The End of Overtime

Overtime pay, “time and a half” by law, and sometimes higher by employer-labor agreement, has been one of the building bricks of the postwar middle class. The first working-class beneficiaries of this provision in the 1940’s were familiar with six-day workweeks, and for those who grew up on the family farm, a seven-day workweek. The 40-hour workweek was foremost a job-sharing measure to end the Great Depression, but was also recognized as a move that gave the workforce more time for rest and recreation. White collar professionals, domestic workers, and many small-boat mariners do not receive overtime pay. Over the decades, retail managers have also found themselves as “exempt” workers. At least one maritime officers’ union has switched contracts from overtime-eligible to pure salary. For those still eligible for overtime pay, the allure has lessened, especially among the youngest generations. Time-and-a-half doesn’t go as far as it used to. Oliver Anthony sung this year: “Overtme hours for bull---- pay”. Baby Boomers worked long hours to buy grown-up toys: seldom-used RVs and boats that are still in shape to be used by the next generation, no new payments needed. In the past, overtime hours were often voluntary, in that you opted to stay to finish a job, of signed up for an extra shift. But in a time of staffing shortage, mandatory overtime offers less flexibility. Where there might have been a sense of obligation for a sole breadwinner to earn a little more money after-hours, today’s more-than-likely two-income household must share domestic chores, and passing jokes in the air-conditioned control room may appear more enjoyable than Saturday diaper duty. To cope with these changes in expectations, factories that were once running 60-hour average workweeks are adapting to a two-shift schedule. As far as practices in deep-sea shipping, weekly workhours have probably increased in the past 50 years, with the reduction of dedicated positions such as Radio Officer, Purser, and Machinist. However, tours of duty on American ships have fallen from an average of 6 months to 3 months; work harder for fewer months per year. Reliable automation, like the new cargo winches onboard USNS Arctic requiring half the operators as older systems; and increasing the mean time between equipment failures, do hold promise for freeing up mariners’ time, while at sea.

Middle Managers That Weren't

 The 1940’s to the 1990’s were the golden age of middle management. World War Two was foisted upon a United States that still had a large agricultural population. To ensure quick learning for workers transitioning from farm to industry, it was necessary to break work into small tasks, with rigid supervision of personnel and production of reports. This method won the war.

The high overhead of this kind of supervision meant many jobs for middle managers, who often were picked from liberal arts colleges rather than the assembly line. As foreign countries built their industries along different management systems (such as Japanese quality control or German quality design), high overhead costs and large internal bureaucracy strangulated profits and ingenuity. 

To rework these byzantine processes and procedures, “re-engineering the corporation” meant re-evaluating the hierarchical organizational charts. Work once performed in narrow silos, (for example- clerks who processed one or two lines on a form) now became assigned to functional groups centered on a tangible result (customer satisfaction or widget-making machines repaired). Prospective management, which prevents employees from inducing errors; was replaced with less-costly retrospective management, which trusts the auditing process to find errors.

Middle management stood outside of the “value chain”, as found in Six Sigma theory; or the rolls of “essential workers” in the COVID-19 Pandemic. While the implementation of re-engineering created efficiency and return to profitability; the 1993 namesake book’s author, Michael Hammer, did not discuss what to do about displaced middle managers; or how the nascent internet would many first post-college jobs obsolete. Nor what to do about the continued rate of business and liberal arts majors graduating college each year; as college counsellors were late to the news.

Broken expectations are topics for a different day. Even if these graduates never reach the upper-middle class lifestyle, there is still a baseline consumption of goods and services; think food shelter, and medicine; which must be provided by essential workers. Those large student loans are a millstone on disposable income, whether it is to start a family or small business, or buy a home.

Many essential workers in the oft-forgotten “value chain” proclaim themselves “open to work”. They are commonly credentialed in multiple trades and professions; yet if they’re shipping war matériel to Europe, they aren’t available for offshore oil drilling. If they’re building houses, they aren’t available for over-the-road trucking. They are in-demand, and many are paid handsomely up-front; in contrast to the long-term payout envisioned by future middle managers. For whatever the reasons, vocational-focused colleges tend to be magnitudes more affordable than liberal arts colleges. 

