Dear BarkingMagpie, http://www.barkingmagpie.blogspot.com/ I wanted to post these as comments in your blog. Google stopped me saying that it was too lengthy. Thus I decided to post it in my blog. I know of you casually, but I admire your courage, dedication and sense of loyalty. Keep up the good work
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BN ship is sinking, so it seems. Choice available for UMNO leaders- stay and drown with Najib or jump ship. Who knows you may be appointed Captain of the new ship.Some even asked. Why jump ship? Just change the Capt. Those are political talks. For Najib and Muhyuddin, you can choose to listen to all those talks or you can choose to ignore them. Most important, you are now airborne. Not much fuel left to turn back. Just stay on course. Dont have to listen to gossip of your air crews. However, Najib must admit his error of making the right judgement at the wrong time. He abandoned the Malay Brand that has been UMNO's pillar of strength. He fell to the advise of his adviser by opting for the new 1Malaysia Brand. Malays are disillusioned. They wont believe what Najib promised them anymore. They know Muhyuddin's promise for Malay Agenda to remain intact are just empty talk because as DPM, theres nothing much he could do to stop the 1Malaysia Agenda of Najib. Remember Tun Razak? He was the champion of Malay Agenda . Yet he is loved by all races because he is also the champion of justice and fairness to the non Malay. I know its difficult for Najib to reverse the loss of faith amongst Malays on his leadership but it can be done. It must be done because already people are saying, yang dikejar tak dapat di kendong berciciran. Undi Cina dan India tak dapat, Undi Melayu Hilang. It can be done without losing Chinese and Indian support. Just remember to be firm, strong, decisive but balanced. Now its not the question of Najib is wrong and Muhyuddin is right or vice versa. Its a question of looking at the bigger picture. We are looking at BN and PR as two bullet trains about to crash head on. We Malaysian must ponder for a moment. Do we go for GE13 and allow the two trains to collide ? or do we forge a NATIONAL RECONCILIATION FORMULA to save our country. Its not about saving Najib's leadership though RECONCILIATION PLAN could mean allowing Najib to take charge of Malaysia for another 5 or 10 years for the Plan to materialise. I know how we could make it work, I have the team to make it work. But, as always, Najib has abandoned old advisers (of which I could claim to be one of them). He is surrounded by new advisers. I know some of his closest advisers. Of what they said about him when Najib was DPM. Now, to my surprise, they came running back to him and are currently entrusted with strategic roles for Najib. I also knew what his Adviser based at UMNO Hq said to his friend before that adviser decided to turn back to Najib. Unfortunately, sad to say, these are the people who are rewarded whilst genuine others are sidelined (me included). Its hard to conclude without talking about Rosmah. I like her and admire her for her dedication and passion to see her husband succeed. Unfortunately many misunderstood her genuine intention and desire to be of service to the husband and to the country. But for that, many are jealous of her high profile. In fairness to Rosmah, please Google "the changing role of first lady" and you will find that Rosalynn Carter revolutionised American Politics and change the role of First Ladies. They no longer confined their role as persons who decide on what menu to serve or who sits where during State Dinner BUT First Lady do shoulder national responsibility by championing specific National Policies. If we genuinely want Malaysia to be politically mature , we should all encourage the wife of our PM to champion National Agenda and give her all our support. Read about Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama and you will note how involved are First Ladies of America, the Mature Democracy in the world- in policy making or advocacy. Give Rosmah what ever title that you prefer First Lady or what ever, but I had rather have Rosmah emulating Rosalynn Carter or Hillary Clinton in assuming the role of Trendsetting First Lady rather than having her meeting friends and doing the usual gossips, karaoke and pocho-pocho. Well there are lots of fitnah against Rosmah, but to me those are signs of forces who fear her potent role as Trendsetting First Lady. Nevertheless these forces have to be managed to minimise their impacts. Remember , its unfortunate that lies and deceits sell very well ( Someone told me I was victim of poison pen letter . I did not know about it until recently .I underestimated its impact and chose to ignore it by not clarifying the issue with my ex boss who did not bother to ask me about it ) As for you Barking Magpie. I know you, I like you and I like what you are doing. Its the way we should serve our boss - with sincerity, dedication and loyalty. Keep up the good work.Worry not about Muhyuddin - what matters most is for Najib to make sure that the rakyat and every one is behind Najib to give Najib thumbs up for his leadership. Reflect on what Mahathir did when UMNO was banned , he nearly lost his Prime Ministership and UMNO war lords were about to turn their back against him. What he did was to make sure all NGOs, CSOs were in full support of him when they all visited him at Seri Perdana. He went to the grassroots and reach out for the rakyat. Overnight, all the "shaky UMNO warlords " returned in full force to pledge their undivided support for him. Have no fear when the Rakyat is With you - that was what I told Mat Taib when he faced political turmoil following his secret marriage. Najib, is blessed with good look and charisma though he may like do some workout to look slimmer like Obama. He will have the appeal to bring all the rakyat together to support him for what he could do to transform the country. It can be done, I know how to make it happen. NATIONAL RECONCILIATION PLAN (Mandela did that and he is now a living legend) Nevertheless, I hope his advisors would reflect and reengineer the way they do their work. It has to be Business Unusual for Najib. All the very best.
