In 2010, President Obama and his Democratic leadership in Congress, Nancy Pelosi
and Harry Reid are campaigning, and are defending their record and policies, but
in the face of unambiguous and steadily declining unpopularity and rejection of
their agenda, they are making no response to the electoral landscape, no adjustment
as has been the case of all those in their position in recent decades. They appear, in
fact, to be behaving as if they and their policies are enormously popular and
successful.

For Republican candidates, who have to be constantly pinching themselves to make
sure it is not just a wonderful political dream, there is the consequent political
advantage of just saying “No!” and “No thanks” to the Democratic agenda that has
featured gigantic bailouts, radical and unpopular healthcare reform, and repeated
foreign policy failures. Mr. Obama, Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid seem to be doing the
heavy work for them!

For Democratic candidates, it is a nightmare that does not stop, as they watch not
only competitive house, senate and gubernatorial races slip away, but usually
considered “safe” ones as well. Recent reports that Democratic house leaders and
strategists are prepared to “abandon” many of their own (and marginal) candidates
to create a “firewall” that will salvage their control, makes it a nightmare-within-a-
nightmare for those candidates, already struggling for political air.

This dream-nightmare landscape up to and including September cannot continue
without dire consequences for the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.
If it does, the political slaughter of the Democratic Party will be of such historical
dimensions that the presidential election of 2012, barring some titanic unforeseen
international occurrence, will only be a charade. The only question then will be
who the Republicans choose for their nominee. In a dream-nightmare, there are
no laws of gravity. In the so-called real world, gravity is still operative.

Increasingly, as President Obama campaigns across the nation, as he is doing now,
he will be spurned and avoided by his own party’s candidates. It has already begun.
Those Democrats who stand at the president’s side will only become the dream wish
fulfilled of GOP political admakers.

I do realize that the Obama administration is staking a great deal in the current
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. With its enormous economic
leverage, the U.S. can always force these matters and even make the Israeli and
Palestinian leaders say hopeful things to the media. But with powerful and hostile
Iran and Hamas in the background, and their allies, any Middle East agreement
made today isn’t worth the paper it’s signed on. Besides, the primary issue
fueling voter dissatisfaction with the Democrats today is the state of domestic
economy and the very high unemployment throughout the nation. The “suspicious”
timing of these Middle East negotiations are clearly an attempt to divert public
attention from our domestic woes.

So there will almost certainly be an attempt at an “October surprise” this year, as
Democrats further wake up to the urgency of their situation. I don’t know what it
will be, but there will be one. Watch for it.

These are ultimate considerations in our conscious lives, and they
seem too big even to try to grasp, but certain events occur in each
of our lives to remind us they are always there. A death in a family
is such an event. Everyone experiences this phenomenon; it is
perhaps the most commonly-shared experience, along with the birth of a
child in a family, in human life in the world.

My only brother Tom died a few days ago of a painful and virulent
form of cancer. He was 77. He was much older than I was, and as a
result we were not close until each of us was in middle age.
At the death of our parents, we were the only ones left of our generation
who shared a particular family experience, and this drew us together.

While a death in the family is a universal experience, the relationships
in a family are as variable as fingerprints, as unique as the biographies
of each one of us who lives on this earth.

My brother Tom was a physicist, a solid state theoretical physicist
who employed mathematics and computers in new ways, and he
became a preeminent figure in his particular field of infrared detection
research. I knew almost nothing about this, as the rest of his
immediate family apparently did not as well, because so much of his
work was classified. He was a willful person, and not shy, but he was
modest to his family not only about his work, but about his role in it,
and his contribution to his country and to his profession.

If you will indulge me a bit, I will tell you a little about his
achievements as I have come to learn about them, not just because
he was my brother and I was proud of him, but also because I think he
is emblematic of so many others around us who make huge contributions
to our civilization that has been created over the past several thousands
of years.

When my brother was working at Honeywell Research Center in
Minnesota, he took an interest in a semiconductor alloy,
mercury-cadmium telluride, that seemed to have remarkable
properties in the then-new field of infrared detection research.
He pursued this, along with a few colleagues, and he reportedly
made some original mathematical calculations that advanced the
understanding of why this alloy had these properties. This became
the focus of the rest of his scientific career, and of a relatively small
but growing group of other scientists as well.