How do you retool those middle-managers to become more essential, and to become part of the value chain? Some might cite the use of vocational aptitude tests, to determine that many people are not suited for manual labor, technical, or field work. But the experience of the military, through its promotion rates of Corporals and Petty Officers, shows that at least half of the population is suited for both labor and supervision; blue-collar and white-collar work (not just in today’s highly-selective military; but in Cold War times, when most volunteers were accepted for service). Occupational elitism is another concern: Would degreed construction managers lend a hand on the worksite?  

When colleges and non-essential businesses were closed during the heart of the Pandemic, I could see with my own eyes that many young adults rolled up their sleeves, and went to work on construction sites, as independent-contract delivery drivers, and as trade apprentices. If it was not just the ennui of boredom, the Invisible Hand of Economics finally did its work. Those college graduates will have some concrete skills to put on their resumes.

The Educated Working Class

Despite the vocal assertions of mainstream media, student loan debt is not killing millennials as a whole- 2/3 do not have loans as they have paid them off, acquired scholarships or grants (such as the GI Bill for veterans), or did not attend college. Furthermore, the average balance for those with outstanding loans is a reasonable $8000. (The conservative National Review provided these stats). But there are 6% with over $100,000 in loans, and likely a larger group with high five-figure debt: we could say a solid demographic quintile have large outstanding student loans.

Among this group, many face growing balances as a result of low monthly payments and a high interest rate. Many students were taken in for surprise: there is no counseling requirement for undergrad loans. This was the cost of following your dreams into struggling fields like journalism. Existentially, it calls into question the role of higher education: to pursue a passion, or seek return on investment? Historically, attending college was a ROI proposition, with exceptions for the wealthy elite and certain upwardly-striving debutantes. Then if everyone sought the ROI method, society would suffer as a whole. Compensation for teachers, social workers and public advocates did not rise to reflect the cost of increased professionalization in these fields. Low compensation is endemic to career fields with origins in “women’s work” and advocacy.

While the college graduate still out earns the non-college grad, the wealth gap has closed. At age 35, the skilled tradesman has a higher net worth than the loan-taking college graduate
An economic realignment of the tech and COVID eras has occurred. White collar unionization at workplaces such as Google is emerging. This reflects the precarious nature of employment: contract workers without a sufficient war chest  (cash reserve) to mitigate the risks of self employment or small business entrepreneurship.
A decline in entry-level positions makes it more difficult for new graduates to deploy learned skills in a meaningful way. Such self-employment is a principal part of the skilled trades. In the trades, the “get a good job” mantra could bring a middle class income, but creating your own job was the ultimate goal. White-collar professionals must now reckon with the change.

Politically, what can be done? Portable health insurance ( through the Affordable Care Act) is a key enabler. Universal Basic Income would assist in lieu of unemployment benefits
I advocate for student debt relief through interest rate reduction, rather than cancellation of principal. This is the fairest approach considering that a majority of students do make compromises to manage the cost of education, such as attending community college as a commuter student, or pursuing part-time studying while working. 

The college grad is in a different cultural milieu than the traditional working class, but its economic standing is not too far. It is a force to reckon with, electing progressive candidates. The hippie generation recovered its economic standing during the 1980s-2000 bull market; some college educated millennials from the comfortable middle class may not.

There exists dichotomies in political theory: working class vs rich, highly educated vs not; as well as labor vs management.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, has called for a multiethnic working class party. Most likely speaking of  Economically secure part of the working class, holding rare or marketable skills, who is in control of their work life.

May Day for Who?

"Their wages had gone down by a full third in the past two years, and a storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to break any day. Only a month after Marija had become a beef-trimmer the canning factory that she had left posted a cut that would divide the girls’ earnings almost squarely in half; and so great was the indignation at this that they marched out without even a parley, and organized in the street outside. One of the girls had read somewhere that a red flag was the proper symbol for oppressed workers, and so they mounted one, and paraded all about the yards, yelling with rage."

 (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906)

Today, working-class interests are back in the public sphere. New York State is clearly debating a progressive agenda, which covers the gamut from rent control, the minimum wage, transportation policy, and the gig economy. From what I've seen, the progressive approach is to put the agenda forward, and work the details later. I caution the zealous to tread steadily.