Wednesday 24 August 2011
Monday 8 August 2011
UMNO wujudkan Jabatan Pemasaran Politik
Datuk Ahmad Maslan, Ketua Penerangan UMNO telah umumkan hasrat UMNO untuk tubuhkan Jabatan Pemasaran Politik. Ini idea telah lama dikemukakan tapi tidak dihiraukan oleh UMNO.
Baguslah jika UMNO akhirnya setuju gunapakai pendekatan political marketing untuk memenangi hati pengundi.
Namun, cabarannya bukan terletak kepada sistem pemasaran yang tersusun dan berstrategi. Cabaran besar adalah , produk yang nak dijual tu. Kalau produknya "teruk", apa pun sistem pemasaran yang digunakan tidak akan membawa kesan. Umpamanya Restoran yang terkenal dengan juadah makanan yang rendah kualitinya, makanannya tak sedap dan basi. Bagaimana banyak iklan yang disiarkan dan jurujual yang disediakan, pelanggan tidak akan datang ke Restoran itu.
Kalau tak silap, thesis sarjana salah seorang bekas think tanker UMNO berkisar kepada tajuk "political marketing" . Beliau cuba bawa pendekatan "political marketing" tapi waktu itu SUK Umno tidak faham mengenai konsep dan faedah pendekatan tersebut. Usaha beliau turut terhalang oleh tingkat 4 , pejabat Perdana Menteri pada ketika itu. Maka , banyaklah cadangan beliau yang berorientasikan kaedah pemasaran politik terbengkalai begitu sahaja tanpa dapat dilaksanakan. Umpamanya, apabila beliau melakukan segmentasi pasaran dan mendapati bahawa Hindraf merupakan "influencer" kepada segmen pengundi India. Beliau berulangkali meminta diaturkan perjumpaan diantara PM dengan kumpulan berpengaruh Hindraf agar pengundi India kembali kepada BN. Namun usaha mendapatkan temujanji Kumpulan berpengaruh Hindraf dengan Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi (PM ketika itu) digagalkan oleh elemen Tingkat 4.
Saya pernah membaca kertas kertas cadangan yang beliau gubal dan diluluskan oleh PM Abdullah Badawi tapi terhalang perlaksanaannya kerana Tingkat 4 ada prioriti lain. Berani saya mengatakan, UMNO tidaklah akan dilanda tsunami politik jika cadangan beliau itu diberi keutamaan berbanding cadangan tingkat 4. (Hari ini elemen tingkat 4 hidup mewah dan masih glamour dalam Pemuda UMNO dan syarikat milik UMNO)
Bekas think tanker UMNO itu pernah bawa pakar political marketing dari luar negara bertemu PM Najib dan PM amat menyukai pendekatan political marketing tersebut . Beliau juga pernah bawa Sir Robert Worcester, Pakar Kajian Politik yang menjalankan kajian untuk John Major dan Tony Blair. Bekas think-tanker itu telah menghantar SMS kepada Ketua Pemuda UMNO supaya dianjurkan Master Class in Political Marketing. Malangnya tidak ada jawapan kepada SMS yang dihantar.
Perkara ini berlaku satu setengah tahun yang lalu ketika PM Najib baru ambil alih jawatan daripada Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi. Tak mengapalah, walaupun terlambat satu setengah tahun, akhirnya UMNO akan guna pendekatan pemasaran politik.
