When Cindy Arnold picked up the mail one day in early March, there was a large manila envelope in the It was a handwritten note from President Barack Obama. In it, he told her he would watch out for her son, who is in the Army.
"It was very overwhelming," Arnold said.
The Stewartstown, Pa woman wrote a letter to the president Jan. 20. It was the day she talked to her son, Pvt. Matthew J. Arnold, as he filled out paperwork detailing with should happen to him if he were hurt or killed.
The daily voice of the Obama campaign, manager and adviser David Plouffe slipped into history after the election.
He recently purchased a Ford Fusion Hybrid (41 mpg city and 36 mpg) in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. usnews.com
I followed a retired York police officer (1968-91) and his daughter on a 17 hour odyssey through the millions who gathered to welcome President Barack Obama.
Although they had tickets, their efforts fell short of the grand theater.
As we walked away, a group gathered around a car with open doors. White people, black people, a soldier, a lady sat on the cold granite curb with her dog - some seated, some leaning into the car to get closer.
The muted reverberation of amplified reality bouncing from ancient granite buildings mixed with the soft tinniness of the Ford's dashboard radio.
A melting pot with the flavor of an FDR radio moment listening to President Obama say,
"...of our prosperity, on the ability extent opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity but because it is the surest route to our common good..."
America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth, we became the greatest nation on earth by creating new wealth. (McCain at last night's debate.)
This is a key phrase motivating both campaigns and the undercurrent of voter despair.
Before globalization, creating new wealth meant capitalization resulting in more domestic jobs. Today that end more often means "spreading" wealth and power to China, and other developing nations with cheap labor pools and sending our energy dollars to oil producing nations in a global oil market.
It is no longer a simple formula of trickle down economics. It's more rolling pin economics where the roller pin has an oval shape and the dough is spread thin where it is least profitable.
That is the reality of global free trade and the dough in the United States is getting thinner. As some of the bakers get stronger and beat away the other bakers, a few fat bakers roll all the dough.
However, the free market in the United States has always been balanced with a democracy that once the majority believes it is no longer prospering, moves to conserve it's resources.
The old-school conservative thinking that motivated my grandparents to save rolls of string and hoard things in their basement long after the depression was over is different from modern conservative thought.
My "conservative" grandparents would have been repulsed at people who drive huge SUV's and demand drilling when the future of oil is a one way downward spiral. My grandfather would be in the garage retrofitting a bicycle with a lawnmower engine when gasoline got over $2 a gallon. He was a successful small business owner whose employees worked for him for decades and never desired a union even when they were petitioned by a local.
Beneath the blind moral eye of the fat bakers who rule a "free market", those who eat the cookies are always the one who call the shots in the end.
What we use and don't use - in our innovation we change the play of the game.
