Obama v. McCain? Spy v. Spy? A view from my perch...

This is the pretty much untruncated version of a "Letter to the Editor" I've been sending out to a number of papers. The short version will be printed in the next two weeks by the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal. Mansfield sits in Ohio "Red" country.

To the Editor:

In a season where credentials, in one form or another, make a difference, let me first say that I am the son of Ike Gold, who retired as Secretary and Treasurer of The United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum, and Plastic Workers of America.

I grew up in Akron Ohio, lower-middle class, rising to what we just called “middle class”. My dad emigrated as a child from the Ukraine. Because of the Great Depression, he dropped out of West High weeks before graduation and worked with his dad in a scrap yard. He
later worked at The Akron Times Press, then finally landed a job in the rubber shops. He learned to weld, read blueprints, and became a skilled trades journeyman before becoming President of Firestone Local 7. In 1960, when I was 8, dad was elected to his job with the URW, offices in the old Buckeye Building at Mill and High streets.

I was raised going to meetings at the Local 7 Hall, around strikes and picket lines, learning about laws that had been passed to protect the rights of workers to form unions, how unions protected the worker from abuses, overwork, underpay, and safety issues in the workplace.

It was in this environment I learned that The Democratic Party is the party of the working man and woman. Now the Republicans are working so very hard to convince everyone THEY are the party of the working class. They would like us to believe that it’s not the REPUBLICANS who are most likely to raise the taxes of those who can afford it the least.

It’s not shocking that they’ve attempted to do this, but astonishing that it appears to be getting swallowed hook-line-and-sinker by many of our working brothers and sisters.

For a moment, forget the individual candidates. Forget your prejudices, your thoughts about their health, gender, age, race, appearances. Assume for a moment, probably correctly, that none of them are idiots.

I beg you, instead, to consider the platforms the candidates will carry forward when elected. The differences between the Democrats and Republicans are not tiny this time around.

The Democrats pledge to raise taxes on those earning $227,000 and above. As for the “middle class?” Our tax bills will be reduced- with the biggest benefits going to those with the lowest incomes.

Conversely, the Republican plan is to cut corporate taxes, the theory that it will stimulate big business and thus the overall economy, providing more jobs, more money, and more benefits for the majority. This is “trickle down” economics introduced in the Reagan administration by David Stockman, who resigned when it became clear that corporate America wasn’t going to do its part to make the deal work.

Today’s example: This is the worst economy we’ve had in decades, fueled on many levels by gas prices, while the oil companies show the biggest profits, by far, in their history. These profits aren’t providing us with more jobs or lowering out transportation bills.

Further, the next administration is facing the crippling debt we’ve acquired in the last 8 years. If the GOP is pledging to not raise taxes AND offer tax breaks to the rich, where is the money going to come from to pay down this enormous debt? Where’s the lie?

There are many issues to consider, but this one has been going on long enough. The lie that the Republicans represent the Working Joe needs to be done with. That’s what they’ve been saying for years, yet the only time the economy has truly thrived in the last 28 years was during the last 6 years of the Clinton administration when it not only dug us out of the Reagan/Bush Savings and Loan Bail Out crisis, but left the country, Social Security, and Medicare with a SURPLUS!

This Bush administration leaves us with the Freddie Mac, Fannie May, $200 billion dollar bailout. There was a bill in Congress to set up safeguards against this eventuality. Bush declared he’d veto it if passed. McCain voted against it. His Congressional record, btw, has consistently been to vote for de-regulation, exactly what brought us to where we are today (another 400+ drop in the market).

Wall Street is falling apart, and we have the largest National Debt in history, by far! Lehman Brothers , Merrill Lynch, AIG ($85 bill.) - all this on the Republican's watch.

Leave it to the big corporate bosses to take care of us? No! This is exactly why the broken and busted labor unions were formed in the first place!!

And let me make it clear that I’m aware that there have been times the unions have actually been more of a hindrance to their own members than a help. And yes, I know it was a Democratic president that supported NAFTA which, to be fair, was not a good idea, even in the best of times. Now things aren’t good, times have changed, there’s little to spread around… coming under the Republican's watch.

Please, I beg of everyone, don’t base your judgment on personality and thin rhetoric. Look past the War Hero; the African American; the woman as candidate. Vote based on whether you want to see the great majority- those of us who actually make up the engine that runs America, and our children- have a chance again for the first time in almost a decade.

Yes, this means voting, in this election, for Obama.