Untuk itu, elok lah dilihat dari sudut "produk" itu sendiri. Apakah "produk UMNO" itu sudah cukup baik dan tidak tertinggal zaman. Kemudian jenama produk itu. Jenama sekarang UMNO itu sombong , angkuh dan tamak. Itu jenama yang ada pada UMNO. Namun jenama itu boleh ditukar dengan strategi re-packaging parti tersebut. Kemudian, marketing channel management. Adakah UMNO menggunakan marketing channel sebaik mungkin contohnya NGO, khidmat awam, universiti dan yang paling utama marketing channel UMNO Negeri, Bahagian dan Cawangan. Strategi promosi pula bagaimana? ianya perlu relevan kepada pelanggan dan bakal pelanggan yang terdedah kepada strategi promosi UMNO menerusi iklan dan kaedah perhubungan awam di dalam media cetak, media elektronik dan media alternatif. Kempen ala sure heboh , pameran , seminar dan perhimpunan semuanya adalah strategi promosi yang wajar digunapakai. Selain itu, dari perspektif strategic political marketing pula, UMNO perlu jawab soalan penting seperti apakah "produk positioning UMNO" ? bagaimana dengan segmentasi pasaran? sudahkah dibuat kajian dan selepas itu digubal "product strategy" untuk setiap segmen? Bagaimana pula dengan citizens relationship management? voters relationship management? selain itu, apa strategi UMNO untuk memanfaatkan media sosial seperti facebook, dsbnya sebagai saluran pemasaran.
Zaman sekarang sudah berbeza. UMNO kena pilih untuk jadi parti berorientasikan produk , berorientasikan kejurujualan dengan mengharap kepada penceramah dan Menteri menteri nya sahaja atau parti berorientasikan pelanggan. Kalau UMNO merupakan parti berorientasikan pelanggan , ia harus bersedia mendengar isi hati rakyat, mendengar teguran rakyat dan melakar produk dan strategi parti sesuai dengan citarasa setiap segmen dalam masyarakat amnya dan khasnya setiap segmen pengundi.
Akhir sekali, jangan lupa lihat strategi pemasaran politik lawan. UMNO perlu ada USP atau Unique selling proposition serta kelainan produk atau produk differentiation.
Banyaklah yang saya boleh sentuh mengenai perkara ini. Namun, sememangnya "political marketing" adalah satu bidang baru. Walaupun begitu, political marketing kini menjadi satu fenomena dan arus baru dalam pendekatan parti parti politik di dunia. Pernah Obama dianugerahkan sebagai Political Marketer of the Year oleh sebuah majalah di Amerika.
Jangan pula UMNO terpedaya oleh konsalten yang tak tahu membezakan pendekatan political communication yang sebenarnya berbeza dengan pendekatan political marketing.
Syabas Datuk Maslan. semuga mencapai kejayaan.
Baguslah jika UMNO akhirnya setuju gunapakai pendekatan political marketing untuk memenangi hati pengundi.
Namun, cabarannya bukan terletak kepada sistem pemasaran yang tersusun dan berstrategi. Cabaran besar adalah , produk yang nak dijual tu. Kalau produknya "teruk", apa pun sistem pemasaran yang digunakan tidak akan membawa kesan. Umpamanya Restoran yang terkenal dengan juadah makanan yang rendah kualitinya, makanannya tak sedap dan basi. Bagaimana banyak iklan yang disiarkan dan jurujual yang disediakan, pelanggan tidak akan datang ke Restoran itu.
Kalau tak silap, thesis sarjana salah seorang bekas think tanker UMNO berkisar kepada tajuk "political marketing" . Beliau cuba bawa pendekatan "political marketing" tapi waktu itu SUK Umno tidak faham mengenai konsep dan faedah pendekatan tersebut. Usaha beliau turut terhalang oleh tingkat 4 , pejabat Perdana Menteri pada ketika itu. Maka , banyaklah cadangan beliau yang berorientasikan kaedah pemasaran politik terbengkalai begitu sahaja tanpa dapat dilaksanakan. Umpamanya, apabila beliau melakukan segmentasi pasaran dan mendapati bahawa Hindraf merupakan "influencer" kepada segmen pengundi India. Beliau berulangkali meminta diaturkan perjumpaan diantara PM dengan kumpulan berpengaruh Hindraf agar pengundi India kembali kepada BN. Namun usaha mendapatkan temujanji Kumpulan berpengaruh Hindraf dengan Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi (PM ketika itu) digagalkan oleh elemen Tingkat 4.
Saya pernah membaca kertas kertas cadangan yang beliau gubal dan diluluskan oleh PM Abdullah Badawi tapi terhalang perlaksanaannya kerana Tingkat 4 ada prioriti lain. Berani saya mengatakan, UMNO tidaklah akan dilanda tsunami politik jika cadangan beliau itu diberi keutamaan berbanding cadangan tingkat 4. (Hari ini elemen tingkat 4 hidup mewah dan masih glamour dalam Pemuda UMNO dan syarikat milik UMNO)
Bekas think tanker UMNO itu pernah bawa pakar political marketing dari luar negara bertemu PM Najib dan PM amat menyukai pendekatan political marketing tersebut . Beliau juga pernah bawa Sir Robert Worcester, Pakar Kajian Politik yang menjalankan kajian untuk John Major dan Tony Blair. Bekas think-tanker itu telah menghantar SMS kepada Ketua Pemuda UMNO supaya dianjurkan Master Class in Political Marketing. Malangnya tidak ada jawapan kepada SMS yang dihantar.
