Bird fever is sweeping the nation. During the very first, eagerly awaited presidential debate – and even now, some days after – the economy and healthcare are nowhere near as ubiquitous as Big Bird.

The avian giant was brought into the political crossfire on Wednesday, when Mitt Romney said to Jim Lehrer, “I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”

Responses to this statement have ranged from the very humorous to the visceral. Sometimes both. Bright yellow memes have cropped up and spread faster than any flu. Most of these feature the image of some unemployed version of the eight-foot giant. When a presidential candidate threatens the future of a beloved childhood icon, it’s not impossible to predict where the conversation is going to go.

To date, it has been ongoing. The participants in this conversation have not just been teenagers fooling around on Photoshop: PBS had choice words for Mr. Romney in a statement released shortly after the debate. So did the creators of Sesame Street, as well as different voices in circulations such as the Times. What could only have been a spur-of-the-moment example has set off some type of debate across different media spheres.

Romney’s reasoning seems off the mark when the numbers are considered. According to the Huffington Post, only one fifteenth of the federal budget goes to public broadcasting. And that small part only makes up seven percent of the overall costs for the show. That’s a very small percent. The rest is covered by licensing and sponsorships. The “public” in public broadcasting does not seem all that public in the larger picture.

It was a dent in what was decided to be a surprisingly good performance on the part of Romney. A bad example completely overshadowed what was meant to be an entirely different statement. Our economic debt with China is going to be Goliath for whoever it is that will have to make our future executive decisions. It goes back to the core disagreement between the candidates: How much should government be involved? And to that extent, how much should it invest in its citizens?

Next time though, Sesame Street should be kept out of it.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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After 31 years of torture and terror, China’s One-Child Policy has finally been brought up as an important issue in a U.S. presidential race. The reference to China’s coercive birth control policy surfaced in a new 30 second “super-pac” ad entitled “Happy”. The ad points out that Newt Gingrich co-sponsored a bill that gave $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s One-Child Policy.

With so much recent research highlighting the policy’s threat to America’s security and economy, and with abortion taking its place as a top issue in the 2012 debate, many have asked why this ad is the first mention of an issue of such critical importance to millions of Americans.

“It’s becoming clear that America wants to know where its next leader stands on China, its relationship to the U.S, and its brutality towards women,” says Chai Ling, former commander-in-chief of students at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Student Movement and founder of All Girls Allowed.

She continues, “Both pro-choice and pro-life groups have interest in this issue and it should be highlighted in upcoming debates. Mothers in China are given no choice and 400 million lives have been “prevented”, according to Chinese government statistics. Unfortunately, because of son-preference, most of these lives were girls, leading to a gender imbalance that deeply affects the U.S.”

The Economist recently reported that in China, today’s unmarried young men know there are five women for every six men (largely as a result of the policy and cultural preference for sons), and tend to save money to attract a wife. Unmarried men are un-spending men, leading to artificial inflation of China’s currency. This has helped generate the current trade imbalance and daily impacts the U.S. economy.

Historically, countries with an excess of men have attacked other countries, says this Newsweek article, which first brought China’s problem to national attention.  Just weeks ago, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s call  to “prepare for war” has propelled it to national concern.

“For years, it should have mattered in national presidential debates that millions of mothers were forced to abort, and that whole villages were being sterilized in China,” says Ling.  She points to two horrific and recent stories: the killing of Ma Jihong, second-time mother (at the hands of Chinese officials) and the kidnapping of infants (by Chinese officials) for sale to U.S. adoption agencies.

“But with the danger facing America in this hour, we cannot remain ignorant.  The One-Child Policy must be brought up as an issue in the U.S. Presidential election, ” says Chai Ling.  “Everybody wants to know what is going to be done with China, and where each candidate stands on the human rights atrocity that many have deemed ‘the greatest crime ever committed against humanity.”

The economy, foreign policy and abortion are in the top 5 issues for candidates.  Questions about the One-Child Policy in China and national security are absolutely vital for each of these three categories.

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So the Republicans are three for three now. In each debate, the narrowed minded audience cheered or booed something to make the rest of the country cringe. I am just now sure why the GOP continues to cater to this small subset of their party while alienating everyone else.

During the GOP debate on Thursday night, host Megyn Kelly played a Youtube clip for a question to Rick Santorum. The clip was a question from Stephen Hill, a soldier in Iraq who, up until this week, had to “lie about who [he] was” in order to serve in the army. Hill asked if Santorum would reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

After the clip with Hill was played, several members of the audience booed him. Someone could also be heard yelling “faggot.” Nice reaction for the party that “supports the troops.” Santorum response was not much better. “I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.

The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don’t ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing: to defend our country… “

Kelly asked Santorum what he would do with soldiers like Stephen Hill. “What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic. I would just say that going forward we would reinstitute that policy if Rick Santorum was president. That policy would be re-instituted as far as people in, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration.

But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was- sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual. “

Although Santorum never denounced the audience’s absurd reaction, other GOP candidates did the next day. Jon Huntsman told Talking Points Memo that the booing was “unfortunate.” A Perry representative, also called the incident “very unfortunate.”

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The GOP debate on Thursday night was, once again, an attack on Texas governor Rick Perry. In the past, candidates have gone after the governor for his HPV vaccination in the state. On Thursday, it was about immigration.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum first attacked Perry over immigration. “I would say that he is soft on illegal immigration,” Santorum said. “He doesn’t want to build a fence. He gave a speech in 2001 where he talked about binational health insurance between Mexico and Texas. I mean, I don’t even think Barack Obama would be for binational health insurance.”

Santorum called Perry “very weak on this issue of American sovereignty and protecting our borders and not being a magnet for illegal immigration.” Perry defended his stance on immigration, especially a policy where he allows children of undocumented workers to receive in-state tuition costs at public colleges.

He said that the other Republicans who opposed in-state tuition for children of illegals were heartless. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said.

Romney pointed out that students from states outside Texas have to pay full tuition, putting holes in Perry’s logic. “If you’re a United States citizen from any one of the other 49 states, you have to pay $100,000 more. That doesn’t make sense to me,” Romney said. Perry had some awkward moments throughout the debate and seemed to be off his game.

Pausing and struggling to answer some questions. And the polls reflect that performance. A focus group run by Fox News said after the debate that Romney was the clear winner, and that Perry lost a large degree of support. Romney’s poise, confidence and specificity is beginning to impress voters.  Surprisingly, Santorum is also gaining support.

He had another strong performance during the debate. Rep. Michele Bachmann is already fading to obscurity as Republican voters are starting to see the electability problems she has.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

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