Thanksgiving: A Brief Political History

Americans in the 21st century, no matter how diverse our lives may be, share one common bond… November means THANKSGIVING. It’s a tradition that pre-dates the United States by over one-hundred and sixty years. Unlike many other holidays, people of all faiths, races, and ethnicities can celebrate together. It’s this element of Thanksgiving that is perhaps why Americans like it so much … a tried and true holiday melting pot.

But even Thanksgiving itself hasn’t sailed through the years without political controversy. The holiday has been observed since 1621, but this observance wasn’t always uniform. Different cities and towns would hold Thanksgiving feast in coordination with community tradition, or (most important) high yield from the Fall Harvest. So throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, celebrations were done in a piecemeal fashion across the country.

That changed in 1863. As the nation was at the height of Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving should be celebrated on the last Thursday of November. He essentially codified the date and that’s where it remained. One can see the logic behind this… It gave the war-torn nation cause to cease fighting, and do something together. Many Southerners, though they thought of themselves as separate from the Union at the time, still got word of Lincoln’s proclamation. And thanks to copious family ties, celebrated on that day with their Union brethren. Thanks, indeed.

So there you have it, tradition established. Now we know when Americans will celebrate a coordinated Thanksgiving holiday. Or maybe not?

Most people are aware that the Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving (what we’ve now come to know as “Black Friday”). And most years, Thanksgiving will naturally fall on the 4th Thursday of November, because there are typically only 4 Thursdays in November. Unless you’re in an odd year like 2012, where we end up with 5 Thursdays this month. The choice between the 4th or 5th Thursday to have a holiday might go under the radar for most, but it’s NEVER a neglected fact to our nation’s retailers, because where this holiday falls on the calendar determines how many profitable sales days they will have for the year.

Enter President Franklin D. Roosevelt, newly elected into office in 1933. This was yet another odd year that had 5 Thursdays in November, and business leaders, fearing a woefully-short shopping season, asked the President to move Thanksgiving up from November 30th to November 23rd. He didn’t move the date, and they had to make due.

After six years of economic hardship, another opportunity came in 1939, and this time the President listened. He proclaimed Thanksgiving to be the 4th Thursday of November, thus moving it up by one week as business leaders had asked. From the FDR Presidential Library, here’s what happened as a result:

Changing the date of Thanksgiving seemed harmless enough, but in actuality proved quite controversial. It was so upsetting that thousands of letters poured into the White House once President Roosevelt announced the date change. Some retailers were pleased because they hoped the extra week of Christmas shopping would increase profits, but smaller businesses complained they would lose business to larger stores. Other companies that depended on Thanksgiving as the last Thursday of November lost money; calendar makers were the worst hit because they printed calendars years in advance and FDR made their calendars out of date for the next two years. Schools were also disrupted by Roosevelt’s decision; most schools had already scheduled vacations and annual Thanksgiving Day football games by the time they learned of Thanksgiving’s new date and had to decide whether or not to reschedule everything. Moreover, many Americans were angry that Roosevelt tried to alter such a long-standing tradition and American values just to help businesses make more money.*

As opposition grew, some states took matters into their own hands and defied the Presidential Proclamation. Some governors declared November 30th as Thanksgiving. And so, depending upon where one lived, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the 23rd and the 30th. This was worse than changing the date in the first place because families that lived in states such as New York did not have the same day off as family members in states such as Connecticut! Family and friends were unable to celebrate the holiday together.

Franklin Roosevelt observed Thanksgiving on the second to last Thursday of November for two more years, but the amount of public outrage prompted Congress to pass a law on December 26, 1941, ensuring that all Americans would celebrate a unified Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year.

Reverend Jim Bankston from St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston had even further memories. “Well into the 1950s when I was young, the confusion around when to celebrate Thanksgiving persisted.” Just goes to show that even our most revered traditions aren’t unblemished by controversy. As 21st century people, perhaps the best lesson we can take from this is that no matter how great our differences may seem on the outside, we are still more alike than different. After a tough election year, let’s remember that we all have something to be thankful for this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

The President’s Press Precedent

I think we all know the feeling of starting over. “This time around, I’m going to be better, faster and stronger.” For those of us that do understand, we definitely saw the new attitude from President Obama today. He held his first “formal” press conference since the election (actually in more than 8 months) at the White House, and it’s more than sufficient to say that he covered a lot of bases.

