Resolving to be president? Ask W.C. Fields -- Jan. 3, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The first Democrat out of the gate to formally explore a 2020 presidential bid is traipsing around Iowa this weekend.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a foe of big banks and big business, promises to end the corruption in Washington and be a champion for the middle class.

She has called President Donald Trump a “thin-skinned racist bully.” He calls her Pocahontas.

Warren is the first of thousands of earnest Democratic presidential hopefuls who soon will be out campaigning. OK, it’ll only be dozens, but it will feel like thousands.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are among those weighing bids.

Meanwhile, Trump never stopped campaigning, as his every appearance demonstrates. 

Some state Republican officials say they might cancel GOP primaries to keep Trump from facing a challenge from within his own party.

Democrats are determined to send Trump back to New York after one term, but with no clear front-runner, party leader or unifying message, at this point anyone could become the Democrats’ nominee.

The Democratic National Committee will sponsor six candidate debates this year, starting in June.

We’re facing countless breakfasts, lunches, dinners, tweets, emails and untold Russian influences before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in February 2020.

Candidates will try to outdo each other with campaign resolutions aplenty. So, we need to pace ourselves.

What we need is W.C. Fields. Really. 

I ran across a parody the comedian wrote that can lighten and enlighten our long campaign season. In “Fields for President,” he announces his candidacy and puts forth his thoughts about resolutions – campaign and New Year’s.

The year was 1940, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had just been elected to an unprecedented third term. A book nearly 80 years old, “Fields for President” is silly, often sexist and surprisingly on point. It was republished in 2016 with a forward by TV talk show host Dick Cavett.

Fields, whose comedic persona was as a hard-drinking misanthrope, writes: 

“Campaign resolutions are nothing more than overgrown New Year’s resolutions: They are thrown together hastily at the last minute, with never a thought as to how they may be gracefully broken.

“Now, I am a candidate with years of experience in the making and breaking of New Year’s resolutions, and what I can accomplish with those, I can certainly accomplish with campaign resolutions.”

That’s as good an explanation as I’ve seen why campaign promises vanish into thin air.

This is the time of year for making New Year’s resolutions, and of course reporters ask presidents for theirs. When Fox News asked Trump his personal resolution for 2019, he replied: “Success, prosperity and the health of our country.”

You wouldn’t expect Trump to admit he needs to change anything, would you?

Few presidents are like Jimmy Carter who conceded after his first year in office he’d underestimated Congress and would try harder in the New Year.

President George W. Bush said at the end of 2001, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “All in all, it’s been a fabulous year for Laura and me.” He also said he didn’t regret even one of the decisions he’d made.

To be fair, Bush enjoyed an approval rating of nearly 90 percent at the time.

But Bush also came forth with a personal resolution: “Eat fewer cheeseburgers.”

Fields says: “Ninety-three percent of New Year’s resolutions fail because they are based on frustration. Tell a person he must no longer eat pomegranates, and he’ll be a nervous wreck until he does eat them.”

What he called the Fields Plan takes the opposite approach. “Instead of prohibiting a person from doing what he’d like to do, force him to do what he’d like to do,” he 

writes.

We’re about to see each candidate develop and pitch a plan he or she hopes will match what voters would like to happen. But, as boxer Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.  

So we’d best take all these resolutions with a healthy dose of skepticism and a grain of salt – just not on our pomegranates.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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After George H.W. Bush, focusing on what matters -- Dec. 6, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The National Day of Mourning, the state funeral and the private burial are over, but let’s not tuck away the shared experience of celebrating former President George Herbert Walker Bush’s life.

If we take nothing from the week’s events, the pause in our toxic partisanship will be just that: a pause.

Indeed, TV commentators in recent days kept assuring us our national dyspepsia will be back before we know it. Some seemed to almost relish its return, perhaps because meanness and name-calling animate the airwaves and Internet.

I don’t doubt they’re right. There’s little appetite for civility, the conventional wisdom tells us. But if that’s so, why were millions of Americans mesmerized by the farewell to a president whose calling card was gentlemanliness?  

Even those of us who were not fans of some of Bush’s politics and policies – the Willie Horton campaign ad and his choice of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court come to mind -- were drawn to his life’s lessons.

