Warning: The following post will get dorky.

I’ve belabored Crowley’s leadership ambitions long enough. But I failed to ask myself an important question first: why would he want to climb the ladder anyway? As a philosophy major in undergrad, I remember reading about the nature of leadership in Plato’s Republic – (told you it’d get dorky).

The book is a thought experiment about developing the utopian city. In another words, it’s a classic that few read cover to cover – I haven’t – Sparknotes is like catnip for procrastinators.

Anyway, one section of the book explains how the very people who want leadership positions are the ones who shouldn’t be leading.

“The state in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the state in which they are most eager, the worst.”

Think high school student government. David Foster Wallace did a good job summing up the personality type.

Think back to the sort of kids in high school or college who were into running for student office: dweeby, overgroomed, obsequious to authority, ambitious in a sad way. Eager to play the Game. The kind of kids other kids would want to beat up if it didn’t seem so pointless and dull.

Although Crowley would have been difficult to beat up at 6’4,’’ he is the student government-type; he’s been in office since he was 24.

Maybe Crowley isn’t after personal gain entirely, but he sees the chance to do some good and get paid to do it. A member of Congress makes $169,000, and state assembly members make around $80,000.

Nevermind free parking, great health insurance, or the 16 weeks off they get each year. They were scheduled to be in session only 137 days last year.

Granted, their time off is considered “work-breaks” or “home-district periods,” where they meet constituents. I agree, meeting with the public is probably about as fun as a day at the DMV.

But these are the perks the public knows of, it’s only through scandal do we see what else they get.

After trying to find clips of the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night, I asked myself, “Why do I care?” or more impolitely, “Who gives a shit?”

I started thinking, none of my friends probably even know it’s happening (beside my classmates reading this) or what it is – my mom wouldn’t. It certainly won’t affect me.

The whole affair seems like TMZ, politics and a high school prom put together.

The Sunday morning shows will probably say Obama snubbed so and so, or that he shouldn’t have attended and should have been in Louisiana and that this is his Katrina.

This is what’s wrong with media coverage. They track missteps, farts, and sycophants.

Technology isn’t helping this sound bite coverage. We’re all a little more scatterbrained. Have you seen anyone under the age of 30 in line at Starbucks, not looking at their phone (myself included)? By 2015, 140 characters will be the new short story. Frgt vwls.

Bill O’Reilly has some 3.5 million views a night – far and above the leader – while “Dancing with the Stars” has 23 million viewers. I think there’s a market to be had.

We can connect with 5th grade friends on Facebook, but can’t get people interested in politics.

After Saturday night’s fanfare, I know my trips from school back to the Bronx won’t change. I’ll see the same people begging for money, the same workers dozing off after too many hours, and a few of them quenching the thirst of a better life with a Budweiser.

Joe Crowley’s district – where I live – is still one of poorest in the country. He’s not responsible for decades of destitution, but who is?

Crowley will win in November. He may even grab a top leadership post as well. But even a well-positioned Congressman can only do so much.

Just walk through Charlie Rangel’s district.

Arizona just passed a strict new immigration legislation. The law allows police to question people about their immigration status if they suspect someone is in the country illegally.

Crowley pushed for reform last summer when he, and 111 Democrats, asked President Obama to make the issue a priority.

Crowley issued no press release in response to the Arizona law. No public rebuke. No nothing.

Crowley was the first one to sign the bill last summer, and right next to his name was Luis Gutierrez, the 9-term Democrat from Illinois. Gutierrez had no problem making noise this week.

“Where is the Justice Department? Here is an injustice against the basic rights. Where is the administration of Barack Obama and his Justice department?” said Gutierrez, according to MSNBC

Gutierrez, surprisingly, was one of Obama’s first supporters – even when most hispanics were supporting Hilary Clinton – when he decided to run for President. A long-time advocate for immigration reform, Gutierrez is now threatening his own party.

“We can stay home,” Gutierrez said in an interview with The Hill. “We can say, ‘You know what? There is a third option: We can refuse to participate.’ ”

Gutierrez is not a neophyte trying to make a name for himself, but a former cab driver who’s won handily in his last few elections. And still has dramatically low fundraising numbers – he raised less than $200,000 in 2006.

His arguments for immigration reform are more for the ears of Democrats.

“It is an answer to too many years of pain —mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border— all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system,” he said in a December press release.

Crowley, on the other hand, knows that many Republicans see immigrants taking up more of their tax dollars – especially after Health Care Reform. So he crafts a different argument.