Rent control, for example, has populist appeal. But in New York City after World War Two, this led to disinvestment in older neighborhoods, ultimately ending in urban blight. (See a previous blog post on South Bronx decline and revival). Changes to rent control, beginning in 1974, provided a balanced approach that allowed new market development while preserving some affordable housing. Small, multifamily properties; found in places like Queens and Brooklyn; are the foundation of middle-class investment. Universal rent control, as proposed, would soak these working savers as much as it would "soak the rich". 

As we debate the path forward in the digital age, consider putting away the spite towards either side (owner and worker), and work towards creating upward mobility (which in many aspects has stalled) by "sharing the pie".

Island Time

I’ve been to the American outpost of Guam before, in 2012 and 2016. Always by ship, never by airplane. Closer to Japan than the mainland USA, it’s where America’s day begins, on the oriental side of the International Date Line. To note, it’s 17-18 hours ahead of Los Angeles, and about a full day ahead of Hawaii. Those were brief visits in the past, but my current work assignment carries the distinction of being homeported in Guam. While I feel pressured by East Coast influences, to get back to mainland USA as soon as possible; the expat population couldn’t ask for a better paradise in Guam. There is enough tropical sunset for everyone, rich or poor. It’s endless summer; full length pants are only worn to church. So I’m digesting these opinions the same way I’ve analyzed expat life elsewhere, from Subic Bay in the Philippines, to Dubai and the Francophone nation of Djibouti. Hafa Asia, greetings.

What Makes it a Trophy Building?

Like how up-marketed luxury apartments replaced comfortable dwellings, everybody advertises their office space as Class A today. No strict definition exists, but Class A denotes new or newly-renovated, spacious lobbies, the works. Owners, who own both upscale and modest office space, are allowed to have Class B space for rent. With it, they get to upsell the business owner’s pride: after all, a fancy office announces that you’ve made your corner-office fantasies come true.

Engineering and service firms, and credit unions, led by practical people, settle into Class B space such as aging suburban office parks. Intellectually honest leaders know that free snacks are more valuable to the employees than the goldfish pond in a Class A lobby.

Class C for “creative”. Not techie creatives, but artists and struggling non-profits. It is the low-rent and cramped spaces above downtown stores; or obsolete, like how 40 Wall Street and the Singer Buildings in New York were perceived. The Singer Building was demolished in 1968, and Donald Trump claimed to have bought 40 Wall Street for $1 million in the 1990’s.  

Above all this is the Trophy office. Not long ago, “Trophy” offices meant monumental architecture. The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York are two examples. Today, grade inflation creates a lot more Trophies. In downtown DC, an office building, designed in any other shape than a space-maximizing cube, is a Trophy Building with eye appeal. Several include the replacement Washington Post buildings, with windows reminiscent of newsprint leaves fluttering through the automated printing press; and City Center- it has a pedestrian alley and balconies.   

Another Trophy project in DC is a squat five-story building just north of the White House. During renovation, the owners downgraded from a marble siding to red limestone. How does it deserve the distinction of a Trophy? You see, Corporate America captured the AFL-CIO building, jackhammering to pieces any marble engraving that reeked of “solidarity” and “brotherhood”. The interior was gutted down to bare concrete: no Union Label stuck on a door or refrigerator would survive the purge. A building once owned, in practical terms, by representatives of working men and women, has now been cleansed and reoriented towards the full service of capitalism. Now that’s a Trophy.

Eid Mubarak (Happy Eid in Dubai)

When working in an Islamic country, Ramadan means shorter hours in many occupations. At my work, dayshift runs from 7am to 3pm, which is pretty common across Dubai for the season. Even in the modern mechanized and computerized economy, it isn’t productive to work hungry and thirsty through the late afternoon. But for those straddling cultures, Ramadan might mean longer hours: Evening shift at the shipyard starts at 9pm, after breaking the fast with Iftar meal. As far as hunger and thirst and sweat, I observe that many of our workers are Hindu and Indian, as thus are not obliged to fast. (I have also worked with both Christian and Muslim Indians, too) 

 Five-day workweeks are lush; our workers get either Friday or Saturday off. When does the work stop? 12pm-4pm on Fridays. It’s mosque time. And a perfect time for independent contractors from France and England to get their work done without interference.

In the shipyard as with any big project, hemmed in by schedule demands, the objective is to hit to dock running like a rabbit. Essentially, start the big tasks and keep up the pace. When unforeseen circumstances arise: missing parts, extensive corrosion, it can be squeezed into the schedule. And when the project finishes on time, praise is heaped. Still have a month to go, though. 