Perkara ini berlaku satu setengah tahun yang lalu ketika PM Najib baru ambil alih jawatan daripada Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi. Tak mengapalah, walaupun terlambat satu setengah tahun, akhirnya UMNO akan guna pendekatan pemasaran politik.
Untuk itu, elok lah dilihat dari sudut "produk" itu sendiri. Apakah "produk UMNO" itu sudah cukup baik dan tidak tertinggal zaman. Kemudian jenama produk itu. Jenama sekarang UMNO itu sombong , angkuh dan tamak. Itu jenama yang ada pada UMNO. Namun jenama itu boleh ditukar dengan strategi re-packaging parti tersebut. Kemudian, marketing channel management. Adakah UMNO menggunakan marketing channel sebaik mungkin contohnya NGO, khidmat awam, universiti dan yang paling utama marketing channel UMNO Negeri, Bahagian dan Cawangan. Strategi promosi pula bagaimana? ianya perlu relevan kepada pelanggan dan bakal pelanggan yang terdedah kepada strategi promosi UMNO menerusi iklan dan kaedah perhubungan awam di dalam media cetak, media elektronik dan media alternatif. Kempen ala sure heboh , pameran , seminar dan perhimpunan semuanya adalah strategi promosi yang wajar digunapakai. Selain itu, dari perspektif strategic political marketing pula, UMNO perlu jawab soalan penting seperti apakah "produk positioning UMNO" ? bagaimana dengan segmentasi pasaran? sudahkah dibuat kajian dan selepas itu digubal "product strategy" untuk setiap segmen? Bagaimana pula dengan citizens relationship management? voters relationship management? selain itu, apa strategi UMNO untuk memanfaatkan media sosial seperti facebook, dsbnya sebagai saluran pemasaran.
Zaman sekarang sudah berbeza. UMNO kena pilih untuk jadi parti berorientasikan produk , berorientasikan kejurujualan dengan mengharap kepada penceramah dan Menteri menteri nya sahaja atau parti berorientasikan pelanggan. Kalau UMNO merupakan parti berorientasikan pelanggan , ia harus bersedia mendengar isi hati rakyat, mendengar teguran rakyat dan melakar produk dan strategi parti sesuai dengan citarasa setiap segmen dalam masyarakat amnya dan khasnya setiap segmen pengundi.
Akhir sekali, jangan lupa lihat strategi pemasaran politik lawan. UMNO perlu ada USP atau Unique selling proposition serta kelainan produk atau produk differentiation.
Banyaklah yang saya boleh sentuh mengenai perkara ini. Namun, sememangnya "political marketing" adalah satu bidang baru. Walaupun begitu, political marketing kini menjadi satu fenomena dan arus baru dalam pendekatan parti parti politik di dunia. Pernah Obama dianugerahkan sebagai Political Marketer of the Year oleh sebuah majalah di Amerika.
Jangan pula UMNO terpedaya oleh konsalten yang tak tahu membezakan pendekatan political communication yang sebenarnya berbeza dengan pendekatan political marketing.
Syabas Datuk Maslan. semuga mencapai kejayaan.
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Wan Azizah dan Din Merican
Alahai Din Merican. Dalam blog beliau, Din dengan megahnya memuji gelagat Wan Azizah sebagai isteri Anwar yang ketika itu, DPM.
Konon, Wan Azizah, lain dari isteri pemimpin negara yang lain.
Diungkapkan disini temuduga Wan Azizah dengan Malaysiakini:
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 012107
Konon, Wan Azizah, lain dari isteri pemimpin negara yang lain.
Diungkapkan disini temuduga Wan Azizah dengan Malaysiakini:
Wan Azizah, speaking at her home in Bukit Segambut, told Malaysiakini that she had been in a similar position when her husband, Anwar Ibrahim, was the deputy prime minister.
“I have been overseas and when meeting with the ambassador’s wife and she would ask me, ‘Where do you want to go?’
“I said I was told the Smithsonian Museum was good. She (the Ambassador’s wife) told me, ‘You know, you are the first minister’s wife to ask me to bring you to the museum’. And I said, ‘Oh, really!’ Does that answer your question?”
