Mar 14, 2011 4 min read

Have you noticed, there’s a shortage of Republican presidential candidates these days? By this date four years ago, seven of the 11 Republicans who eventually ran for the presidency in 2008, had already officially announced their candidacies.

None of the 11 Republicans mentioned as potential presidential candidates in 2012 (Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Donald Trump, Mitch Daniels, Herman Cain and Chris Christy) have announced theirs.

First, it could be that President Obama isn’t as vulnerable as Republicans have led us to believe.

Secondly, it appears there’s a crisis shortage these days. Oh, you can’t turn on your television without a seeing some Republican warn us about deficits, the national debt and how precariously close this country is to plunging off the “cliff.”

We’ve heard this stuff before. But most Americans are far more concerned about what happens within their own wallets and purses.

There is little doubt that we’re experiencing the worst economic conditions since The Great Depression. But times have changed. There are no bread lines and food marches – yet.

Republicans are leaning so heavily on our economic travails, so they can use them to their political advantage, that they aren’t taking into account the only lines that are growing these days are the ones you’ll find around slot machines at the Rivers Casino.

Many of those lines are populated by senior citizens on fixed incomes, who don’t seem particularly worried about this country’s economic burden.

So by the fall of 2012, the Republican presidential candidate will, most likely, need to find a new crisis that’ll scare us into pulling the lever their way.

I’m not the only person who thinks that. Naomi Klein, a writer for The Nation Magazine, has written a book titled “Shock Doctrine,” which establishes that crises are very, very handy things.

In the face of drastic (and sometimes ridiculous) budget cuts being made by the new Tea Party-influenced crop of Republicans in Congress and in state governments, Klein’s book couldn’t be timelier.

“You don’t have to win the argument anymore,” says Klein. “You just have to say the sky is falling and we have to do this.” After you loudly announce the “sky is falling,” Klein says, you move to consolidate power, and then to auction off the state.

That’s what happening in Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker held the line against Democrats who felt he’s more concerned about busting public workers unions, than he is about budget deficits. He got his way, but he’s enraged a large segment of his population.

Walker really underestimated the will of people who may understand what budget deficits are, but are more concerned about the potential deficits in their own wallets.

Klein’s book is even more appropriate when you consider what is now happening in Michigan. Angry crowds have been growing in Lansing, because Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget includes a proposal to begin taxing retirement income (except for Social Security), and the removal of tax exemptions for children and senior citizens.

Those tax increases would be used to help offset a proposed tax cut of $1.5 billion for businesses. It’s no wonder the protests continue to grow.

But there’s more. Two Republican-backed proposals in Michigan are contributing to the growing number of protestors. They would both allow for emergency financial managers who could usurp the powers of local Michigan governments. If the state determines that a community or school district is in “dire straits,” those managers could move in and take them over.

If passed, and a fiscal emergency is established, the managers could “reject”, “modify” or “terminate” any contract entered into by a community. That includes, altogether now, collective bargaining.

Either of those measures could strip the will of the voter, by giving the managers the power to overrule elected officials.

But the Michigan House version of the bill is even more troubling. It allows for a business to be named an “emergency financial manager.”

Who needs the will of the people, when you have a board of directors, I guess.

Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net

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