“El Rushbo”

Rush Limbaugh, the uber  radio talker, wants to own a team in the National Football League. Limbaugh is part of a group that is offering to buy the Saint Louis Rams. Limbaugh who has solid roots in Missouri is part of a group that is offering to spend upwards of $700 million to take control of the team.

While Limbaugh is revered by millions of his loyal “ditto heads”, he is reviled by many who feel his brand of conservatism is racist and misogynist. When asked about Limbaugh’s bid to own and NFL team , New York Jets’ star , Bart Scott and New York Giants’ star Mathias Kiwanuka are united in their opposition to Limbaugh’s ownership of an NFL team. Scott said in reference to Limbaugh, ” “I know I wouldn’t want to play for him. He’s a jerk. He’s an —. What he said (about Donovan McNabb) was inappropriate and insensitive, totally off-base. He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn’t play for him. … I wouldn’t play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can’t be bought.”

DeMaurice  Smith ,the executive director of the National Football League Players Association, has joined with Scott and Kiwanuka in opposing Limbaugh’s bid to join the NFL fraternity. Smith is quoted as saying,“‘Sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends.  Our sport does exactly that
when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.” Smith is also urging other NFL players to speak out against Limbaugh’s bid to own the Rams.

If Rush becomes one of the owners of the Saint Louis Rams , it is possible that he might become a very different person. For example, former segregationist Governor George Wallace  threw off his past racist beliefs and became something of an advocate for African Americans in his later years.

In much the same way Rush may have an an epiphany and become an advocate for many of the people he has slammed in the past. Here are some of the innovations Rush might  bring to the NFL:

1. Rush’s team might hire the first female head coach in the NFL . In shedding his “Femi-Nazi” baggage Rush may follow in the footsteps of Oakland Raiders’ owner Al Davis who hired Art Shell as the first African American head coach in the NFL.

2 Rush might follow the example of the late Boston Celtic Coach Red Auerbach and field the first all African American team in the NFL.  All 22 of Rush’s Rams who start the game would be African American. His team would probably have an Hispanic place kicker.

3. There would be no drug testing of Rush’s Rams. As an admitted and adjudicated drug abuser , Rush would recognize that drug use is a personal issue and not a public issue.

4.Rush’s Rams would have the best  criminal lawyers  money can buy. Rush’s personal experience with the criminal justice system makes him sensitive to the needs  of persons caught up in the web of the American legal system.

5. Viagra would be the primary sponsor of the Limbaugh owned Saint Louis Rams. Rush would not need to slip the little blue pills into the country in his luggage as he once did. Rush would probably get free samples from the Rams’ sponsor.

It is obvious there is the possibility that  Rush Limbaugh might follow the example of Jerry Jones and  become the next transformational owner in the National Football League.

Senator John McCain is in the throes of a losing spiral over the past few months. He lost the presidential election in November and on the first Sunday in February his beloved Arizona Cardinals lost the Super Bowl.

McCain and many of his Republican colleagues are now  “doubling down” by opposing the  President’s “stimulus package”. McCain told CBS television,

“There’s too much spending, too much unnecessary spending, not the right kind of tax cuts and no end game,” McCain said. “In other words,after the economy recovers, we should be on a path to a balanced budget. We’re laying the biggest deficit on future generations of Americans in history.”

McCain also commented on the Cardinal’s Super Bowl loss,

“The old guy, [Kurt] Warner, almost won. For a change, an old guy almost won. I’m proud of him,”

At the same time, President Barack Obama not only bested McCain in
November but the Pittsburgh Steelers whose owner ,coaches and players
campaigned for him “stole” victory  from McCain’s Cardinals in the last
few seconds of the big game.

The President is still riding a hot streak with the people of the nation.The Gallup daily tracking poll found that 66% of Americans approve the President’s performance during the first two weeks of his presidency. At the same time the Diageo/Hotline Poll found that only 26% of Americans approve of the performance Congressional Republicans.

The arithmetic suggests that McCain and his Republican colleagues are engaged in a high risk strategy by challenging the popular new president’s major economic recovery initiative. Just today the President has called on his 13 million former campaign supporters to host house parties across the nation to support for his bill.

In part the Obama administration’s proposal is a classic example of the theory  of  twentieth century economist John Maynard Keynes. The thrust of Keynes’ theory is that the most important action government can take is to distribute money to people and get them to spend it.