She gave another example relating to one of her trips to London. “I told them I wanted to see the Islamic section of the British Museum. This was because I was told the section director by the name of Abu Bakar had embraced Islam and became a Muslim.
“I wanted to see what they had in that section. The ambassador’s wife told me that it was the first time she had gone to the British Museum,” she said.
Ini sahaja ker istimewanya Azizah sebagai isteri Pemimpin ? Dalam keghairan Din Merican ingin menaikkan imej Wan Azizah, Din Merican nyata terketinggalan Zaman.
Peranan isteri pemimpin Negara masa kini sudah berubah. ianya berubah mendadak beikutan perkembangan di negara maju. Di perturunkan disini dua sebuah rencana berkaitan "The Changing Role of First lady"
Changing role of first lady
Rosalynn Carter was the first to move from social planning to policy pushing
By Brandon Larrabee | Morris News Service | Story updated at 3:58 AM on Sunday, January 21, 2007
As Rosalynn Carter remembers it, Washington wasn't quite sure what to think of the Carters when she and Jimmy came to town for her husband's inauguration in 1977.
The worst of the misconceptions were illustrated by a page of political cartoons that ran in one of the capital's newspapers. The drawings, Carter said Saturday at a luncheon held in her honor during the Carter Conference at the University of Georgia, portrayed the couple with straw hats and pieces of straw jutting from their teeth.
"We were not fresh off the farm," she said.
Carter recalled how she tried to reshape the office of the first lady, making it more than just a social-planning agency for the White House - and how she took a more assertive role in the policy end of the presidency.
When she took office, her staff included social, press, appointments and personal secretaries, but no one to spearhead the efforts she planned on mental health or child immunization.
"It was a very traditional and narrow view of the first lady's role," she said.
Carter created a special projects director to handle her initiatives that went beyond who should sit where during state dinners.
But not everyone was happy with a new idea of the first lady's job.
Carter was widely criticized, she remembered, for taking a trip to Latin America in 1977 on the president's behalf. Some said the trip didn't fit in the traditional role for a first lady and entrusted the representation of the United States to an unelected person. Others worried that people won't view her seriously in "macho" Latin America.
"What nobody had anticipated was, when the heads of state realized I was substantive, they saw that I was the closest person in the world to the president of the United States," she said.
Many of those leaders told her, then and in later years, about the problems they had with U.S. policy.
Carter also continued the work she began as Georgia's first lady to get more American children immunized against common diseases before they begin school.
Carter and Betty Bumpers, wife of former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator Dale Bumpers, worked together over several years to get more states to require school-age children to be immunized.
When she came to Washington, only 17 had that requirement, she said. Today, all 50 states do so.
Now, the focus is on getting children the critical first batch of shots by the time they turn 2.
"Since schoolchildren are already immunized, when epidemics (break out), it's the babies who die," Carter said.
She also shared some humorous anecdotes from her two turns as a first lady.
Carter recounted how her experience during her husband's time as governor of Georgia helped prepare her for handling similar duties at the White House.
Once, she said, the Carters were entertaining race-car drivers in town for a competition at a track in Atlanta.
The plan went well at first, as the racers shared barbecue and beer with the Carters. But she and her staff had selected a performer without knowing much about his routine, and when he started to sing, Carter was horrified.
"It was light opera. ... And he went on and on," she said.
An important rule was implemented after that: "Don't ever hire an entertainer without an audition."
After her husband was inaugurated as president, Carter said, White House staff told her that she could use her telephone to reach anyone in the world.
"I picked up the telephone and I said, 'I'd like to speak to Jimmy,' " she said. "And the operator said, 'Jimmy who?' "
Overall, Carter said she looked fondly on her time as first lady and what she and her husband have accomplished since.
"It's been a good life," Carter said. "And I've been blessed to serve as first lady of the United States."
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 012107
Dan lagi info mengenai peranan Isteri Pemimpin Negara yang kini sudah berubah.
Rosalynn Carter
First Lady:January 20, 1977 - January 20, 1981
49 years old
Rosalynn Carter was a political activist First Lady who publicly disclosed the fact that the President consulted her and sought her advice on his domestic and foreign affairs decisions, speeches and appointments. Traveling the nation at length, Rosalynn Carter also served as a liaison of current information between the President and the American public she encountered, providing him with reaction to Administration policy from the citizenry and providing them with explanations of that policy. A consequence of this was her unprecedented attendance at Cabinet meetings where she heard policy discussion first-hand and took notes on issues that she would subsequently carry to the public. She and the President maintained a Wednesday business lunch in the Oval Office to discuss Administration policy on issues that she had taken on as a spokesperson or on legislative matters of concern to her. She was also not averse to disagreeing with the President's final decisions; most often her bone of contention was that Carter did not make decisions or announcements with a sense of timing that always served the Administration's political purposes including issues such as New York City budget cuts, the Panama Canal treaties, and Middle East negotiations.