It would be a shame to waste this moment of reflection.  

Bush, who was 94 when he died, orchestrated his funeral at National Cathedral from words to hymns. He chose as speakers those who would talk about his roles as father, friend, patriot, president and parishioner.  

His biographer Jon Meacham explained in his eulogy that after Bush’s near-death experience as a Navy fighter pilot in World War II, “To him, his life was no longer his own. There were always more missions to undertake, more lives to touch and more love to give.”

In death, Bush fulfilled one final mission: He reminded us what matters in life.

“His life code, as he said, was `Tell the truth. Don’t blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course,’” Meacham said. “And that was and is the most American of creeds.”

When Meacham read his eulogy to Bush, the former president came back with typical humor and humbleness: “That’s a lot about me, Jon,” he said, according to Bush spokesman Jim McGrath.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a close personal friend, called Bush a man “of such great humility,” adding dryly, “Those who travel the high road of humility in Washington, D.C., are not bothered by heavy traffic.”

Bush’s simple credo was: “What would we do without family and friends?” Simpson said.

Former President George W. Bush said his dad was genuinely optimistic, “And that optimism guided his children and made each of us believe that anything was possible.” 

His father “looked for the good in each person and usually found it,” the 43^rd president said.

The implicit comparison with President Donald Trump, who sat on the front row with every other living president, was stark. Trump did not speak, although he’d already said plenty about Bush and the former presidents, several of whom were frosty towards him.

When Bush died Nov. 30, Trump put out a glowing statement and was by all accounts very gracious to the Bush family, sending his plane to transport the casket and family to Washington, inviting the Bushes to stay at Blair House and paying a sympathy call there. He was acting the way a president should act.

But he and Bush were far from close. Trump had gutted the presidential campaign of Bush’s son Jeb with the epithet “low energy.” The elder Bush was quoted as calling Trump a “blowhard.”

As recently as July, Trump mocked Bush’s “thousand points of light” concept of volunteerism, saying at a campaign rally in Montana, “Thousand points of light – I never quite got that one. What the hell is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out?”

When the elder Bush was president, Trump said he liked and supported him but blasted Bush’s goal of a “kinder, gentler” country.

“I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist,” Trump said in a Playboy interview in 1990.

That was absurd then and even more so now.

But if we want a kinder, gentler America, we have to start acting like it.  And that would truly make America great again.     

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Gina Haspel's secrets need sunlight -- May 10, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As Gina Haspel tells it, her life was “right out of a spy novel.”

Haspel, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, joined the agency in 1985 and worked undercover for more than 30 years.  

“From my first days in training, I had a knack for the nuts and bolts of my profession,” she told senators Wednesday at her confirmation hearing. “I excelled in finding and acquiring secret information that I obtained in brush passes, dead drops or in meetings in dusty alleys of third world capitals.

“I recall very well my first meeting with a foreign agent. It was on a dark, moonless night with an agent I had never met. When I picked him up, he passed me the intelligence and I passed him an extra $500 for the men he led. It was the beginning of an adventure I had only dreamed of.”

It sounds like fiction all right, and that’s the way Haspel, 61, wants it.

There’s much the public doesn’t know about her career because the records are classified, and Haspel herself, as acting CIA director, decides how much – or, in this case, how little -- to declassify.

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have read the classified material about Haspel but can’t divulge what they’ve read, are frustrated.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Haspel has the knowledge and experience for the job, but “many people – and I include myself in that number – have questions about the message the Senate would be sending by confirming someone for this position who served as a supervisor in the counterterrorism center during the time of the rendition, detention and interrogation program.”

Haspel would be the first woman CIA director, and she has bipartisan support from former CIA directors. 

But  more than 90 former U.S. ambassadors and diplomats and more than 100 retired generals and admirals have signed letters, raising concerns about her nomination and the extent of her role in “enhanced” interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, as well as destroying evidence of the activities many call torture.

Most Senate Republicans support Haspel but Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who suffered torture for five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, issued a statement Wednesday night urging the Senate to reject Haspel.

“I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense,” McCain said. “However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”

In 2002, Haspel ran a CIA “black site” detention facility in Thailand where at least one suspected terrorist was waterboarded repeatedly.

