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New Mexico: Swing State

by Cheryl Rofer

New Mexico has only five electoral votes, but its vote in the last two presidential elections has been close, and it has one senatorial and three congressional seats fully up for grabs this year. All three of our sitting representatives decided to go for broke in the primaries, so only Tom Udall (D) is left standing for the Senate seat, and all the candidates for the congressional seats are newbies.

So we're getting more attention than usual from the national media.

The News Hour has been featuring New Mexico all this week.

The Los Angeles Times looks at our undecided Latino voters.

Slate checks out the small towns.

Debate Trivia

by Cheryl Rofer

The consensus seems to be that John McCain comes across as a grouchy old man, and Barack Obama as presidential, so Obama "won" the debate. McCain badly needed a game-changer to come from behind, but in the recycling of tired memes that seems to be his debate, no such was to be found. He continued as though his first priority was to rally the base, who may be tiring of Sarah Palin. But he didn't throw them any new red meat, and it's becoming clear that pandering to the base is turning off the independents.

Two small points that I found strange were his mention of Sarah Palin's concern for autism and (once again) that "overhead projector" for a planetarium.

Sarah Palin's son Trig has Down Syndrome. As far as I am aware, Down syndrome has nothing in common with autism. If Palin has recently said some things about autism, I'm not aware of them. But then, I'm not following Palin closely.

McCain made the legitimate point that Palin has a personal interest in special-needs children because of Trig, and therefore she might be expected to urge governmental actions toward alleviating some of the burdens parents of such children bear. But then he mentioned autism at least twice. Both Down syndrome and autism are maladies of special-needs children, but I couldn't figure out why he focused on autism.

McCain seemed to think he landed a punch on Obama once again with that business about an "overhead projector" at a planetarium. I've been bothered about that since it first came up. I still get childhood goosebumps when I think about the lights slowly dimming at the Hayden Planetarium and the stars beginning to come out. I was fascinated by that dumbell-shaped chrome monster in the center of the room and, after the first few visits, watched it slowly move to produce that starry sky. I figured it must have all sorts of gears and perhaps more than one light source, along with a very precise drive motor, again perhaps more than one. I haven't kept up with planetarium projectors, but I suspect that now they're computer-controlled.

So, at a price of $3 million, I figured that McCain had that "overhead" business wrong. Yes, a projector for the sky overhead, but not one of those little overhead projectors that are becoming obsolete as we hook up our laptops with no need for transparencies. Three million dollars is about what one of those sky projectors would cost.

I haven't bothered to check it out until now, and I easily find that my suspicion was correct. McCain didn't know that it was the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, as famous as my Hayden Planetarium, and the Columbia Journalism Review tells us that it was indeed a replacement for one of those Zeiss projectors from my childhood. Here's what the Chicago Tribune has to say, with a photo of the old projector.

All this has made me wonder what today's planetarium projectors look like. It turns out that Carl Zeiss AG is still making them, and this photo is of one of the latest. Not too different from the old ones, but I'll bet there's a computer in there and a keyboard outside.

One more trivia point: apparently Joe the Plumber isn't registered to vote.

Update: Or maybe he's registered but not a plumber.

New Mexico and Freedom’s Watch

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Would someone please explain to me why the ultra-right wing Florida based 501(c)(4) organization named Freedom’s Watch has placed one of New Mexico’s three Congressional races, CD#1, in its bull’s eye?

Lucky us: we’re only one of six Congressional races in the country that this wonderful group with close ties to the Bush White House, that the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and funded primarily by a big time, recent Republican convert as well as Las Vegas and Macao gambling tycoon has chosen to so ‘honor’ this November. The other races, according to Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post are Alabama’s 2nd, Illinois’ 10th, Nevada’s 3rd, New Jersey’s 3rd and 7th. But if you look at the statistics, New Mexico’s 1st and Illinois’ 10th are by far the largest recipients of Freedom Watch’s largesse.

This is a peculiar Congressional District. Although it contains more registered Democrats than Republicans, it has elected a Republican Congressional representative in every election since its creation.

A Wide Open Race

The race for New Mexico CD#1 is once again wide open: a well known Republican and now former county sheriff named Darren White is being challenged by – or is challenging Democrat Martin Heinrich a former Albuquerque City Council member. Now White had the greater name recognition going into the race. This normally helps in an election campaign – but Heinrich has been running a smart, well organized operation since before the Democratic primary in June which he won handily. At this point the polls are slightly in Heinrich’s favor.