Rosalynn Carter was the first First Lady to maintain her office in the East Wing, the traditional office space reserved for the social, correspondence, scheduling and projects staff of the presidential spouse. She would often walk outside the mansion to avoid tourists going through the White House, carrying her briefcase with her. Frequently, the First Lady worked directly with Cabinet members, including the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Patricia Harris and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano. In 1979, during her tenure, the federal government more formally recognized the role of First Lady as a bona fide federal position, albeit undefined by the U.S. Constitution, when automatic congressional appropriation was enacted for a staff for the First Lady on the premise that the "spouse assists the president" in fulfilling his duties.
Rosalynn Carter assumed an active role in the Administration's response and initiative on behalf of several domestic and foreign issues. The largest and most important was her work as the Active Honorary Chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health, which began on February 17, 1977. The First Lady oversaw an advisory board of twenty commissioners composed of social workers, medical experts, lobbyists and psychiatrists who toured the nation, holding public hearings, consulting hundreds of community activists, doctors, legislators, and former mental health patients, while also developing thirty task forces, staffed by over 450 volunteers, concentrating on specialized issues and holding their conference gathering in the White House State Dining Room. The commission prepared recommendations in a final report, suggesting that a 1963 act be overhauled to strengthen community center services, erase state-federal overlaps and create changes to health insurance coverage, public housing, Medicaid and Medicare and state support for the most chronically mentally ill. There was also an advocacy recommendation for a bill of rights protecting the mentally ill from discrimination; such clauses were enacted within the federal bureaucracy immediately by presidential proclamation. After touring the National Institute of Mental Health, the First Lady was also able to initiate increases in federal grants to continue research which often lagged because the previous grants were short-term and too low.
The Commission drew up a formal document with numerous recommendations for federal implementation of the most sweeping reform of mental health legislation in almost thirty years; the Administration submitted the Mental Health Systems Act and Rosalynn Carter testified on its behalf before the Senate Subcommittee on Health, on May 15, 1979. It was passed and funded in September 1980.
Her second most involved project involved aiding senior citizens in need. The First Lady assembled a task force to inventory federal programs for the elderly. She conferred frequently with the president's counselor on aging, and worked with advocates like the Gray Panthers as well as Congressman Claude Pepper, chair of the House Select Committee on Aging to devise a brochure containing recommendations on how to best serve the elderly within the community, which was distributed to national and state organizations. She also lobbied Congress for passage of the Age Discrimination Act to do away with mandatory age retirement within the federal workplace, and to raise the limit to seventy in the private sector. She further lobbied for the Older American Act, a funding increase in elderly services, as well as the Rural Clinics Act and Social Security reform to benefit seniors. Rosalynn Carter presided over the White House Conference on Aging. She was also successful in influencing the President to propose to Congress a limit on annual individual hospital increases by 9 percent and, with her, further tooled out a fixed fee schedule for physicians, more stringent bylaws for nursing homes and expanded outpatient services.
Rosalynn Carter also promoted community voluntarism, using Washington, D.C. as her own example of her own hometown and supporting the Green Door, a self-help daytime program for the mentally retarded, and successfully urging civic groups and local businesses to provide a variety of donations to improve and maintain D.C. GeneralHospital and the fledgling Community Foundation of Greater Washington. She also helped in getting an at-risk youth program, Project Propinquity, a footing within the federal government and enlisted the financial support of business leaders to help the program qualify for matching federal funds.
Like her two Republican predecessors, Rosalynn Carter also supported the Equal Rights Amendment and she made appearances in those states where ratification was still pending. Although she also supported the controversial 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision of the Supreme Court, she opposed federal funding for abortion. As the incumbent First Lady, she joined former First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford in Houston, Texas for the opening session of the Women's Conference in 1977. She successfully lobbied the Pentagon to hire more women to serve as White House honor guards and pushed to have minority women involved at higher levels in the president's re-election staff. She urged the Attorney General to join her call for a woman on the Supreme Court and phoned him to suggest the naming of qualified judge Stephanie Seymour for an Oklahoma court; for the President, she asked her staff to assemble a roster of qualified women for presidential appointments.