In 2005, as Congress was about to launch an investigation, she advocated destroying more than 90 videotapes of the suspect’s interrogations. At the request of her boss, she drafted a cable ordering the destruction. He sent the cable himself.

Haspel proved a wily witness at her confirmation hearing. Often evasive, she repeatedly said she has a strong moral compass. She dodged questions about her role at the detention center but insisted the techniques were legal and approved by President George W. Bush.

She said she would not restart the “enhanced” interrogation program, even if Trump, who said during the campaign he might bring back waterboarding, ordered her to do so.

“We’re not getting back into that business,” she said.

The committee is expected to vote next week, with a full Senate vote in a few weeks. It appears Haspel may squeak through.

Republicans hold a 51 to 49 Senate majority, but McCain is battling brain cancer in Arizona. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will vote no. But Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will vote for confirmation, and a couple of other Democrats also facing tough re-election bids may do the same.

Haspel portrayed herself as “a typical middle-class American,” although one with no social media accounts.

It’s time she put more on the table than her spy novel stories. Haspel needs to declassify records of her career, so everyone can judge whether she’s fit for the job.   

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Can Trump control Trump in State of the Union -- Jan. 25, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald Trump faces a tough foe as he prepares for his first State of the Union address Tuesday – and it’s not Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader who lately has seemed a paper tiger.

No, Trump’s worst enemy is himself. The showman has never learned to get out of his own way. His outsized personality casts shadows over everything he touches, even, unfortunately for him, policies people like.

His job approval rating has set records – for being historically low. Only 36 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, the latest Washington Post-ABC News and Gallup polls report. A year after their inaugurations, Barack Obama was at 50 percent, and George W. Bush achieved a stunning 82 percent.

Trump faces a dilemma few, if any, of his predecessors have faced. People are happier with the economy than they’ve been in decades -- but they don’t credit Trump or his policies.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans now say the economy is excellent or good – the highest number in 17 years, the Post-ABC poll said. Traditionally, a president gets credit for a good economy, but so far that linkage has been broken, even though Trump touts the economy at nearly every event.

Trump has become the Rodney Dangerfield of presidents. He gets no respect.

Only 38 percent of people say the Trump administration deserves a great deal or good amount of credit for the economy, while 50 percent say the Obama administration deserves a great deal or good amount of credit, the Post-ABC poll found.

If Trump didn’t boast so much, in effect begging for praise, he might get more. His habit of blaming others for his misfortunes – Democrats, the FBI, Hollywood, the mainstream media – also makes him look petty.

Instead of whining, he could up his own vocabulary and use restraint while tweeting. Sadly, this is as obvious as it is increasingly unlikely.

Americans have become accustomed to the daily diet of boasts, insults and threats from the White House. Many see Trump’s drama as his way of distracting attention from the Russia investigation, but these ploys also overshadow positive trends in employment and the stock market.

Trump has maintained the support of his base but has yet to win over Democrats or independent voters, polls show.

Democrats still struggle to do more than complain about Trump. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus plan to boycott the speech. Democrats who do attend may wear black in solidarity with the #MeToo movement.

If they’re wise, though, no matter what Trump says, Democrats will maintain decorum. No good would come of stooping to the level of Rep. Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, who shouted “You lie!” at Obama during a joint session speech on health care in 2009.

We’re likely to see Trump extol his first-year achievements, such as the tax law, reduced regulations, jobs he says are returning to the United States and judicial appointments. He may offer an olive branch or two.

He may find moderation more productive in the long term as he finally turns to a major infrastructure improvement plan, a subject that’s dear to Democratic as well as Republican hearts.

He could take another step toward improving his image with Democrats with a solid proposal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, expected to be released Monday.

Schumer said negotiating with this White House is like “negotiating with Jell-o.” But Trump’s comments Wednesday about a multi-year path to citizenship for the immigrants known as Dreamers show compromise may be possible.

Helping Dreamers would be popular, even if it comes with the high cost of billions for a border wall.

Politics permeate State of the Union addresses, and this one will kick off the 2018 congressional campaigns. Trump’s re-election campaign has already run a tough ad against Democrats regarding immigration, so, like it or not, the 2020 presidential campaign is upon us as well.