Back Home

by Cheryl Rofer

I've been traveling for the last ten days or so, but now I'm back home and hope to be posting more frequently.

During that trip, I was in or near Alaska, Poland, Pilsen, Luxemburg, Berlin, Brussels, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. That must qualify me at least for Secretary of State. Maybe Secretary-General of the UN or even President of the United States!

A Message for the New President: Getting Diplomacy Right

By Patricia H. Kushlis

It’s painfully clear that whoever becomes this country’s new president in January, the US cannot continue to conduct its foreign policy along the business-as-usual lines of the Bush administration. Leading with the military, sending in the tanks, calling in the short and long-range bombers, refusing to negotiate with adversaries – or even perceived adversaries – is a costly and counter-productive way to deal with the world.

This guns-and-steel-first approach by which America has been engaging - or more accurately disengaging - the world throughout the past eight years has boomeranged. It has increased – not decreased – support for those who truly hate America. It has resulted in budget busting defense spending. It has created an overstretched and weary professional military unable to accomplish the Herculean tasks assigned it. And it is an unsung piece of the current financial crisis. This lethal concoction has weakened the country abroad and sapped our ability to meet our citizens’ needs at home.

Leading with Diplomacy: The Single Realistic Foreign Policy Option Left

The next president will, in reality, have only one foreign policy option. This is the imperative to rely far more on traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and foreign aid delivered through civilian means to begin to repair America’s face and effectively conduct its business abroad. The military first “solution” has proven to be no solution. Fighting elusive militant terrorists ensconced in ungovernable areas is not akin to rolling back the Axis Powers in 1944 or facing off the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact over the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

The only other alternative to a military-first doctrine besides diplomacy is isolationism. Isolationism failed miserably in the 1920s. The 1990s neo-isolationism of the late Jesse Helms only helped to weaken this country’s position and destroy its foreign affairs capabilities in both the short and long run. This is indeed a globalized world: isolationism – like Communism – belongs in history’s dust bin.

But before a new administration can emphasize diplomatic solutions or peaceful management of complex international problems, it has to understand that the civilian foreign affairs agencies that throughout the Cold War provided the know-how and wherewithal to deal with difficult foreign affairs issues are now hollow shells. They are shadows of their former selves. Reacquiring the requisite expertise that they once housed will not come cheap. Seasoned diplomats do not suddenly spring up out of nowhere.

To quote a recent observation by The New York Times columnist David Brooks, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."

Right on. Experience matters. Just substitute the word “diplomats for “politicians.”

A major problem at State

Most of the “talent” that turns a green recruit into an effective diplomat, public diplomat or practiced foreign aid officer comes from practical, on-the-ground experience that is learned-by-doing under the tutelage and watchful eyes of more seasoned colleagues. This on-the-job training needs to be combined with extensive and specific foreign language and cultural study that make it possible for US government representatives abroad to communicate effectively with the people in the countries to which they are assigned.

“No time to think or make decisions”

In short, an effective diplomat knows – almost by instinct – what needs to be done and how to accomplish it in whatever country to which he, or she, is assigned. Events happen so rapidly there often is, as Brooks correctly states, “no time to think or make decisions.”

The up-or-out, dog-eat-dog, two tiered, intensely hierarchical Foreign Service personnel structure has, for years, forced out far too many expensively trained and skilled officers at the peak of their careers – just when they should have been the most valuable to the U.S.

Think about the taxpayers for a moment: Intensive training in difficult languages costs thousands of dollars per diplomat. Continuing this now entrenched counterproductive policy is simply not cost effective.

The Hollowed Out Shell

Instead of taking advantage of the considerable skills learned on the job and in language and cultural training at the State Department’s own institute, hundreds – perhaps thousands - of America’s highly educated and trained diplomatic staff have been put out to pasture since the current system was implemented nearly 30 years ago. This enabled the downsizing rash of the 1990s of an already tiny group of people and the making way for younger, less experienced officers, with all that less experience too often brings to the job.

This system did function more or less adequately – albeit not to the taxpayers’ advantage because of the costly skills lost that need constant replenishment – during the years of shrinking government under the Clinton administration and an isolationist Republican Congress.