The practical application of their research has had very significant
consequences for all of us, even if their work in science and technology
has been invisible to all but a few. Infrared detectors are now used in
thousands of thermal imaging systems for defense, and these detectors
are also widely used in satellites which map the earth and its atmosphere,
including the monitoring of atmospheric pollutants. I believe it is also quite
possible (but I’m guessing) that new infrared technology has many invaluable
applications and uses ahead, perhaps technological roles which will be
vital to our survival.

Tom Casselman was one of the pioneers in this field, and he was also
active in enabling it to be passed to new generations of scientists. For
example, he conceived and co-hosted the first mercury-cadmium telluride
workshop almost 30 years ago, an event which now occurs annually,
and which draws scientists and researchers from all over the world. He
has also mentored and encouraged many young physicists in this field as
its importance and technology has advanced. While his contribution has
been great, as his colleagues have told me, I do not want to suggest that
others have not made an equal or even greater contribution to the field.
(Some other brother or sister, daughter or son, could easily be writing a
similar tribute to their family member who worked in this field.)

In fact, there are thousands of scientists, almost none of whom receive a
Nobel Prize or any other highly public award, but who make an
irreplaceable contribution to the security of their country and the world,
and to the advancement of science.

It is often said recently that we live in an age with few heroes. Since
many of our heroes in the past were extraordinary military generals and
political figures, and I would concur that we have very few of those today,
it may be a valid observation. But then, we might wonder who. if any, are
the heroes of today. Certainly, I think they include the many men and
women in uniform who are daily risking their lives (and sadly in some
cases, losing them) to defend and protect their country and their way of
life. May I also suggest that our heroes include the uncounted men and
women who advance, however invisibly (as did my brother Tom),
scientific technology, medicine, and all borders of human knowledge.

When there is a death in a family, one story ends, but as long as there are
new generations, a family continues, its novel continues, new stories
happen and are told. The continuum of civilization, however, always
seems to have punctuation marks of war and disaster, danger and threat.
We are grateful for each Socrates, Galileo, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Einstein,
Churchill, Dalai Lama, and the other great men and women, and no one
can diminish what they did nor the story their lives tell. But without the
Tom Casselmans, and so many unnamed and unheralded persons like him,
this giant complicated family of six billion souls has no next story to tell, and
no hope.

As I have previously pointed out, the likely election of centrist Democrat Joe Manchin
to succeed the aging Robert Byrd in West Virginia is a notable example of this. But the
trend is present in other seats vacated by incumbent Democrats (by retirement, primary
defeat or death) in 2010. Richard Blumenthal is ahead in Connecticut, and has a record
more likely to be to the center of retiring Senator Chris Dodd. Kirsten Gillebrand was
appointed to succeed Hillary Clinton in New York in 2009, so the seat is not technically
an open one, but Senator Gillebrand is up for election for the first time and has a huge
lead in the race. She used to be more centrist when a congresswoman, but she is
certainly less liberal than Mrs. Clinton. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania may not win this
year, but if he does, he will likely be to the center right of the man he defeated for
the nomination, Arlen Spector, a party-switching former liberal Republican. It’s more
opaque in Illinois where Democrat Roland Burris was appointed to finish the term of
Barack Obama on his election as president. Liberal Burris chose not to run, but it is
not clear if the Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulis is much more than a Chicago
machine politician, and how centrist he might be if elected. (His center-right GOP
opponent seems now to have a slightly better chance of winning.)

Democratic centrists will lose a seat to the GOP in November since Evan Bayh is
retiring, and will probably lose another when Arkansas incumbent Blanche Lincoln
likely loses in November. Although appointed center-left Democrat Ted Kaufman
(who replaced Vice President-elect Joe Biden) is not running in Delaware, likely
GOP winner in that race Congressman Michael Castle is himself considered a GOP
centrist.

But Castle is the exception this year on the Republican side where likely winning
candidates have moved distinctly to the right. Conservative GOP nominee Joe Miller
has defeated centrist Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. Appointed
Republican George LeMieux will likely be replaced by a more conservative Marco
Rubio. Most other retiring Republicans will be replaced by those who are equally
or more conservative than they are.