“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at
suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the
surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on
well-tried principles of laissez faire to dig the notes up again . . .
there need be no more unemployment. . . . It would indeed be more
sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and
practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than
nothing.”
(Keynes 1935)

So from the Keynesian perspective spending money on family planning, smoking cessation, the arts, and other programs Republicans are in themselves stimulative.

The Republican opposition gives homage to the free market views of Milton Friedman the late Nobel Laureate.Friedman opposed most government intervention in the economy and in 2001 Owen Ullmann interviewed Friedman and said,

Friedman and John Maynard Keynes are arguably the most influential economists of the Twentieth Century. But as we begin a new millennium, it is Friedman who seems to be winning the debate between the free-market school that he epitomizes and the government-interventionist advocates who see Keynes as their champion

In large measure the challenge by McCain and his fellow Republicans is a battle between competing theories of how to stimulate economic recovery. So when Democrats talk about spending will create jobs , Republicans counter that such spending is wasteful.

In an amazing show of solidarity 36 of the 41 Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted to strip all spending from the stimulus bill and replace it with all tax cuts, the DeMint amendment .

The President and his allies counter that spending and investment are the most effective methods that will jump start a turn around for the economy.

Phillip Fulmer

Seventeen years ago, I sat in a news conference in Memphis, Tennessee where officials of the University of Tennessee announced that head football coach Johnny Majors had resigned and was being replaced by offensive coordinator Phillip Fulmer. Last Monday November 3, 2008,
University of Tennessee officials held a press conference in Knoxville, Tennessee to announce that this would be head football coach Phillip Fulmer’s final year.

In seventeen years at Tennessee, Fulmer won almost 75% of his games and won a national championship in the 1999. In order to fire Fulmer the University will have to pay him more than six million dollars. In addition, the University will have to pay all of Fulmer’s assistant coaches’ salary for a year or two if they are not retained by the new University of Tennessee head coach. So firing Fulmer is a multi-million dollar act on the part of the University.

McCain’s Navy

Almost twenty-five years ago, I attended a luncheon at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona where a first term United States Senator named John McCain spoke to a group of the city’s African American leaders. McCain assured the group that he was everybody’s senator and vowed to work closely with the small African American population in the state of Arizona.

As a show of his commitment, the senator came with a group of people he called “McCain’s Navy”. These were mostly white professionals who volunteered their services to help improve the lives of a variety of individuals and groups in Arizona. McCain also had syndicated columnist George Will with him. Later, Will, an avowed conservative, wrote a very positive column, which suggested that McCain was a new breed of legislator. More recently, in his columns, Will has been a constant and severe critic of McCain.

On Wednesday November 4, 2008, McCain lost his bid to become the President of the United Sates to Barack Obama, an African American.

‘From Winning to Losing

Both Fulmer and McCain have distinguished careers. Fulmer is one of the most successful coaches in the history of college football. Fulmer is an affable fellow who is revered by his former players. He is a former Tennessee offensive lineman who is very large man. Having participated in golf tournaments where Fulmer was a celebrity participant, I can attest to Fulmer being “a hail fellow well met”.

Despite his past success, the University of Tennessee was willing to part with millions of dollars in order to fire Fulmer. Fulmer had a losing record this season and seemed to be unable to compete with some of the newer and more successful coaches in the Southeastern Conference (S.E.C.). Alabama coach Nick Saban has turned Southern football on its ear .In the week when Fulmer was fired, Saban’s Alabama team was voted the number one team in all of college football.

Fulmer also suffers in comparison to other S.E.C. coaches such as Georgia’s Mark Richt and Florida’s Urban Meyer. The newer S.E.C. coaches are more youthful, more media savvy and have installed offenses that are more dynamic and have become fan favorites. Fulmer’s perennial nemesis South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier was quick to “stick the needle” in after embarrassing the Tennessee Volunteers on the field a few days before Fulmer’s firing.

The New Guy Wins

Like Fulmer, Senator McCain has a distinguished and successful career. A genuine war hero who was imprisoned and tortured by the North Vietnamese, McCain has been a legislative leader. He can point to a number of significant achievements in service in the U.S. Senate. His major strength as retired a Navy officer was national security. When the focus of the election shifted to the economy, McCain was out of his element and seemed never able to gain his footing. Consequently, his campaign became tactical rather than strategic. McCain was short in what George Bush 41 called the “vision thing”.

McCain’s opponent, Senator Obama, is forty-seven years old while McCain is seventy-two. Obama bounds up stairs and glides across stages while McCain has a halting gait in part due to old war injuries. With the overwhelming number of Americans believing that America is on the wrong track, McCain suffered when compared to Obama’s inspirational oratory an seeming unflappability.