The President gave opening remarks regarding his plans for our nation’s impending tax fight, solidifying his position that tax rates for the middle class shall be preserved. Finally, he clarified his language, pointing out that EVERYONE gets a tax cut on their first $250,000 of income. All Americans, both rich and poor, will continue to receive a tax cut. But for the wealthiest Americans, they will be taxed at the true rate on any income in excess of $250,000. This is an important distinction that Mr. Obama hasn’t been so clear on before. He said “We should not hold the middle class hostage while we debates tax cuts for the wealthy.”

When asked about the David Patraeus affair and resignation, he stated that there was “no evidence” of a negative impact to national security. He said that the FBI investigation is on-going, and that he would not comment further until those results have been reached.

On immigration reform, the President put to rest any rumors… this will be a top priority for the first year of Obama’s second term. He wants US immigration reform to be done soon after his inauguration, saying specifically that “we need to cease the moment.” Even with all of the assumed agreement on this issue, some suspect that immigration reform is going to be very tough. The GOP understand that it needs to get done, but many in the party will be very reluctant to give Obama the credit for it. If this issue is solved during Obama’s Presidency, he goes down in history again for a signature American achievement.

Perhaps the high point of the news conference was a spirited defense of UN Ambassador Susan Rice. He called out GOP leaders that have tried to move Ms. Rice to the center of the Benghazi attack, saying “If Senator McCain, Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.” It’s a strong message to the opposition to let them know that he will not allow the Cabinet to be pushed around during his second term. I guess technically he didn’t say that Ms. Rice would be be the next Secretary of State, but given how complimentary President Obama was of her record, it’s looking like a pretty obvious path for her.

Clinton/Rice 2016? Too early??

After a major election, everyone always throws around the term “mandate” as though this gives politicians total license to pursue whatever agenda they want. This was certainly the view of President George W. Bush when he was re-elected in 2004. Thankfully, President Obama has a very different view. He rarely speaks about having a clear and present mandate. Not to pursue a specific political agenda, but to work really hard on behalf of the American people. Good to know.

Finally, just as the conference was ending, Mr. Obama gave one more signal that everyone has turned over a new leaf. When a reporter shouted out a post-conference question to him. His response? “That’s a great question, but it would be a horrible precedent for me to answer just b/c you yelled it out.”

Yep… New Term. New Rules.

Urban Electorate: The GOP’s “other” Demographic Disaster

It’s been rare of late, but for once I have to congratulate US Congressman (and FORMER GOP nominee for Vice-President) Paul Ryan for some recent comments about the election. While everyone in the media has been obsessing over the coveted Hispanic vote and the emerging US minority coalition, few have come to realize the one group that drove Obama straight back into the White House. Remember, the Hispanic share of voters, while growing, was still only 10 percent of the electorate.

But the people that showed up for Obama with overwhelming decisiveness? Urban voters. As Mr. Ryan said, Republicans are losing America’s major cities. And it’s not even close… they’re losing urban areas by a long shot. Now granted, Paul Ryan is admittedly biased against cities, claiming that all urbanites are impoverished, violent and lack discipline. So clearly if this baseline assumption is held by others in the GOP, it’s no secret why they’re not reaching urban voters. And of course their assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth.

Much to Republican dismay, American cities are back on the rebound. Our latest Census data shows that Americans are now moving to inner cities more than at any point in the last century. This demographic shift is causing America’s main urban areas to see impressive growth, while rural areas continue to decline. Yes, the majority of that growth is still in the suburbs, but cities proper are also beginning a renaissance.

And here’s the bad news for the GOP… Republicans are no longer competitive in most major cities. If you take the 25 most populous counties in the US, Mitt Romney won just four of them… Maricopa County (Phoenix) AZ, Orange County CA, Riverside County CA and Tarrant County (Ft. Worth) TX. Only two of the counties house what could be considered “traditional” major cities, and the other two are predominantly suburban and exurban areas. Even if you take the 50 most populous counties, that only adds Fresno County, CA and Salt Lake County, UT. So just six of the nation’s 50 largest counties voted GOP in 2012.