Thus, whether or not the Republicans win control of the U.S. senate in 2010, the
upper house will almost certainly become distinctly more conservative. In fact,
conservatives may control the senate regardless of their party affiliations.

Now, almost 40 years later, what some very visionary and smarter folks than I am
saw coming, is now at out doorstep. Unfunded liabilities of public pension funds are
now so large that the numbers are staggering and grim.

In many American cities, for example, the bulk of local taxation goes to pay for
the costs of pension funds for public employees. Increasingly, the same is becoming
true of costs and taxes at state and federal levels. The bottom line is that if some
“drastic” reform is not effected, and soon, public employees simply will not receive
their pension benefits. For some reason, there is amazingly little discussion of this
explosive matter in the media, and by political figures of both parties.

I am not talking here about social security or private (corporate) pension funds
which have, or soon will have, huge unfunded liabilities of their own.

This is not some small problem that can be easily fixed or wished away. It is also
no longer a problem which lies in the distant future, and can be procrastinated to
some future group of officials.

At some point, the stock market, other markets, and the corporate governance
community will have to react and act. There is no solution to this whole issue that
will be without considerable pain and difficulty. And now, the longer it is put off,
the more painful and expensive it will become. The clocks of this issue are now all
running out.

Hello?

There is, in fact, no conventional wisdom worth talking about this political cycle.

I am suggesting that the surprises have only begun. No incumbent this year,
particularly no Democratic incumbent, is safe this cycle. It has been said many times
already that voters are upset. I am suggesting that voters are more than upset.
They are in a rapacious mood to clean house, something often mentioned rhetorically,
but which very rarely happens.

Lisa Murkowski, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Patty Murray, Richard Blumenthal,
Harry Reid were not on any list I saw of vulnerable senators at the beginning of the
year. Blanche Lincoln was on a few lists. Now they’re all in trouble. At least 2-3 of
them are going to lose, and perhaps all of them will go down. Although the
anti-incumbent mood is not directed solely at Democrats, most of the vulnerable
members of the house and senate are those who have voted for the Obama
administration’s legislation and supported its policies. (In fact, most of those
Republican incumbents in trouble are those who voted for liberal legislation.)

Chris Dodd, Arlen Spector, Roland Burris, George Voinovich and Byron Dorgan are
already gone, either defeated in primaries or voluntarily retired rather than face
defeat.

We are almost at the end of the primary season. The surprises now will come in
the general election. Lacking any political experience to speak of, and evidently
no serious student of history, President Obama makes matters worse for his
own party almost every day. The Republican leadership in Congress, to be candid,
has not been particularly aggressive or imaginative so far, but this is beginning
to change. Notwithstanding that Michael Steele is technically the head of the
Republican National Committee, the true leadership of the GOP is in the hands
of Governor Haley Barbour, former RNC chair and now the head of the Republican
Governors Association. Mr. Barbour is a very savvy political operator. Congressman
John Boehner, heretofore only a perfunctory critic of the Obama administration, is
at last becoming more outspoken. The politically unattractive Democratic
congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sound more and more out of
touch.

Most importantly, and the primary cause for voter anxiety, is that events and
conditions are not going well. Some of these, of course, are beyond the control
of presidents and other politicians. But many are not. Voters have observed a
steady long list of mistakes made with the economy, pressing domestic issues and
foreign policy by the Democrats (and some Republicans), not only at the national
and international level.

We are only two months from election day. Undecided voters are already
beginning to make up their minds, and their decisions now appear to be going
one way. This can change, of course, but August will very soon be September,
and by World Series time in October, voter rage may be out of control.

Perhaps, by so-called objective standards, voters may over-react on Election
Day. Perhaps. But there is no clarity in government today, no sense of matters
getting better, no sense of most elected officials doing much more than take
care of themselves.

If this is where we are the first week of November, all bets are off.

