to sell a vacant parcel acquired by the county in a tax sale to the owner of a contiguous residential parcel for $1 if the contiguous parcel is entitled to the standard property tax deduction. Allows the county to establish criteria to identify vacant parcels eligible for sale. Establishes procedures for conduct of the sale, transfer of the vacant parcel, and consolidation of the vacant parcel with the contiguous parcel. Provides that the consolidated parcel is entitled to an exemption from property taxation in the amount of the assessed value of the vacant parcel at the time of consolidation until the earlier of the following: (1) the next transfer of title after the consolidation; or (2) five years after the transfer of the title to the successful applicant.

This passed the House on a 88-7 vote and is waiting to be heard in the Senate.

I intend on supporting the local franchise in the upcoming sporting event.

Stampede Blue, as always, is doing fantastic work covering the Colts.

Just a little shameless self-promotion here – former Representative Dave Crooks does a radio show in Southern Indiana about Indiana politics on Saturday mornings. He was nice enough to invite me on to talk about blogging about Indiana politics. The show will air tomorrow (2/6/10) at 9 a.m., and you can listen live with streaming audio or archived audio. It’s out of my range, but for those in the area, the radio station is WAMW 107.9 FM/1580 AM out of Washington, IN.

Also on this edition will be Spencer Valentine of A Loyal Opposition.

Update The show archive is available here.

Jennifer Niven’s book, The Aqua Net Diaries, has just been released. My interest is that it was written by a woman, Jennifer Niven (nom de plume of Jennifer McJunkin) a couple of years ahead of me at Richmond High School in the 1980s. It’s a memoir of her days at Richmond.

The Palladium-Item has a write up by Rachel Sheeley. Apparently Jennifer’s buddy Joe Kraemer figures prominently in the story. Joe’s brother was one of my sister’s best friends.

Now, as luck would have it, I have warm memories of Jennifer and Joe who were, I believe, seniors, when I was a freshman on the school’s speech team. As I recall, I wasn’t any good on the speech team at the time, but they were awfully nice to me anyway. I don’t suppose they have any particular memory of that – mighty seniors make a greater impact on lowly freshmen than the reverse.

So, it’s great to see some hometown kids making good – particularly when they were (so far as I knew anyway) good kids who treated people well.

That’s my long way of encouraging anyone with interest in such things to pick up a copy of the book.