In June of 1977, Rosalynn Carter undertook one of the most overtly political international missions ever assumed by a First Lady; she visited Jamaica, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela as the President's personal representative, holding substantive meetings with Central and South American policy leaders on issues that included human rights, arms reduction, demilitarization, beef exports, pilot training, drug trafficking, nuclear energy and weaponry. After each day's talks, she filed a report with the U.S. State Department. At many of her meetings the First Lady spoke in Spanish, having just previously completed an intensive language course. Throughout the breaks of the "Camp David Accords," peace talks negotiated by the President between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Rosalynn Carter was present to provide support and advice as her husband asked of her. As a representative of the President, she attended the inaugurations of new Bolivian and Ecuadorian presidents, as well as the funeral of Pope Paul VI. The First Lady was also the American representative who greeted Pope John Paul II when he made his first visit to the U.S. in 1979. The First Lady frequently sat in on the daily National Security Council briefings held for the president and senior staff. In November of 1979, she learned the details of the Cambodian refugee crisis; starvation and extermination had killed almost half the population of Cambodia and millions of homeless refugees were flocking to the Thailand border to seek food and medicine in large camps set up for them. She flew to see the conditions for herself and successfully urged the United Nations creation of a world relief coordinator. Her influence further prompted the creation of the National Cambodian Crisis Committee and CambodianCrisis Center, which became the clearinghouse for all donated aid; she raised millions of dollars for the cause in the U.S. and got the president to increase U.S. quotas for refugees, permit food delivery directly into Cambodia and to accelerate Peace Corps efforts. With the November 4, 1979 taking of American hostages in Iran, the First Lady urged the President to immediately enact an oil embargo from that nation.
In the more traditional aspects of the First Lady role, Rosalynn Carter sponsored the first poetry festival and the first jazz festival at the White House, the latter being broadcast live on public radio. She also hosted a series of classical music concerts that were broadcasted for the public as In Performance at the White House. Continuing the preservation efforts of her immediate predecessors, she established the White House Trust Fund to create a $25 million endowment top continue building its perpetual historical collection and ongoing renovation needs. At Christmas, Rosalynn Carter hosted a unique winter lawn festival for congressional families, complete with skating rink.
49 years old
Rosalynn Carter was a political activist First Lady who publicly disclosed the fact that the President consulted her and sought her advice on his domestic and foreign affairs decisions, speeches and appointments. Traveling the nation at length, Rosalynn Carter also served as a liaison of current information between the President and the American public she encountered, providing him with reaction to Administration policy from the citizenry and providing them with explanations of that policy. A consequence of this was her unprecedented attendance at Cabinet meetings where she heard policy discussion first-hand and took notes on issues that she would subsequently carry to the public. She and the President maintained a Wednesday business lunch in the Oval Office to discuss Administration policy on issues that she had taken on as a spokesperson or on legislative matters of concern to her. She was also not averse to disagreeing with the President's final decisions; most often her bone of contention was that Carter did not make decisions or announcements with a sense of timing that always served the Administration's political purposes including issues such as New York City budget cuts, the Panama Canal treaties, and Middle East negotiations.
Rosalynn Carter was the first First Lady to maintain her office in the East Wing, the traditional office space reserved for the social, correspondence, scheduling and projects staff of the presidential spouse. She would often walk outside the mansion to avoid tourists going through the White House, carrying her briefcase with her. Frequently, the First Lady worked directly with Cabinet members, including the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Patricia Harris and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano. In 1979, during her tenure, the federal government more formally recognized the role of First Lady as a bona fide federal position, albeit undefined by the U.S. Constitution, when automatic congressional appropriation was enacted for a staff for the First Lady on the premise that the "spouse assists the president" in fulfilling his duties.
Rosalynn Carter assumed an active role in the Administration's response and initiative on behalf of several domestic and foreign issues. The largest and most important was her work as the Active Honorary Chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health, which began on February 17, 1977. The First Lady oversaw an advisory board of twenty commissioners composed of social workers, medical experts, lobbyists and psychiatrists who toured the nation, holding public hearings, consulting hundreds of community activists, doctors, legislators, and former mental health patients, while also developing thirty task forces, staffed by over 450 volunteers, concentrating on specialized issues and holding their conference gathering in the White House State Dining Room. The commission prepared recommendations in a final report, suggesting that a 1963 act be overhauled to strengthen community center services, erase state-federal overlaps and create changes to health insurance coverage, public housing, Medicaid and Medicare and state support for the most chronically mentally ill. There was also an advocacy recommendation for a bill of rights protecting the mentally ill from discrimination; such clauses were enacted within the federal bureaucracy immediately by presidential proclamation. After touring the National Institute of Mental Health, the First Lady was also able to initiate increases in federal grants to continue research which often lagged because the previous grants were short-term and too low.