After Democrat Robert Byrd, the senate’s oldest member, died recently, there was
widespread expectation that West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin would succeed
him, possibly by appointing himself. Manchin, an enormously popular two-term
governor, wisely eschewed self-appointment, a fatal trap for many a popular
governor in the past, and chose a bright young West Virginian to take the seat
temporarily. Then, Manchin announced he would seek the seat in this year’s special
election. Although there are prominent Republicans in this conservative state, none
of the most well-known current GOP officeholders decided to run against him.
He is expected to win his race easily, even as Democrats across the nation face
problematic challenges.

Manchin’s background is considerable. He has served in the West Virginia legislature
as both a representative (delegate) and senator. He was then elected the state’s
secretary of state. In 2005, he took office as governor, and has been re-elected
to that office with large majorities. He has been regarded as one of the most popular
governors in the nation of either party throughout his terms. (He won a second term
in 2008 with more than 70% of the vote, even as John McCain carried the state
by 13%.

Manchin’s personality, abiliity and experience will probably establish him as a figure
in the new senate (2011), even if his party does not maintain control, but he presents
a serious problem for current Democratic leaders, notwithstanding their desperate
need for young new leaders in the Congress. Joe Manchin is strongly pro-life and
pro-gun in a national party which has in the recent past been strongly pro-choice and
for gun control. Manchin is also an economic centrist and a strong supporter of the
coal industry and small business.

Manchin will join a shrinking number of Democratic centrists in the senate (some
incumbents are retiring and at least some of them are likely to lose their re-elections
this year). Whether he will be allowed to grow into a leadership position in the senate
is unknown. But the Democratic leadership in the senate risks alienating one of their
own next January if they isolate him, and it is increasingly clear that they will need
his vote as their margin of control either narrows to only a few votes or disappears
entirely.

My point, however, is that it would appear that corn, wheat, soybeans and many if not
most of the agricultural products grown in the U.S. are heading for bumper crops this
year in many (but not all) regions. If it does turn out this way, and the droughts and
weather-damaged crops of Europe, including especially Russia (which faces a serious
wheat shortage), result in food shortages around the world, then our nation’s role as a
great agricultural supplier in the world is once again spotlighted.

In the first one hundred years of our history, most Americans worked in farms and
agricultural-related industries. By the end of the 19th century, however, we became
known increasingly as an industrial and technological center. We continued to
produce prodigious amounts of food products for ourselves and other nations, but
our farm population shrunk as many farmers moved to our urban centers.

There is a romantic notion even today about the so-called family farm and its
disappearance, and leftist criticism of so-called corporate farming. The latter is often
attacked for its agricultural techniques of using pesticides, antibiotics and other tools
that produce larger and larger yields. A charming cult of organic farming and
chemical-free food, in reaction, has arisen, a well-meaning but atavistic attempt to
revive conditions of the past. (Full disclosure: as a food writer, I do recognize that
“organic” and “locally-produced” usually tastes better. I often praise chefs and
restaurants who purchase, prepare and serve this kind of food and cuisine. However,
these strategies of growing, preparing and dining on this kind of food is very
expensive, too expensive to feed a nation of 300 million, and even to provide food in
addition to billions more around the planet.)

Recently, it was disclosed that the “scientific” conviction that DDT caused cancer,
held for decades, was inaccurate. The problem was that the UN and other world
organizations banned DDT and related pesticides also for decades, and this resulted
in worldwide food shortages (especially in Africa) that killed many millions from
starvation. Organic and artisan food-growing has an authentic place in our culture,
but we have to be honest about the fact that it is an elite phenomenon, and does not
solve the larger challenge to feed everyone and reduce starvation.

This brings me to the irony of this year’s prospective U.S. harvest. Threatened by
commercial and technological rivals around the world, including China, India,
Korea, Japan, Russia and Brazil, it turns out that many of our rivals will not need
from us electronics, airplanes and automobiles, but they will need our basic food
products! (It should be noted that many of our farming methods still produce
higher yields than those from other parts of the world.)

Of course, next year could be different. Harvests could be weak in the U.S. and
strong in the rest of the world. But wherever it comes from, our basic food
products will be as important as they were in 1776, and 1876.