“A key element of this reform is requiring all undocumented immigrants to register, go through background checks, pay taxes, and study English in order to obtain legal status and be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship,” Crowley wrote in December.

Crowley, who must be upset about the issue, has not publicly criticized any members of his party; and most likely won’t. But Gutierrez resembles Crowley’s district neighbor, Jose Serrano, in that they’ve been in office for a long time and both are Puerto Rican. Serrano, one of the few Democrats who voted against the financial bailout and also raises little campaign money, and Gutierrez have nothing to lose. Already widely popular in their districts, going against their party will not lose them any money or future elections.

Given Crowley’s track record of seeking out leadership positions, he probably has higher aspirations and the cash to make them happen. He’s already raised $3 millionin campaign contributions, far exceeding the House average. With President Obama planning federal immigration reform legislation, Crowley will wait for the political storm-of-the-week to pass before speaking up.

Can you find anything in your office/room/wherever you are right now that has that little gold sticker that says “Made in the USA” on it? I remember peeling it off sometimes as a kid, but haven’t seen one lately.

I spent a while looking for it in my apartment, and couldn’t find one. Instead, I got Doc Martens made in Thailand, a camera made in Japan, a Samsung TV made in Tijuana, Mexico (who knew), and my Macbook Pro was designed in the U.S., but made in China.

For now, my apartment is Made-in-the-U.S.A.-less. Wait, found one, a saltshaker made in the U.S. – but it’s Mediterranean Sea salt, damn.

President Obama said he wants to double exports in the next five years and that this move will create 2 million jobs – quite a goal for a country that has a $39.7 million trade deficit, as of February 2010.

Joseph Crowley is trying to do his part. He hosted a seminar last week for business leaders from the Bronx and Queens to help them learn more about how the Federal government can assist them in exporting their goods.

“By opening up new markets to American goods and services, we will help U.S. businesses increase their bottom line and hire new workers,” he said.

Here’s part of Crowley’s Press Release:

Recent statistics compiled by the Department of Commerce show that exports are an important part of New York’s economy. In 2007, a total of 27,329 companies exported goods from New York locations, the third-highest number among the 50 states. But what percent of what they sold was exported?

More than one-fifth (20.9 percent) of all manufacturing workers in New York depend on exports for their jobs. How much do they depend? Are there companies whose livelihood depends on exports?

The number 1 export out of New York: diamonds. Yeah, I know, who knew.

Mike Mandel, an economist and journalist, doesn’t quite believe diamonds should count as real exports. Most likely, those diamonds are transported here.  A New York firm designs and cuts them, and then re-exports them.

Number 2 is drawings and paintings by hand – that makes a little more sense, number 3, jewelry parts and other precious metals. Those 3 add up to 25% of New York State exports.

The rest of the exports are an amalgam of engine parts, antiques, and digital processing units. Here’s the list of the top 25.

I don’t think the Bronx and Queens are producing much of those, but I could be wrong – I’m talking with someone from the Mayor’s office tomorrow.

This could be a good thing for growth in the Bronx and Queens, maybe there’s a market to be made. But there’s a reason why just about everything in my apartment was made somewhere else. It’s too expensive to pay people here.

I could be wrong, but it seems a few businesses here can export some products – there’s actually one commercial aviation facility in the Bronx, APD. Crowley is in tune with Obama’s message, but it might be a stretch for his district.

Protesters hurled racial epithets, spit at, and heckled Democratic congressmen who walked with linked arms to the Capitol from their office buildings Sunday, according to the Washington Post.

Hannah Rappleye, a freelance photographer, who was just snapping pictures of the demonstrations, had to wrestle her camera away from a tea party protester.  “I just got out of there,” she said.

Health reform passed but now “crossing the aisle” will get tougher. It passed but also has torn apart whatever social fabric or a sense of civility lay between Democrats and Republicans. This us-or-them mentality between parties seems to reach its apex each week.

Some members of Joseph Crowley’s district, which covers the Bronx and Queens, a region that votes heavily Democratic, are vowing to unseat the six-term Congressman on this issue.

Bob Diamond, speaking for the Committee to Save Medicare, said, “We’re going to meet with Congressman Crowley at his Throggs Neck office to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that we will work against his reelection if he votes for legislation that will destroy our freedoms and our way of life as American citizens,” told the Bronx News Net before Sunday’s vote.

This tension has given rise to “extremists” like Oath takers – a group even to the right of Tea partiers. These are members of the military who say are willing to fight against the government to protect the constitution from people trying to destroy it.

The last 14 months have created a more polarized America. Obama’s push to the center-left, might have created a new divide.