Under Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Department’s workforce was, in fact, increased, but during the past four years of Condoleezza Rice, the size of the Foreign Service has remained static. The hemorrhaging continues unabated thanks, in large part, to a rigid and antiquated personnel system. More junior and mid-level officers are leaving in disgust far short of retirement as Carnegie’s Joshua Kurlantzik pointed out recently -- many due to personnel’s gross mishandling of the Iraq assignments process.

Meanwhile, the tasks assigned to State Department staff have become more difficult and wide ranging at home and abroad.

Various studies over the past year indicate that the State Department’s staffing shortfall ranges from between 1,000 and 2,000 officers depending upon who’s counting. The American Academy of Diplomacy tells us that a new administration will require more than 4,700 additional Foreign Service Officers including those in USAID over the next five years to fulfill the expanding roll civilian government officials with foreign affairs skills will be asked to play in the future. But where will it find them and how will it treat them?

A first priority for the new president is to replace State’s broken, archaic, opaque and crony-riddled personnel system and send its current enforcers packing – without golden parachutes.

Ironically, the one person in the Bush administration who seems to recognize the depths of the budget and some of the personnel problems facing the State Department is Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan are being filled – by hook and by crook – but at what cost?

Public Diplomacy under the State Department has been, and continues to be, a bad joke. Between 20 and 30 percent of the public diplomacy positions overseas are vacant. Too many of the ones that are filled are staffed by people who spend most of their time handling administrative chores or “managing” Ambassadors – whatever that means - as opposed to what they should be doing – interacting with foreign publics.

Just in the past two years, the Consular Affairs Bureau has been wracked by a chain of highly visible embarrassments and fiascos: last year’s passport issuance delay problems need not have happened, for instance, with better planning and management.

Visa applicants are too often faced with lengthy waits, costly nonrefundable applicant fees if their applications are rejected and surly and demeaning interviews by nasty – and probably overtaxed - Consular Officers. DHS’ German shepherd-like greeting at the border – providing the foreign visitor gets that far – is another story. This too needs fixing. True, this deficiency does not fall under the State Department’s control but it forms yet another piece of the “why they hate us” story.

The Department does not even have enough qualified people to fill all Ambassadorial appointments – or at least I don’t think so or why would it have called out of retirement two former career Ambassadors I know to fill in – and not just to cover a summer or unexpected assignments gap.

Managing Human Capital - Not

In short, the State Department as it now operates seems singularly incapable of managing its most precious resource: its human capital. This is nothing new, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are some deficiencies that a new administration needs to deal with immediately:

• The up-or-out policy needs redressing and the two tier system needs to be abolished if the Department is ever going to fill the need for many more experienced diplomatic hands. There are other means available to handle people who are truly no longer fit to be in the Foreign Service. In reality, the Department has always been able to use them.

• The promotion and assignments systems are singularly opaque. There is no transparency and no accountability in their implementation. This is particularly worrisome when it concerns assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan which are widely viewed as unfairly administered. The "teacher's pets" don't have to go to the war zones, but far too often those without powerful friends do. Further, promises are made – but not always kept.

Why?

by Cheryl Rofer

Having listened to the response this week of McCain-Palin supporters to the "not like us" and "pals with terrorists" memes being distributed by their campaign, I've been wondering why the campaign would take this tack.

There has been the explicit theory on that side that undercutting people's confidence in Barack Obama would be effective in driving up his negatives and pulling votes to the more experienced - er- maverick reformer candidates. It's been around since early in the campaign and was used to some degree to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, although she didn't have to give up the claim of greater experience in mid-stream.

The race issue has been tricky on both sides, too. I'm not talking about the posturing, but what's going on in voters' minds. We know that there is a residue of overt racism, largely in the Republican Party, and some unknown amount of covert and possibly even unconscious racism that might be called upon in the service of votes for the Republcan ticket if it could be mined in predictable ways. I haven't seen any indication that anyone really knows how to do this, particularly as the horrifying reality of a global financial meltdown impinges on the campaign world of images and words. And then there are those voters who may well react badly to appeals to vote for the white candidates because they're white.

So overt or coded racial appeals may help to solidify some part of "the base," but they have a great potential for backfiring and turning off the independent voters, and even the more moderate Republicans. Likewise the business about "terrorists," which will appeal to some toward the extreme end of the political spectrum, but have a certain irrelevance when pulled from the 1960s. That could be an appeal to those still fighting that particular culture war, but we've seen interest in that decrease lately, too.

So why do it? Sarah Palin, by simply being who she is, has solidified the people who might be encouraged by this sort of thing, and the appeal beyond seems minimal.