As an expat during Ramadan, I go and come from work on dusty, empty streets with closed shops.  Which makes the “holiest month” appear drab in sunlight. One who eats or drinks during the day must do so behind a curtain. Social pressure- not co-workers, but the cultural norm- makes me lose appetite for lunch. After dinner, and a little recreation in the hotel, I tucker out in my room as the city wakes up. Ramadan means nocturnal. Sunset to sunrise, Dubai comes to life. I don’t like to work while tired, so I let the city go on without me. 

Discipline of Quality Control

Had I been born 20 years earlier… I wouldn’t have invented the internet, but I might have been a messenger for the message of quality control. Someone defined stupidity as “doing the same thing and expecting different results”, and apparently that is what large companies like the auto makers were doing in the 1980’s. “We’re Number Five”, boasted Buick: This became the title of a chapter in Chuck Colson’s book, “Why America Doesn’t Work”, a book which I have reviewed on this blog. Quality Control, Continuous Improvement, Lean Processes,  Cost-Quality-Schedule; these were terms I learned to breathe in college. Where do these high-minded ideals fit in the real world? Last year I took the CAPM test- Certified Associate of Project Management- to see how my education in “Shipyard Management” measured up to other undergraduate management courses.  I was up to par.

Taylorism, originating in the early 20^th century, took autonomy away from workers, with a vision of “slide rule and stopwatch”. In place of craftsmanship, writes Chuck Colson, came a feeling of disassociation between employees and their work. Dr. Deming, who emerged after World War Two, insisted that employee buy-in was essential for successful quality control. The Japanese, whose industries were flattened by war’s end, bought into this idea. The Americans held off.  

Union Carbide or Bethlehem Steel, anyone? On that note, I’ve looked at pictures of the now-abandoned Martin Tower, Bethlehem Steel’s former headquarters in Pennsylvania. After-hours access required employees to state their name, department- and alphanumeric personnel code.  Humble the peons! This is Illustrative of rigid thinking; just one of the factors that allowed the continuously-improving Japanese to eat Bethlehem’s lunch.  The Dilbert cartoon contemporaneously parodies the corporate world’s discovery of quality control.  Beginning in the late 1980’s, Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Boss comically portrays the implementation of Japanese methods, from implementing sleeping tubes to animal costumes; to training sessions conducted with no clear objective. 

I said in a previous blog post that big business today is a finely tuned machine. Buick went bankrupt; and it seems that today, a low-performing CEO would be sacked rather than be rewarded with a bonus. This perfection cuts both ways for the consumer. Yes, you might get the right product in the mail, but expect no perks.  I recently ordered a book “How Boys and Toys Were Made”, a story about AC Gilbert and the once-famed Erector Set. Two-day shipping became six-day shipping over a holiday weekend- all accurately predicted by the website. I ordered on Thursday and received the book on Wednesday, not a day late nor a day early.  

This “new way of thinking”- employee empowerment for better, quantifiable results- specifics be darned- has been co-opted by the right-to-work movement, which insists that labor unions, working as an intermediary between workers and management, are not compatible with these worker-enabling production and quality methods. My own experience? The Department of Defense is looking into Six Sigma’s Lean Operation system. In addition to being a valuable credential, it would put a formal cap on what we were already doing- predictive maintenance and statistical analysis. It could be received with skepticism by the tradesmen- is it just another management tool that prefers the science of data over the art of skill? Brainwork over brawn? You can now see how employee buy-in matters.

The Value and Price of Work

A rare books review on the blog. By chance in the ship’s library, I read two books that turned out to be a before-and-after on America’s poor and working class. “Why America Doesn’t Work” is a commentary on the ‘decline’ of the American work ethic. Written in the early 1990’s book, it includes firsthand examples of the Soviet elite’s corruption and the failed state they ruled. On their trip to the USSR, the author saw two things that worked: the black market…and the gulag, where productive inmates were able to earn overtime as an incentive. “The beginning of a free market?” the author noted.  Chuck Colson and Jack Eckerd sounded an alarm about a growing cultural and income gap between workers and the ruling class. Twenty-five years later, our new President of the United States was able to capitalize to victory on voters’ concerns about those educated, connected elites.  These voters even included “college educated whites”, who turned out to be Trump’s stealth supporters. What were Chuck Colson’s concerns?

