STARK COUNTY STAGNATES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO "BULLY PULPIT" LEADERS?

Has President Barack Obama finally figured it out?

Perhaps?

If he is going to get his "it" (raising taxes on the richest 2% of Americans, while maintaining current tax rates for the middle class), he going to have to do something other than negotiate with "the Beltway politicians."

Because he emphasized this issue above all others in his recent win over Mitt Romney, he believes he has a mandate from the American voters to get his campaign's main issue enacted into law.

But he knows that the legislative politicos in Washington are highly skilled and adept at taking a matter with the clear support of the American people and remaking it unrecognizable or filibustering it out of existence.

So, the president is back out on the campaign trail pushing for manifested public support directed at Congress to move it towards passing his tax increase/expenditure plan as he has proposed it.

Last Friday, Obama showed up a Pennsylvania toy factory apparently continuing his campaign to rally supportive Americans to inundate Congress with telephone calls, faxes, face-to-faces in support of the president's proposal.

The president is practicing "the art of the bully pulpit:"  

A bully pulpit is a position sufficiently conspicuous to provide an opportunity to speak out and be listened to.

This term was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, who referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit", by which he meant a terrific platform from which to advocate an agenda.  (Wikipedia)

At the presidential level of politics and government, the art has a history.

But, by and large, not at the local government.

At the state level, how can one forget Governor James Rhodes and his constant preaching that his agenda was "jobs and progress."

As one who lived through the Rhodes administrations, it seems that practically every time he gave a speech or was interviewed, in one way, shape or form, he worked in his "jobs and progress" theme in his back and forth with the Ohio people.

But he has been the only one at the state level that yours truly can recall as having employed a form of "the bully pulpit."

At the Stark County level the SCPR cannot give any example of a local politician or public figure who has the charisma and drive vis-a-vis the people to attain being a compelling voice that people listen to.

The closest The Report can come to anything resembling a bully pulpit-esque crusade is the 20 year or so effort by Jackson Township fiscal officer Randy Gonzalez to get a "state of the art" 9-1-1 emergency call/dispatch program up-and-running in Stark County.

After years of evangelizing for an improved 9-1-1 (which a September 25, 2007 Stark County Council of Governments' commissioned report termed as "broken) in 2008, it appeared that Gonzalez had caught a break.

As it turns out ill-advisedly, in 2008 a (the-then) commissioner Todd Bosley (a surprising victor over incumbent commissioner Richard Regula in 2006) figured that picking up on rehabbing 9-1-1 was his path to Stark County political stardom and a future that seemingly would have no limits.

He got behind a plan to fund a 9-1-1 in which he convinced his fellow commissioners Tom Harmon and Jane Vignos "to impose" a 0.5% sales tax on Stark Countians which these commissioners  approved on December 30, 2008.

It was like manna from heaven for the long-suffering 9-1-1 advocate Gonzalez.

But as we know now, the "imposed" part of the financing of the 9-1-1 was not a smart idea inasmuch as less than a year later (the November election, 2009) Stark County voters overwhelmingly rejected having the tax imposed.

As a consequence of the ill-fated Bosley drive to get money for improving 9-1-1 (the tax also included monies for the Stark County general fund, a fact that was not emphasized by Bosley et al), Gonzalez was closer to realizing his dream that one day Stark County will in fact have "a state-of-the-art" 9-1-1 system.

His major barrier these days towards achieving his 9-1-1 goal is Stark County's premier political bully, namely, Mayor William J. Healy, II of Canton.

To his credit, Gonzalez is sticking to his advocacy and in doing so has achieved, in the view of the SCPR, a glimmer of approximating using the "bully pulpit effect" to achieve his objective.

But emphasize "glimmer."

Gonzalez as head of the Stark County Democratic Party primarily works in "out-of-the-public-view" circles.

He only achieve shades of the "bully pulpit effect" because as a political figure he does not capture the imagination of the Stark County public.

Day-in, day-out citizens getting activated, motivated, and besieging elected officials are the key ingredient to compelling the politicos to do what they are not otherwise disposed to do.

They are not his constituents.

His support, to the extent he has any, comes from a smattering of elected  Democrats and those public officials/employees across Stark County who believe in his project largely out of self interest (i.e. police, fire and EMS types).

Bosley could possibly have been that "persuade the public voice,"  but he had the fatal political flaw being seen as more a manipulator of the people for his personal political interests rather than being perceived as "a man of the people" genuinely looking out for the well-being and interests of Stark Countians.

Stark County really does not have any elected official or other public figure that commands the attention of the electorate.

We have no E.F. Hutton that everyone listens to.

The SCPR believes that if the county is to emerge from doldrums and oblivion that it currently rests in (the 2011 sales tax increase is just a "treading" financial water measure), someone is going to have:

• to emerge who has:
• good ideas,
• effective communication skills (i.e. ability to use "bully pulpit" skills), and
• projects an authentic, genuine concern for everyday Stark Countians,
• to advance a worthy cause (e.g. a comprehensive economic development plan) that captures the imagination of electorate.

Will that person please step forward with a cause for the betterment of Stark County?

CONGRESSMAN HAS GOT TO BE ONE "BIG TIME" KIDDER?

Undoubtedly, Congressman John Boccieri has given a lot of speeches in his time as a politician and office holder.

And in those speeches he peppers his audience with quotes from famous and revered Americans.

One of the revered Americans would be Abraham Lincolon.

But you can bet that he doesn't use the following quote to describe himself:

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time"

He may use it to describe some of his political opponents, but the SCPR suggests that the well known quote may be best applied to himself.

The SCPR never believed that Boccieri would vote against "cap-and-trade." Remember now, yours truly favors some form of "cap-and-trade." So Boccieri cannot say that the SCPR's critique is based on much of a difference on the result of his caving into Obama and House Speaker Pelosi.

And the SCPR thinks that the health care industry is collusive and not truly competitive with one another and people should have a "competitive" choice. So if Boccieri ends up voting with an Obama/Pelosi plan that includes a "public option," would yours truly be upset? Absolutely not!

What the SCPR sees in John Boccieri is a disingenuousness and a feigning of leaning a way contrary to his political party or a undecidedness, when in reality he is the captive of Democratic Party policies and positions on major legislation.

Moreover, Boccieri is more than a tad hypocritical. When newly elected, he criticized Republicans for voting lock-step against the stimulus package.

What is Boccieri's voting percentage with the Democrats?

Ninety-five percent!

With that kind of loyalty factor, how can you criticize others?

Back to the disingenuous factor.

Health care is a major issue. So no matter what Boccieri says now, you can bet he will end up voting the Obama/Pelosi way.

The Repository did excellent work (Robert Wang, Boccieri faces a quandary on health care) on the health care issue and Boccieri's "supposed" dilemma on Sunday.

A lesson that Boccieri needs to learn is this: "talk is cheap."

Perhaps in time he will prove to be his own man. But he hasn't so far.

So when he says (as he did to Wang):

“If people aren’t pleased with the service I’ve provided them, they can vote me out of office, I’m going to vote what’s best for the country. What’s best for the district. ... I’m not afraid to take a stand against my own party.”

One has to be skeptical based on how he has conducted (not words, conduct) himself so far in his tenure as congressman.

The Report expects a lot of Boccieri "bobbing and weaving" over the period that the legislation is being debated in Congress.

All one can do is dare, in fact "double, double dare" him to ACT with boldness. Unless and until he does so consistently, he will continue to come across as a vacillating politician.

And people will ask: Does Congressman Boccieri think he can prove Lincoln wrong? Does he really think you can " fool all the people all the time?"