The New face of Discrimination

There appears to be a new discrimination that is rampant across our country. This past week there was an arrest of an African American Professor (Henry Louis Gates) of Harvard by the Cambridge police and I found it interesting that President Obama and Governor (Deval) Patrick came out and immediately cried "racism" by law enforcement without asking a single question. They didn't ask about the protocol used by the police, they didn't ask what witnesses saw, they appeared to simply just jumped to conclusions. The reason why is because 'one of their own' had to have been mistreated, in their minds. Before you accuse me of using the "race card," I am not. I recognize that Obama, Patrick, and Gates are all African American and the arresting office was white. But that isn't what I mean. Gates and his supporters have something else in common, they are elitists.

• Patrick graduated from Harvard University for both his undergraduate degree and a law degree. Furthermore, he went to the prestigious Milton Academy.


• Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and then went on to Harvard Law School, becoming the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.
  
• Henry Louis Gates, the man at the center of the storm, has his BA in History from Yale and a PhD in English from Cambridge University.
  

What seems to be playing a bigger role in the things these men have in common is elitism, rather than race. We don't want to miss, in this story, the poor police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, who could not be more "blue collar" in his uniform. Like most police officers today, he likely has some college experience. A couple of years of college maybe or, who knows, an undergraduate degree from a solid college some where. His academic credentials are not nearly as easy to find of those of his accusers. I do know he teaches a course on race relations at the police academy because of his years of experience and exceptional conduct in this area. Now being tarnished by a Governor and President who don't know enough about the situation and a professor who knows more than exists in the hearts of men. At least, it appears, this man.

All we have are some facts, laid out nicely by The New York Daily News. The information surrounding the case that all parties agreed on:

"Crowley, an 11-year veteran of the Cambridge Police Department, responded to a reported break-in at the renowned scholar's home last Thursday. A neighbor reported seeing two black men break into the professor's home. She was unaware the man forcing his way inside was Gates, who had locked himself out. When Crowley arrived, he told an incensed Gates he was investigating a report of a break-in and asked for his identification. 'Why? Because I'm a black man in America,' Gates responded, the police report says. Gates initially refused to hand over his ID, instead angrily accusing the officer of being a racist and 'leveling threats that he wasn't someone to mess with,' the report says. After Gates produced his Harvard University ID, he repeatedly demanded Crowley state his name, which the officer claims he had already done. Crowley said Gates continued hurling insults at him as he left the home. Crowley arrested the scholar for disorderly conduct. The charge was later dropped. 'He was arrested after following me outside the house, continuing the tirade even after being warned multiple times - probably a few more times than the average person would,' Crowley told the radio station." You can hear the entire interview here.

Comedian Bill Cosby, who has become something of a conscious to many in the African American community, commented on the controversy with three simple words, "I wasn't there." He wants both sides to simply speak the truth and the facts to be examined. He doesn't conclude that the person with the better credentials is a better person, an impression that the Governor of Massachusetts and the President of the United States seems to be conveying.

Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business, the longest running show on AM 650 (M-F at 11 am) in Houston, Texas and on AOL Radio. His articles often appear in Chicago Sun Times, Reuters, USA Today, and other national media. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal calls Price the “best business talk show host in the country.” Find out why and visit his blog at www.BizPlusBlog.com and his show site at www.PriceofBusiness.com. You can also find Price on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com.

See How They Run: The Potential for Precedent

The 2008 election for President is full of potential firsts. There is the possibility of the first female President with Hillary Clinton, or first African American with Barack Obama, or the first Mormon with Mitt Romney (see photo, left). Clinton and Obama are considered the two Democratic front runners and Romney is considered (barely) in the top tier of Republican candidates.

What are their chances?

* Hillary Clinton isn't likely to win, in my opinion, and many rank and file Republicans hopes she gets her party's nomination in the belief that she will spell defeat for Democrats in November. She is considered one of the most polarizing politicians in the US today. She has the highest negatives (and, ironically, positives) of all the major candidates. Winning the campaign for President is predicated on candidates picking up voters as other candidates pull out of the race. I believe that those who will support her, are largely supporting her now. The defeat of other candidates will find their voters going elsewhere.

* Barack Obama's biggest problem is that he is simply too liberal to be President of the United States. He wants to dramatically increase taxes on wealth creation, he promotes socialized medicine, and he generally behaves as though the US is the single biggest problem on the world scene. Obama is even having problems among African American voters with many from that natural base going to Clinton (thanks largely to the popularity of her husband). I believe Americans are ready for a person of any race, but not this particular African American. This isn't due to skin color, but due to the content of his beliefs.

* Mitt Romney is the most likely of these three candidates to break precedence. The former governor of Massachusetts is getting some harassment because of his Mormon religion, but in the end I think he will over come those objections. Romney is charismatic, comes across as very Conservative (although his positions have evolved over time), and has an excellent family life (very important to the crucial Evangelical voters). There are things in the Mormon theology that should be of concern to the general Christian population. But most Americans, even Evangelical voters, don't study theology. If he looks, acts, and talks like a Christian -- which he certainly does -- he will be embraced by most of them. His beliefs are certainly more attractive to the Conservative base than those of Guiliani or McCain.