For both Fulmer and McCain their past successes are laudable, but the future has been ceded to a new generation of leaders.

Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro, a former Democratic Party nominee for Vice President of the United States, says that if Barack Obama is her party’s nominee for President she might not vote for him. Ferraro believes that Obama has run a sexist and unfair campaign. She believes that Obama played the “race card “against her when she made a statement, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Will Clinton Supporters Vote for McCain?

Ferraro is not alone among avid female supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton. Ben Smith in the Politico reports ,an Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media. “

Taylor Marsh a talk show host and avid Clinton supporter says that the anti-Obama sentiment among women who support Clinton has hardened to the point that these women will not vote for Obama under any circumstances The anger at the way some women believe that Senator Clinton has been treated in the campaign is extremely intense. There are active campaigns that call for boycotts of television networks and their sponsors because of the perceived basis against the New York senator.

McCain is Committed to Overturning Roe v. Wade

Traditionally, for most feminists the “litmus test” for candidates they will support concerns the candidate’s commitment to support the principles of the Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. This decision affirmed the right of women to terminate pregnancies without government prohibitions. Republican presidential candidate,
Senator John McCain, has made clear that he not only opposes Roe v. Wade but that he will appoint Justices to United States Supreme Court who will overturn the 1973 Court’s decision. In addition, Senator McCain opposes equal pay for equal work legislation, legislation to allow victims of gender discrimination to have more time to legally protest their situation, and the extension of family leave. For many of the issues that feminists say they are committed to, McCain opposes including ending the war in Iraq, providing universal health care, and helping people facing home foreclosures.

Will Feminists Vote for Senator McCain?

With Senator McCain at odds with most issues that feminists have held dear for so many years, will women support McCain to spite Obama? Will this be the time when women’s issues take a backseat to the anger generated by the rough and tumble primary campaign between Senators Clinton and Obama?

Al Davis and John McCain

In the 1970,’s I lived in Northern California and owned one-half of a season ticket for the Oakland Raider football games. The Raiders were an exciting team and the atmosphere at the games was exciting. On Sundays when my turn came to use the tickets, we would assemble at a neighborhood restaurant have brunch board a bus and begin a Sunday morning rolling cocktail party. By the time the bus reached the stadium, many on our bus were “well oiled.”

The Raiders’ Black Hole

Raider games in those days and in many ways today, were parties as much as football games. The story that was spread then was that the Raiders built their fan base by selling tickets to bars and restaurants that like us traveled to the game in large groups. While I had been to N.F.L. games in other cities, none compared to the energy and excitement of a Raider game. A major characteristic of Raider games was the racial diversity of the fans in the stadium. Again, the story was that the Raider fan base was built from the black, white, and Hispanic neighborhood bars.

The Raider teams were always different from most other teams. Al Davis the managing partner was devoted to wide-open football that emphasized the long passes. Darryl Lamonica, the “mad bomber, “might connect for seventy yards with the likes of Warren Wells on any given play. Kenny Stabler who succeeded Lamonica as quarterback, had Cliff Branch and Fred Biletnikoff to grab his throws.

Al Davis created a team filled with sometimes wild and crazy personalities. He had, for example, the “Mad Stork”, Ted Hendricks. The Raiders had Otis Sistrunk, an alumnus of the “University of Mars”, George Blanda, a quarterback who played well into his 40’s, and Warren Wells, a man troubled with a variety of legal and personal issues. The Raiders were the last refuge for talented players who had troubles in college or with other N.F.L. teams.

Just Win Baby

The Raiders’ motto was and is, Commitment to Excellence. Al Davis’ personal mantra was and is, “Just Win Baby”. Moreover, Davis and his Raiders have been winners for many years. The Raiders throughout their history have been one of the most successful teams in the National Football League. The Raiders have also been Super Bowl winners.

In addition, Al Davis has been in the forefront of important changes in professional sports. Davis hired the first African American head coach and the first Hispanic head coach in the N.F.L. Davis , is the man who elevated a young assistant coach named John Madden to head coach. Madden is now and more known for his television work and video games than his stint as Super Bowl champion coach. Davis involved himself in on-going disputes with N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle and several of his fellow team owners. Davis won court decisions that in part changed the way the N.F.L. does business to this day. It is important to remember, that Davis was once an assistant football coach in the old American Football League who rose to become commissioner of that League and through his shrewd moves became the managing partner of an N.F.L. Many sources report that Davis’ net worth now exceeds 100 million dollars.