Trump says he needs more Republicans in Congress to help him pass his agenda, but Democrats, energized by special election victories, hope for a blue wave election, possibly retaking control of the House.

A little restraint could do Trump a world of good legislatively. But only if he can curb his instincts for bare-knuckles politicking.

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A boy in full -- seeing George W. Bush in a new light -- March 23, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER 

One of the year’s biggest surprises so far is former President George W. Bush’s success as a portrait painter.

His “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors” tops this week’s New York Times nonfiction bestseller lists. The book contains 66 oil paintings and a four-panel mural of veterans as well as their stories, written by Bush.

Unpopular when he left office, Bush has gained stature in retirement by keeping a low profile and devoting himself to his art and humanitarian causes. The book’s proceeds benefit Bush’s foundation that helps wounded veterans.

Even former first lady Laura Bush was surprised by her husband’s picking up paint brushes at age 66, four years ago. Had someone told her when they married that one day she would write a foreword to a book containing her husband’s paintings, Laura Bush writes, “I would have said, No way.”

But long before he started painting and before he left Texas for prep school and the Ivy League, Bush was a boy of 1950s America.

Just as “Portraits” presents the 43^rd president as a compassionate artist, the George W. Bush Childhood Home in Midland, Texas, opens a window on a nostalgic view of American life and values in the post-war era.  

Docent Kay Manley, a retired oil and gas accountant, gave me a tour earlier this month. As a girl, she attended the same Methodist church and took piano and dancing classes with Laura Bush, a Midland native.

“Most people don’t realize the Bushes were such ordinary people,” Manley said. “Barbara Bush made her own curtains.”

The modest house – a 1,400-square-foot bungalow with blue-gray wood siding, three bedrooms, one bath and no central air -- was home to “two presidents, two governors and one first lady,” Manley said. “No other house can say that.”

Besides “W,” she was referring to former President George H.W. Bush, first lady Barbara Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose nursery was in the sun room. Neil Bush was also born while the family lived in the house. Two other children came along later. 

The house has been meticulously restored to the way it looked when the Bushes lived there from 1951 to 1954. Georgie, as he was called, did his homework on a small desk in his knotty pine-paneled bedroom, rode his bike, played catcher on the Midland Cubs Little League team (his dad was manager), was a Cub Scout (his mom was den mother) and went to the Presbyterian church on Sundays.

Asked while running for president his fondest childhood memory, Bush said: “Little League baseball in Midland.”

The home avoids mentioning Bush’s policies and politics – topics best left to the presidential libraries and museums, said Paul St. Hilaire, director of the childhood home. Bush’s library and museum are in Dallas.

“We’re a cultural and historic site,” he said.

Papa Bush was on his way up in the oil business, and his young family was on the move. Young George, born in Connecticut while his dad was in college, lived in at least 14 different homes in three states and eight cities in his first 18 years, according to a National Park Service survey of the home for inclusion in the park system.

He lived longest on Ohio Avenue, and Bush often refers to the values he learned there. His childhood was also a time of sadness. His sister Robin died at age 4 of leukemia while the family lived in the house. 

The home is on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the first 1950s residential restorations. The attention to detail is remarkable – not just the turquoise fridge and TV with rabbit ears, vintage wallpaper and black dial phone but also period door hinges. More than 70,000 people have visited since it opened in 2006.

History buffs Lynn Hassler, 62, a retired teacher from Pennsylvania, and her husband Randy stopped by while visiting their son and grandchildren. She didn’t vote for W nor did she vote for Donald Trump. But Trump’s election has caused Hassler to reassess Bush.

“He’s looking a lot better,” she said.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Trump faces test in speech to Congress -- Feb. 23, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When President Donald Trump delivers his first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, he’ll see a House chamber as divided as the nation.

Dozens of Democratic members of Congress boycotted Trump’s inauguration, but they plan to turn the joint session into a mini protest. Many are bringing as guests Muslims, the disabled and other minorities who they say will be hurt by Trump’s policies.

So Trump faces a test: Will he be the combative campaigner people either love or hate or will he offer an olive branch?    

Trump gave Congress, even Republicans, the back of his hand in his inaugural address, failing to mention House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He castigated the same politicians he’ll address Tuesday in prime time.