This past week has seen McCain himself have to pull some of his supporters back from the conclusions his ads have been urging on them because some of his rallies came close to violence. But this was predictable; the ugliness of the response to Sarah Palin's acceptance speech easily came through the tv; surely the campaign managers could see where this all was going and that getting there would not be a good thing for Republican votes.

It's possible that the campaign people believe their own spin, that the "real" Obama will be revealed to the people, who will flock to John McCain. Perhaps they have convinced McCain himself that this is the only way to win. Perhaps they are panicking as the poll numbers trend toward Obama and that horrifying reality has come on John McCain's admitted blind side.

Or it may be a combination of all of the above, with one thing added. If the McCain campaign is running out of money, they may feel that they have to hit hard now, because they won't be able to later.

And Barack Obama is buying network time later in the month in half-hour chunks.

The NPT: Time for Renegotiation

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Conventional wisdom screams that it was bad for George W. Bush to sign the India nuke pact recently, because the agreement undermines—nay, violates the long-standing nuclear non-proliferation treaty and could lead to an arms race. All eyes are on Iran, of course, as the next nuclear state. But North Korea gets plenty of baleful states, too. North Korea is the only country that has actually withdrawn from the treaty.

Meanwhile, the arms race is on.

The three “non-signatory” states already have nuclear weapons. That’s Israel, Pakistan and India. They should be punished, according to said conventional wisdom, and certainly not rewarded for by-passing the NPT. At least India should suffer the consequences of opting out. Bad countries don't get goodies.

There’s a little problem with this formulation---the awkward little perpetual exception of Israel. So, why can’t India do some special pleading, too?

And hey! How about a little appreciation for honesty? Three states, nearly fifty years ago, let it be known that the proposed non-proliferation regime, in which a few states that already had nuclear weapons would play nanny to the rest of the world, wouldn’t, in the long run, endure. Duh! Do I hear a appreciative guffaw from the political realists in the gallery?

But, if India, then Pakistan, pessimists warn, ominously, and Pakistan has indeed told Washington that parity makes sense to Islamabad. What President Zardari needs to hear, in response, is that apples aren’t oranges. India is pretty stable. For all its complexities and problems—and indeed corruption, India is seeding the world with engineers from its IITs, not with terrorists from al Qaeda training camps. The agitations in the hills surrounding Assam are laughable charades compared to the war going on in the mountainous tribal territories that straddle the Durand line.

Meanwhile—and this is a far more important point—the world has changed since the current Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was ratified in 1970. Did anyone seriously think India would not develop nuclear weapons so long as China has them? Was it possible that Pakistan could deny itself the prestige and blackmail potential if India has them? Was it possible that cover-up of Israel’s possession of nuclear arms could remain a secret decade after decade—and not inspire Muslim states like Iran to achieve parity, with “justification,” thanks to the absolutely marvelous political gift of the brutal occupation of Palestine?

As for Iran, put yourself in the shoes of the leadership. Would you trust the U.S. to ensure your supply of anything connected to nuclear capacity—or anything else of vital importance, for that matter? Some people don’t think it’s credible that Iran might actually want to use nuclear reactors for electricity. Let them use all that oil, these critics say, forgetting that it’s absolutely criminal, in an age of dwindling oil reserves, to squander oil on anything that a substitute can’t be found for. If I were an Iranian leader, I’d jolly well develop nukes for electricity; then, with as much as possible of my precious oil, I could hold the world to ransom

Once upon a time, the premise of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was viable: nuclear knowhow, back then, was limited mostly to the US, the UK, China, Russia (then the U.S.S.R.) and France. Since no one else could design or produce the things, the fortunate five could control the regime pretty well. And, let’s not forget, it was in their interest to do so. So long as no one else had the ability to make nuclear weapons, they were on the top of the heap. How nice for them!

Nice for them, but, to my mind, psychologically untenable, ultimately, for other countries. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty created two tiers: the empowered and the unempowered. That is never a stable formation. Especially when the outs, by far, outnumber the ins.

It worked for awhile, for course. Then the world changed. The relevant knowledge became more widely dispersed. Power relationships changed. Economic power shifted. Internal regimes changed and so national ambitions changed. The sense of loyalty and commitment to the old treaty, naturally, diminished, since treaties, like marriages, do not always last forever. What had been easy to enforce early on, for technological and other reasons, lost the force of inevitability and legitimacy.