In the end, I have my doubts that any of the above are going to pull it off. I believe the next President will probably be a former or sitting Governor and from the West or South. I say this based on the population changes we have seen over the last several decades and the fact that virtually every candidate has fitted that bill since 1960. There are lots of months elections between now and 2008, it should be an interesting race.

See How They Run: The First in a Series on the 2008 Elections

There are few things that have a bigger impact on a business's bottom line than government. In fact, government is a huge shareholder in virtually every business that takes huge amounts of money without helping a company's performance and actually undermines their productivity through excessive regulations and licensure laws (ask me how I really feel). Therefore, being informed about who is running is crucial in order to make sure that the people that are chosen do as little damage as possible. So over the next two years (can you believe it) I intend to do several articles on some of the dynamics of the race, discuss who is running, and in a very bold move describe very closely the next president even before the first primaries are held. In fact, you should be able to guess who that candidate will be by my description (just wait, I think it will be impressive).

In the posts on this subject that come I will discuss:

* Why they are running so early.

* Do candidates getting started this early weaken sitting incumbants?

* What role race, gender, and religion will play in the election.

* Who each of the candidates are (in both parties) and what their chances of winning.

* The role the Internet will play in these elections (like TV, a largely new media in 1960 destroyed Richard Nixon; the Web is knocking off candidates with tongues that slip and other behaviors).

I'm sure over time that several other items will come up and I would love to hear from others on other issues I should cover. With the possibility of the election of a woman, an African American, Hispanic, Mormon, and who knows what else I am missing, 2008 promises to be a very interesting year indeed. And even if we elect another white guy again this election will be historic because we will not have had an incumbant President or Vice President on the ballot in any Primary. We haven't seen that since 1928.

In Spite Being Marketed as "New", Obama Sounds Like Old Time Democrat

If you were listening to a radio and the voice didn't tune in very well and sounded distorted, Sen. Barack Obama's announcement could easily be confused with a campaign speech from Jesse Jackson's earlier failed campaigns. Obama talks about a "new day" and a "new chapter" in our history, but his rhetoric is largely stuck in America's past.

He discusses racism and discrimination as if it were as prominent today as when he was born in the 1960s. Frankly, his neighborhood must have been much rougher than mine because we were born the same year and this little white boy's best friend was an African American named Joe Cosby through most of our elementary years. Marty White became one of my best friends in Junior High and he, too, was African American. I'm not saying that America hasn't struggled with racism, but I get the sense that many African Americans of a liberal persuasion want to throw our grandparents racism in our face as means of using guilt to get their ends. Obama is going to find this a dangerous and unproductive trail to take, in my opinion. He needs to become a candidate for all the people and not a man looking for revenge from the past.

His views of the economy are stuck in the past as well. Thomas Friedman has persuasively pointed out that "the world is flat," which means that through technology anyone in the world can compete with anyone else. That is why China and India have become such major economic players in the last few years. Obama acts as though he doesn't live in the same world as we do. He attacks free trade, argues for raising salaries to artificial highs, and taxing businesses into oblivion. Unfortunately, in our world, that would translate to shabby American products, the exportation of jobs, and the demise of job creation. The world we live in requires being competitive, not living in a fantasy world of how it "should" be.

Furthermore, Obama wants to talk about socialized medicine (AKA, universal health care) as a panacea to our medical crisis. There is no doubt we need people covered, but shifting it to government only means that health care will be plagued with shortages and there will be reduced accountability (good luck suing the government for their medical mistakes). My grandfather and aunt died in England waiting for treatment thanks to socialized medicine and that is a common stated cause in countries that use such a system. Obama's proposal is the same Ted Kennedy advocated in the 1960s and there is nothing new to it. An innovative approach would be one that gives 100 percent tax credits for individuals to get their own coverage, even earned income credit for some (meaning they get money directly back for their purchase), the creation of policies with high deductibles and additional tax savings for taking annual visits (prevention is crucial), and other policies that restore responsibility where it belongs (which is on individuals).

Finally, his anti-war rhetoric is a flashback to the 1960s and the Vietnam War. We are not fighting against a potential domino principle (the belief many countries would fall to communism if Vietnam fell), but a real threat. We were attacked by terrorists and many of the ones fighting our brave and trained volunteers there would normally be over here attacking public schools and hospitals if we haven't moved the theater of the war to the Middle East. We didn't start this war and we are very naive to think we can ended by moving troops out of there and over here. There is little question that our enemies will follow them.

There is nothing really new in Obama's rhetoric, it is the same old time liberalism stuck in the tragic decades of the past. We can't protect America's jobs, we have to compete for them. We can't stick our heads in the sand, we must fight for our safety and freedom wherever the war requires. Government cannot solve our health care crisis and many can argue it caused it; instead we need real solutions with more consumer involvement.

The US can't afford Obama's policies, neither in money nor human lives. There is nothing new about him and his approach to politics has been a dying breed for decades. It is my hope that voters can see through the style and the find the lack of substance.