A welfare system that punished work (known as AFDC)

A prison system that encouraged idleness and recidivism

Schools failing to educate students

Apathetic university students waiting to graduate with huge salaries

Big businesses allowing Japan and West Germany to eat their lunch

“Age of Aquarius”, the prominence of leisure, decline of morals such as honesty.

Money-lusting, middle class, Self-interested teens slacking on the job

Oh… and the lack of mutual respect between employee and employer.

And most prominently, that the old saying “An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay” was now a Jay Leno punchline.

Some changes have happened since. Businesses have smartened up, embracing quality control, innovation (read: Fast Company, which began in 1995) and keeping a closer check on “time theft”. It’s less likely for new graduates to trip into a high-paying Wall Street job. Morals might be firming up, says Gallup,  if you leave out loosening opinions on drugs and marriage. Today, we have charter schools, No Child Left Behind, a well-intentioned program; and “high achieving students” are noticed. Some new employer-employee models have been tried, such as a uniform pay rate (one company had a $70,000 a year minimum salary) and adult playgrounds at tech companies. Hipsters and the Maker Movement are bringing back a culture of craftsmanship and restoring the dignity of work- even in once-menial jobs like coffee-wenching.

Shortly after the book was written, Bill Clinton, one of those New Democrats, and Newt Gingrich’s Congress, ended “welfare as we knew it”. What happened to the poor? We learn about them in “Nickel and Dimed”. The author laments that there was no provision in the welfare reform bill to track its effects. She had some not-so-good numbers from research groups, but decided to explore the mystery of the working poor. 

The author, Barbara Ehrenreich, accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle, dives into the world of minimum wage work. Notably, she attempts to pay rent in motels and apartments without a significant other or roommate pitching in. I know this challenge myself: without paying rent, my high school lifeguard job at $8.50 per hour felt like rolling in dough; a post-collegiate job offer thrice that rate was enough to make ends meet, considering rent. So I was intrigued. The book was written 15 years ago, but many of the truths remain the same. 

Transportation and Mobility

The bewildering question of why workers working for minimum wage were not upwardly mobile- why didn’t they flock to jobs paying a bit better? Why were they passing up a seeming opportunity? There is the unpaid time that would have to be invested in finding and securing a job. Not the monthly bills middle-class people face, but the daily fees like motel rooms. Management issues were a concern; middle managers (themselves not well compensated) were presented as lacking in leadership skills, so workers often decided to resign themselves to the “devil you know”. But the overarching issue is the question of access to these better paying jobs. Sure, riding infrequent bus routes in the suburbs is inconvenient and time-consuming, but doable. Until you consider the need to pick up the kids from school, or to go to a second job. Changing jobs would require rearranging one’s transportation.

Subsidence

When I go grocery shopping, I scratch my head at some of the bills. They seem bigger than last year; even more than just two months ago. For me, I take the information and look to see if my credit union is also increasing its rates with inflation- on savings accounts. For the working class, no good comes out of higher grocery prices. It isn’t expensive to eat healthy (but it’s not cheap either!)

The author noted that her co-workers were filling themselves with high-carb, high-fat junk food, with long-term health effects. That was all they could afford. As for the nasty cigarette and booze stereotype associated with the poor, I was interested to learn that being a smoker was a way to get a smoke break- a few minutes’ time off the job. The small amounts of cheap alcohol eased aches and pains associated with their labor. As a country singer sung: “…beer sitting on ice, after a long hard day, tastes just right”.

Today, the cost of a combo meal at a fast food restaurant is the same as a healthier meal at a take-out place. It seems like these fast food establishments are preying on a lack of knowledge of alternatives. We live in the information age; those who have knowledge have the power.

Marginalization

During the 1990’s, it appeared that little attention was paid to the minimum wage as the middle-and upper-classes increased in wealth through salaries and a go-go stock market. Fifteen years later, some of the dynamics have changed. Due to the living wage movement, the minimum wage will be $4.25 per hour higher in DC than neighboring Virginia; the author noted that increased minimum wages do have a spillover effect. Also, with job growth moving from sprawl to transit-oriented town centers and inner-cities, are the transportation issues faced by the working poor getting better?

