Richmond Free Press
The James River from Libby Hill
Editorial Page
A8
October 6-8, 2016
Kaine won We declare Virginia’s own Tim Kaine the winner of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate. Sen. Kaine, a former Richmond mayor, governor and now U.S. senator, typically is easygoing, with a personality that optimizes the good, rather than focusing on the bad. But in the high-stakes televised debate with Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence of Indiana, the Virginia Democrat came out swinging — going after Gov. Pence for the pernicious behavior and practices of Donald J. Trump that would make him a toxic leader for this nation. Gov. Pence, who reportedly also is a mild-mannered man, could say little to defend Mr. Trump’s continued public hiding of his income tax records that reportedly might show he has avoided paying federal income tax for 18 years. Gov. Pence also could say nothing when Sen. Kaine asked why Mr. Trump continually disrespects women, Mexicans, AfricanAmericans and others by his actions and remarks. Gov. Pence also could say little to defend Mr. Trump’s assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin — a dictator to his own people who invaded Crimea and seized the peninsula and the government from the Ukraine — is a stronger leader than President Obama. Instead, Gov. Pence tried to go after Sen. Kaine for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails and her singular remark about Mr. Trump’s supporters. Sen. Kaine distilled the debate perfectly: Gov. Pence is asking for people to vote for someone he can’t defend. We believe Sen. Kaine, while uncharacteristically aggressive, won this debate. And with only five weeks left in this campaign to choose the next leader of our country, we remind voters once again of the importance to get registered by Monday, Oct. 17, and to cast your ballot on Nov. 8 for the person who you believe will best represent you and your interests. We believe Clinton-Kaine is the right choice for the country.
Rick Wilking/Reuters
Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, center, and his wife, former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton, are congratulated by former state Sen. Henry L. Marsh III of Richmond after Tuesday’s debate in Farmville. Mr. Marsh was among Sen. Kaine’s special guests at the nationally televised event at Longwood University.
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Poverty lost during campaign There is no question that Hillary Clinton won the Sept. 26 presidential debate. She was knowledgeable, composed, unflappable and occasionally even funny. Her opponent, who had the temerity to criticize her “stamina,” seemed to lack stamina of his own. By the time the 90-minute debate was over, her rude, sniffling, frequent water-sipping opponent Donald Trump looked like a candidate for enforced bed rest. Mr. Trump was the loser, but he was not the biggest loser. The biggest losers were the unmentionables, the people who received scant attention in the debate. There were 43.1 million poor people in the United States in 2015 — 13.5 percent of the population — yet they were barely mentioned. To be sure, moderator Lester Holt started the conversation between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump by asking a question about economic inequality. But neither of them mentioned poverty or hunger, which remains a problem in the
United States. Both talked about shoring up the middle class. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump aren’t the only ones who avoid highlighting hunger and poverty when issues of economic inequality are discussed. When Vice President Joe Biden was charged with focusing on the middle class in his Middle Class Task Force
Julianne Malveaux early in the Obama Administration, there was a conspicuous silence about the status of the poor. While President Obama has lots of issues to deal with, the poor have not been a priority for him. Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015, a Census report released Sept.13, documents improvements in our nation’s poverty status. Between 2014 and 2015, there were 3.5 million fewer people in poverty, and the poverty rate dropped quite significantly, from 14.8 percent to 13.5 percent. The poverty rate for African-Americans dropped from 26.4 to 24.1 percent, and child poverty dropped from 36 percent to 32.7 percent among African-Americans. Either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump could have talked about
this economic good news with the caveat that while the drop in the poverty level is encouraging, there is still way too much poverty in our nation. One in five children under 18 live in poverty, along with one in three AfricanAmerican children. One in five African-American households — and one in eight households overall — have incomes below $15,000 a year. Further, there is significant “extreme poverty” in our country, people who earn less than half the poverty level. Half of all poor households are among the extreme poor. One in 10 AfricanAmerican households qualifies as extremely poor, which means an annual income of less than $12,000 for a family of four. To his credit, President Obama signed an executive order that requires federal contractors to pay at least $10 an hour to their workers. He also signed an executive order requiring that federal contractors provide paid sick leave for their employees. Clearly, this administration is not indifferent to poor people. They just don’t talk much about them. But the poor should not be our unmentionables. They are the living proof that our predatory capitalistic system is terribly flawed. Thus, even as the 2015
