South Carolina primary results and other news from the campaign trail with NPR’s Political Junkie, Ken Rudin. Super PACS larger than presidential campaigns? The great JoePa dies, leaving behind mixed legacy. Bratton and Tumin on how collaborating across boundaries, changes the game. Plus, the latest news.
Tracking the campaign trail with NPR’s Political Junkie, Ken Rudin
Tonight, NBC Television will host yet another GOP debate – the 18th of the cycle. If that sounds like overkill, presidential contender Newt Gingrich begs to differ. His decisive win in the South Carolina primary Saturday was aided significantly by his recent debate performances.
Exit polls show more than half of Palmetto state voters were undecided a week ago. Ninety percent said the debates played a big factor in their final choice. What else was at play?
Leading up to the vote, Mitt Romney struggled with questions about his business background. Repeated calls for disclosure of his tax returns and criticism of his 15% tax rate due to his investment income had Romney on the defensive. Today he announced his 2010 tax returns will be made public tomorrow.
Rick Santorum came in third in South Carolina despite holding common ground with the southern state’s social conservatives. Nevertheless, Santorum is not giving up ahead of next week’s Florida primary. He told CNN on the weekend, “This race isn’t going to be over next week or the week after.”
Ron Paul is also gazing into the future. After a paltry 13 percent return in South Carolina, he is skipping Florida campaigning, but will press on to upcoming challenges in other states.
WEIGH IN:
Is this shaping up to be a two-man race once and for all? Or is there still room for unpredictability? What do Florida Republicans desire in a candidate? What can we expect to learn from Romney’s tax returns? Will he be pressured to release returns from previous years? What was Democratic reaction to South Carolina’s results? With Gingrich as a frontrunner, what will his challengers use to undermine him?
Guests:
Ken Rudin, political editor for NPR; writer of the Political Junkie blog
John McCormick, Reporter, Bloomberg News (reporting from FL)
Super PACS larger than presidential campaigns?
Chances are, you’ve heard about the tongue-in-cheek effort by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to educate Americans about Super PACS – an outgrowth of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowing independent political groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money for candidates – as long as they’re “Definitely Not Coordinating” with the campaign.
Most of the cash raised by Super PACS gets spent on political ads and spending this year has already exceeded $30-million, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). But this year, the political ads are different, say the critics of Super PACS. They can use what’s called “express advocacy” – a highly aggressive form of political speech. Supporters of GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, used Restore Our Future to tank Newt Gingrich in Iowa, while Gingrich backers depended on Winning Our Future for revenge in South Carolina, according to a ProPublica report.
At recent Republican debates, candidates have denounced their own Super PACS for running ads that opposing candidates deemed false or riddled with personal attacks. Have Super PACS become larger than the campaigns themselves? Some experts say no. They argue that Super PACS have become a focus in this election because they are required to disclose their expenditures, making it easier for media to report on them. Others say yes, Super PACS have uniquely affected the political climate surrounding this election unlike ever before.
WEIGH IN:
Now that the results of the South Carolina primary are in, what impact did all this spending have there? What’s the takeaway in terms whether these Super PACS are forces of good or forces of something not-so-good? Are the biggest spenders winning? We’ll crunch the numbers, and results to date, and debate the pros and cons of unlimited spending in this election cycle.
Guests:
Ken Rudin, political editor for NPR; writer of the Political Junkie blog
Bill Allison, Editorial Director, Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit that advocates for campaign transparency
Bradley A. Smith, Professor of Law, Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio
The great JoePa dies, leaving behind mixed legacy
For 46 years Joe Paterno was the roar behind Penn State’s Nittany Lions. He was the winningest coach in the history of college football, with a legendary commitment to his players and their academics. College football has been plagued by scandal in recent years, players getting expensive gifts from boosters, professors turning a blind eye to school work, but that wasn’t how Paterno treated the sport. He insisted on success with honor. His players got good grades and were – and still are – pillars of the community.
But then, in early November, news broke that former Penn State assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was arrested and accused of sexually assaulting at least 10 young boys, and, as it turns out, the great JoePa was aware of at least one incident. Within days Paterno was fired from his decade’s long role as coach of the Lions. Just days after that, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and yesterday morning Joe Paterno died at the age of 85.