“Their victories have not been your victories, their triumphs have not been your triumphs,” he said. “And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.”

Stephen Miller, the aide who wrote the inaugural address, with its bleak picture of 

“American carnage,” is also writing the joint session speech. This time, though, the president will present an optimistic, positive vision, officials say.

Trump, who insists he inherited “a mess,” will talk about what he’s done so far and where he plans to take the country in broad terms.

“It’s important for the American people to know that he was an agent of change; he came here to get things done, and he didn’t waste any time,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday.

“In the drafts that I’ve seen so far, it is going to be a very strong blueprint of where he wants to take this country,” Spicer said.

While Trump has signed executive orders to achieve some of his goals, he needs legislation for many of the big items on his to-do list: tax cuts, infrastructure projects, health care reform and a secure border. That means working with Capitol Hill.

But Trump’s dismal approval ratings make it easier for Democrats, and perhaps some Republicans, to keep him at arm’s length. Just 42 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing, lower by far than any other president after a month in office, Gallup reports. A nationwide poll by Quinnipiac University released Wednesday found Trump with 38 percent job approval.

Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, is leading the effort among House Democrats to bring as guests people who have faced discrimination and made positive contributions.

Langevin’s guest is Dr. Ehsun Mirza, a Pakistani-born critical care physician and naturalized citizen who is a leader in Rhode Island’s Muslim community. 

Trump’s speech is not officially a State of the Union address. The last five presidents have spoken to Congress early in their first year but have waited until the second year to deliver a State of the Union address.

After the bitter and protracted 2000 election, President George W. Bush addressed Congress Feb. 27, 2001, on his Administration’s Goals.

“Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,” Bush proclaimed. He promised education would be his top priority.

“Let us agree to bridge old divides. But let us also agree that our good will must be dedicated to great goals. Bipartisanship is more than minding our manners; it is doing our duty,” Bush said.

Which reminds us that even if we like what a president says at such august occasions, we should take their words with a grain of salt.

In February 1981, shortly after he took office, President Ronald Reagan addressed Congress on his Program for Economic Recovery, calling for massive tax cuts, spending cuts on domestic programs and hefty increases in defense spending.

Warning that the national debt was approaching $1 trillion, Reagan offered a dandy word picture.

“If you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only 4 inches high, you’d be a millionaire,” Reagan said. “A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand dollar bills 67 miles high.”

But Reagan’s policies only exacerbated the debt. By the time he left office the national debt had nearly tripled. That stack of thousand dollar bills would have been 160 miles high.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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What will we carry into 2017? -- Dec. 29, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the classic short story “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien writes about the weight of the things foot soldiers carried in Vietnam.  

These necessities and near necessities were as practical as mosquito repellent, as powerful as anti-personnel mines and as personal as memories.

Rereading the title story in the terrific book published more than 25 years ago, I started thinking about the New Year, what I want to carry into it and what I hope we can leave behind.

In the latter category is the 2016 presidential election. Yes, it was a shock, but we need to let it go. Unfortunately, talking heads aren’t alone in prolonging the agony.

President Barack Obama said this week he could have won the general election had he been able to run again. That’s the kind of wishful thinking Democrats should leave behind with 2016 – and not because the statement is untrue.

It’s unknowable, of course, which makes great fodder for late-night dorm sessions but not productive thought for the rest of us. 

Obama is still the “most admired” man in America, Gallup reports, and nobody worked harder on Hillary Clinton’s behalf than he and first lady Michelle Obama did, in large part because Obama’s legacy was on the line.

But the president’s confident assertion that his message of tolerance, openness, diversity and energy would have mobilized voters and defeated Donald Trump was a self-serving punch in the gut to Clinton and her supporters.

Naturally, though, it was Trump, not Clinton, who reacted.

“NO WAY!” would Obama have won, Trump tweeted. He returned to Obama’s remark in later tweets the way a tongue explores a sore tooth.

Obama, in the podcast interview with his old friend David Axelrod, also said Clinton was too cautious during the campaign because she thought she was winning, but she “performed wonderfully under really tough circumstances.” He blamed the news media for a double standard in reporting negative news about Clinton.

Basically, he did everything but say she pitched great for a girl.