Many will be critical of this assumption saying that several counties were competitive for Republicans… most certainly the nation’s second largest of Harris County (Houston) TX, and Hamilton County (Cincinnati) OH. And they would be right, as these areas were won by President Obama in the narrowest of margins. Only 585 votes in Harris County put Obama in the win column. But the trend was upheld in both areas. Though nine million fewer people voted in 2012 than in 2008, urban centers still turned out to support Democrats. But amongst nine million total fewer voters, the split between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama wasn’t even close. Romney received 1.2 million fewer votes than John McCain, but Obama got over seven million fewer votes… and still won! Think about that for a second. The President was at a seven million vote defecit, and still grabbed both popular and electoral majorities.

All you heard from national media was about the “enthusiasm gap”… Republicans were FIRED UP to vote for Romney, while Democrats were non-plussed for Obama. If they were truly chomping at the bit to vote, wouldn’t there have been a “red wave” like in 2010 to sweep Mitt Romney into the Presidency? A loss of seven million would indicate that the enthusiasm argument was true for Democrats.

So the question remains… if the GOP is a nationally competitive party, where are all of its voters? What’s the likelihood that most of those 9 million people that “sat out” in 2012 were Republican or right-leaning independents? Did they live in Amreica’s small towns? These are the critical questions that Republicans and Right-Wing media forgot to ask themselves. But for those on the Left, we heard the answers to these questions loud and clear. And we liked it. Rain or shine, welcome to the new “left of center” urban America.

Change has come to “R-merica”

Last night’s election was the culmination of a very bitter fight for survival. The GOP spent tons of capital… both political and monetary… in the hopes of destroying President Obama’s agenda, and decimating his long list of first-term accomplishments. After four long years of being a party defined by divisiveness and obstruction, they received their mandate from American voters.

CHANGE NOW, OR GET OUT.

Eventhough Republicans retained a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, they were decisively clawed back in the Senate. And of course, President Obama roared back into the White House.

For Mitt Romney, the coming weeks will likely bring much criticism of how he ran his campaign and what all went wrong, but in reality, the GOP owes him a tremendous bit of gratitude. As the party has fractured so deeply between the idealogues and the Pro-Business wing, Romney stepped up to the plate and made the ultimate sacrifice for his party. He was the only man willing to steer the ship into what we all saw as an inevitable crash course in 2012… FAILURE.

But in doing this, he’s also helped to save Republicans from themselves too. Countless shifting political positions aside, Romney is a decent man, and he ran a good campaign. He conceded to the President with grace and helped to unite our country after a bitter fight. And most importantly, he sacrificed his time and energy so that future candidates (like Chris Christie, Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio) wouldn’t have to go down with the ship… at least not this year.

Finally now, the GOP has come face-to-face with the real change that President Obama helped to accomplish. They now have to wake up to the new realities of a more diverse nation than what they represent. This time, change is sure to happen, because the GOP no longer has a choice.

So today is a new day, and already we are seeing small signs of a new mood in Washington. Here are tweets from retiring Senator Olympia Snowe and House Speaker John Boehner.

Change indeed. Let’s just hope it lasts and that President Obama and Congress have a more productive relationship… starting with the Lame Duck session.

Election 2012: Winners and Losers

November 6th was a big night in so many ways, but maybe not in the ones you might think. Before the election, Barack Obama was President, so that remains unchanged. Before the election, the House was in Republican control, and the Senate was lead by the Democrats. That remains unchanged. So what exactly happened last night that was so important if the status quo reigend supreme?

Our country forged new paths toward equality, electing the largest number of women to the United States Senate in history (Still not equal representation though). The state of Wisconsin also made history with the election of our nation’s first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin. The states of Washington, Maryland and Maine joing the ever-growing ranks of those who allow full marrige equality to GLBT couples. But now, for the first time, marriage equality was not approved by the courts, or by a legislature, but by statewide referenda. This means that without a doubt, large portions of our population now support marriage equality. With the re-election of President Obama, the chances of these newly-acquired rights being rolled back have decreased as well. Most expect that anyone he nominates to the Supreme Court would not endanger the GLBT civil rights movement.