The Commission drew up a formal document with numerous recommendations for federal implementation of the most sweeping reform of mental health legislation in almost thirty years; the Administration submitted the Mental Health Systems Act and Rosalynn Carter testified on its behalf before the Senate Subcommittee on Health, on May 15, 1979. It was passed and funded in September 1980.
Her second most involved project involved aiding senior citizens in need. The First Lady assembled a task force to inventory federal programs for the elderly. She conferred frequently with the president's counselor on aging, and worked with advocates like the Gray Panthers as well as Congressman Claude Pepper, chair of the House Select Committee on Aging to devise a brochure containing recommendations on how to best serve the elderly within the community, which was distributed to national and state organizations. She also lobbied Congress for passage of the Age Discrimination Act to do away with mandatory age retirement within the federal workplace, and to raise the limit to seventy in the private sector. She further lobbied for the Older American Act, a funding increase in elderly services, as well as the Rural Clinics Act and Social Security reform to benefit seniors. Rosalynn Carter presided over the White House Conference on Aging. She was also successful in influencing the President to propose to Congress a limit on annual individual hospital increases by 9 percent and, with her, further tooled out a fixed fee schedule for physicians, more stringent bylaws for nursing homes and expanded outpatient services.
Rosalynn Carter also promoted community voluntarism, using Washington, D.C. as her own example of her own hometown and supporting the Green Door, a self-help daytime program for the mentally retarded, and successfully urging civic groups and local businesses to provide a variety of donations to improve and maintain D.C. GeneralHospital and the fledgling Community Foundation of Greater Washington. She also helped in getting an at-risk youth program, Project Propinquity, a footing within the federal government and enlisted the financial support of business leaders to help the program qualify for matching federal funds.
Like her two Republican predecessors, Rosalynn Carter also supported the Equal Rights Amendment and she made appearances in those states where ratification was still pending. Although she also supported the controversial 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision of the Supreme Court, she opposed federal funding for abortion. As the incumbent First Lady, she joined former First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford in Houston, Texas for the opening session of the Women's Conference in 1977. She successfully lobbied the Pentagon to hire more women to serve as White House honor guards and pushed to have minority women involved at higher levels in the president's re-election staff. She urged the Attorney General to join her call for a woman on the Supreme Court and phoned him to suggest the naming of qualified judge Stephanie Seymour for an Oklahoma court; for the President, she asked her staff to assemble a roster of qualified women for presidential appointments.
In June of 1977, Rosalynn Carter undertook one of the most overtly political international missions ever assumed by a First Lady; she visited Jamaica, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela as the President's personal representative, holding substantive meetings with Central and South American policy leaders on issues that included human rights, arms reduction, demilitarization, beef exports, pilot training, drug trafficking, nuclear energy and weaponry. After each day's talks, she filed a report with the U.S. State Department. At many of her meetings the First Lady spoke in Spanish, having just previously completed an intensive language course. Throughout the breaks of the "Camp David Accords," peace talks negotiated by the President between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Rosalynn Carter was present to provide support and advice as her husband asked of her. As a representative of the President, she attended the inaugurations of new Bolivian and Ecuadorian presidents, as well as the funeral of Pope Paul VI. The First Lady was also the American representative who greeted Pope John Paul II when he made his first visit to the U.S. in 1979. The First Lady frequently sat in on the daily National Security Council briefings held for the president and senior staff. In November of 1979, she learned the details of the Cambodian refugee crisis; starvation and extermination had killed almost half the population of Cambodia and millions of homeless refugees were flocking to the Thailand border to seek food and medicine in large camps set up for them. She flew to see the conditions for herself and successfully urged the United Nations creation of a world relief coordinator. Her influence further prompted the creation of the National Cambodian Crisis Committee and CambodianCrisis Center, which became the clearinghouse for all donated aid; she raised millions of dollars for the cause in the U.S. and got the president to increase U.S. quotas for refugees, permit food delivery directly into Cambodia and to accelerate Peace Corps efforts. With the November 4, 1979 taking of American hostages in Iran, the First Lady urged the President to immediately enact an oil embargo from that nation.
In the more traditional aspects of the First Lady role, Rosalynn Carter sponsored the first poetry festival and the first jazz festival at the White House, the latter being broadcast live on public radio. She also hosted a series of classical music concerts that were broadcasted for the public as In Performance at the White House. Continuing the preservation efforts of her immediate predecessors, she established the White House Trust Fund to create a $25 million endowment top continue building its perpetual historical collection and ongoing renovation needs. At Christmas, Rosalynn Carter hosted a unique winter lawn festival for congressional families, complete with skating rink.
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