Tony Dungy’s Tampa Two

In recent years, however, the Raiders have fallen on hard times. They have been perennial losers. They have had a revolving door of coaches and have selected a number of players who have not succeeded in the N.F.L. The Raiders, who were once at the top of professional football, are now the subject of ridicule and scorn.

As great as Al Davis has been in the past, he is now and aging, disabled man who has let the game pass him by. Tony Dungy’s, “Tampa Two”, defense that has been adopted by many N.F.L. teams, has neutralized the long pass. Defensive players in the league are so big and fast that many of the plays that once worked do not work as well today. The so-called “west coast offense” perfected by the late Bill Walsh which emphasizes short passes is the predominate offense in today’s N.F.L.

Despite the changes in present day football, Davis continues to build his teams the same way he did in the 1970’s and 1980’s. He has let go two of the league’s best head coaches, Mike Shanahan and John Gruden and now has a 33 year old, former college assistant coach, Lane Kiffen who he wanted to get rid of after one season. Another thing that has changed in today’s N.F.L. is the salaries paid to players. In Davis’ heyday, players’ salaries were modest compared to day. The world has changed and Al Davis has not.

A Cautionary Tale for McCain

John McCain needs to look carefully at Al Davis’s current situation. Although McCain has had a reputation as independent and a maverick Republican member of the U.S. Senate in his run for president, he has adopted the standard Republican Party orthodoxy. McCain thinks the solution to the nation’s current economic woes rests on the continuation of the tax cuts that President Bush has touted as producing prosperity. The credit crisis, the growing wave of house foreclosures, the skyrocketing price of gasoline, the falling U.S. dollar are just some of the challenges that McCain needs to address. McCain wants to see the Iraq War through to a successful completion. The people of America want a swift end to the war. Similarly, most Americans want the nation to regain its role as a leader of the world but McCain argues to continue the unsuccessful international policies of the current administration.

Can old warriors change? Al Davis has not. Will John McCain change?

Senator John McCain

Many years ago, I played in a dance band. I was a saxophone, flute, and clarinet player. We were sixteen players but because we didn’t make much money we had many people who played for a while and then quit. We were always looking for new players. Once a young man joined our group as a trombonist. He was not a good trombonist and was only able to hit one note, a B flat, with precision. We called him a “one note Johnny”.

The trombone, to me, is one of the most difficult instruments to play. The trombone has a slide rather than the keys or valves that woodwinds and horn have. A good trombonist is playing on the fly and responding to the sounds of the band as a whole. A good trombonist is constantly refining his positions to stay in tune with the band. When I heard Sen. John McCain give his “major policy address” on the economy and the housing crisis, it reminded me of the “One Note Johnny” of my dance band days.

McCain is Silent on the Big Issues

McCain’s approach to current crisis is to watch. While millions of Americans are about to lose their homes to foreclosure, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee says he will wait and see what happens. While increasing numbers of Americans owe more on their home than the home is worth, McCain made a strange allusion to General Motor’s post Sept.11, 2001 zero percent car loan offers. When even the Wall Street Journal admits there has been a fundamental change in American capitalism because of the Federal Reserve’s involvement in underwriting the sale of Bear Stearns, McCain is silent.

McCain Prepared to be a War President

McCain has admitted in the past that knowledge of the domestic economy is not his strong suit. McCain, a Naval Academy graduate and war hero, has prepared himself to be a “national security president”. His embrace of the Iraqi invasion and critique of the early approach of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s Iraq strategy, served McCain well when war and terrorism were thought to be the central issues in the 2008 presidential election. McCain’s success in securing the Republican nomination came after early stumbles as the surge of American troops in Iraq began to tamp down sectarian violence.

The Bully Pulpit

Now that overwhelming numbers of Americans say the economy will be the primary issue in the November election, McCain is at a distinct disadvantage. Largely the current crises in housing and the economy stem from a loss of confidence in the system. Bear Stearns failed when its lenders lost confidence in the bank. One of the most important roles of the American presidency is to instill confidence in the American future. While McCain has a clear vision of what he believes ought to happen in Iraq and some other parts of the world, he lacks a vision for “Main Street” America and the economy.

If McCain is to succeed as a candidate he will need to be able to play more than his one note, especially if his only note is Iraq.

Once Again it’s “The Vision Thing.”