Author: Patrick Dorinson

Does anybody remember the 1993 movie "Dave"? It was a nice little movie starring Kevin Kline about a philandering President who has a stroke and goes into a coma while he is "in flagrante delicato" with a mistress. (Gee, I wonder who the model was for that character.)

Dave runs a small Washington D.C. employment agency where he helps those who need a job, sometimes even giving them money from his own pocket to help them get by. He bears a striking resemblance to the comatose President, and he is enlisted to "fill-in" for the President at the behest of a deviously evil White House Chief of Staff and Press Secretary.

Dave begins to take the job seriously, and when he tries to fund a homeless program that the Chief of Staff wants cut, he decides to call his nerdy accountant Murray, played by Charles Grodin, to come to the White House and help him look for savings in the Federal Budget so he can restore the funding.

The following is an exchange is between Dave and Murray. After the script excerpt I will tell you what this all has to do with the current mess in Washington and closer to home in Sacramento.

Congratulations President–elect Obama. Good luck. You will need it. Now, time to get to work America.

First thoughts after the election.

Now Republicans know what General Custer felt like at the Little Bighorn. Out-numbered, surrounded and ultimately slaughtered.

Public financing of campaigns is now dead thanks to the Obama Campaign. No Republican will ever agree to it again, and if you hear the Democrats say they want to “tweak” the system, Republicans should say thanks but no thanks. In fact, let’s get rid of all limits. They are an affront to free speech. The influence of big money will never be removed from politics, so why are we kidding ourselves and enriching election lawyers to figure out ways around the laws. Any reform has within it the seeds of its own corruption.

The term “canaries in the coal mine” has been around for a long time. Unfortunately we are a nation of urbanites, suburbanites, and ex-urbanites who have no idea what it means. For that matter most Americans have no idea where their food comes from either, but that is a story for another day.

Here is the best definition I have found, courtesy of wisegeek.com.

“Life for an actual canary in a coal mine could be described in three words – short but meaningful. Early coalmines did not feature ventilation systems, so miners would routinely bring a caged canary into new coal seams. Canaries are especially sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide, which made them ideal for detecting any dangerous gas build-ups. As long as the canary in a coal mine kept singing, the miners knew their air supply was safe. A dead canary in a coalmine signaled an immediate evacuation.”

In modern terms, the canaries were an early warning system to keep the miners out of danger.

When I worked at the California ISO during the California Energy Crisis of 2000-01, the skilled engineers there gave me a great education about how California’s and the nation’s electricity system works. But the more important lesson they taught me was about contingency planning. Contingency planning means that you must be prepared for any and all situations and have plans in place to resolve those situations.

With that in mind, it not unreasonable for Republicans to develop some contingency plans to deal with what would come under a Democratic President and an overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress.

And while never conceding defeat before the votes have been counted, prudence dictates that one must prepare for any and all possible contingencies.

Today’s piece will focus on what we might expect from and Obama Administration and the Reid-Pelosi Congress in the first 100 Days. Here are a few things to watch early next year.

What seems like the longest election cycle in history will mercifully be over in three weeks. President Bush is down to his last three months in office and I am sure that after eight long and difficult years he is ready if not eager to go home to Crawford, Texas and let someone else see if they can govern this restless and divided country.

But what about the foam-at-the-mouth Bush-haters? What will they do with themselves? How will Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, CBS and the New York Times cope with this situation? To say nothing about the late night comedians like David Letterman who will have no material.

And what about the insipid and vacuous Hollywood celebrities? Who will they trash from the safety of their mansions in Beverly Hills and the Cannes Film Festival? And the Democrats in Congress will have lost their favorite punching bag . The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report with Steven Colbert will be dropped from the Comedy Central due to drastic ratings drops without Bush and the Republicans in power providing fodder.

If you think this year has been one of great turmoil and uncertainty, just wait until next year.

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the following is a preview about what might happen in 2009 and beyond in the aftermath of the Great Financial Debacle of 2008. The public will demand someone be held accountable and it will be ugly even by Washington standards. The media guillotine will have a sharp edge and be very busy.

My scenario assumes an Obama Administration. My apologies to Republicans but I think they will like the ending.

So take a trip in my handy time machine as we fast forward to the spring of 2009…

The election has taken a dramatic turn over the last few weeks that no one foresaw a year ago and no one knows how it will end. Any pundit, commentator or columnist who says they know who will be the next President is either a fool or a partisan.

And as Lincoln once said, “Better to be silent and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt.” So I will take his counsel and not make a prediction on who will win in November.

However there is one thing of which I am more certain. America is entering a new age—the Age of Uncertainty. This new era has been coming for a long time and its roots run deep.

The very cornerstones of the American system that have sustained this nation through good times and bad are being challenged as never before and some will disappear forever. Financial institutions that have been around for many years have already disappeared and more are likely to follow. The media giants of the last century, the newspapers, are in serious trouble challenged by the internet, theblogosphere and a rapidly changing media environment.

The first salvo has been fired in the looming battle over who controls redistricting in California. Is it CCPOA, their special interest allies and their chief water carrier Senate Pro Tem Don Perata and his loyal subjects in the Legislature or the people of California led by Governor Schwarzenegger?

A just released web ad by the Yes on Proposition 11 folks lays it out pretty clearly.

Is this the same Don Perata who told LA Times columnist George Skelton in 2005, “If voters would reject the governor’s ballot proposition, Perata told me, “Our commitment… is to fashion a bipartisan solution in a thoughtful way and put it on the ballot next year.” Ditto, said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles).”

Is this the same Don Perata who gathered Democratic leaders together a few months ago and in his invitation to the meeting said the purpose was, “to discuss campaign strategy and organization for the attempt to beat back the effort to take the decennial redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature and give it to a non-political citizens committee.”

Three years ago, just before the special election of 2005, I wrote the following article for the Capitol Weekly, Sacramento’s excellent newspaper of California politics and government. Think of it as our version of Washington’s Roll Call.

Not much has changed since I wrote this piece. If anything, things have gotten worse.

When will the people of California wake up from their political slumber and take back their government?

Thomas Jefferson once said, “If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, Assemblies, judges and Governors shall all become wolves”.