And so, in recognition of the changed world we live in today, the Bush administration has lobbied its allies to support its decision to help India develop peaceful nuclear technology, while ignoring its nuclear weapons programs. What’s truly objectionable here, to my mind, is the whimsical ad hoc exceptionalism of the decision-making process, which undermines itself even when it pursues an occasionally worthy objective, a truly destructive characteristic of the Bush administration in general. Helping India can be justified, I think, though I’m not going to pursue that argument here, since any argument that could be made would come across much more strongly in the context of arguing with some rigor that the old treaty is sadly in need of being brought up to date with the realities of the world.

In short, isn't it possible that it's time to bring the nations of the world together to negotiate a new treaty, one that is based on mutual abhorrence of nuclear weapons, not on the coincidental fact that some countries have the technology and most don’t. We need a treaty in which countries declare, not that we won’t have the capacity, but that we won’t use the damned things, because we all know that they are basically too damned powerful, so we aren’t going to make or buy a lot of them, though we reserve the right to blackmail, so we can’t be blackmailed. And also very important: we aren’t going to give fissionable material to non-state actors because we know bad things can boomerang on us and we don’t want that.

There's nothing terribly idealistic here. It's just that no one, really, wants to be nuked out of existence. No one wants to see a city disappear. No one wants a death toll of millions in a minute. That's the basis for undertaking a tough job.

And yeah! After renegotiation, we might have to trust a lot of people from many more cultures and traditions. Yet, despite US worries to the contrary, India and Pakistan have not nuked one another, just as the US and the USSR never did. For the most part, countries are not led by suicidal madmen or psychopaths. And, for the most part, they respond well to respect.

As for the non-state actors, that fear will always be with us. But it can be handled.

Who Is John McCain? And why did he come to Albuquerque?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

John McCain dropped by the ballroom of the University of New Mexico's Student Union Building yesterday where he - according to various news reports - spent most of his speech attacking Barak Obama. I wasn't, however, on the invite list so can't give you a firsthand report.

According to the local media, including The Lobo, UNM's student newspaper, the McCain event drew about 1,000 attendees plus several hundred noisy demonstrators whose heckling could be heard inside the ballroom itself. The tickets, I assume, were carefully guarded and distributed by the Republican powers that be in the state. Oh, well.

Now it was gutsy of the McCain camp to stage this designed-for-the-national-media-nearly-local-stealth-invite-event in UNM's Student Union Building right in the center of the campus. The state's flagship and largest university - after all - is not normally the bastion of Republicanism although I remember a lively student Republican club in previous years.

I've been told that the campus Obama Campaign is large, very active and - as is the case with the Obama campaign operation elsewhere in town - highly organized. I've also been told that, in contrast to the energized and disciplined Obama folks as well as considerable Republican presence in the past, the campus Republicans this year have been almost invisible.

It was interesting that The Albuquerque Journal - our local conservative but subscription only access rag - mentioned that several hundred anti-McCain demonstrators surrounded the building. This newspaper all too often failed to report the large local anti-Bush, anti-Iraq invasion demonstrations in 2003. The Lobo placed the number of demonstrators yesterday at 250 - a number I assume the reporter got from campus security. If so, this count would probably be more accurate than the several hundred referred to in the Journal and elsewhere.

If it's Monday, it must be . . . where?

The most perceptive report of the event, however, included what didn't happen inside - as opposed to only what did. This was in the article in The New Mexican, the Democratic leaning paper based in Santa Fe. In contrast to The New Mexican, the reports in the The Albuquerque Journal and The Lobo featured sound-bites of McCain's latest anti-Obama diatribe followed by quicky after-event interviews with a few McCain supporters - or leaning McCain supporters who had been present at the happening and liked what they had heard. So Rove's "smear and fear" tactics must be having some - at least short term - effect on attendees. But neither paper reported what McCain didn't say that if he had would have been music to New Mexican ears.

Short shrift to New Mexicans

Not only did McCain give New Mexico and New Mexicans short shrift, but more surprisingly, he apparently never once mentioned its four Republican candidates running for the US Senate and Congress. He also gave only a quick tribute to retiring senior Senator and Republican stalwart Pete Domenici who was also there. Among the missing in McCain's acknowledgments was Republican candidate Senatorial candidate Steve Pearce who reportedly was in the audience. Kind of like New Mexico Republican politicians had become the proverbial invisible men - and that New Mexico's five electoral votes really didn't matter in the overall scheme of things.