Backwards Discrimination

After finishing The Running Mate there are several political and literary ideas that can be discussed. One political idea was mentioned only once, in passing, but in was very poignant and I kept thinking about it the next few days. The situation comes up as Senator Charlie Martin is going to meet the Senate Majority leader and is bring along his homosexual and HIV positive press secretary, Hilton Devereaux. Martin wants to walk despite the frigid temperature and Devereaux’s protests.

“Come on, Hilton don’t be such a sis–” Charlie stopped abruptly, turned crimson.
“You’re such a liberal,” Hilton said.

I believe Hilton uncovered a serious truth about most members of the Democratic party. They are so worried about not being offensive to various minorities that they actually end up being less sensitive to minorities. It is backwards discrimination. An example would be crime. There are some Democrats who would believe almost no Africa-Americans are guilty of the crimes they commit but are merely victims of their situation. Holding such expectations of responsibility, I think is more discriminatory to do this then something like racial profiling. The same thing could be said about providing clean needles to drug addicts. If we are going to spend taxpayer’s money on people who are breaking the law, why not make specific lanes for people who are driving under the influence. No one who even propose the latter and yet the same logic doesn’t hold true for clean needles because Democrats do not want to discriminate in anyway against anyone. (Just to set the record straight the government should provide clean needles because it works, and preventing HIV is a heck of a lot less expensive than treating it.)

OTW Appears in The Running Mate

First of all, I have to write about the reference in the book made to the movie we watched in class recently On the Waterfront. The exact quote is, “Lanny assayed a modified Marlon Brando: ‘You coulda been a contender. You coulda gone all the way.’”
This quote brought to mind many other similarities between The Running Mate and On the Waterfront. I think Charlie Martin’s days in Vietnam were similar to Larry’s boxing days, and now Charlie has settled into the life of a politician, but has some moral doubts about it. If fact we recently found out, Charlie had a son with a Vietnamese girl he had no idea about. I believe this ethical dilemma may push Charlie over the edge like Joey’s death did to Terry. It will be interesting to see how Charlie handles his moral dilemma differently than Terry or Joe Keller.
Another theme brought up in the book is the effect of the war in Vietnam. There is really no way for anyone in our generation to understand that effect in the slightest. However, its effects are still prevalent today in ways as important as John McCain’s presidential candidacy. It is almost impossible to imagine a world that does not bear the scars of Vietnam. It is also difficult to imagine in the war we are waging currently is going to have as lasting of scars on the world. We have already seen one veteran of Iraq run for public office in Ashwin Madia and without any doubt there will be many more to come.

Charlie Martin in Real Life

In the first few chapters of The Natural the end of the main character, Charlie Martin’s, presidential campaign is revealed in classic Klein style. There is a girl working for Martin’s campaign who mistakenly thinks Martin, who is known somewhat for his promiscuity, is making a move on her. This scandal all but ends what is left of Martin’s primary campaign. This scene is dripping with irony because is this particular incidence Martin actually wasn’t trying to seduce the girl, but he had in many instances without being caught. This irony is an interesting literary technique of Klein’s and is particularly interesting to think about, because it can almost certainly be applied to real politician have been caught at something they didn’t do, but not caught at something they did.
Another interesting trait of Charlie Martin is that he is both a veteran and a Democrat, something stereotypically not seen very often. Klein himself is an adamant supporter of national service, and is disdainful of Democrat who are unknowledgeable about foreign policy and military affairs. In fact, Martin is politician who has never really existed in the real world. He come from a folksy, Midwestern background, was a war hero in Vietnam, and is a Democrat. If a politician with this kind of background did exist, I personally would think he would they would have a distinct advantage over most other politicians. Charlie Martin is, in some ways, the ideal candidate for me, for Joe Klein and perhaps for much of America.

Annotated Bibliography

Lynch, David J. “Does Tax Code Encourage U.S. Companies to Cut Jobs at Home?” USA Today. 20 March. 2008
David J. Lynch is a frequent contributor to USA Today write most often about economics and finances. The article explains the claims made by the Democratic candidate in the presidential primary of 2008, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, that they would close the tax break for companies who outsource jobs to foreign countries. Lynch informs the reader that the tax actually just postpones the tax on overseas profits, but it does provide incentive for corporations to create jobs overseas. He also provides several perspectives on what could be done about the loophole.

Greenhouse, Steven. “Offshoring Silicon Valley.” American Prispect. 19 (2008): 18-20.

Steven Greenhouse is a veteran economic journalist for the New York Times. In his series, The Big Squeeze: Tough Time for the American Worker, he writes about the effect of offshoring on many US industries. In this article Greenhouse writes about the offshoring of the technological industry, which was supposed to be safe for overseas competition. It focuses on the plight of Myra Bronstein, who worked as a software tester until a Indian immigrant was hire to do her work for six percent of the money. Greenhouse includes many warnings for prominent economist about the dangers of offshoring.

Starting "The Running Mate"

While I have only read the (rather lengthy) prologue of The Running Mate so far, I can already easily distinguish this as a work of Joe Klein. First of all he does something very interesting. The main character Charlie Martin was a minor character in Klein's previous book Primary Colors. It is extremely interesting to see the events of the campaign which Primary Colors was centered on in the eyes of a candidate we have only briefly met before. I’m sure at some point I will find myself rummaging through Primary Colors for every reference to Charlie Martin. Another theme that I can already see emerging is the intrusiveness of the press into politicians’ personal lives. As even my previous posts demonstrate, this is an issue that is very prevalent in almost all of Klein's writing. It is a strange twist of point-of-view to see this practice in the eyes of a candidate. Another thing commonly found in Klein's books is the resemblance of the politicians to Bill Clinton. This particular character, Charlie Martin, is similar in his allegedly promiscuous behaviors and enormous capacity for learning policy. Martin is also a singularly unique politician just as Clinton was. I am certainly looking forward to the rest of the book, but I am a little concerned it is going to be too similar to Klein's books on Clinton and therefore be a little redundant. When I can recognize the signs of an author’s writing in the first few pages, it may be a sign I should move on to a new writer.