It’s time to stop beating up on Clinton, stop second-guessing her campaign decisions and why she never matched her husband on the stump.

I’d also like to see politicians stop blaming the news media when things don’t go their way, but that’s not happening.

What-ifs keep us focused on the past when we need to be clear-eyed about the policies and ethics of the incoming administration. And there’s plenty for Democrats to do to prepare for the next congressional election. In 2018, Democrats have to defend 10 Senate seats in states Trump carried.

Trump won the White House, if not the popular vote, with promises to roll back the clock at least to pre-Obama days, maybe earlier. No wonder he wants the Rockettes at his inauguration. They performed at George W. Bush’s in 2005 and 2009.

One thing I’d like to see left behind with 2016 is Trump’s tweets. Complicated policies can’t be resolved in 140 characters.

But, says Sean Spicer, incoming White House press secretary and communications director, tweeting is “a really exciting part of the job.”

Trump has a combined total of 39 million followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and that, “allows him to add an element of a conversation that’s never occurred,” Spicer, a Rhode Island native, told a radio station in his home state.

Will Obama tweet? We’ll see. He plans to write another book, speak out when he sees Trump heading in the wrong direction and help develop the next generation of Democratic leaders.

One notion we can leave behind is that the Obamas will strew rose petals in Trump’s path to the White House. No big surprise there since Obama during the campaign called Trump “unfit to serve” and “woefully unprepared” for the job.

It was unrealistic to expect Obama, who sees Trump eager to dismantle everything Obama has done, to be as gracious as George W. and Laura Bush on their way out.

It’s been a tough year, and there aren’t many things I want to carry into 2017. Here’s one: “When they go low, we go high.”

More slogan than reality in 2016, “when they go low, we go high” is a worthy goal for the New Year.

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Write-in for president? Not so fast -- Oct. 20, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

You say you can’t stand voting for the presidential candidates on the ballot, so you’re going to write in Mickey Mouse, your own name -- or mine? Don’t. Really.  

Yes, several prominent Republicans say they will write in GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence for president because they can’t abide Donald Trump. They include Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Rob Portman of Ohio.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he might write in the name of his buddy Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

The urge to protest the presidential choice is strong, but a write-in could be wrong. You might as well tear your ballot into tiny pieces and swallow them as write in someone’s name, even Pence or Bernie Sanders -- unless you do your homework.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, won a write-in campaign for re-election in 2010 after losing the GOP primary, but no write-in presidential candidate has ever won a single state.

Votes for a third party or write-in candidate could tip close states to one candidate or the other, however. Hillary Clinton finally called on Al Gore to make the point.

“Your vote really, really, really counts. A lot. You can consider me as an Exhibit A of that truth,” Gore said at a Clinton rally in Miami Oct. 11.

In the 2000 presidential election, Gore came within a whisker of winning Florida’s popular vote and the White House. Many Democrats still blame Ralph Nader for Gore’s loss.

It’s worth reviewing this bit of ancient history. In the official Florida tally, George W. Bush beat Gore by 537 votes – and Nader got 97,488 votes.

Nader was on the ballot as the Green Party presidential candidate, so his votes counted. Each state sets its own election rules, though, and many states are unfriendly to write-ins.

In 34 states, including Virginia, write-in presidential candidates must file papers with the state before the election. Otherwise their votes don’t count.

A write-in presidential candidate in Virginia needs to submit to the state a list of 13 electors at least 10 days before Election Day. Alabama does not require advanced paperwork, but Tennessee does.

In Florida, write-in presidential candidates must file an oath with the state in order to have a blank space provided for their names to be written in on the general election ballot.

A write-in presidential candidate in Florida must file the form and a list of electors “at any time after the 57^th day, but before noon of the 49^th day, prior to the date of the primary election in the year in which a presidential election is held,” according to Florida law.

Got that?

Only seven states allow voters to write in whomever they please for president, and nine states don’t allow presidential write-in votes at all.

Presidential candidates also must file with the Federal Election Commission. So far, more than 1,800 individuals have filed paperwork as presidential candidates with the FEC.

Clinton, Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson are on ballots in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is on the ballot in 44 states and D.C., and she has qualified as a write-in in three other states. 

Independent Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, insists he has a shot largely as a write-in candidate at the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House.