The author noted some cultural factors affecting the visibility and esteem of the working class:  Market segmentation meant that wealthy shoppers “never rubbed shoulders” with the poor, loss of middle-class teen interest in summer and after-school jobs, and marginalization by popular media. And secondhand clothes meant that the poor no longer have to “look poor”. 

Housing Issues

One thing that is different is gentrification, a factor that didn’t have to be considered in 1998. The author worked solely in suburbs and small towns, while noting that the poor were concentrated in the inner-cities. Today, as cities gentrify, and the working class is squeezed on housing cost or commuting time.  Luxury apartments are replacing alternative- and necessary- living arrangements like the Joyce “hotel” in Portland, Oregon, or YMCA-style Single-Room Occupancies with bathrooms at the end of the hall. These arrangements are an important buffer against homelessness. For the author, it was a major struggle saving enough to make first month’s payment, and tiding over any unexpected health or car expenses. The largest secret, perhaps, is that the poor tended to live with roommates, other working family members, or a boyfriend- well after their twenties are over.

Management

More than ever, retail companies want managers for the lowest cost possible; so much so that Vice President Joe Biden wants to redefine who is a manager under the Labor Department’s salary provisions. Managers sometimes do not have the toolbox of leadership skills to be effective; and sometimes forget that they themselves may have been the lowest minimum-wage employee at one time* .Technology has changed; gone are the days of employees pacing themselves in big-box stores; Amazon’s partner warehouses track employees’ movements by the second, and use algorithms to get the maximal and most efficient use of the employee’s time.   “With slide rule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed”, goes a Dropkick Murphy song.

* It is notable that workers earning a tier above minimum wage tend to have the strongest opposition to increasing the minimum wage, since they worked for their payraise.

The author remains objective, and refuses to speculate on outside factors like immigration, including the effects of illegal immigration on wages. The rising tide did not lift all boats; greater demand for workers didn’t translate into increased earnings, as a classical economist would believe. This book was written at a time of abundance of low-wage jobs, a prospect which is finally returning after the last recession. Working within fragile transportation and social constraints, they live life on the edge. The book sparked a moral argument- whether it was right to ask someone to work for less than sustenance wages; and leaving workers in worse physical condition than when they hired them. Conservatives also questioned the wisdom of needing to indirectly subsidize low wages- provide corporate welfare- through public assistance. Our gleaming, post-industrial cities rely on a large army of working-class people to serve. How are we serving them?

Two years ago, I bought wholeheartedly into the idea that changes in the economy demanded “a new relationship of empowerment” between employers and employees. That was a nice code phrase for reducing the power of labor unions, especially used in the right-to-work debate. I am more wary of the statement now, demanding to see concrete examples of how decent workers will benefit. I’d like to humble myself and tell my relatives, “you were right”.  

Twenty years after welfare reform, what happened to the New Democrats? They brought the Northeast back to the Democratic Party. But their days became numbered when the ends justified the means. Feminists knew that the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was unsavory, but they had larger goals in mind, like defending abortion. Likewise, I feel that liberal supporters of the Democratic Party are too willing to overlook troubles in the DNC, such as resignations under allegations, accusations of pay-to-play, and losing once-loyal union votes in the Midwest. While I believe in meritocracy, more than a few people have observed that there are “too many white septuagenarians in leadership positions”; in a party that is becoming majority-minority. Topics like environmentalism and social issues, favored by their donors, have received more detailed attention than topics that matter to their voters, like educational and employment opportunity. The DNC and media voices have encouraged playing it cautiously, because “there is too much at stake”.  One progressive commentator wrote an article titled “Bernie Sanders is a Privileged Choice”, arguing that the poor could lose everything if Bernie failed to win the general election. The language of political correctness was limiting their political options. But with the exception of 2012, the DNC has had eight straight years of losses. Even if “local races don’t matter”, losing the winnable presidency may be a wake-up call to change strategy.  In contrast, the turmoil in the Republican Party- from losing Congress in 2006 to the anti-establishment Tea Party movement- created a party that is more libertarian and less neocon than eight years ago; and a party that wins wide across the map, and deep in the “red” states. Nixon’s Southern Strategy and this year’s Midwestern Strategy were gambles that paid off. Murdoch and Akin in 2012, that was a bad choice. They should never do that again. That’s all of my political screed.