Let's get down to brass tacks.....(Issue 1: Transportation)

[Aviation Pro]

...there are three issues that are my hot buttons for this election (I'm leaving Iraq out because it trumps all issues), education, energy and transportation. Now bear in mind, I've read the position papers from each of the candidates web sites so if anyone asks me to go, "do my homework," I have.

My first issue is transportation, specifically air transportation. None of the candidates addressed our crumbling air transport infrastructure in the least (I searched). The salient fact of the matter is that there is no comprehensive plan involving the national airspace system, funding is forever tied up in internacine squabbling between Congress and the FAA, and the airlines are mired in the slash and burn merger approach. Since the candidates don't address these problems, I'm assuming that either they don't care about it or they've hired the wrong people. I'd like to know 1) do they have a position and 2) whether that position is tenable or just mouth-breathing.

The same questions can be applied to the other facets of the transportation infrastructure (surface, rail, pipeline and shipping).

Engage.

[patrice]

1. There are grassroots Transportation organizers who need support.

I can think of at least two who are active around what's going on here in our medium-big midwestern metro.

[Aviation Pro]

2. I am very active....

...in this area along with a number of other colleagues. Yet, this issue, which is tied to the core of the economic infrastructure of the country doesn't even rise to the level of a sound bite. Again, either the issue hasn't touched the respective spheres of the candidates or they've hired the wrong people to advise them.

[patrice]

3. Huge issue here, because we're a transmodal transportation hub.

The folks I'm around are organizing around our governor, Kathleen Sebelius. You will see her on TV Monday night, right after *.