Nap time at the wheel? Nope.

Now that Dubya has been officially crowed El Presidente, we’ll be treated to the specter of some nasty political scraps in the United States as a divided congress fights tooth and nail over things.

Interesting note: The United States is at critical point where a solid 50 percent of the electorate is now socialist (they’re not honest enough to use the term, though; they prefer “liberal”). Related note to my interesting note: a Soviet-style educational system has finally delivered for its masters.

The dying throes of a once-free nation will be something to behold over the next few years. Eventually–you can bet on this–the socialists will prevail. If nothing else, the snowballing momentum of demographics is on their side, as the less capable of mind and of spirit will prove that cockroach-like fertility is a force not to be ignored. Their political masters, the socialist elite, have got these human sheep very well herded.

Which is a big picture gig that doesn’t directly involve us. The little picture–where we come in–is that President Bush at the helm of state doesn’t mean that the Commonwealth’s political status is a dead issue now. Things over there in Washington are politically precarious. President Bush lost the popular vote, as we all know, and his victory was so close it seems more like a random outcome of judicial chaos theory.

The issue, then, is whether the CNMI will get lulled into a sleepy complacency in these treacherous times.

Gee..the Commonwealth, complacent? Say it ain’t so.

When it comes to presenting our point of view to Uncle Sam, some folks think that public relations is a matter of merely waiting for the next crisis to boil up, and then dealing with it as it happens. Having worked in the P/R realm, however, I know the secret to success is preparation. A musician practices years before you ever hear him on the stage. A PR effort is, likewise, honed (often times for years…or decades) before it ever really manages to dig in to the targeted psyches.

If the same incompetent attitude that killed our tourism policy is applied to the CNMI’s Washington and PR matters, the Commonwealth will eventually find itself backed into a corner. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next…or, maybe so next. Who knows? I don’t, and neither does anyone else.

Funding, and working on, such things isn’t always fun. But do you think private industry would have expensive PR departments unless they were really needed? Nobody likes to see non-essential costs on the cash flow statement. Public and political relations are, quite simply, a necessary cost of surviving in today’s political landscape. Period.

This does present our fair islands with a litmus test of maturity. If the Commonwealth wants to effectively get its point of view across to Uncle Sam, it can’t fall asleep at the wheel just because the next stretch of road looks clear.

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”