H O W A R D S B E N D

This is still your Daddy’s Democratic Party and most likely your Granddaddy’s Democratic Party. This is a party that stills boasts about their New Deal and their Great Society legislation. This is a Party that is being lead by two octogenarians. It is finally time for the Democratic Party to get a complete makeover.

First, let’s give the old “donkey” the boot. I do not think that the next generation of young, engaged, empassioned, motivated voters want to come together under the banner of an old slow, lumbering jackass. The Democratic Party needs a new banner that captures both the energy and the diversity of a party committed to bring changes to this country. I suggest a banner and logo like the picture above which is a group of multi-racial hands enthusiastically waving together. And while we are making basic changes, let’s change the name of the Democratic Party to The Party of Democracy which clearly delineates us from the other guys who are clearly not committed to the basic principles of our Constitutional democracy. Either you are with the Party of Democracy or you are opposed to democracy.

In order to win tfhe 2022 election, the Party of Democracy must rely on three essential constituencies. First, they need young voters to turn out in large numbers. Next they need the block of suburban women that enabled them to capture in the 2020 Presidential election. And of course, they must rely on minority groups especially black and Hispanic voters. The Party of Democracy will need simple and precise policies and programs that motivate these groups to the pools in 2022.

The Party of Democracy must stop promoting election platforms that rely on spending gargantuan sums of money promising to bring about generational reforms. This strategy in not working. The opposition easily paints these programs as “rampant socialism” which will obviously raise everyone’s taxes and lead to more amd more DC bureaucracies. The Build Back Better legislation clearly falls into this category. The Party of Democracy needs a few simple campaign issues for the 2022 midters which seem realistic and very attainable and will motivate voters.

First, the Party of Democracy should stand for the national legalization of marijuana. It is time. There will be federal taxes on the sale of this item and the federal revenues will be targeted for a brand new “Civilian Conservation Core”. This Civilian Core will be available to anyone 18 to 25 years old and perform conservation work throughout the nation’s forests and perform clean-up and enhancement work in the nation’s urban area.

The new Party of Democracy will immediately pass legislation that guarentees equal pay for women as men in the same job. Again, it is time. This legislation will be passed in the first 30 days of the new Congress. The Party of Democracy will also support a “woman’s right of choice.”

The new Congress will also pass new DACA legislation establishes DACA for new applicants and also establishes for the Dreamers, those currently living under DACA status, a clear path to citizenship. This is another simple policy issue whose time has come.

The current Congress has failed to protect individual rights to vote as many states have passed legislation that makes it harder for minority populations to have access the ballot box. Also, many states are passing legislation that does not guarentee that the winner of the po;ular vote in that state will be awarded the proper set of elecorals to go tothe Electoral College. The new Congress will make it a top priority to protectthe integrity of our elections and to make the ballot box assessible to anyone wishing to vote.

This is very simplistic, but we will be running against a party that has no policy agendas and does not even chose to the promote the integrity of our political process. Let’s keep it simple and win both the House and Senate in 2022.

The NFL just took and unexpected hit and fumbled the ball. Will they be able to recover the fumble and run with the ball, or will they let the opposition bounce on this opportunity and go on the offensive?

The analytics do not look good. There are 32 NFL teams and only one black head coach equating to about 3% for a league that in 2020 was made up of almost 60% black players. The Rooney Rule which requires teams searching for a new head coach to interview minority applicants is obviously not working. There is no incentive and obviously no punishment for not hiring a minority head coach.

Here is an idea. Draft picks are so valuable in the NFL where careers are short and injuries pervasive. Draft picks are referred to as “assets”. These assets are essential to both good teams hoping to maintain their high level of achievement as well as to the average and mediocre teams looking to get back on the winning trail. The NFL Draft Day is almost a national holiday as the fate of teams and the fate of their respective cities rely on how well their teams do on selecting players on the day. The shrewd general managers are known for accumulating extra picks which potentially will help their team succeed in coming years.

There are 32 teams in the NFL with the worse team drafting first. Beginning with the 2023 NFL, there will be a special tier in the draft. After the 16th pick in the first round, any team with a minority coach will get an extra pick. At this time, only the Pittsburgh Steelers will get an extra pick, the 17th pick in the 2023 draft. If more than one team has a minority coach, the length of tenure will determine the higher draft pick…thus a team with a minority coach for 3 years will draft higher than a team with a minority coach that has worked for two years. All teams with minority coaches will get draft choices before the draft reverts back to its traditional sequencing.

The tier of draft choices will be determined by the percentage of minority coaches in the league. If after a few years there is still only a single minority coach, this drafting tier can be moved to the top of the draft board such that a team with a minority coach will get the first pick in the draft. If this revised structure has a more positive outcome, the special tier can be moved to the end of the first round. The goal is to have the percentage of minority coaches match the number of minority players in the league. Hopefully at this point, the NFL will be able to end these special draft provisions.