Infidelity: A weak line of attack I grabbed my ear lobe and jiggled it in disbelief of the words I was hearing from former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s mouth. Mr. Giuliani, a surrogate for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, was responding to a very good question from NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd on Sunday morning. Mr. Todd wanted to know whether Mr. Giuliani’s own history of marital infidelity disqualified him to be “the right person” to lead t h e Tr u m p c a m p a i g n ’s latest tactic — criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s response to her husband thenPresident Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. “You have your own infidelities, sir,” Mr. Todd reminded the former mayor. “Everybody does,” Mr. Giuliani casually responded. “You know, I’m a Roman Catholic, and I confess those things to my priest.” Those of us who were paying attention during his mayoral years don’t need a priest to tell us that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump — with their three marriages apiece — make an odd couple. “Just bizarre,” tweeted lawyer-journalist Glenn Greenwald, founder of The Intercept news site. “Trump & Giuliani have 6 wives between them & are sermonizing about marriage to the Clintons, who have been married 41 years.” And none of that’s a secret. Mr. Trump’s affairs were car-
ried out on the front pages of New York’s tabloids and gossip columns. Mr. Giuliani announced the end of his second marriage in a news conference in 2000 before he told his wife at the time, Donna Hanover. When she refused to leave the official residence with their two children, the mayor’s divorce lawyer said someone would have “to pry her off the chandelier to get her out of there.” Yet Mr. Giuliani’s casual attitude toward infidelities today sounds even more bizarre when compared to the shock and out-
Clarence Page rage of Republicans who voted for President Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s. Compared to those days, Mr. Giuliani’s attitude sounds as suspect as Mr. Trump’s recent and sudden reversal of his five-yearold doubts that President Obama was born in the United States. (It was about time, Donald.) Even more suspect is Mr. Giuliani’s tone deafness to the irony of his new position. After all, if “everybody” cheats, why make President Clinton’s cheating the focus of an attack against his wife? But Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani insist they are not rehashing President Clinton’s infidelities. Rather, they are attacking his former senator wife for defending him during the Lewinsky scandal and for her attempts to discredit women who accused her husband of sexual assault. “After being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said Bill Clinton violated her,” Mr. Giuliani told Elite Daily, a website for millennials, after the first Clinton-Trump
debate, “then you’re too stupid to be president.” This from a man whose own campaign to be president in 2008 flamed out after he came in third in Florida. Perhaps Mr. Trump himself sensed the weakness of this line of attack when, during a fullsteam, ad-libbed tirade against his opponent at a rally Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump shouted, “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really, folks, why should she be? Why should she be?” Really? Mr. Trump offered no evidence to back up his suggestion that the former first lady might be cheating, too. On Oct. 2, Mr. Giuliani dutifully dismissed Mr. Trump’s suggestion of infidelity by the former first lady as a “sarcastic remark.” “After she called him a racist and misogynist, xenophobic ... I think it’s fair game,” Mr. Giuliani said. Maybe. But at least Mrs. Clinton actually has something that looks and sounds like evidence to back up her argument. The list of Mr. Trump’s attacks and insults against Mexicans, Muslims, woman and other groups runs long and, by all indications, probably will grow longer. Does Mr. Trump really help himself by taking us back to Monicagate? Sure, Hillary-bashing wins applause — which he loves — from his hard-core supporters, but he already has won that group. The remaining slice of moderates and independents who haven’t made up their minds is small, pollsters say, but also likely to be decisive. Team Trump appears to be doing a great job — of delivering that group to their opponent.
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report on income and poverty celebrates economic progress, with incomes finally rising after years of stagnation, it also suggests that too many hard-working people are living in a state of economic deprivation. More than 35 percent of African-American households have incomes below $25,000. Many of these families have incomes above the poverty line, but not by much. There are two more debates. One, on Sunday, Oct. 9, at Washington University in St. Louis, will be conducted as a town hall. If moderators do not bring up the issue of poverty, perhaps someone in the audience of the town hall will. Mrs. Clinton has more compassion for the poor and has articulated solutions that will help end poverty. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, once said the minimum wage was “too high.” I think it is important to hear matters of hunger and poverty addressed in the context of the presidential debates. Our flawed economy has pushed the poor to the margins, but candidates can shed light on their issues and garner mainstream attention for them. The writer is an economist and author.
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