On the ballot in only two states, Kotlikoff says by Election Day he will be registered as a write-in in all but one of the states that require certification.  

Independent Evan McMullin, a conservative who made news when a poll in usually red-state Utah put him in a tight race with Trump and Clinton, told NPR Sunday he is on the ballot in 11 states and will be on the ballot or certified as a write-in in 43 to 45 states by Election Day.

It’s totally understandable that voters appalled by Clinton and Trump would want to protest by writing in someone else’s name. The smart thing to do first: Check with your local election office whether a write-in vote for president will be tallied.

Make sure “your vote really, really, really counts.”

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Obama not debating but in the debate -- Sept. 22, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

He won’t be onstage Monday night, but President Barack Obama likely will dominate the first presidential debate.

Republicans have hung “third Obama term” around Hillary Clinton’s neck as if it were an albatross, but Democrats believe the prospect of a third Obama term could be just the thing to motivate unenthusiastic, undecided voters to go to the polls for Clinton.

Obama’s overall job approval rating, in the low 40s a couple of years ago, is a healthy 50 percent. Among Democrats, a whopping 89 percent approve of the way he’s handling his job, according to Gallup.

“More Americans are working. More have health insurance. Incomes are rising. Poverty is falling,” Obama said last week at a rally for Clinton in Philadelphia. Someone in the crowd shouted that gas is $2.

“And gas is $2 a gallon,” he said. “Thank you for reminding me.”

So when Donald Trump promises to wipe out everything Obama has done, starting with the Affordable Care Act, he not only threatens Obama’s legacy but he gives Clinton an opening with uncommitted voters who like the improved economy and social progress of the last eight years.

Only 2 or 3 percentage points now separate Clinton and Trump, so both campaigns want to woo the 13 percent of voters who are undecided.

Some are “better-educated people who lean Republican, who don’t like Trump and have zero use for Hillary Clinton, and they’re sort of paralyzed and frozen right now,” Republican pollster Bill McInturff told The Wall Street Journal.

Others are millennials who lean Democratic, supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries and haven’t fallen in love with Clinton. Democrats also worry that black voters, who provided the margin of victory for Obama in several swing states in 2012, could stay home.

Obama has made Clinton’s election his mission, telling the Congressional Black Caucus gala Saturday that he would take it as a “personal insult” to his legacy if blacks don’t turn out for Clinton.

First lady Michelle Obama, one of the most popular people in America, also is campaigning for Clinton – and Obama’s place in history.

 

“Elections aren’t just about who votes, but who doesn’t vote, and that’s especially true for young people like all of you,” Michelle Obama said last week at a campaign rally at George Mason University.

On the stump, the president charges that Trump is “unfit to serve” and “woefully unprepared to do this job.” Trump in turn calls Obama a “disaster” and “the worst president.”

If you can’t remember a president and first lady being so involved in a potential successor’s contest, it’s because it hasn’t happened in our lifetimes. Most presidents end their time on the stage on a sour note with the public or with little love for the person itching to replace them.   

In 1960, when a reporter asked President Dwight Eisenhower to name a major contribution his vice president, Richard Nixon, then running for president, had made, Ike replied: “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t remember.”

John F. Kennedy used Ike’s words in a TV ad -- and won that November.

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore – remember him? – kept his distance from disgraced President Bill Clinton, and it cost him.

But when the time came for President George W. Bush to endorse Sen. John McCain for president in 2008, Bush’s job approval rating had dropped to the basement -- about 30 percent. Even though Bush was still popular among conservatives, McCain chose not to ask Bush to campaign.

At this point in 2012, polls showed the race between Obama and Mitt Romney very tight with about 6 percent of voters undecided. On Election Day, though, the contest wasn’t as close. Obama won with 51 percent of the popular vote to Romney’s 47 percent.

Democrats hope a similar scenario plays out this year for Clinton.

As much as she might like to win purely on her own merits, Clinton knows “It Takes a Village.” Her uninspiring campaign style and the reluctance of key demographic groups to back her means she will need the whole Democratic village at her side to win.

Fortunately for her, Democrats still believe in Obama, and he said last week, “I really, really, really want to elect Hillary Clinton.”

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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