I write this as a note to other city boys and girls, especially those who take
food and hunger for granted. There is a true “romantic” history of the American
farm, and the heroic farmers who have fed us, and billions of others, for more
than two centuries. By all means, let us dine on “organic” produce, “wild-caught”
seafood, “grass-fed” meats, “free range” poultry and exotic plants and fungae.
But let us also acknowledge our dependence on the vagaries of the winds and
clouds and the weather fronts which move across our land, often forgotten by
those of us dwelling and working in urban condos, apartments, townhouses and
suburban homes in the “modern” America.

He came into the office of president, however, with very little political and executive
experience, probably less than anyone in the Oval Office for the past century. He
gathered around him friends and foes, but his innermost circle includes mostly
friends (a totally understandable and common phenomenon). It was thought that some
of those friends would give the new president good advice. If they did, he has not
seemed to be listening. He seems to be listening to himself.

To his critics, of which I am one, he has made numerous mistakes in domestic and
foreign policy, and has constantly exhibited his inexperience. Most of these critics
find his rhetoric pedestrian, and his political instincts inept. These critics also find
his dealings with foreign leaders and nations to be dangerously naive at best.

His supporters see Mr. Obama quite differently. They consider the legislation
passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed into law by Mr. Obama
to be significant and positive “change.” They hear his speeches as “eloquent.”
They agree with and applaud much of his point of view, including his foreign policies.

But many of these supporters are now not so sure about his political instincts.
They note that most of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid legislation is unpopular, causing the
president’s popularity to nosedive, and endangering Democratic control of both
houses of Congress. They observe his “tin ear” as he espouses provocative views
about building a mosque at Ground Zero in New York and opposing the clear
views of Arizonians on immigration. As the midterm elections approach (now less
than 3 months away) more and more senators and members of Congress are
distancing themselves from Mr. Obama and his administration.

Mr. Obama himself seems unmoved by his sudden unpopular trend in his own
party, the loss of support of many independents who voted for him in 2008,
and of course the criticism of him coming from Republicans and conservatives.

Some glib analysts have suggested Mr. Obama and his coterie want to lose the
2010 elections so that they can run against Republicans in 2012. But most
observers have concluded that he is simply naive and self-deluded, and is a
true believer in his own world-view (whatever that is), and is willing to lose in
2012 to promote that world view.

While I do think Barack Obama is misinformed by his own lack of political and
executive experience, I am beginning to conclude that he is not as politically
clumsy and clueless as his actions so far would indicate.

Right or wrong, I suspect that President Obama thinks his agenda and political
strategy, now faltering in opinion polls, will be redeemed by events. I suspect
that he believes his treatment of the leaders of Iran, Russia, North Korea and
Venezuela (most of whom now scorn him in private) will produce diplomatic
triumph. I suspect that he believes his understanding of the economy will
produce a notable if not dramatic turnaround before 2012. I suspect he believes
he can satisfy the far left of his political base while at the same time appearing
to be a “mainstream liberal” to the rest of the Democratic Party base as well as
most independent voters.

As readers know, I do not share his beliefs above, but I think we have to
understand his actions, not as intentionally politically suicidal, but as behavior which
anticipates results that will be dramatically different than his critics predict.

So Mr. Obama is a kind of radical “contrarian.” The Prairie Editor, as readers know,
is also a contrarian, but he anticipates contrarian results and outcomes of a very
different kind.

My conclusion is that Barack Obama is the first political “sleepwalker” American
president. He lives and acts in his dreams, dreams formed here and in his
childhood outside the mainland U.S.. There is always the chance that he is more right
than wrong, but all of us will know whether he is or not, as economic, political and
international events continue to unfold.

This, almost certainly, will wake us all up.

That point is that what we call “war,” that is violent hostilities between nations, and
within nations, involving armed soldiers, in or out of uniform, has existed 24/7 for
every moment in the history or recorded human civilization (the past 10,000 years
or so). It has not occurred in all places at all times, but somewhere notable warfare
is always taken place or being prepared.

Aside from General Patton and many professional soldiers over the ages, few openly
say they “like” or “love” war. Human idealism has always inclined to hopes and
aspirations for “peace” which presumably is the absence of war. Violence and
suffering, it goes without saying, is antithetical to the rhetoric of most religions,
societies, philosophies and cultures, and yet war persists, even becomes more
“terrible” as new and bigger weapons and techniques of warfare are developed.