So because of all of these things, I don’t actually think that President Obama “won” the night. The real winner of last night was the American People.

And the loser? The GOP’s “dark money” strategy.

After having to endure years of filthy political ads and shady campaign spending thanks to the wave from Citizens United, after people like Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove spending hundreds of millions to defeat Obama and Senate Democrats, it’s becoming clear that they did not meet their goal. The Democrats had FAR less to work with on the money end, and were still able to survive the election. They flushed more than one BILLION dollars down the drain, and they are not getting it back. Should anyone be surprised that Wall Street isn’t happy today?

The United States has proven that it cannot be bought, no matter what the price. And hopefully, that gives people of all political stripes something to be proud of. As the GOP begins a long search to find its soul, I hope they will realize just how corrosive dark money lies can be to the political system. Maybe next time, they’ll work to improve their message, instead of giving the messenger more tricks up his sleeve.

All In: my 2012 Election Prediction

Time to place my bet. On Tuesday night, here’s how I believe the 2012 Presidential race will go down…

I predict that Barack Obama will win with 294 electoral votes. Mitt Romney will end up with 244. Despite a lot of last-minute jostling to say that Pennsylvania is now in play for Romney or that Wisconsin has quickly moved to toss-up, I believe the Obama ground-game has done enough to win this election. The popular vote is going to be close… I think Obama’s going to win it, but it will be by less than 2 million votes. BTW I found this map on 270towin.com. It’s a cool resource that lets you play with the different scenarios.

Do you agree with my prediction? How would your map look different? Please share, and let me know what you think!!

Continued Omentum: the October Jobs Report

And finally we have it… the last Big bluster of economic data we will receive before election day. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy added 171,000 jobs. Slightly stronger than expected, but not enough jobs to keep up with more people entering the workforce. As a result, the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent.

The jobs numbers for both August and September were also revised upward. The August numbers went from 142,000 to 192,000, and September saw a change from 114,000 to 148,000.

This is significant news of course, but no one really knows if it will affect the election in one way or another. Tens of millions in our country are now living through the new challenges from Hurricane Sandy, so it’s quite understandable they have more pressing concerns than this one report. Also, over 20 million Americans have already voted, so today’s numbers won’t have an impact there.

But the continued information shows that the pattern of growth continues. Consumer confidence is increasing as more people find work, and are able to work more hours. Crtical sectors like Construction are showing job gains… an indicator that there’s more strength to come in the housing market as people start investing in new home and business starts again. Just take a look at Steve Benen’s tracking chart from MaddowBlog:

The trend lines don’t lie. Even with a very uncooperative Congress, skiddish banks and continued worries throughout Europe, the United States has added jobs for 25 months in a row. We all know that things aren’t ‘growing Gangbusters’, but is that really such a bad thing? This recovery may not be fancy, but at least we can all agree that it’s real. It’s not being built on a boom-and-bust cycle that is controlled by the psychological whim’s of Wall-Street. We can trace American job growth right now to an honest days’ work. Here’s what I mean…

-Thanks to the health of the auto industry, factories in Michigan and Ohio are humming again.

-The healthcare sector continues to grow… not simply because of Obamacare, but because of the sheer reality that our ‘Baby Boomer’ generation is getting older, and they need an ever-increasing share of services.

-America’s urban areas are at the beginnings of a seachange as people who traditionally lived in the suburbs are now moving back to core inner cities. That creates demand for more housing units in cities, which leads to more construction jobs.

-New trade deals with countries like Brazil and Panama have led to growing demand for American products over-seas.

All of these indicators point to more stability down the road. The President’s leadership can’t be understated as a part of this trend. Let’s just hope that voters realize this on Election Day, and that we don’t slow down or reverse the ‘Obama Omentum’. It’s beginning to pick up steam.

A Voice for the Rest of Texas