People close to Paterno have said that while the cancer may have killed him, it was the heartbreak he felt over the loss of his job and his tarnished legacy sent him over the edge. According to the Philadelphia Enquirer, whenever the subject of retirement came up, Paterno would say, “I don’t want to die. Football keeps me alive.”
It’s impossible to know to what extent the stress in Paterno’s life may have contributed to his death. But one hears stories all the time about people at the end of their lives, losing the will to live.
WEIGH IN:
Could it be that the loss of football and so much of what he lived for, hastened Paterno’s demise? How much does our outlook play into our health, and ultimately our death? Have you experienced a family member simply giving up on life?
Guests:
Mark Lachs, M.D., Director of Geriatrics for the New York Presbyterian Health Care System; physician, scientist, and gerontologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City; author, Treat Me, Not My Age: A Doctor’s Guide to Getting the Best Care as You or a Loved One Gets Older (Viking Press)
Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine; Executive Director of the Skeptics Society; and Adjunct Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University
Bratton and Tumin on how collaborating across boundaries changes the game
William Bratton led police departments in New York and Boston, where he's still known as "Commissioner." In Los Angeles, where he was top cop from 2002-2009, he’ll always be "The Chief." No matter the moniker, Bratton is largely thought of as a charismatic, tough-on-crime law enforcement leader, credited with reducing crime, improving safety and bringing people together.
Now, Bratton has joined forces with Harvard researcher Zachary Tumin to lay out a streetwise playbook on how to share information and collaborate across different groups in today’s highly networked world. In "Collaborate or Perish!," Bratton and Tumin offer up their own professional experiences by way of demonstrating how teamwork is not only central to success, it’s imperative. They argue that governments and organizations that fail to collaborate and engage citizens, customers and suppliers, are doomed to perish.
The book presents a collection of stories that are analyzed with an eight-step model Tumin developed for successful collaboration. It involves essentials such as having a feasible vision, and talking with the right people to achieve it. Bratton said the model fits perfectly with his Los Angeles successes as Chief of Police.
"I'd like to think that my time in L.A., for me, was my most significant professional accomplishment in over 40 years of policing," he said. In "a department that was fighting with everybody, successful collaboration ... was key."
Bratton took an idea he learned from his time in New York as Commissioner of Police to L.A. in the early 2000s: working on the little issues. In Manhattan, there was an outbreak of "Squeegee pests," or the people who offer to clean your windshield when you're stopped at a traffic light. Though public sector police paid no attention because the extortionists seemed like a minor nuisance, Bratton ordered to get rid of the problem.
"It showed the public that police were responding to things that were of concern to them. The whole concept of community policing, of collaboration, was partnership," he said. "We were focusing on murders and rapes and robberies, but that afflicted a very small part of the overall population. But 8 million New Yorkers every day were affected by the conditions they saw in their neighborhoods – graffiti, prostitution, drug dealing. Same thing in LA in 2002."
The book shows that collaboration is also about focusing more on inclusion. According to Bratton, policing used to be a very exclusive business.
"'Leave it to the police, we'll solve all your problems,'" Bratton said. "Well, for 40 years in L.A., by leaving it to the police, it didn't solve too many problems, and in fact caused many more."
Bratton said that in his seven years in L.A., collaborating with different groups of people – city council, the public – improved quality of life. "At the end of the day, everybody could stand on the stage and take a bow, because collectively we had made the city a safer place," Bratton said.
So, what can we learn from this cop/researcher team? Can Bratton and Tumin’s field-tested counsel bring divided politicians together in order to get more done? What can managers and employees do to get along better? Is collaboration always better than going it alone? Bratton and Tumin collaborate with Larry in-studio and take your questions and calls.
Guests:
William Bratton, co-author, "Collaborate or Perish!: Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World" (Random House/Crown Business); Chairman of Kroll, a risk consulting company; former Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (2002–2009); former Boston Police Commissioner and New York City Police Commissioner
Zachary Tumin, co-author, "Collaborate or Perish!: Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World" (Random House/Crown Business); Special Assistant to the Director and Faculty Chair of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
Bratton and Tumin will discuss their book with KPCC’s Patt Morrison at Barnes & Noble at The Grove, tomorrow, Tuesday, January 24 @ 7pm. For more info, click here.