It would seem, therefore, that a genuine opposition to war requires a deeper
examination of the human psyche, and the basic conditions of human civilization,
than has been made before, and also requires the introduction of MUCH more
pragmatic and effective steps to curtail war in any form than has been made to
date.

Slogans, bumper stickers, pacifism, treaties, truces, emotional rhetoric and similar
phenomena really do nothing to resolve the nature of human conflict. We are still
bands of men and women coming out from our caves to do battle over conflicts,
petty or not, and trying vainly to resolve them by force.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it would seem, humanity has climbed
into a kind of technological dazzle, and fallen further into its nature of violence. It
has been pointed out by some that “democracies” rarely if ever go to war with each
other. “Democracies” are a recent human phenomenon, however, and apparently
vulnerable in the present and upcoming world. Some of democracy’s “elites” recently
have even stated a preference for the techniques, conditions and processes of new
totalitarian societies (in the name of egalitarianism and efficiency, of course).

You can translate all of this into the lamentable but inevitable occurrence of more
war. Endless war it is; endless war it will be.

Of course, it is a relatively long time until the primary season in early 2012, but
the possibility is now credible enough that we might ask: If not Obama, who?

The most conventional answers are not very helpful. Vice President Joe Biden and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are so bound to Obama as top members of his
inner circle that it is hard to imagine either of them, especially Biden, turning on
their leader to run against him.

So who is qualified to be president in the Democratic Party, and not so tied to the
administration, that they could lead an insurrection, capture the party nomination,
and then be a serious opponent to the Republican nominee in 2012?

My first suggestion is someone who was my dark horse candidate in 2008, then
governor and now U.S. senator Mark Warner (Virginia). Mr. Warner is a class act,
who would have made voters notice him in 2008, and if he had the political courage
in 2011-12, could make some political history. Mr. Warner comes out of the
moderate-yet-liberal Bill Clinton school of Democratic politics, not the leftist Jimmy
Carter-Al Gore-Barack Obama school. He has an impressive record in elective office,
as an executive and a legislator, and a career as a successful businessman, behind
him. (Could you imagine a Warner-Romney race?)

Senator Evan Bayh (Indiana) remains a major figure in his party. (He was reportedly
Hillary Clinton’s first choice for vice president in 2008). He has a national constituency
of his own, and a record as a serious, independent and moderately liberal senator.
He recently chose to retire from the senate, but is only 55 years old.

Other possibilities include U.S. senator Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), a witty and
hard-working moderate in her first term, and who has already established herself
as one of the leading young figures in the senate. Her previous background was
as a prosecutor running a large county attorney’s office. Governor Brian Schweitzer
(Montana) has made alternative energy his issue, has lots of personality, and has
populist appeal. Governor Bill Richardson (New Mexico) has been a congressman,
ambassador and cabinet officer, and has already run for president. Senator Mark
Udall (Colorado) was six-term congressman before going to the senate, and comes
from one of the most distinguished American political families of recent years (his
father and uncle were national political figures; his cousin is current U.S. senator
from New Mexico).

While the Democratic bench is not as currently as heavy as the Republican bench
(Gingrich, Romney, Daniels, Barbour, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Palin, Thune, Jindal, et
al), this is also a factor of the Democratic leadership currently being dominated by
Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. But there are potentially serious candidates,
nor can Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be entirely ruled out in 2012 because of
her large constituency from her 2008 presidential run, and from her name
recognition as first lady (1993-2001).

I agree that my speculation is based on what now seems unlikely. After the
mid-term elections, President Obama is almost certain to reverse field and change
his agenda. The economy could recover by 2011-12, and international events and
trade could turn our way.

On the other hand, for more than 30 years I have had a nose for unexpected turns
and twists in presidential politics. Sometimes I have been plain wrong. Other times
I was ahead of everyone else. But it is not playing on a ouija board or reading tea
leaves. There are always real signals in the air, and I must say the political
broadband these days is as full of traffic as I can remember.